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Is social media really important to your business? Is it a strong channel from which you can engage with an audience or does it simply make no difference at all? Is social media really important to your business? Is it a strong channel from which you can engage with an audience or does it simply make no difference at all? Get the results from a consumer survey conducted in the US showing how social media affects shopping decisions. Two key stats shared here instantly grabbed my attention: 1. 37% of consumers visited a brand using their mobile phone. 2. 73% said that Facebook contributed to their buying decision This re-enforces my current business advice for local business owners that mobile marketing and Facebook business pages are essential for brand awareness campaigns and for growing audiences....
Social Media is not just a method only being utilized by big brands anymore. Small businesses are starting to embrace and implement social techniques on a grander scale. Smaller businesses are using social not only as a marketing tool, but also as a customer service platform....
In the wake of Monday's Boston Marathon bombings, it's apparent that we need to continue the conversation about how people and brands communicate during times of tragedy and crisis. Here are some social dos and don'ts to help prepare for a tragedy.... Let’s face it, social media isn't always in the hands of accredited public relations professionals with years of crisis management experience on their resume. Does your community manager know the answers to these questions? Chances are if they don’t then neither does the organization: - Do we comment when there is a natural disaster or national tragedy? If so, what does that sound like? - Cease all scheduled or planned content for X period of time. - Check ad schedule and pull content promotion or campaigns for X amount of time....
The big question that is often asked about social media when it comes to investing money, resources, and time is “what is the return on investment?” Some pundits will say that’s not the right question because it is like asking “what is the ROI on your phone?”. Others will say social media should stand up and be measured in its own right. The challenge though is that we live in a multi-channel marketing world and the path to your sales door for your product is not a straight path and easy to measure....
When a small business sets out to grow their visibility online, it’s always good to have a plan in place. The plan should be strategic and well researched. It will help you, the small business owner, to connect with your target customers and grow your visibility. Social Media is a great way that small business owners can grow their visibility online. Case in point, in a recent survey by Manta of 600 small business owners across the United States: 90% of them said that they are actively engaged in social networking sites and 74% felt that social networking online was very valuable and that it was starting to out-weigh networking in-person. How to reach your target customers What can you do as a small business owner to grow your visibility and become active in social media? By using the acronym R.A.C.K, I want to share a few suggestions of how you can rack-up social media cred....
Are social and content teams working closely enough, especially at enterprise organizations? Here are four tips for finding common ground between your social media and content marketing strategies. To maintain a healthy relationship between the two teams, some marketers look at social as the creation of micro-content. Yet, others might see this as limiting, considering how the rules of content engagement differ from those of social engagement across various channels.
Twitter for business has finally relaunched this past Monday, and aims to be the central resource to help businesses gain traction, fans and income with their Twitter marketing strategies. Twitter is a very large, very prominent social site, but they are also acutely aware that many of the business people on their platform, have no idea how to use it properly. As a result of this inability to adequately market on Twitter – bounce rates are higher, and owners are choosing to market more on the ‘easier’ platforms like Facebook and Pinterest. Twitter for business is their solution to this concern. It will function like the Facebook blog, and Allfacebook.com, which is the total resource site for all things to do with the social network. Business owners will be pleased to find simple-to-use tutorials that provide powerful tips and advice, which will help them gain followings and sell on Twitter....
There is a blind spot for most retailers and it involves their loyal customers. These loyal customers are talking about a brand, on social media, but on a local level. Most brands are not well-equipped to monitor it, however. In fact, 88 percent of local consumer feedback and content is missed by major retail brands and by independent businesses. Consumer Engagement grows by over 500% In 2012, VenueLabs reports that location-based consumer engagement grew by over 500%, and that trend continues to accelerate....
...The value of content for brands has been slow and time-coming, but businesses are beginning to realize it’s not the fact that you are on social media that counts; it’s what you are publishing. The old-time image of a CEO coming out of his office and proclaiming, “Well, we better get on Twitter,” is transforming into “We now have hundreds of thousands of followers, let’s start showing them some great content.” Social networks like Pinterest have made it relatively easy to share content in an attractive way through images. Because technology is making it possible to access the entire Internet anywhere a person goes, thanks to rampant wifi and cell-tower access, users are actually getting better at and more accustomed to consuming a large amount of content on a consistent basis. Most people are no longer interested in just following their high school classmates on Twitter or Facebook. They now want to know what value there is in what they have to say....
Content marketinghas become a bit of a buzzword recently. It’s become a synonym for digital marketing and a catchall term for marketing tactics like blogging and social media. It’s also become an essential part of B2B marketing strategies, recent research found that 88% of B2B content marketing spends are to either stay the same or increase in 2013. For B2B companies, the bottom line is sales. Most B2Bs aren’t interested in becoming a household name brand, or appearing on billboards. They just want to sell their product. Which is odd, considering that same research found that only 43% of B2Bs listed sales as a measurable target for content marketing....
Via Brian Yanish - MarketingHits.com
There are always situations where leasing works, but if you can buy the asset of content, and you know that (if done correctly) the asset will grow in value, why would you ever pass up that opportunity... If executed correctly, you can leverage (and re-leverage) that asset to continually communicate with customers and prospects. A great example of this is CMI’s 100 Content Marketing Examples eBook. That piece of “owned” content was made up of about 50 other pieces of “owned” content. For the most part, top-tier content marketing like this does not depreciate over time (it’s what publishing folks call “evergreen” content), unlike a car. Great content works more like buying a house or property — if it’s good, and can easily be found (location), it will go up in value....
[Imagine Bernanke's Blog, The Fed's Facebook page or Ben tweeting? Will social media make the Fed a household name? JD] The Federal Reserve has lately been in the news almost as much for how it makes and communicates its decisions as for the decisions themselves. Beginning with the announcement that it will hold four press conferences per year in order to more clearly communicate the decisions of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Fed has promised to “continue to review its communications practices in the interest of ensuring accountability and increasing public understanding.” To a greater extent than one might have predicted, the Fed kept its promise by ending the year with the announcement that it’s venturing into the social media fray. In late September, The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) invited companies specializing in “sentiment analysis” the chance to bid on a contract for creating a system to monitor what people are saying about the Fed online....
Text 100's Dan Baxter breaks down stats from a recent Ipsos Mori study... Social media is becoming less relevant to the communications industry. Yes, quite. While that statement may raise more than the odd eyebrow and possibly be seen as justification for lynching in some parts, it’s the inference from an Ipsos Mori Reputation Council study released last week....
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Great social business case study... Herz is the first car rental company to integrate social customer service into its business. Customers can now resolve service problems by tweeting at the brand. "It is time to get over this misconception that brands can ignore tweets about their brand because social media is relatively inconsequential in comparison to other channels like phone or email," said Joshua March, CEO of Conversocial, the company working with Hertz....
Pinterest has a higher concentration of people who are in a ‘buy’ state of mind, while Facebook users are more interested in interacting with friends - and brands.... Understanding what people do on different social networks is the key to effectively using those networks for marketing. Companies currently spend 8.4% of their marketing budgets on social media, and that’s expected to grow to 21.6% in the next five years. But with so many social networks competing to grab marketing dollars, determining the most effective channels can be extremely difficult. To illustrate, let’s look at how Facebook and Pinterest stack up against one another. Different Networks For Different Reasons While both Facebook and Pinterest offer deep customer segmentations and user engagement, it would be a mistake to target audiences in the same way across both networks. For example, you wouldn’t market your product to someone shopping at a trendy boutique the same way you would to someone walking down the street with their friends. In a store, you’d likely look to make a sale, while on the street you’d probably have more luck building brand awareness....
Social media will take over your life if you let it. Every day there is a new update you need to know about, a new social network that everyone's talking about, and a new trend that's changing how you reach customers. But if you can carve out some time to stop, reflect and strategize on your current marketing ideas, then there are some ways you can quickly cut the fat, save some money, and still get better results in the long run. You just need to know where to look. So here are three easy ways to save money -- and still thrive -- in social media....
Here are three tools to help you generate revenue with social media. They will help you collect, manage and filter information to build relationships and make sales.... Do you want more leads from your social efforts? Did you know there are great social media tools that make the sales process easier? In this article, I’ll review 3 tools to help you get the information you need to generate revenue from your social media activity...
A dramatic transition in how, when and where content is consumed is afoot.... Deloitte’s State of the Media Democracy survey reveals that U.S. consumers are undergoing a dramatic transition in how, when and where they engage with content, devices and each other. - Twenty-six percent of consumers are digital omnivores (own a laptop, smartphone and tablet). - Tablet ownership increased 177 percent over the past year, with almost a third of tablet owners viewing it as one of their top three most preferred consumer electronic devices. - Tablet owners stream movies 70 percent more often than non-tablet owners. - More than 80 percent of consumers are multitasking while watching TV....
It’s a 5 Step Program. Brands flip out, sober up and discover Social PR ROI. Control Freaks and Social PR Alert: You have officially lost control of your brand message. But have you also lost control of how customers perceive your brand? The good news is “no” but not without a high level strategy to guide your social efforts. A new report by The Wildfire by Google Team — The Road to ROI – Building a Strategy for Social Marketing Success outlines five initiatives smart organizations small and large can use to build a strategy that will can rein in some of the madness that is the social web and make you a social star!....
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...
Tactical fatigue getting you down? How about lack of results from your efforts? ... How about we hit the pause button and look at some areas of impact on your business first? Maybe you set out with an objective and quantifiable goals for your marketing plan and aligned social media to those, then found that it's taking too long to close the gap on your goals. Or perhaps you've been testing the waters on some of the social networks, figured out that's all you can do, and moved on, abandoning those outposts. 7 areas of impact to get back on track...
There are severalstories floating around the web about the Tesla / NYT back and forth saying “everyone is a media company now” (emphasis mine). But really it’s been this way since the ability to publish content digitally existed. The funny part of all this buzz is that many of the same media outlets and pundits I’ve seen sharing this story are the same people who declared self-publishing dead in the past. And yet. This example proves once again that a self-hosted platform on a company or independently-owned domain is the most powerful response mechanism. It’s platform agnostic, meaning that media of all types (social, professional and otherwise) can link and react to it. Not true in walled gardens which lack the same flexibility and benefits. In fact, more people spending more times in macro social sites increases the value of this type of independent publishing....
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....
Social media marketing has gone through its coming-of-age process and brands can no longer afford to use experimental practices to engage audiences. All-new research from J.D. Power and Associates discovered a link between social media efforts and business metrics. Marketers must get serious about social results, and it starts by with understanding how different people use and abuse online services. Two types of social media marketing to consider The study focused on two types of social media engagement – marketing and servicing. J.D. defined these two elements to explain how social media can affect brands’ bottom lines. Marketing engagement - This practice centers on connecting with customers to build brand awareness and loyalty. J.D. provides promoting coupons and deals as an example. Servicing engagement - Service on social refers to troubleshooting. Brands must allocate time and resource for social care that includes answering questions and resolving problems.... In fact, 43 percent of 18 to 29 year-old consumers use social media for servicing engagement, compared to 39 percent of people aged 30 to 49. This insight shows that brands catering to a wide audience must approach social media marketing in more than one way....
[Jay Baer's stimulating interview with Brian Solis on his new book "The End of Business as Usual" - JD] ...The answer is you can’t stop creating the content in the way that people you’re trying to reach consume it. That was the most challenging part of writing this book. You’re an author. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve got to write a book. You have to keep up your blog. You have to keep up your Twitter stream. You have to keep up your Facebook. Now your Google+, your Foursquare. You have these seminated audience or groups of people that are connecting with you because they find value in those channels. But yeah, there’s a fantastic audience for books and the need to have information at their fingertips. But I did design this book a little bit differently, considering that we are wired for distraction. Every chapter has almost tweetable summaries of what the insights were in each chapter. So if you have to go back and just kind of remember what the value was, or just read those, you could still walk away with the value your way....
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Valuable business perspective on social media and social marketing trends.