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Five Audiences for Social Media Marketing

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One 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.

Social Media AudiencesProspective 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.

Avoiding Stupid SEO Tricks

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I’ve written before about how to spot and avoid SEO sleazebags—the type who give an honorable and critically important profession a bad name—in Just Say No to Bad SEO and The Wrong Way to Build External Links for SEO (which seems somewhat quaint and naive now only due to the recent rapid growth of link spamming).

The hucksters and snake oil salesmen continue to expand their bag of “tricks” designed to dupe business owners into buying magic SEO pixie dust instead of investing in real and time-tested but somewhat less sexy SEO tactics. If you want your website to perform well in search over the long term, steer clear of these gimmicks:

“Submit Your Site to 350 Search Engines!”

Good grief, why? First, Google and Yahoo+Bing account for more than 98% of all search traffic in the western world. Quick—name the fourth-largest search engine. Can’t do it without looking it up (probably on Google)? If you can’t name #4, why would anyone care about #200, or #250, or #350?

Second, direct submission of a site to search engines hasn’t been a crucial SEO tactic since the last century. Today, as long as a website is linked from pretty much anywhere on the web, the search engines will find it. Linking a site from social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon is now among the fastest ways to get it crawled.

“Get 1,000 Backlinks for $140!”

Sure, you can buy cheap links. You can buy cheap health insurance too, but do you really want to? The same warnings apply; any offer that seems “too good to be true” almost always is. Quality links take time, effort, and therefore yes, money, to obtain. Super-cheap links are at best from a bunch of PR 0 or 1 sites that provide marginal if any SEO value, and at worst are from link farms which risk getting your site banned from the search engines.

“Get a Free SEO Evaluation!” (spam emails)

Few if any reputable SEO firms promote their services through email offers of a “free site evaluation.” This type of offer is usually questionable. Often, it’s little more than a repackaged WebsiteGrader report, which anyone can run for free in less than five minutes.

Quality SEO firms tend to generate business through tactics like blogging, social media, referrals, and speaking at business events, not through unsolicited emails. As evidence of how unsophisticated some of these SEO spammers are, I’ve heard of instances where such emails have been sent to real SEO firms—which is like trying to sell a Whopper to the manager of a McDonalds, or a Chevy to Scott Monty. Trust these spammers with website optimization? As Forrest Gump noted, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Effective SEO is a blend of art and science. A reputable SEO firm will be able to explain their tactics, provide a realistic timeframe for results, and have a track record of success. They won’t offer guarantees or “secret” formulas for success. And they won’t be found using the tactics above.

How PR and Social Media Can Work Together

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Social 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.

Making PR and Social Media Work Together

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 Cision’s PRWeb). 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.

An Open Letter to Jimmy Wales

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Hi Jimmy. Got your fundraising appeal for Wikipedia. Let me start by saying I’m a huge fan of Wikipedia; it is a truly amazing tool and a tremendous accomplishment. It’s a phenomenally time-saving research tool. I believe in what you are doing, I’ve contributed financially in the past, and I’d love to do so again. However, a few changes really need to be made.

Call off the dogs. The Wikipedia cabal. The Priesthood. You know who I mean–that inner circle who feel it is their right to take down any content, for any reason, with no explanation or warning and limited appeal rights. Not merely to edit content, or post a comment, but outright delete it (I learned from my first experience at Wikipedia editing never to make any change with keeping a local backup of the text and code). And when called on their behavior, to defend it in the most arrogant, condescending manner possible.

I understand you don’t want Wikipedia to devolve into a collection of marketing brochures. No one does. I certainly don’t. That does not mean, however, that any sentence which could possible be construed in a positive light constitutes “marketing” and deserves to be stricken from the pure environment of Wikipedia. Any editor who isn’t embarrassed by the Anvil Media – Attensa Wiki-gate fiasco should be permanently banned.

Example: most people would agree that the word “leading” rarely belongs in a company description on Wikipedia. It’s an over-used PR buzzword. Since every company is a “leading” something-or-other according to its own press releases, the word has little if any real meaning in most cases.

However, there’s a world of difference between PR buzzwords and objective facts. If XYZ Company is the largest global supplier of flabberglumping software, and that is an objective fact which can be substantiated through industry sales figures and third-party sources, then there should be no problem including that fact on the company’s Wikipedia page (and linking to those sources).

It’s also not just okay, but vital, for a company page to include descriptions of the firm’s products and/or services. Yes, these should be written in a factual and objective tone, not flowery marketing prose rife with glowing adjectives, but properly written such descriptions should be left intact by the self-appointed guardians of Wikipedia unless they can add or improve something.

If John or Jane Doe want to add content to a page about their company on Wikipedia, and have done their level best to write such content in an objective, encyclopedic fashion, they should be able to do with fear that Wikipedia’s self-appointed censors will immediately rip it down with no explanation out of some bizarre anti-commercial malice. With great power comes great responsibility. A little humility would create a ton of goodwill.

Have respect for bloggers. I’ve actually been told by a member of the cabal that a term didn’t deserve to be defined on Wikipedia simply because a few meaningless bloggers had used it. Get with the 00s. Bloggers now include highly regarded journalists, analysts, executives and independent subject matter experts. 77% of Internet users read blogs. Blogs are now the mainstream media. Refusing to cite or link to blogs, or give their content credibility, is rather archaic at this point.

Recognize the value of corporate websites. Certainly much of the content on corporate sites is inappropriate for linking from Wikipedia: product feature-benefits pages, “why buy from us,” press releases, etc. But company sites also often contain highly linkworthy industry resource type content, such as explanations of concepts, glossaries of industry terminology, research results, thought leadership articles and more. If Wikipedia would link to this type of content on, say, a university’s website, there’s no reason not to link to it just because it’s housed on a corporate site.

In addition, corporate sites should be linked from corresponding industry-related pages. For example, if Wikipedia had a page about flabberglumping software, I’d expect the page to include a list of vendors like XYZ Company, with links to their sites. Since it’s a commercial product, links to corporate sites are appropriate in this context.

While I support efforts to keep Wikipedia free of advertising or blatant marketing, it’s my job to make sure my clients are represented fairly on the site. Not marketed or promoted, just described accurately and objectively, with due consideration given to links to thought leadership content they’ve contributed to their industry. Again, I’m a huge fan of Wikipedia and what it’s accomplished for the spread of knowledge. I’d really like to contribute, both in terms of content and money. But if you won’t accept the former, you don’t deserve the latter.

5 Reasons I’m Thankful for Social Media

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With the annual celebration of Thanksgiving upon us here in the U.S., many people pause to think about what they’re thankful for: family, friends, Netflix, Tom Brady leaving the New England Patriots…

I’m thankful for all of those things too of course, but also for the development and growth of social media. Here are a few reasons why:

Social media makes it easy to reconnect with old friends and co-workers. How did we do this before? There were ways: reunions, phone calls…but most often, we just didn’t. Now, social media tools like Facebook and LinkedIn make it easy and (usually) non-awkward. I was recently friended on Facebook by a guy I went to high school with. Back then, I thought he was kind of a jerk quite frankly. I discovered he’s now a cancer survivor and a completely different person. It happens.

I’ve written recommendations for folks I worked with in the past and had some nice ones provided for me as well. Old connections also often lead to new ones: I’ve introduced people who should know each other and been introduced to others who have become mentors, clients, or friends.

Social media makes it easy to connect with new people who share your interests…anywhere on earth. Before social networks (and even more so before email became widespread), it was difficult to make and maintain acquaintances with professional peers or people with similar interests in other parts of the country, much less the world.

And second-level connections (getting to know the people whom the people you know know) were even more difficult to make. Now I routinely trade updates and information with smart marketers and other interesting people across North America as well as in the UK, Belgium, France, Germany, South Africa, India, Thailand, Malaysia, The Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and elsewhere.

Just a few of the cool people I likely never would have gotten to know without social media include Shelly Kramer, Judy Bellem, Jennifer Kane, Marissa Pick, Ardath Albee, Frank Strong, Neal Schaffer, Tony Karrer (my cofounder of the B2B Marketing Zone and Social Media Informer), or Casey Allen.

Nor would I ever have been recognized on various top lists from organizations like BuzzSumo, Marketing Insider Group, or Onalytica.

Social media is a meritocracy (mostly). Early in my career I worked for a company that produced digital prepress equipment for printing companies, and we had a huge poster in the office that read:

“Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one.”

If you were wealthy, fortunate, obnoxious (or in a few cases, talented) enough to be involved in publishing, you had a voice. Others, for the most part, didn’t. The Internet opened things up a bit, but creating websites (a dozen years ago) was hard unless you were a programmer. Blogging opened things up considerably more. Social media has blown the gates wide open. Anyone with an interesting point of view and knowledge to share gets to be an influential star, at least in his or her corner of the social mediasphere. Blowhards (usually) tend to get called out and ignored.

Social media is fantastic for research and learning. Want to know what your customers and prospects are thinking? Sure, surveys and focus groups still have their place, but you can learn a lot from what they’re saying in social media circles. At the very least, you’ll be able to craft more intelligent, informed questions for your survey.

Your competitor recently released a new product? Cool. Their press release, and perhaps a puff piece in an industry trade pub where they advertise, are no longer the only sources of information about it. You can now, easily, find out what other people are saying. Real people. Customers, prospects, thought leaders, people who have some expertise on the product but aren’t part of, or paid by, the company.

Want to know how to perform a certain task or process? Social media can not only lead you to the answer, but let you know which alternative answer is probably best based on the level of social influence of the writer.

Social media makes marketing more fun. A dialog is more enjoyable and interesting than a monologue. Sure, social media makes marketing a bit messier (because marketing and PR people no longer control the messaging) and more challenging (thought leadership content is more difficult to write than sales copy), but engaging in conversations gives marketers a direct line to prospects—enabling them to craft messaging that really resonates with their audience. Social media also provides a variety of near real-time methods for measuring audience response, so marketers know more quickly what works and what doesn’t. You can’t get that from a print ad.

Got your own reasons to be thankful? Leave a comment to share.

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