Posts Tagged ‘Social Media Marketing’
2011 Social Media Marketing Trends
Friday, January 7th, 2011Social media marketing has progressed from radical new idea to widely adopted practice in a remarkably short period of time. Just 5% of Americans said they were familiar with Twitter in 2008; by the fall of last year, that figure was 87%, and Twitter is now adding 300,000 new users per day. Facebook added more than 150 million new users in 2010. Three-quarters of b2b buyers use social media at some point during their purchase decision process, and marketers are responding with increased spending on social media marketing.
So what’s next? A new report from Focus, 2011 Trends Report: Social Media Marketing presents observations and predictions from eight leading social media experts (and me) about social media trends and developments to watch for in the coming year.
The thrust of this brief but enlightening report is that social media is moving from the “what is it and should we do it” stage to the “how do we integrate social media with operations and do it better” realm.
Among the top 10 trends identified:
1. Social efforts will permeate the enterprise. “Social is much bigger than marketing and PR. “Social is much bigger than marketing and PR. It’s a customer phenomenon. This will demonstrate itself as social moves into product development, operations, customer service and even sales,” according to Michael Brenner.
3. Stronger focus on global audiences. “Much of the social innovation will come from Third World countries that are using these free platforms to make up for deficiencies in their communication infrastructure,” says Mark Schaefer.
5. Metrics will mature. “News Feed Optimization (NFO) on Facebook will become the new SEO. Basically, 2 percent of fans return to a fan page, and in some cases it’s more like .02 percent…What you need to focus on is the content and optimizing the content to get comments and likes,” per Paul Dunay.
6. Social media will become targetable. “Soon, we’ll be able to email only to customers who clicked a particular bit.ly link on Twitter. We’ll be able to send a Facebook status message only to customers who visited a particular page on our website. By combining what we know about our customers and prospects and friends across multiple social outposts, we’ll end up with a centralized view of each of our connections,” in the words of Jay Baer.
There’s much more, from Frank Days of Novell, Maggie Fox of Social Media Group, Stephanie Marx of Cisco and Lee Traupel of Linked Media Group. Download the report and join the discussion on Focus.
Seven Ways to Use Social Media for Business
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010Though business use of social media is rapidly increasing, many executives remain skeptical of its value. From a pure lead generation / ROI standpoint, this skepticism isn’t entirely unjustified; research from earlier this year showed that branding metrics (increased brand exposure, webs traffic, email subscribers partnerships)—not strict revenue or ROI measures—topped the list of benefits that b2b marketers realized from social media activities. A more recent study reported by Forbes stated that while “60% (of small businesses surveyed) credit social media with positively impacting their businesses…(only) 36% have attracted new business as a result of their social media efforts.”
The bottom line is that while social media marketing definitely provides benefits (such as a higher conversion rate for organic search traffic), it’s not generally effective as a direct promotion tool. In fact, trying to use social media primarily as an advertising and direct response medium is viewed as boorish social media behavior and likely to backfire, doing a brand more harm than good.
Rather than trying to force the proverbial square peg into a round hole by using social media in ways it’s not effective, take a broader view of the business benefits it offers. Here are seven valuable ways to use social media for business beyond direct selling or lead generation.
1. Share content (your own and others’). Producing and sharing content with your market both attracts prospective buyers and educates them, potentially shortening sales cycles. Content marketing doesn’t always produce immediate or direct results, but it does increase brand recognition, credibility, online visibility and yes—sales—over time. In the research cited above, 74% of marketers who have been using social media for at least two years report that it has helped them close new sales. Social media marketing requires a commitment over time; it’s the not an approach where you can dip your toes in the water and expect immediate success. But for those marketers willing to produce and promote their own content (building credibility) and valuable content produced by others (expanding their influence network), social media pays off.
2. Get ideas for product development. Ultimately, no one knows the challenges that your prospects face better than your prospects themselves. And no one knows the benefits and shortcomings of your current products better than your customers. There’s no better source of information than your prospects and existing customers to help generate new product ideas. Marketers no longer have to rely on expensive, contrived focus groups; social media provides a vastly larger, richer, more real-world source of information.
3. Provide customer support. Customers are increasingly seeking support through social media channels, as well as complaining via social media about poor product and service experiences. Smart companies are providing social media support options and actively monitoring social media networks for brand and product name mentions. (For example, DirecTV is good at this; JustHost is not.) Using social media channels for customer support can both improve a company’s image—by demonstrating, publicly, responsiveness to customer issues—and reduce customer support costs.
4. Perform competitive and market research. The prospective buyers in your market have been talking about their challenges, and the relative merits and shortcomings of alternative solutions and vendors, for as long as your market has existed. Social media brings these discussions into the open. Marketers no longer have to rely on expensive research methods or proprietary data sources to get this information. Tracking mentions of competitors and industry terms using social media monitoring software provides a vast trove of inexpensive, real-time competitive and market intelligence.
5. Answer prospect questions. It’s no longer the biggest ad budget that wins. People want to buy from companies that are smart, helpful and responsive. Social media provides the mechanism to demonstrate those qualities. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn groups, community sites (e.g. Toolbox.com, Focus, Ulitzer) and specialized discussion forums all provide opportunities to respond to questions and demonstrate industry expertise. You probably can’t be everywhere, but again social media monitoring tools can help set priorities and provide notification of situations to address.
6. Develop relationships with influencers. Third-party validation has always been more valuable than advertising or other types of self-promotion. Traditionally, customer case studies, PR and analyst relations have filled this role. Social media provides a more direct path to identifying and building relationships with a variety of voices in your market: analysts, journalists, customers, bloggers and other key influencers. If you build and nurture this network, these people will help amplify and validate your message.
7. Facilitate offline connections (e.g., promote events, meet up at trade shows). As valuable as social media is for building and engaging online networks, there is still tremendous benefit to meeting with people IRL and deepening relationships through offline conversations. The social media “big four”–Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and blogs–as well as specialized social event tools like Lanyrd, Meetup.com, Eventbrite and Amiando can all help with arranging and promoting offline opportunities to meet in-person with your online social acquaintances.
In the end, social media activities have to produce a financial return, and they do for companies willing to commit to social media as a new way of doing business, not simply another marketing channel. Just don’t limit your thinking to one specific use for social media tools, and particularly not to one like hard-sell direct response promotion, which is more likely to produce a backlash than success in the social sphere.
Top Social Media and Marketing Books of 2010
Thursday, December 16th, 2010Stumped for that last-minute Christmas idea? Books make great gifts, and there’s still time to order for pre-Christmas delivery.
Since you don’t want to take the chance of buying a sleeper however, or a book that’s inappropriate for the recipient, here are nine ideas—books reviewed on the Webbiquity blog this year.
Happy shopping!
Defy Gravity by Rebel Brown
In Defy Gravity: Propel Your Business to High-Velocity Growth
Social Media Marketing by Liana “Li” Evans
With Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media
SNAP Selling by Jill Konrath
Don’t you love it when you pick up a book and realize in just the first few pages that the author really gets it? Even better, they don’t just get “it,” but offer a fresh and compelling approach to dealing with the specific problem, situation, condition of modern life, etc.? Well, SNAP Selling: Speed Up Sales and Win More Business with Today’s Frazzled Customers
Social Media Marketing – An Hour a Day by Dave Evans
Despite its airy title, Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day
Maverick Marketing by Tom Hayes
In Maverick Marketing: Trailride into the Wild West of New Marketing
The Truth About Search Engine Optimization by Rebecca Lieb
Despite being a quick, almost breezy read (how often do you read that said about a book on SEO?), The Truth About Search Engine Optimization
eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale by Ardath Albee
Without a solid content strategy to support movement through the marketing and sales cycle, marketing automation software is just a nice email system. The brilliant Ardath Albee provides the missing piece, a reliable recipe marketing automation, demand generation and content marketing success in her new book, eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale
The Perfection of Marketing by James Connor
Despite it’s ambitious title, The Perfection of Marketing
Website Optimization – Speed, Search Engine & Conversion Rate Secrets by Andrew King
Author Andrew King, president of Internet marketing firm Web Site Opimization, LLC has really done it. In Website Optimization: Speed, Search Engine & Conversion Rate Secrets
Need more ideas? Check out the Webbiquity bookstore.
Five Audiences for Social Media Marketing
Monday, December 13th, 2010One of the first precepts aspiring writers learn is to “write for your readers.” A technical audience is different from a business one. C-level executives respond to different messages than do mid-level management. Every industry and profession has its own “language.”
The challenge in social media is to be able to consider the needs of multiple audiences at once, because even though you may be aiming a tweet, blog post or Facebook update at a particular group, everyone can see it. Here are five audiences to keep in mind when posting any content or engaging in social media interactions.
Prospective Customers: the most obvious audience. What kind of content will attract them? Think “smart and helpful.” Listen for their problems. Develop content that shows (in a not-too-self-promotional manner) you know how to solve them. Interact and engage with them in their preferred social media venue.
Current Customers: it’s not just customer service. Customer want to know about new developments at your firm, new uses for your products, and successes other customers have achieved. Even more important in the social media realm, however, they want the opportunity to have input. Give them ways to share their ideas, ask questions and express their opinions. Engage them. Your current customers aren’t always interested in what you have to say to prospects, but the reverse is certainly true: prospects will investigate what your customers are saying about you, and watch you interact through social media with them. Make it good.
The Media: more than 75% of journalists say they use social media to research stories. Media and public relations activities are no longer separate from social media marketing. Journalists will look at your content when seeking industry experts to quote. More importantly, they’ll be looking at what your customers are saying about you—and how you respond—when writing about industry trends and developments. If you’re telling journalists about the wonderful benefits your new product delivers, your customers had better be backing up that story.
Other Industry Influencers: bloggers and other social media influencers don’t have the same motivations as journalists and shouldn’t be approached the same way (a point that an awful lot of PR firms have yet to figure out, judging by most of the pitches I see). They will share and amplify your content, if it is interesting and useful. Press releases very rarely meet that standard. Instead, provide shareable resources: how-to blog posts, online tools, infographics, industry-specific glossaries, useful lists, video—any content that has value and is creative.
Prospective Partners: social media is great for connecting with collaborators. Make your value clear, be open to partnering, and then (assuming you’ve followed the “smart and helpful” mantra), others looking for what you to offer in order to supplement their own value will find you.
How PR and Social Media Can Work Together
Monday, December 6th, 2010Social media and PR seem like natural allies. Both are primarily focused on brand awareness, credibility building and image enhancement. Both are critical tools for dealing with bad news or crisis situations. Both require relationships with influential people in one’s industry to be effective. And both rely on the ability to tell an interesting story.
So why do corporate PR and social media efforts so often appear disconnected and out of sync? To be sure, some agencies and companies get it, and do an effective job integrating social media and PR efforts. But many organizations in both groups still treat the functions as separate silos—or worse, mix them awkwardly, damaging both efforts.
But integrated properly, social media can help amplify PR efforts, and effective PR can help generate social media coverage. It’s a virtuous circle that looks something like this.
In this example, a press release is distributed online, posted to the company’s Facebook and Twitter updates, and used to create a social media release (using a tool such as PitchEngine). Any significant online news site pickups of the release are posted to Twitter (it’s okay to repeat news a few times on Twitter as not all of your followers will see all of your tweets, just don’t overdo this) and to social bookmarking sites.
For SEO and traffic purposes, the press release and social media release link back to the company’s website/blog. The social media release also links back to the company’s LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.
The social media release is used for blogger outreach. Since many (most?) bloggers are overwhelmed with pitches and unlikely to write about the company’s press release, the company uses the press release as a hook and offers to write a (informational, non-promotional) guest post on the topic. When a blogger publishes a guest post from the company, that post gets linked in the company’s LinkedIn groups, Facebook page, Twitter and social bookmarking sites. These links send more traffic to the blog (which the blogger likes) and spread the company’s fame.
Likewise, any other blog or media coverage, or bylined articles by the company, are shared via social media sites. Bylined articles will—and other blog/media coverage may—include backlinks to the company’s website/blog as well. And the website/blog includes social sharing buttons, making it easier for site visitors to share the company’s content with their connections across popular social networks.
PR and social media can also be used together to promote events, speaking opportunities, corporate presentations, video and other content.
Social media and PR can both be used to influence journalists and other influencers online. Smart companies and agencies are putting this together.
