Social Media Marketing: A Love-Hate Relationship

I know a lot of people that have a love-hate relationship with social media. I have one too.  Meaning,  I love its potential and hate how it’s frequently abused.

Social media marketing should be about adding value to the digital community by sharing insights, expertise, and opinions.

It shouldn’t be used like an advertising channel.

I see a lot of social media marketing efforts that are rude, self-serving and disruptive to the online community. Not only is that approach wrong, it doesn’t work.

Social media the right way is ethical and effective.

Below are a few social media rules and best practices.

1. You Can’t Force Word of Mouth Marketing

Word of mouth marketing is is an unpaid form of promotion—oral or written—in which satisfied customers tell other people how much they like a business, product, service, or event.

That said; before you spend a huge amount of time posting on Facebook and Twitter consider this basic rule of social media and word of mouth marketing:

Social media marketing accelerates word of mouth marketing not only when you’re doing great things your customers would want to share but also when things are not going so well.

So the first thing is that you want to make sure you’re doing great things that your customers want to talk about.

With that being said, social media is not a silver bullet though. If you have no word of mouth marketing already, then social media will not create it. It can only enhance what’s already present.

So before you invest in social media, start by focusing your energy on creating things that are of interest to your target audience.

Then use social media to let people know about it.

2. Know Your Audience and Target Market

Not to sound completely mercenary, but the only “useful followers” are followers that share interest in your product and your market. Don’t waste your social media dollars (or time) attracting followers that don’t help support your bottom lines and organizational goals.

The basic rule of thumb, as I see it, is:

You get followers based on the content you post and share. So be strategic with what you are sharing.
Don’t try to increase your social reach just because you want your follower count to go up — that’s a meaningless metric. You want to see engagement and hopefully long term conversion to sales.

Here are our own guidelines on content and social media sharing:

• Focus on content that is related to what your audience is likely to be interested in.
• Be original.
• Don’t advertise.
• Don’t waste people’s time.
• Only promote content that has specific and honest value to your audience (or the audience you want).
• Don’t re-post or re-tweet something unless you agree with it, have read it, and it has value.

Pay attention to what content your followers and customers share and read. Use your analytic tools and pay attention to engagement, time on page, bounce rates and conversion rates.

The number of followers you gain isn’t as important as that.

3. Be Conversational But Not Rude

Social media is all about conversations. There is nothing prohibiting you from joining in as a businessperson or marketing professional.

Just don’t try to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Don’t be that ass that barges into a conversation, with nothing to add other than: “look at me, look at me!” — particularly on twitter.

That type of rude activity might get you the occasional follower but it leaves a bad taste in the mouth of everyone else.

Here’s our rule about reaching out to comment on blogs and engaging in social media conversations:
If you want to join into a conversation then you have better have something valuable to add.
Introducing your product is not value.

Provide a bit of data, a link to a blog article (one that is valuable and not half-assed), or offer a valid and thoughtful suggestion.

Remember, your goal is to promote relevant conversations. If you provide enough value, other people will begin to follow you because you are an expert and they respect you.

In the long run, that will lead to more opportunities and sales in a sustainable and ethical way. Plus, you’ll learn a great deal in the process.

4. You Don’t Own Your Facebook Wall

Many companies treat their Facebook pages like they were marketing pieces. They want them “designed” to show their product in the best possible light.

That’s not how customers see Facebook pages. They see a post as something they own and it’s their right to post whatever they feel is appropriate on your Facebook wall.

Your customers are going to post things you don’t like to your Facebook wall, blog comments, and group conversations.

It’s going to make you angry and frustrated, but think very carefully before you delete it or report it — particularly if it’s from a customer.

That customer who’s bad-mouthing you on your Facebook wall is doing you a favor. They are giving you an opportunity to respond, and to respond well.

Deleting the post is most definitely not responding well — and it’s guaranteed to generate word of mouth — just not the kind you want.

So try this: acknowledge their complaint, sincerely apologize, find a way to make it right, and thank the customer for letting you know about the problem.

5. Treat Competition With Respect

Do not use social media to bad-mouth or plant false information about your competitors. It’s unethical and wrong.

Treat your competition with respect and take the high ground. Make it a policy not to engage in conversations about your competitors.

Of course, your competitors may not be as grown up about it as you are. So what do you do if a competitor posts content on your site, blog or Facebook wall?

Here are some rules of thumb:

• If a comment or post has value and is relevant, then leave it.
• If the comment mentions your competitor in an honest and open way, then leave it.
• If the competitor misrepresents himself or herself, (e.g. pretends to be a customer but is really just advertising their own company) then you are entirely within your rights to edit (or delete) the comment.

Remember: Don’t remove or edit a post just because it mentions a competitor. Just don’t allow someone to misrepresent who they are or lie.

Also, if you do edit a comment, don’t hide it. Leave a mark about what you edited and why.

Final Note:

If your job is content and social media marketing then do the right thing, try to add value to every conversation and with every post.

Here’s one final rule for this article.

It’s a general guideline for all social media interactions, not just marketing:

“If you don’t have anything valuable to add to a conversation, don’t post anything at all.”

Now it’s your turn … what are some of your social media best practices?

How Much Time Should You Invest in Social Media?

One of the questions I get asked most is, “How much, exactly, should a company or business be investing in social media?”

Intersection Consulting, a digital strategy and social media marketing firm, has created an infographic that gives marketers an example of what a 40-hour workweek might look like for a company’s social media management.

Here’s how some of the time is split in this example:

• 7.5 hours for blogging
• 4 hours for updating social networks
• 4 hours for research and planning
• 2.5 hours for curation
• 5 hours for contingency
• 2.5 hours for analytics

Of course, every organization is different and any workflow that is designed and implemented needs to work towards the achievement of business goals,” writes Mark Smiciklas, the man behind Intersection Consulting. “That being said, I feel the time scope represented here is far more realistic than the notion that organizations can get value from the social channel by investing 15 minutes a day.


Here’s the full infographic:

3 Ways to Turn Your Facebook Page Into an Epic Sales Machine

I’m sure you’ve heard the tale of the “Elephant and the Blind Men.”  It’s a simple story of six blind men being led to an elephant and describing their encounters.

The first one touched the leg and said the elephant is pillar, the second touched his tail and said the elephant is a rope, the third the branch of a tree after touching his trunk, the fourth thought the elephant was a fan after feeling his ear … and you get the point.

Sometimes by focusing on one area of one thing or even being up too close, we’re not able to get the full picture. That means we’re missing something and often that something is a huge money-making opportunity.

That’s true even when it comes to your Facebook Page. 

So when thinking about ways to make your Facebook Page more effective, take a step back and consider the goals you have for your page.  Is to drive traffic to your website? Interact with current and potential customers?  Sell products directly from your Facebook Page? Or all of the above? 

Keep your goals in mind as you read the 3 tips below to help you increase engagement and generate more sales from your Facebook Page.

CONTENT:

Posting content on a consistent basis is key to keeping your audience engaged. While the life of a Facebook Post is longer than a tweet, it’s still important to post 2-3 times a day to stay in front of your audience.

Be sure to post photos and videos of your products, videos from happy customers, and pictures of you in action. It “opens the doors” of your business and gives your audience a look inside to learn more about you and how your business operates.

If you see posts that are receiving a large number of Likes, Shares, or Comments consider investing in promoting this content to further market it. Not everything you post will be well received, however of those posts that perform well, take note and invest to further the reach of this content.

KEEP TRACK:

Social marketing isn’t easy and it takes a lot of time. In order to understand what works well, be sure to track your efforts so you can constantly improve results, build a bigger audience, and drive more sales from your Facebook Page. ClearStats is a great service that allows you to see which posts generate the highest engagement (clicks, Likes for the post, and Likes for your page) and view stats to see how this engagement is turning into sales for your business.

You may also want to learn more about EdgeRank is Facebook’s algorithm that determines what is displayed and how high a post appears on a newsfeed.

EdgeRank takes into account three elements: Affinity, Weight, and Time Decay. An “Edge” is any action that takes place on Facebook including a comment, Like, Share, or status update.

• Affinity looks at things like how often a user has commented, Liked, or Shared a brand’s post.
• Weight looks at the types of interactions a user has had with you and places a value on those interactions. For instance, a comment carries more weight than a Like, so Facebook deems a comment as a more valuable interaction when weighing how a user has interacted with you or your brand.
• Time Decay, as the name suggests, looks at how long ago the action/Edge took place. An action could be a comment, Like, Share, or a status update.

INTERACTION:

It sounds so simple, but interact with your audience on Facebook. It’s not enough to simply post messages, photos, and videos to Facebook. Be sure to get involved in the conversation if your audience is commenting on a post or asking questions. Be genuine and work to connect with your audience.

Promotions, contests, and sweepstakes are a great way to increase engagement and drive more sales for your business. You can incorporate a viral component into your promotions, contests, and/or sweepstakes by asking your audience to Like or Share a post, or Like your Facebook Page, in order to participate.

Just because you’re linking to your website from a Facebook Page doesn’t mean you have to link to your homepage or even to a product page on your website. Set up a separate landing page for your website or a product and test various elements to see how it performs. As you learn what converts well from your social traffic, incorporate elements from these tests across your website. Try using a tool like Unbounce to easily create and test landing pages.

BONUS:

Include a call-to-action at the bottom of each post or in the right column of your blog to be seen by each visitor. Do you want this traffic to sign up for your email updates? Would you like for visitors to sign up for a trial? Perhaps a demo? Whatever the goal may be, make sure you're giving proper instructions on what to do next.

I hope these 3 tips (plus a bonus) help you increase engagement and drive more sales from your Facebook Page. I’d like to hear how you used them or please share if you have others that we can add to the list.

Why Your Personal Branding Strategy is Failing You - And How to Fix it in 20 Minutes!

How many times have you driven down the road depending solely on your GPS only to make a wrong turn. You’re immediately warned by the voice on the system that she is recalculating and that you need to go in a different direction.  

If your goal is to take your personal brand global, there are some things you should and shouldn’t be doing.   

You already know how important it is to build your brand equity.  But can you tell whether you’re doing a good job and taking the opportunity to strengthen your personal brand?  

So, what if you could gauge whether you should be going right, left, or making a complete U-Turn?

Building your brand equity is serious business and as you know, each time you interact with the outside world you have the opportunity to strengthen your personal brand. Of course, the reverse is also true—every interaction also presents an opportunity to undermine the brand you have worked so hard to build.

Below are five common mistakes and how they can be easily fixed in 20 minutes or less.

1. Not claiming your personal domain name.

Usually, I’m not one to “sweat the small stuff”.  This is the easiest error to fix, and far and away the most important.  Whether or not you actually set up a personal website now is irrelevant – you simply must lock down the domain! The $8 you pay each year to keep it in your possession will be well worth it. 

Your 20-minute fix: Search GoDaddy.com or similar domain search sites and lock down your domain.

2. Your brand lacks consistency. You finally have your blog and Twitter account up and running, but after a week of being consistent with creating content, you become too busy and eventually forget about your social media strategy. This is a huge flaw in personal brands because people forget about the key to a strong brand is consistency. Even if it’s a weekly or bi-weekly blog post or one tweet a day, never let your followers feel like you disappeared.

Your 20-minute fix: Create content in advance so that when life happens (and it will) you have content ready to post.

3. You lack credibility.  Is your claim to fame your expertise in advertising or leadership development? Then make sure everything about your brand reflects your profession. Your followers will expect you to talk about the latest news and advice about your industry. If you aren’t displaying your passion throughout your brand, no one will believe your expertise.

Your 20-minute fix: Repost content from other experts in your field of expertise and add in your two cents! This method doesn’t take as long as creating new content but by borrowing from someone else’s credibility - you can still add to your own.

4. You don’t provide something unique. The purpose of building your personal brand is to market what makes you a unique from others in your profession or field of expertise. It’s important to find something which sets you apart from the other people in your field. If your brand is blending in with the rest of the professionals in your field, then it’s not strong enough.  So if marketing is your field of expertise but you also have a strong passion for horses, you may want to factor that unique interest into your brand.

Your 20-minute fix:  Be sure to center your brand on something that makes you unique and try to connect with people of similar interests.

5. There is a lack of trust in your brand

The Selly Sell Selly Pitch. I love this term from Chris Brogan, when he is about to talk about a product or service he is pushing or an affiliate link. He used “Selly selly selling coming right up” recently to warn me of a sales pitch in the next paragraph of his email, and invited me to read no further if I had no interest, or to even delete the email.  What worked here? Trust. When you trust a personal brand, you will always forgive a sales pitch thrown in – a small percentage of the time!

Your 20-minute fix:  A sure way to not come across as selly sell in your email marketing, social media and social networking, is to borrow from the Pareto Principle of 80/20 – provide quality, help, assistance and conversation 80% of the time, sell only 20% of the time.

What are your personal branding fails?

If The Social Media Platform Fits….

I once over heard an 8-year-old boy shopping for shoes with his mom.  When the salesman came out with a bright blue pair of running shoes in his size, he looked up at him and asked, “are they fast?”

Choosing the social media platform that’s best for you is almost like deciding on a pair of athletic shoes. Before making a purchase we have to decide whether they’ll be used for walking, running, or maybe they’re for a particular sport or activity like tennis or hiking.  If we’re trying a new sport, we might get the most basic sneaker, but as we get better and more competitive we know it’s time to look for something that will take us to the next level.

But no matter what we decide the no name brand or the top of the line, it isn’t so much the shoes that our feet in but what we do with them once we’re wearing them. 

In the fifth annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report from Michael Stelzner and Social Media Examiner, more than 3000 marketers reveal where they focus their social media activities, how much time they invest, what the rewards are and where they’ll plan their future efforts.

What social tactics are most effective?

Of all the questions answered by this report, identifying the most effective social media marketing tactics was the most important to respondents. In fact 90% of respondents wanted to know the top platforms used by marketers.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogging and YouTube were the top 5 platforms used by marketers in the survey.

When answering this very important and popular question, there are a few important considerations.

Don’t fall for a simple list of the most popular social media platforms since what works for another company or brand may not work for yours. At the same time, don’t think that you have to conduct an exhaustive research project into which social platforms your customers are on before making any kind of social media marketing commitment.

The following three steps will get you started:

• Make sure you’ve clearly identified business goals and outcomes you can measure as a result of a successful social media effort.
• Think about your customers’ goals and how a social presence for your brand will help make them happen.
• Make sure you have a hub, whether it’s a blog or a social aggregator for your brand.

Your actual social media mix should be driven by what kind of social content and experiences will connect customers with your brand.

You can cross post content from your blog and any other relevant content on the web to the top 4-5 social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and either Pinterest or YouTube. 

This strategy works regardless if you’re B2B (Business To Business) or B2C (Business To Customer).

The most important thing is that you lace up your running shoes and enter the race!

President Barak Obama, Tracey Edmonds and Social Media By The Numbers

In 2008, the Obama Presidential Campaign made history in more ways than one. Not only was he the first African American to be elected president, he also was the first presidential candidate to shrewdly use social media as part of his campaign strategy.

Back then, using Twitter and Facebook was thinking outside of the box. By 2012, there were lots more media tools and Pew Research showed that 66 percent of social media users actively engaged in political activism on line.

Even though Mitt Romney’s campaign was on the media bandwagon too, it’s been said that just as JFK was the first President to really understand TV, President Obama was the first social media president.

Award-winning TV Film Producer Tracey Edmonds credits Twitter for her new YouTube channel.   “Alright TV was born from my social media network, and the daily exchange of positive, inspiring and uplifting messages that I have through my social network.”  She says she launched the channel with over half a million views online.

How are you using social media to launch your dream?

Are you wondering how your peers are using social media?

 

Wondering if you should focus on Pinterest or podcasting, or put more effort into Facebook?

In the fifth annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report from Michael Stelzner and Social Media Examiner, more than 3000 marketers reveal where they focus their social media activities, how much time they invest, what the rewards are and where they’ll plan their future efforts.

What if you could tap into the minds of 3,000 marketers to find out where they stand when it comes to social media marketing? How valuable would it be to know how your peers are handing the time commitments, social media platforms and measurement?

A few of this year’s social media statistics:

• 86% of marketers say social media is important for their business
• 69% plan to increase their use of YouTube
• 58% of marketers are blogging and 62% will increase blogging in 2013
• 49% picked Facebook as the single most important social network
• 89% of marketers state that increased exposure was the most important benefit of social media marketing

From the most popular forms of social media marketing to measurement, to integration with other digital marketing tactics, this year’s report offers answers and also asks more questions.

I’ll explore an additional 5 questions that marketers want answered in a series of future blog posts.

But first I’d like to know – what questions would you like to ask those who have been successful at social media marketing?

Students, Job Seekers and Social Media Guidelines!

I found this awesome social media graphic about the role of social media in managing educational and professional relationships.

Fav tip: Never post work complaints online.

Compiled By: OnlineDegrees.org