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A lot of small businesses start their use of social media with high expectations; too high, in many cases. To a large extent, they have seen their campaigns fail and have cast aside social media as a tool that they either do not have the skills to use or that is simply not effective.
Instead of giving up on social media, it is important for businesses to learn how to use it effectively. They should adjust their expectations and consider automating their social media tasks as a means of making them more affordable and less labor intensive. Websites like Twitter call for a high volume of content which makes it almost impossible to generate leads consistently without some form of automation....
We all need to acquire new customers to make our products and businesses work. Whether there are a few users paying big bucks or thousands visiting your platform for free, how you get and retain customers is what is important. But ask yourself: are you really ready for more customers? Is your team set up to handle an influx of users? What’s your promotion strategy – inbound marketing or traditional PR? This extensive guide will walk you through what user acquisition is and how to execute a plan....
Today, the entire business community is aware of the fact that social media marketing (SMM) is a hugely rewarding way to retain existing customers.... Social Media has remarkably altered the way people connect, interact, and share information. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn are the most prominent sites where social interactions constantly take place. SMM may be defined as a method to profitably use social media to build relationships, obtain repeat business, and attract to convert prospects through friends sharing with friends. In short, SMM is word-of-mouth powered publicity leading to enlargement of customer-base. SMM means connecting with customers and prospects where they hang out online and actively participate in conversations about the topics most interesting to them. Remember, there are already ongoing conversations between your customers and prospects and it is up to you to take advantage. As a rule, people like doing business with people they know and transact business with people they trust. Though prospects are available aplenty, successfully connecting with them calls for a well-conceived and meticulously executed strategy....
Brian Solis explains why companies need to get out of the "sales funnel" mindset for converting customers and start taking a more social and experiential approach to marketing.... Over the years, businesses have developed sales, marketing, and service strategies around the sales funnel. The model of awareness, interest, desire, and action describes the likely steps a customer may take in making a decision. If only the world were that simple. It was assumed that the linear path of the funnel would continue despite the evolution of technology and behavior. That has changed. Today, the customer journey goes beyond a simple sales funnel. Yet it is the funnel model that dictates how businesses invest in product development, sales, marketing, and service strategies. It’s a big problem....
At Econsultancy, we publish a huge amount of content related to digital marketing and ecommerce. One particular area that gets a lot of attention (and rightly so) is social media, which has had a profound impact on the way that consumers and businesses interact with each other. To help you keep up to speed with what’s going on in the field, we’ve assembled some of our case studies, statistics, infographics, opinion and best practice blog content all in one place for you to digest at your leisure. You could even bookmark and share this page to add to your ninja toolset....
Investing time and money on social media is necessary for all types of businesses nowadays. Here are nine examples of small businesses using social media for branding. Social media is the new way for the word to spread: from product recommendations to advice on what to do, where to go, and what to do. From little conversations that mean nothing to meaningful revelations that could change lives, from stupid pictures to inspiring profiles – social media has it all. Customers have the final word now. News gets out faster. Other users and buyers are now the trusted sources. Social conversations are now the holy grail of business reputation management. Social media is social proof that materializes quickly. Small businesses are indeed tapping into the power of social media....
It is very easy to confuse social media and social business. The graphic in this post, created by my colleague David Armano, is a great illustration of the differences between a social brand (for the purposes of this post, this is synonymous with social media) and social business. At a very high level, a social brand is what we all do from a communications perspective to include marketing, public relations, customer support and so on. So what is a social business strategy? It helps evolve the thinking and preparedness of an organization by bridging internal and external social initiatives, which results in a more collaborative company and shared value for all stakeholders (customers, partners, employees). If you study the above graphic, a social business is very much focused on the internal dynamics of a company, from training and governance to knowledge sharing and culture. Social media policies and employee engagement also play a pivotal role in shaping a social business. A social business strategy can almost be considered an enabler, because if you have your internal process and structures sorted out, it is much easier to scale your social media initiatives externally. Whether it is launching a global Facebook page or empowering employees to engage in social media, having a solid social business plan will help minimize mistakes. As a marketing guy by trade, I will try to communicate the value of how a better social business strategy enables a better social brand....
... What is it going to take to realize there's a better way to do things? It strikes me as odd that we've taken the old style of mass marketing, which itself has been competing for attention and eyeballs for years, and simply moved it over to digital marketing - and then, to make matters worse, have transferred that to social media. If we weren't satisfied with the results we were seeing in the primary model, what makes us think that repeating it elsewhere would solve our problems?...
A few weeks ago, I had a chance to talk with Sam Decker, the CEO of Mass Relevance. His company helps brands involve and connect with their audiences by bringing social media directly into their marketing and advertising efforts. Prior to that he was the founding CMO of Bazaarvoice and spent seven years in senior leadership at Dell. He’s also written two books on marketing. So he’s well worth listening to. As usual, Decker was full of ideas. Most of all, he talked about how companies can better integrate social media in pretty much every aspect of their businesses. I thought his ideas were interesting enough to share. So here are Decker’s six steps to a more social business...
Modern marketing success requires more than great commercials. Outside of live televised events, advertising is easy to avoid. People can skip ads, and 46% of American homes are now equipped with DVRs. The on-demand life is only becoming more on-demand. Dish Network's Hopper with Sling DVR lets you skip ads entirely, and technically won Best in Show at CES this year. Netflix just released David Fincher's new original series, "House of Cards," to much fanfare, and instead of following the traditional release model, made all thirteen episodes available at once: when, where, how you want it, and ad-free. As Mary Meeker pointed out in her presentation on the state of the internet, digital is disrupting virtually every aspect of life — from photography to entertainment to education to transportation to shopping to publishing to the very concept of ownership. You name it. Advertisers have to imagine more and more scenarios in which traditional ads just don't have a place anymore. We need to invent new models and find new ways to connect with consumers around the content they love....
...Today a new entrant into that ecosystem is creating a lot of buzz with what may be the greatest launch strategy since Gmail. The Mailbox App has been featured in media for the past several weeks and its launch teaser video has already been viewed more than 2 million times in less than two months (see below). What makes their launch strategy so good? The product looks great, but like Gmail – it is the decisions they have made about HOW to launch the product that are helping fuel so much excitement. Here are a few of their smart choices that you might be able to learn from...
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Brand relationships are no different. Keeping a fiery connection takes some work.
To unlock long-term love for our brands and set the stage for strong lasting connections, one simply has to look at and apply basic human relationship principles. Here are five ways you can keep the spark alive and forge a devoted, lasting connection to consumers....
Last week, I gave a talk to a networking group on social media marketing. Without slides and a limited time to cover a HUGE subject, I focused on 10 key things that I’ve learned about social media that I think every small business owner should know. Here are my 10 things: 1. Social media is social. It’s about interaction, not broadcasting. This means that you should be having conversations, not just blasting your own promotions all the time (in fact, don’t do that at all.) 2. You cannot outsource a relationship. Be careful if you’re considering outsourcing your social media marketing because you can’t delegate personal connections, and that’s what social media is all about....
Don’t Ignore Social as a Way to Connect... According to a May 2012 survey by Constant Contact, over three-quarters of small businesses agree on their primary goal: attracting new customers. Unfortunately, a more troubling statistic shows that many small business owners are missing out on a vital opportunity. According to a recent eMarketer post, only 32 percent of small business owners think social media marketing is an effective tool in today’s digital bazaar. This perception needs to change. For many small business owners, social media is still largely an unknown quantity. Here are a few basic reasons that businesses of every size should invest their marketing resources in social media. Five reasons social media marketing is important...
Real-time social media marketing can be incredibly powerful as it adds elements of context and relevance to your social media content and audience interactions. The challenge for many organizations is that existing processes can stand in the way of engaging and interacting with audiences in a timely manner. Process by its nature takes time, and virtually strips organizations of being able to act in real-time. Opportunity identification, legal reviews, running approvals up the ladder, creative ideation, risk assessment, production, organizing and rallying a team to create content are a few of the factors that can grind execution of the best intentions to a halt. All of these components are important, but to capitalize on real-time opportunities on social media, certain planning and preparation will need to be in place. Also, in some cases, concessions or modifications might need to be made to your organization’s regular processes. Following are a few suggestions and ideas for how you can prepare your organization to be equipped engage in real-time on social media:...
Although social media has been around for a few years, plenty of businesses and entrepreneurs still get it wrong. When planning your social marketing strategy and being active on social channels, avoid these 5 common content mistakes....
You must understand that social media marketing does not see you as equal to everyone else. Whether you are a blogger who has just started out, or a professional, then you must realize that in order to produce results on these platforms, you’re going to need certain social marketing skills to obtain the traffic, and finally the sale. I will be doing a series of guest posts on this blog that will cover major social update strategies for different platforms. Today I want to focus on driving traffic from Twitter, posting tweets, and using your blog as a mixture of success in social media....
There are tons of rumors floating around about how Google Plus will help you with your SEO rankings. While this may or may not true, it shouldn't be the sole reason to use G+. The reason to use G+ is to connect and converse with your audience. If you only take one thing away from my engagement series, it should be this: each social network is unique in its own way, with its own personality and set of best practices. Knowing how each social network operates is going to give you a head start in your social media marketing by allowing you to connect to your past, present, and future audience in an acceptable manner. As I continue my engagement series, in the next two posts we will switch focus to Google Plus. Google Plus is the newest of the group, and like it or not, it is Google, and thus should not be ignored....
A recent survey from J.D. Power points to the risks associated with monitoring: 51% of consumers simply do not want companies to eavesdrop on their conversations and 43% believe that monitoring is an intrusion on their privacy.... Social, at its core, is about getting closer to the customer and monitoring enables it. It explores customers thinking, and how they are communicating across their networks and the marketplace. This is essential for developing a strong brand and a close relationship with those customers. Monitoring is not inherently bad, but companies need to remember why they do it. It is to get insight into consumer needs, not just to monitor what they say. Meeting consumer needs, above all, is what defines a social media strategy. J.D. Power recommends the following when in comes to implementing a social media monitoring strategy...
By now, if social media isn't a critical element in your online marketing strategy, it should be. Having a presence on sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can add value to your product, to customer service and ultimately to your brand. But simply having an account and broadcasting company news isn't enough. To attract and keep customers -- and to build a strong brand online -- business owners need to be active on social media. They have to provide valuable information and engage with their followers. Here are four things businesses should be doing on social media in order to grow the brand online...
We used to turn to witch doctors when we felt angry and powerless; now we tweet. Those who feel wronged by corporations have increasingly taken to social media to get their revenge. For business, this represents a threat — and an opportunity — that obviously can't be ignored. A 2012 Nielsen survey found that people value advice from online peers on both what to buy as well as what to avoid. Almost two in tree of those who review products online say they do so to protect others; an additional one in four use social media to punish corporations for their own bad experiences. This disciplining of brands through social media is a global phenomenon, but there are important regional differences and corporations would do well to localize their response....
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Here's how to automate tasks the right way and still keep your engagement fresh and meaningful in social media.