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Unless you have been out to lunch for a while, you’ve probably heard the buzz about the micro blogging site Twitter.com. The new style of networking for todays incredibly well connected but fragmented whole of social media. The question on every marketeers lips? .. What will I say?
It’s a fair question; and the only one logical, considering the fact that you’ve already answered the little question: Is Twitter worth anything to my business? Do you know the name as well as you know the Walmart name? If you answered yes; then you know that getting a piece of that could buy you some serious toys. Game on?
Dell made in excess of a million dollars last year. Perhaps you aren’t Dell, but shouldn’t you own your brand in any place that people can search and interact?
Step 2: Think about what you want to say. Knowing the difference between broadcasting and Engaging is important. Your audience must be participating. Questions to ask yourself: What will most of my audience have in common with me? May want to tweet about that, right? .. What are the people in my target audience searching for to find me? The most valuable tool in creating your presence is to calculatingly, and methodically sift through every scenario in where your customers acquire your contact information.
Once you have a few good 140 character quips, give it a shot. If you update twice a week, you’ll be doing more than 70% of your competition. Users used to, and still do, judge a business by it’s site, but also it’s facebook, myspace, twitter and linkedin. But how crazy you go on it is really up to you. At some point this really does become a logical entry point for a marketing department. But you can sure give it a boost by getting started! So go!!… If you haven’t. And come back here to tell the tale as well.
Happy Tweeting!
With all the buzz about Social Media Marketing, what are the core concepts and ideas that continue to separate successful campaigns from failures? What can a widget do for your strategy, and how does it differ from an application? Let’s answer these questions and start thinking about your Social Marketing Initiative.
Time/Sony Homepage Takeover Screenshot
It seems like everyone in online marketing is looking for the silver bullet. And while some say widgets are the answer, still others are of a mind that an application is the solution to their non-existent social media strategy. Let’s start there first. Even if your social media strategy is small, something is better than nothing. As long as you follow at least some of this good advice, you will achieve your social marketing objectives.
First, please consider your target audience. When sculpting your message and approach it is of the utmost importance to keep your audience in mind and to be consistent with your message. While creating your value added proposition keep in mind function and form. What does your target audience want and need? What can you give them that will encourage their brand loyalty to you? How can you engage them in an activity that benefits you while benefitting them? How will you present your message?
Here are the top 10 things to consider when forming your social media strategy:
o Start somewhere – Something is better than nothing
o Always consider your target audience first
o Be consistent – This helps a lot with the next one
o Be clear – Don’t confuse the user
o Be Engaging – Bring something to the table that adds value
o Widgets or Applications – Applications are viral and engaging, but generally exclusive to one platform while widgets are cross-platform
o Keep it simple – Choose your content wisely
o Decide what to do with Audience Voice – Who is being social for you?
o Cross Promote – Are your TV commercials driving installs?
o Change it up – Don’t let your message get stale
It’s really important to be clear in social media marketing. Don’t confuse the intended recipient of your message or you’ll loose them before they love you! Remember that a social media user likes to know what’s in it for them first. If you can build (or pay someone really good to build) a clever social media strategy you’ll be viral in a really great way and people will grab you. If I lost you with the Viral grabbing comment than please remember that if you succeed in doing this right, people will grab your message and share you with all their friends.
That brings me to the next section of this informative blog. Do you know that many people still ask me what if any difference there is between a widget and an application? Well, there are a few MAJOR differences I’ll point out that will help you to distinguish this for yourself. A widget is a small collection of branded content and value propositions (ie. Contests, form subs, games ect) that is intended to be grabbed and virally shared across multiple platforms, while an application is usually designed for just one platform or site.
The viral map of an application is also much different from that of the widget, because although the widget can and is often shared from one friend as a recommendation to another friend, the viral nature is far more engrained in the functionality of an application. This is part of what makes the application a perfect place to target an engaged audience and a widget the perfect way to promote a brand.
A widget is also something that we tend to use alone. It is a small promotional device that a user downloads to their page. It does one or two simple things very well. Simple.
How will you be engaging? Musicians use music videos and exclusive download content. The Motion Picture industry uses trailers and games, while news channels use rss feeds and polls. So next, let’s think about how we are going to engage your audience. Consider your brand and chose a value that makes sense for you. Again, the value is the reason that the user wants to keep your content on their page and should keep them coming back over and over again.
If you are marketing an application, marketing with banners on an application or distributing your own widget, please also keep in mind that even your most loyal fans don’t want to see the same thing over and over. Change up your content enough to keep the audience you’ve earned engaged over time. I strongly promote A-B multivariate testing for even the smallest social marketing initiatives. This is possibly the hardest concept to grasp for many new social media marketers but once you get it down you’ll find greater success when you change things up often and keep it interesting for your audience!
I always find it interesting to see how brands choose to respond to their audiences voice and how they choose to apply their own voice in social media. It’s almost always the conversation that goes a little like: “Yes, let’s hear what everyone has to say.” Then it kind of goes “Wow. People are talking to us. What should we say?”
Nobody wants to say the wrong thing, so this is where your social media representative needs to have a great idea of your business philosophy and know when to ask questions. With the right points covered they will know how to reply on your behalf. This should be a productive experience for you and a great way for you to monitor your campaigns overall sentiment. I encourage you to start your own enterprise profile on Perfspot or Facebook for your brand, or for the personalities that are important to your brand. Make some friends and open up the conversation slowly to get acclimated. Although some moderation is necessary for any social media plan you will be pleasantly surprised to find out that little is needed.
Lastly, cross-promote your social initiatives wherever possible. So if you have a huge contest for your widget, talk about it in your standard media placements like radio and T.V. This is a great opportunity for you to drive more social media traffic to your web page, contest or widget.
That’s it from the peanut gallery. Hopefully this is informative for those of you looking to learn, entertaining for those of you just browsing and reassuring to those of you already doing all of this! Feel free to leave your comments here or contact me directly about your social media marketing questions.
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