Browsing Tag marketing

Ask and you shall receive!  I’m easy that way.  After I posted 6 Ways Social Media Can Help A Local Business a while back, I got a lot of requests for more tips.  So by request, I bring you more tips on how a small or local business can use social media. I shall share these tips with you in list form. As people like lists and they are fun.

–Change your brand/companies message to fit the social network you are on.  So you may post “@pizza is here to help with  all your pizza needs” on Twitter.  Well that will not fly on say Plurk or youtube. (Always have to work Plurk into a blog post, it is just fun to say.) Make sure you know the basic ins/outs of the site you are on. Think of it as when you travel to a different country. There are different customs in each you should follow. Things you do and things you do not. (This actually is good practice for any size business or brand.)

–Cool it with the cross posting. For those of you do not know let me give you the definition of cross posting. It is when you take the same single message and post it on multiple social networks and forums.  Sure it makes your life easier one post that hits many websites. I get it. The problem is that the same people may follow you on Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, etc. You need to mix it up. I promise you that if you post the same message to all your networks, you will lose people from your community. Also, I think posting a link on Facebook directly looks a lot better then just placing the url.

–Time Shift your messages. So when you want to post about a special going on or a blog post you just wrote, do it on different days at different times.  Some people may be online at 10:00 am others may be on at 4:00 pm. Thus, they maybe more likely to respond and see your message at different times. Play around with it and mix it up. Personally,  I have had a lot of success updating my networks late at night. It allows me to get the attention of people I may never have.

–Do not post the same exact message over and over. Just last week Twitter has begun enforcing the TOS of not allowing recurring Tweets on Twitter Accounts. Why? Its annoying, plain and simple.  Though I do not see why you can not mix up the message and tweak it throughout the day. I have used Tweetlater aka Socialoomph with much success.(No doubt I’m going to get some nasty comments about my thoughts on this one.)

–What is in it for the customer? Part 1 Have online discounts and promotions. I always get clients who say ” I want millions of Twitter followers” or ” I want everyone to join my fanpage.”  My response is ” What is in it for them?”  Why should they follow you  and fan you? You need to give them something back. It can be a coupon code, a special time sensitive discount, or even early bird passes. There needs to be something in it for them.

–What is in it for the customer? Part 2. In reference to the above item, you don’t have to just give specials and discounts. It could be insight to why your company does what it does. Maybe behind the scenes videos, podcasts or blog posts. You can communicate directly to people who follow/fan you, so do it!! Make them know your listening by talking to them. This has value sometimes that is worth more the items in Part 1.

–There is more to social media then Twitter & Facebook. There I said it. Heck this should be a blog post by itself. (Actually I think this will be my next post.) If you targeting people who like wine, find a social network about wine. You want to sell comic books, there is a site for that. Heck.. just check out  Ning you can find anything.

BONUS: So let us say your company is  Ed’s Vacuum Cleaner Repair. Why not start a Fan Page, Twitter Feed, or Ning site about Vacuum cleaners? Create an online community for people you know will have a need/like for your product! Bottom line: If you cant find it online, create it yourself!

So you want to create a successful marketing campaign using Social Media. I cant say I am shocked as Forrester Predicts Huge Growth for Social Media Marketing. It seems every brand wants to get into the social media and mobile area as these areas are growing like wildfire.
Right off the bat, I would suggest you look for good internet packages for yourself and your brand. Investing in a fast and steady broadband deal is sure to make social media marketing a whole lot easier. This essential element will not only alleviate the seamless functioning of the page/brand/website but will also help garner traffic on the site with advertising. If you are seeking a good internet package for your brand, you could look at the ISPs like AT&T, Verizon, rise broadband prices for which are available on third-party websites like HighSpeedOptions.
Now, if you came here looking for the exact secret ingredient into a hopefully successful social media campaign, your at the wrong place. If I knew what that was, I would be rich and famous. Oh and living on the beach with lots of Kindles, super fast wifi , Iphones, and.. sorry back to the blog. My point was that this is a document I created that has many items that need to have answered, so I can come up with a campaign that is hopefully putting out the right message to the right people. It is made up mostly of questions I want answered by myself, my team or the client. This helps me figure out what the campaign could possible be.

Feel free to suggest items that should be added, removed or tweaked in the document. (as it is far from perfect)

1. What is the goal?

-Reputation Management
-Brand Awareness
-SEO rankings up
-Increase site traffic
-Increase sales
-Other

2.Who is the demo/target we are after? In regards to the demo:

-. Who is likely to be most interested in the content?
– Who does the brand want to communicate with and why?
– What are people currently saying about the brand or business?
– Which type of person is likely to purchase the product or service?
– What tools or online services does the target audience use?
– Which websites does the target audience frequent?
-What dot he target audience have in common with one another?
– What sites are most popular?
– Where is the brands audience now?
– What is the conversation about the brand now?

3. What are the channels we will need to use?

-We need to take the dynamic content to set up multiple channels that direct traffic and attention to the brand. By doing such things as:

-blog
-Twitter
-Fanpage
-youtube
-digg
-stumbleupon
-Can we use people of influence?
-etc

(This method can work well along side SEO/SEM)

4. What is The Big Idea?
-Is it relevant
-Is it easy to distribute

5. What does the end user get? (why should they join/interact/engage/spread the mess) It could be:

-Knowledge
-relationship
-laugh
-prize

6. What is our ROI? (may not always direct/immediate)

-Relationships
-Better online reputation management
-Brand Awareness
-Sales

Random Questions/thoughts

-Why will people spread the message? WOM/talk about the campaign/brand? Is it the same as what they get out of it?
-You need to be transparent (the best you can)
-Who will manage it?
-Who is the person who will manage feedback, interact, be the face on sites? They will need to interact on the customer/target level.
-Do you think that you’ll need to hire growth services like Twesocial (read reviews on EarthWeb) to acquire more followers?

social media visibility = brand awareness + word of mouth = new customer

The cliff notes version:

-What is the purpose
-What is the reward