Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category
September 14th, 2011
By Marci Reynolds, Director of Operations for Global Help24 at ACI Worldwide
Business blogs have become critical tools in any social media marketing tool box, and they are an excellent medium to share expertise and build your business brand. But just creating a blog is not enough. You must also focus on blog SEO (search engine optimization) to ensure that it receives top placement in Google, Bing, and the other search engines.
I began blogging in 2009, when I launched The Sales Operations Blog, and in 2011, I launched a second blog called Rat Terrier Mom. What do the two blogs have in common? They both appear on the first page of Google for multiple search terms and get the majority of their traffic from organic search engine links. Social media marketing nirvana!
Here are four strategies that I recommend and have leveraged to get my blogs listed on the first page of Google:
- Focus and differentiate the content on your blog. There are thousands of blogs on the Internet, so if you want yours to stand out and appear on the first page of Google, it must offer something unique. Before I started The Sales Operations Blog, I did some research on blog competition and the popularity of search terms related to my content. I found that there were thousands of blogs on “how to sell” but very few on sales support. I also discovered that the phrase “sales operations” was one of the more frequently used search terms related to my topic. So before launching your blog, check out the competition, do some research on how potential readers search for your content, and attempt to focus and differentiate your blog.
- Include a power search term in your domain name. Google does not like cute, it likes relevant. For this reason, I chose the domains SalesOperationsBlog.com and RatTerrierMom.com. (Okay, Rat Terrier Mom is a little cute.) When choosing your domain and blog name, select a frequently used search term that aligns with your content. In my domain research, I have found that many of the most popular words or phrases alone are already taken, but if you add the word “blog” at the end, most of them are available. For example, B2Bemail.com is taken, but B2BemailBlog.com is still available. Check out GoDaddy.com to research domain options.
- Identify and leverage the top 20 search terms in your blog content. Use Google Adwords or a similar tool to identify the top 20-ish search terms that readers use to find content like yours, and then use this intelligence throughout your blog. This includes your post titles, post content, categories, HTML image labels, and in-post HTML tags. Note that the search terms should enhance your high-quality, interesting blog content, not actually make up your blog content. In addition to using the Google Adwords tool, monitor the “real time” search engine terms driving traffic, as reported in your WordPress dashboard. Copyblogger is an excellent resource for tips on keyword research and blogging SEO.
- Keep the content fresh. As part of your social media marketing plan, publish high-quality, relevant blog content, ideally once per week. There is a direct correlation to the frequency in which you publish content, your ranking on search engines, and your website traffic. Add your Twitter stream or another user’s topic-relevant Twitter stream to the home page of your blog. Every time a tweet is posted, your blog home page will get fresh content. Add a specific page to your blog that includes links to other similar, recent online content. Refer to the Other Sales Ops Articles page on The Sales Operations Blog for an example.
If you focus and differentiate, choose a powerful domain name, include popular keywords in your content, and keep your content fresh (and high quality), there is no doubt that your blog popularity and traffic will climb.
I wish you good luck in your adventures in blogging and social media marketing!
Posted in Analytics, Bing, Blogs, Branding, Competitors, Content, Exclusive Content, Google, HTML, Marci Reynolds, Marketing, Metrics, Sales, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Strategy, Twitter | No Comments »
August 10th, 2011
By Diane Hessan, President & CEO of Communispace and co-author of Customer-Centered Growth: Five Proven Strategies for Building Competitive Advantage
Would you post a Facebook status update containing your thoughts about innovative ideas for a brand? Most of us would not. But would you join a Facebook fan page to get a sneak preview of new offers from the brands you love? I bet you would.
Two recent studies from our research team help to shed light on this. In the first, we found that in the eyes of consumers, public venues are primarily for hearing from brands—and having their loyalty rewarded—whereas private communities are more conducive to advising them. In the second study, we found that participation rates in public social marketing sites still tend to follow the “90-9-1 Rule:” 1% of people create content, 9% respond to it, and 90% view the content without contributing. In contrast, participation rates (people creating content) in our private communities averaged 64% each month.
What accounts for that discrepancy? In the first study, entitled “Like” Me, we found that people mostly join social marketing sites and Facebook fan pages in order to get product information and promotions. Brands are “liked” in order to learn about sales/discounts, new products, and interestingly, local events. These tangible, “pushed” offerings are more important to them on fan pages than having their voices heard.
And it isn’t just our own research surfacing these trends. Our data complement findings from a December 2010 study by SSI which determined that the relatively small population of Facebook users who are willing to participate in surveys is skewed towards 13-17 year-olds, and it also noted that those willing to participate in surveys are not interested in participating in public discussions, thereby limiting the range of consumer input available to marketers and market researchers. Also, recent studies by Razorfish and ExactTarget found that consumers do not view Facebook and Twitter as proper places for having conversations and building relationships with brands. That conclusion was echoed in a study released by iVillage which found that women, in particular, are “more inclined to have serious discussions on focused community sites than on venues like Facebook.”
In contrast, consumers prefer private communities for giving their feedback and opinions on new products and brands. 92% of members in our study of 246 private communities and more than 86,000 members said they feel their opinion matters in private online communities, as compared to only 66% of members who said they feel their opinion is being heard in the other brand-sponsored websites. In private communities, they feel the brand is actually listening, and this makes them feel more invested in the community sponsor.
But it’s not just about feeling heard. What makes private or highly targeted public communities such gold mines lies in what people are willing to share. Five times more people are comfortable sharing pictures of the inside of their medicine cabinets in a private community than in any of the social marketing sites they visit. Four times more are comfortable sharing the details of their holiday shopping budget. And so on.
And why? Precisely because unlike a social network, in a small, private, password-protected, recruited (vs. self-forming) community, their friends and colleagues aren’t there. Private communities provide a sanctuary from the daily, real-world relationships that can inhibit sharing as much as support it. (See the second study, The 64% Rule.)
So as you refine your own social media strategy, step back and evaluate your objectives. Don’t abandon your fan page—it’s a powerful channel to consolidate your brand fans and win an even larger share of their wallets. But recognize that if you want to learn what makes your customers tick and want to engage them in a constructive, ongoing dialogue, you may be better served by providing them a safe haven, away from the prying eyes of their thousands of “friends.”
Posted in Branding, Community, Community Sites, Conversations, Customer Experience, Customers, Diane Hessan, Engagement, Events, Facebook, Interaction, Marketing, Opinions, Promotions, Relationships, Research, Strategy, Surveys, Trust, Twitter | No Comments »
August 3rd, 2011
By Chuck Martin, CEO of the Mobile Future Institute, Director of the Center for Media Research at MediaPost, and Co-Publisher of Social Media Marketing Magazine
The trend of the move to smartphones in the U.S. continues, with penetration now reaching 30%, based on the latest data from comScore. The research firm found that 234 million Americans 13 years or older use mobile phones, with 69.5 million of them owning a smartphone.
This is not a surprise, considering the increasing capabilities of smartphones. We still expect the penetration of these devices in the U.S. to be around 50% by the end of this year. This has many implications for marketers, since the market then will be split with half owning smartphones and half not.
This of course means that half the market can use apps, and half can’t. About all can send and receive text (SMS) and multimedia (MMS) messages, and web access will increase. And then there are the platforms.
The comScore findings, based on a large sample of more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers, shows Google’s Android operating system with exactly a third (33%) market share, followed by Research in Motion’s (RIM) BlackBerry with 29% and Apple at a quarter (25%) of the market. And the apps-rich Android and Apple environments continue to gain share while RIM’s declines.
The issue for marketers here is that the behaviors of users of phones on different platforms are different, as several studies have shown. Some companies we speak with don’t even know what types of operating systems their best customers are using.
One of the key drivers of the conversion to smartphones is behavioral—the actual activities that people are doing with mobile phones. Mobile phone users are texting (69%), browsing the web (38%), using apps (37%), accessing social networks (27%), playing games (25%), and listening to music (18%), according to the comScore study. And every one of these activities increased from the previous three months. We expect these types of mobile behaviors to continue to increase as more people move to smartphones and more features and capabilities continue to be added by the mobile industry.
The consumers are there, as is the mobile industry. Still missing from the mix are many companies not yet committing the necessary resources to mobile, mobile marketing, and mobile social marketing. Is your business sitting out the mobile revolution?
Posted in Android, Apps, BlackBerry, Chuck Martin, Customers, iPhone, Marketing, MMS, Mobile Applications, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Search, Smartphones, SMS, Text Messages | No Comments »
July 20th, 2011
By Kent Huffman, Chief Marketing Officer at BearCom Wireless and Co-Publisher of Social Media Marketing Magazine
If you’re a small business owner or manager—or even a corporate marketing executive with a very limited budget—and you’ve been wondering how you could leverage social media to help grow your business, you’re definitely not alone. Almost every marketer I know is having to deal with limited financial resources in 2011, primarily because of the challenging economic times we’re facing right now. So what do you do?
No Money? No Matter!
In most cases, success in social media marketing doesn’t necessarily require a large financial investment. But depending on your level of involvement, it may demand a significant commitment of time. Jessie Paul, author of the book, No Money Marketing: From Upstart to Big Brand on a Frugal Budget, says, “Unlike media such as TV, radio, print, or even Google Adwords, which are capital intensive (i.e., the more money you have, the more successful you are likely to be), social media in its current form is labor intensive.” But because of the magnitude of the potential opportunities presented by social media marketing, that investment is often a wise one. Jessie goes on to say, “Social media gives marketers a chance to be in direct contact with customers. That is very hard to get in any other media and is worth quite a bit of experimentation to achieve.”
I’ve been active on various social media sites (including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn) since early 2009 and have been amazed at the benefits and opportunities that activity has brought to me and my company in a relatively short period of time. As Jessie suggested, I didn’t have to invest very much of my marketing budget to reach my social media marketing goals, but I did spend a lot of time developing strategy, content, and most importantly, relationships. I have to say it has been worth every minute.
Key Social Media Channels and Sites
If you’re just starting down the social media marketing path, an important first step toward making the most of the online social scene for your business is to select the right channels and tools to use. Robbin Block, author of the book, Social Persuasion: Making Sense of Social Media for Small Business, says, “Knowing your own abilities and the impression you’re trying to make can play a big part in the types of sites you choose. There’s a big difference between creating original content and simply participating. For example, posting a response or voting is much different than writing an article. If you’re a creator—that is, you have the time, talent, or inclination to create original material—then content sites are a good choice.”
“Whether you choose to be a creator, a participant, or a blend of both depends on your strategy,” adds Robbin. “Certain types of small businesses are a natural fit with particular social media categories. For example, a speaker might post a video on YouTube, list events in online calendars (like Yahoo! Upcoming), and upload presentations to SlideShare. If you’re short on budget but long on talent, that may help you decide. Writers may choose blogs, videographers may choose content sites, social animals may choose networks, and subject experts may choose Q&As.”
Reaping the Benefits of Conversations
Once you’ve selected the right social media channels and sites for your individual situation, you’re ready to join the discussion, build relationships, and ultimately reap the benefits.
Recently, Network Solutions and the University of Maryland (UM) conducted a compelling study about the use of social media in small businesses. “Social media levels the playing field for small businesses by helping them deliver customer service,” says Janet Wagner, Director of the Center for Excellence at UM’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. “Time spent on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs is an investment in making it easier for small businesses to compete.” Connie Steele, Director at Network Solutions, added, “Tough market conditions mandate small businesses to think and act creatively to sustain themselves. Social media can be the best friend for small business owners who constantly seek new ways to maximize productivity while keeping costs low.”
And those same challenges apply to most every marketer, no matter how small or large his or her organization may be. Eric Fletcher is the Chief Marketing Officer at McGlinchey Stafford (a commercial law firm based in New Orleans) and is one of the most popular CMOs on Twitter. He frequently writes about social media marketing-related issues. Eric says, “The ultimate goal of any social media marketing effort should be to enhance the brand and move forward on a continuum that leads to a new or deeper relationship with the target. Nothing accelerates the establishment and deepening of relationships like the give-and-take of conversations on social media.”
Eric is also acutely aware of the budgetary challenges marketers are facing today. “In an environment where marketing budgets are frozen (if not shrinking), a robust social media strategy is based more on the investment of time than dollars,” he notes. “We have always understood two things: the value of word-of-mouth marketing and the need to ‘fish where the fish swim.’ In social media, those two essentials come together—giving any enterprise, regardless of budget, a way to have a daily conversation with a world of prospective customers.”
Posted in Blogs, Budget, Channels, Content, Conversations, Customers, Facebook, Kent Huffman, LinkedIn, Marketing, Relationships, SlideShare, Small Businesses, Strategy, Tools, Twitter, Word of Mouth, YouTube | No Comments »
July 13th, 2011
By Margaret Molloy, Chief Marketing Officer at Velocidi
Since attending the 2011 SXSW Interactive Festival in March, a number of CMOs have asked me for my key takeaways from the event. Articulating these succinctly has not been easy. After all, SXSW provided such valuable insights into new technologies, inspirational speeches, and fantastic networking opportunities. Upon reflection, I can summarize my key learning in a few words: get back to basics.
The pace of the technological evolution is dizzying—racing to keep up with it can cause us CMOs to lose site of the big picture. Digital platforms are not an end in themselves, they are tools that help us more efficiently do what we’ve been striving to do for years: engage customers, know them, guide strategy, and achieve growth and influence in our markets.
Based on this premise, here are eight imperatives to guide us through our rapidly evolving digital landscape, garner internal support, and achieve growth:
- Align all digital marketing activities with your company’s business goals. Focusing on the bottom line will help you choose the right platforms to engage your customers and build the digital initiatives to help you achieve the right results. (Remember that innovation and learning can also be excellent desired outcomes.)
- Manage your brand’s digital presence (web, social) with the same vigilance as your CFO manages cash flow. A well-executed digital presence—and the appropriate investment in it—will yield the customer data and engagement required to drive business strategy and impact your company’s valuation.
- Know your customers in a better, deeper, more textured way than your competitors do. Leveraging social media platforms to understand your customers’ personal interests, preferences, and motivations can provide you with data required to drive powerful new marketing campaigns.
- Embrace customer segmentation and pricing with discipline, or risk margin erosion. Given the degree of price transparency and ease of information sharing online, your margins need constant vigilance—not all customer segments require discounts to establish loyalty, referrals, advocacy, and repeat purchases.
- Channel your inner educator, specifically your economics 101 professor, when addressing digital marketing tactics with management. Train your executives on the strategic metrics for your business, or risk them defaulting to the popular definition of ROI (number of followers, website impressions, etc.). If management doesn’t know how to assess and measure the effectiveness of digital marketing initiatives, it’s not realistic for them to fund the programs.
- Strive to balance long-term customer relationship building with lead generation, activation, and sales objectives. Avoid the temptation to jump in and close a prospect on the first signs of potential interest, or risk losing them.
- Consider your brand a publisher and be clear on your content goals—education, entertainment, community building, etc. Draw on the entire spectrum of content (brand-generated, partner-created, user-generated, curated, etc.) to select the right mix to cost-effectively engage your customers.
- Be authentic in your customer engagements through all communications channels. Customers are smart, well connected, and can easily identify insincere behavior and expose questionable tactics—honesty remains the best policy.
Focusing on these imperatives will ultimately provide you with a compass to guide you through the evolving digital landscape and toward the digital programs that will help you achieve your business goals.
Posted in Branding, CMOs, Competitors, Content, Customer Intimacy, Customer Retention, Customer Segmentation, Customers, Engagement, Honesty, Innovation, Loyalty, Margaret Molloy, Marketing, Measurement, Metrics, Monitoring, Pricing, Relationships, ROI, Strategy, SXSW, Transparency | No Comments »
June 22nd, 2011
By Gary Schirr, Professor at Radford University
Like many of you, I sign up for the free influence-measuring sites. I am skeptical of all of them but check out my scores and those of online friends. I am well aware that I am no Justin Bieber (Klout score 100) or Barack Obama (Klout score 87) in online influence. But I take comfort if I am near the scores of tweeters I admire, such as @CKBurgess, @KentHuffman, @ChuckMartin1, @DavidAaker, and @WareMalcombCMO.
I find early efforts to measure influence interesting, but I am concerned that parties are taking these fledging measures seriously and making decisions based on them. Some tweeters choose who to follow by their influence score. A recent Wall Street Journal article discussed the importance that businesses are assigning to Klout scores: marketing freebies and even job offers may be tied to Klout scores.
Although I am not concerned that my tenure committee will pass me over for Justin Bieber or Britney Spears, I worry whether the influence of the influence measurers may impact SM communities. If tweeters believe that their online status, likelihood of being followed, and even employability may be affected by these measures, they will adjust how they act. A well-known management dictum notes that nothing can be managed until it is measured. The relevant corollary is that what is measured will affect behavior: bad metrics can lead to bad behavior!
Will the clout of Klout cause loutish behavior in social media? @Econsultancy summarized the flaws of Klout’s measures in a recent blog post. And in one study by @Adriaan_Pelzer, a bot achieved a 51 Klout score in 80 days simply by 1) tweeting gibberish once a minute and 2) not following back new followers. Senior officers at Klout responded to that study (and similar ones) by noting that they were working on algorithms to spot bots. Klout proposes to attack the symptom head on (who wants to be fooled by a bot?) but downplay issues of the metrics themselves.
What kind of “community” will Twitter be if everyone follows these “winning” behaviors? Do you judge tweeters by quantity of tweets? Is it optimal to have 10 times as many followers as people followed? Phillip Hotchkiss, Chief Product Officer at Klout and a serial start-up entrepreneur, commented on an earlier post I wrote on this issue. His most interesting observations are that Klout’s metrics are always being modified to measure influence, and that Klout is trying to differentiate between “bad bots” and “good bots.” It is good to know that Klout is constantly evolving in pursuit of good influence measurement. Phillip’s “good bots” are a little scary. Maybe there is a good science fiction story there!
Be wary of even well-intentioned measurers. For example, many researchers believe that U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings hinder educational innovation by focusing on reputation and resources that please faculty, rather than cost/benefit measures that apply to most services. Similarly, focusing on factors such as tweets that generate action (regardless of content) and on follower/followed ratios could impair Twitter’s evolution.
Be wary of these developing measures. Do not let the measures affect your behaviors or enjoyment of social media. Do not make hiring decisions based on Klout, unless you honestly believe that Justin Bieber is the perfect 100 and the most influential person online! And please, please don’t start tweeting every three minutes!
Posted in algorithms, Analytics, Bots, Community, Engagement, Gary Schirr, Influence, Klout, Marketing, Measurement, Monitoring, Research, Twitter | No Comments »
June 15th, 2011
By Luis Gallardo, Managing Director of Global Brand & Marketing at Deloitte
“Think global, act local”—commonly referred to as “global-local” or “glocal”—is more than just a tagline describing the cross-border pollination of ideas and products of today’s global economy. It was originally used as a rallying cry for people to consider the health of the entire planet and take action in their communities. Today, it takes on a much broader context. From environmental to public policy to business, many have even embraced the “think global, act local” mantra as the philosophical foundation of running a successful global brand.
But why exactly are political pundits and global economists drawn to the ideals of this ubiquitous framework? Does it really provide the context for which organizations and businesses of all sizes can respond to rapid shifts within our economies of scale?
From my point of view, up to now, “think global, act local” has only scratched the surface of this tremendously complex issue. What we need now is a 360-degree view of how we can best prepare businesses for sustained, long-term profitable growth. What we need now is to “think holistic, act personal.”
Global vs. Holistic
Simply put, global is too broad and undefined. It implies that we should standardize and lead from the center, so that we can better drive efficiencies that meet the burgeoning demands of local markets. This is in stark contrast with thinking holistically, which I define as the ability to take into account complex linkages and interconnections in order to facilitate decision making of the highest order.
It is no longer enough to “think global.” We must:
- Gain appreciation of the world at large, and in turn, know how to best position organizations to win the supreme jackpot of sustained profit and growth
- Capture interlocking elements, interdependencies, and synergies of the commercial environment
After all, with brand as the pathway to value and gaining the recognition organizations deserve in the marketplace, what better way to drive that distinction than by thinking holistically about business?
Local vs. Personal
Similar to thinking globally, acting locally does not touch upon the essence of human behavior—what we do or don’t do in response to change, challenge, and the status quo. Acting personal, however, mirrors human dynamics and the multi-dimensional profile of each individual. Acting personal allows you to engineer communities, making messages and actions a relevant and timely response to the big picture needs of people.
At Deloitte, we see the benefits of acting personal in our social media efforts every day. Addressing the individual concerns and aspirations of our stakeholders—talking to them about what they really care about—drives the engagement to boost client and employee satisfaction, retention, profits, and multi-stakeholder advocacy. It has the capacity to not just act but to deliver “happiness” with each experience.
Thinking holistically about the recent tragedy that occurred in Japan, we can’t forget to consider how one tsunami has caused nearly half of the world’s most developed countries to reassess their nuclear strategies. The need to act local must be replaced with the need to act personal in order to go beyond action in our communities and address the specific needs of human suffering and post-traumatic stress.
Share with me your thoughts on “think holistic, act personal.” Follow me on Twitter or post a comment below. Do these terms help sustain growth and eradicate major challenges such as poverty, education, or sustainability related to business or the environment?
Posted in Community, Customer Retention, Engagement, Global, Glocal, Happiness, Holistic, Local, Luis Gallardo, Marketing, Relationships, Twitter | No Comments »
June 8th, 2011
By Sam Mallikarjunan, Chief Executive Officer of Mallikarjunan Media Group
Part 3
Facebook Profiles for Brands
There are some cases in which profiles are very appropriate for brands, such as personal or celebrity brands. My profile, for example, is much more useful for me than a page would be, since it chronicles my personal life and allows for deeper levels of engagement with my friends. Also, profiles provide the unique ability to invite users to events, organize them into convenient lists, tag them in posts and photos, and interact on a far deeper level by commenting on their posts, links, walls, etc.
However, we must be mindful of the fact that many consumers still resent the intrusion of marketers into social media. Many of them find it bothersome enough that we have paid ads and pages. The fact that we’d intrude into their lives with profiles of our own may offend some.
Also, there’s an issue of scale when choosing between pages and profiles. It’s not Facebook’s intent that profiles be used for marketing businesses; therefore, they reserve the right to prevent you from making additional friend requests, which can severely limit the potential reach of your Facebook marketing efforts. So while Facebook profiles have some engagement features that may be more useful than pages, you must balance the advantages of pages and decide which is better for your company or brand.
Are you a personal brand, or do you want a deeper level of engagement with a smaller number of people? If so, consider a profile!
Facebook Apps
I remember when Facebook first opened themselves up for third-party application development. For a while, I checked every day to see what was new and what was the latest and greatest. Now, with countless apps being added every day, it’s almost impossible to keep up with them all.
Facebook apps provide a fascinating opportunity for marketers. If you can create an application that is useful to your consumers, whether they’re already your customers or not, you can create your own phenomenon to help put your brand in front of a massive audience of potential customers. If you can create a tool, game, or other system that builds value relevant to your consumers, you can do amazing things.
Can you think of any kind of neat app or game that would make using your product or service easier?
Tips and Tricks
Here’s a neat trick on how to use Facebook PPC for B2B sales: If you’re targeting a specific company, find out what city its corporate headquarters is located in. Then target fans of its page who live in the same city as the company’s HQ. Odds are, most or many of their employees (including senior management) are fans of the company page. This gives you a unique opportunity to put your ad right in front of their faces, and even create custom landing pages to capture their e-mails or phone numbers for follow-up campaigns.
What about you? If you know of other ways to use Facebook for marketing, or if you have any questions on what I’ve written here, feel free to comment below!
Posted in Apps, B2B, Branding, Content, Customers, E-Mail, Engagement, Facebook, Games, Marketing, Sam Mallikarjunan, Scalability, Social Games, Targeting, Tools | No Comments »
June 1st, 2011
Part 2
Personal Information
Interestingly, Facebook recently went through a big “scandal,” where applications such as Farmville and others may have compromised users’ IDs for some people on Facebook. Facebook’s history is fraught with concerns of privacy violations and what they’re willing to share with marketers. As a marketer who spends a lot of time trying to squeeze demographics data out of Facebook, I can assure you that gathering your personal information isn’t as easy as it sounds.
However, Facebook does allow sites and applications to request “extended permissions” to access additional personal information, such as e-mail addresses, birthdays, photos, and more. Facebook users can revoke these permissions, and for the most part, Facebook users seem very willing to grant extended permissions to applications. Again, though, you may want to build a basic and extended application that can utilize different levels of personal information. That way, users who are nervous about granting extended permissions can still register on your site.
Is there any information you’d like to gather? Birthdays? E-mail addresses? Locations?
Facebook Pages for Brands
Formerly called “fan pages,” Facebook now allows users to “like” specific brands, which connects them to the page that they’ve set up. These pages are the bread and butter of marketing on Facebook. However, they have advantages and disadvantages.
Traditionally, the consensus has been that “profiles” are for people and “pages” are for businesses. However, the functionality of Facebook has blurred those lines to a great extent, since pages and profiles each have unique features.
Users can “like” your page, and the information that you can gather about them is very limited. Your connection is also fairly limited. It shares some of the same features as profile pages, such as the ability to share photos, post status updates, share links, etc. It has some very unique advantages as well. It has a fairly robust reporting system, which gives interesting information on demographics. It also has the feature of FBML (Facebook Markup Language), which allows you to code custom HTML landing pages. This is very useful for creating vivid landing pages to capture e-mail addresses, show off special offers, and anything else you can imagine in HTML.
Facebook also has a very interesting pay-per-click (PPC) advertising system with which you can advertise your page. Also, users can “like” it with a single click. This is fantastic for getting off the ground and building more fans. In also has a very unique target system. Since Facebook’s PPC ad system is technically paid traffic, I don’t classify that exactly as social media marketing, and we’ll have to discuss that in its own article.
Do you want scale of interaction or quality? If you have hundreds of thousands of consumers to connect with, consider a page.
Part 4
Posted in Advertising, Demographics, Facebook, FBML, HTML, Interaction, Marketing, PPC, Privacy, Sam Mallikarjunan, Scalability | No Comments »
May 25th, 2011
By Sam Mallikarjunan, Chief Executive Officer of Mallikarjunan Media Group
Part 1
“Like” Me!
The most well-known is the Facebook “like” button. Whereas Facebook used to give users the option to become “fans” of something—be it a brand or company or person—they can now “like” something with a single click. The “like” button is easy to install on any website. If used properly, it allows the owner of the page to publish updates into the news feeds of all the users that “like” that page. This is incredibly valuable, as it makes it easy to turn a single visitor into a returning one without having to capture an e-mail address. Whereas e-mail marketing has long been the predominant information-capture focus of most websites, gathering “likes” is quickly gaining in importance. The Facebook “like” button should be on every page of your website, and you should use the people that like it to create sticky traffic by publishing relevant updates into their news feeds.
You can incentivize people to “like” your posts and pages using different methods. First and foremost, organic “likes” will be the most valuable. People who genuinely appreciate your content are more likely to be great customers, brand loyal, and engaged on your page, as well as share the content with others. However, you can stimulate activity with incentivized contests and games. A favorite strategy of mine is to make a post (either on the brand’s Facebook page itself or on a blog) and say, “‘Like’ this post for a chance to win (insert something somewhat valuable here).” For example, if you’re writing an article about a cool inbound marketing service, you might offer a free consultation, a free month’s service, or even just a free T-shirt to a random winner from those who “like” the post or publish an update back into their news feeds to come back and win the prize.
Facebook also has an incredibly useful comments module which will allow people to leave comments on your website while logged into Facebook. Since there’s a small probability that some of your visitors may not have Facebook accounts, I’d strongly recommend that you create a back-up comment module, similar to the one on the CigarRobbie.com blog. This useful widget allows your users to carry the conversation about your page or brand back to their networks of Facebook friends, since by default, it will post back to their profiles. Essentially, comments now have the power to share your content far beyond just your own visitors and into each of their social networks. This module also includes a “like” button with the same features and flexibility.
Add a Facebook “like” button to every page on your site, and decide what relevant content you want to share with those who click it.
Easy Logins
There is a great deal of value in having users be able to login and register at your site. It can create unique user accounts for them or create a unique experience. The need to identify one user from another is as fundamental to any other site as it is to Facebook itself. Many sites, such as Formspring.me, now allow you to register for their sites with a single click rather than the formerly arduous process of registering at a site by entering your name, age, state, zip, e-mail, gender… you get the idea.
Remember that Internet marketing is much like electricity. Users will take the path of least resistance, but the more resistance (i.e., steps) in the process, the more people that you’ll lose—whether it be user registrations or value conversions. By making it incredibly simple to register an account on your site by using Facebook’s one-click login, you’ve instantly created a system that’s easy to use with low resistance. Also, by integrating it with Facebook where users can revoke access and permissions, you’ve made people feel more comfortable than they may have been giving you their personal or contact information to begin with.
Keep in mind that not everyone has Facebook, so you should offer other registration options on your site as well.
Decide if there is any reason to have a visitor register with your site. If so, make Facebook a one-click option.
Part 3
Posted in Blogs, Content, Contests, Engagement, Facebook, Games, Marketing, Networking, Promotions, Sam Mallikarjunan, Social Games | No Comments »
May 18th, 2011
By Sam Mallikarjunan, Chief Executive Officer of Mallikarjunan Media Group
Any business owner, from the Fortune 500 to the corner liquor store, has heard about the tremendous potential of social media for Internet marketing. However, although everyone acknowledges and accepts that social media has great potential, and many of them know they should be involved, few people understand the specific, practical marketing applications for social media sites.
In this four-part blog post, I’m going to profile one such social media site: Facebook. I’ll also share some data that I’ve aggregated through my research. Keep in mind that there are many third-party applications that make using Facebook easier that I’ll profile as well.
What is Facebook?
Facebook is the 800-pound gorilla in the social media marketing world. The brainchild of Harvard geek Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook now has more than 500 million users (yeah, that’s about seven percent of the population of the entire planet) and has created a phenomenon of unprecedented scope and scale.
Hundreds of millions of people spend huge segments of their daily lives on this single site, interacting with friends, sharing content, playing games, and scheduling or organizing their social lives. It’s become a venue for collective action, knowledge, and an incredibly detail-rich (if personally detached) social environment. Users willingly share an incredible amount of personal information, and they greatly trust product and service recommendations made by members of their network.
Facebook has also created a incredible scale of off-site integration. Although many social sites—such as Twitter, Digg, Buzz, and others—have buttons that allow you to share content, Facebook has created a phenomenon with its social plug-in applications. Facebook’s Developers Guide is probably the best way to find out more about what options it offers and how to install them.
If you haven’t already, go to the Facebook site and create a personal profile for yourself.
Part 2
Posted in Buzz, Digg, Facebook, Interaction, Marketing, Networking, Sam Mallikarjunan, Social Games, Third-Party Applications, Twitter | No Comments »
May 4th, 2011
By Jim Lyons, Professor at the University of Phoenix
Lately, I’ve been working on a LinkedIn project assigned to me by our local campus of the University of Phoenix. And in taking it on, I’ve repeatedly been reminded of the “marketing basics” which I profess, literally, at the very same institution. I’m finding that with social media projects, like any other marketing-related activity, time-honored practices—such as focusing on a well-defined marketing strategy with clear objectives, clearly identifying a target market, and committing to a plan over a reasonable time period—are as relevant as ever.
By way of a little background, the local campus staff had asked me to shore up the LinkedIn group we’d started a couple of years back, and which like so many other social media attempts had gone somewhat stagnant after a fast start. This interest fit nicely with my personal ambition to help give our faculty a better feeling of connectedness—getting to know each other better as both undergrad- and graduate-level instructors (all part-timers), as well as members of the much broader professional community where we each pursue our very diverse “day jobs.” My vision was to make the LinkedIn group a virtual “faculty office building,” where we could get to know each other and collaborate in the virtual world, something that the University of Phoenix knows very well, at least from an online education standpoint.
There, too, was an interest within the client organization of making the group a discussion forum to be joined by at least the more engaged students, as well as alums and even “friends” of the university, including local business and community leaders. Also, it could perhaps become somewhat of a job-seekers forum as well. It didn’t stop there, either, and with this growing set of objectives, I started to feel overwhelmed.
Focus
As I began to think about implementation, I went back to good, sound marketing fundamentals. And when it came to defining the product/service I was enhancing, I had to ask myself a key question: “Who is the target market?” Obviously, the answer to the question had quickly become “many groups.” The next question then became: “Can I successfully serve this many masters?” (The answer to this question is invariably on the negative side of the scale, at least when put to the reality test.)
We are still working on the right approach, but as time goes on, the objective of providing a fun and friendly faculty familiarity/recognition platform seems to be winning out. We may need to launch a new group or sub-group to target another set of objectives/markets, but when has this stopped a good marketer?
Commitment
As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Starting a new business, launching a new product, or kicking off an advertising/PR campaign takes time, too. We have all been there—we get impatient, pull the plug too soon, or get wooed by a newer idea. And in the world of social networking—just like face-to-face, old-fashioned networking—patience is everything.
I’m reminded of my attempt to help a former colleague get his footing after a long period of unemployment by having him as my guest at a meeting of our local entrepreneurs’ networking group. After that first meeting, he thanked me, concluding with something like, “Well, we’ve done that. Let’s see what happens,” (as if based on his six or eight brief introductory conversations, the job offers would start rolling in). Sorry, friend, but networking is a long-term investment, and even in this world, which we often perceive to be all about instant gratification, a commitment to a plan—and sticking to it—is as critical as ever.
Knowing your customer, not trying to do too much, having clear objectives, and exercising patience—just a little of that old-time (marketing) religion!
Posted in Collaboration, Commitment, Community, Focus, Fun, Fundamentals, Jim Lyons, LinkedIn, Marketing, Networking, Relationships, Strategy, Students | No Comments »
April 27th, 2011
By Berenice Ring, Professor at Fundação Getulio Vargas
Have you noticed how many decisions we need to make nowadays and the amount of details involved in each one? Surely life was much easier in the early 20th century, when consumer staples were sold in bulk and housewives had their goods chosen for them by the shopkeeper, whom they relied on and trusted.
If you wanted to buy a car in 1915, the choice was quite simple. The only automaker was Ford—who had introduced the assembly line—and the options boiled down to one model, the Model T. In 1987, Brazilian consumers could choose automobiles from six makers: Ford, Volkswagen, Fiat, GM, Gurgel, and Toyota. By 2008, 36 car manufacturers offered their vehicles, exponentially increasing our options.
A 1991 supermarket offered 15,000 items; today, in the same store, we find almost 50,000—including 100 types of yogurt and 200 models of mobile phones!
However, abundance of choices does not necessarily mean better decisions. As psychologist and professor Barry Schwartz points out in his wonderful book, The Paradox of Choice, the huge amount of options adds excessive strain to the decision-making process, causing exhaustion and discouragement. Furthermore, making one choice means relinquishing all other options, so that your preferred alternative seems less appealing and even elicits a sense of loss.
Until recently, people counteracted this frustration by consulting other people they trusted. But today, our world has become an ocean of information. For instance, if you’re planning a honeymoon trip to New York City, sites like TripAdvisor will provide complete information on virtually every hotel in the city. For example, if you decide to spend your hard-earned money on a wedding night at The Pierre, the famous hotel featured in several movies, you can read online comments by the site’s user community, ranging from “Great hotel!” to “Disappointing.” It is a huge benefit to get recommendations not only from your travel agent but from people who have stayed there recently. And upon your return, if you invite friends over for dinner, you can visit Epicurious on Facebook to find recipes, or you can search Twitter using the hashtag #recipes to find plentiful tips from users.
Some brands have grasped this new trend and offer their customers a dedicated section for comments and criticism, such as My Kmart and MySears Community. Other sites were specifically founded upon this trend, such as byMK and Polyvore, which allow users to express themselves.
The penetration of social networks today is amazing. A recent survey shows that 90% of respondents know at least one—and on average, four—social network websites. Facebook is the best example, of course, with more than 500 million users and countless communities. And if you want to find customer reviews of New York restaurants, the American site Yelp lists 12,000-plus establishments—not to mention more than 7,000 stores—along with user reviews of dentists, architects, and even surgeons.
As a Nielsen study confirms, “Recommendations by personal acquaintances and opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising globally.” The study of 25,000 Internet consumers in 50 countries shows that nine in ten people trust recommendations of people they know, and seven in ten trust online recommendations from strangers.
In this scenario, a good social media strategy can do wonders for a brand in terms engaging its audiences. Can the brand help consumers make better choices or play the role of an early 20th century “shopkeeper” whom its customers trust and rely on? Are brands making the best of this tremendous opportunity?
Posted in Advertising, B2C, Berenice Ring, Choices, Community, Consumer Reviews, Customers, Engagement, Facebook, Ford, Hashtags, Marketing, Networking, Retail, Strategy, Trust, Twitter, Yelp | No Comments »
April 20th, 2011
By Michael Brenner, Senior Director of Global Marketing at SAP
The biggest question I get asked on B2B Marketing Insider is about the challenges of sales and marketing alignment. I try to address the big issues in B2B marketing—such as integrated marketing, demand generation, and social media—but somehow, the topic comes back around to the relationship between sales and marketing. And it extends to our colleagues in PR.
I guess this shouldn’t be a huge shocker. I started my career in sales. Then I quickly moved into marketing to follow my frustrations. The alignment problem is what drove me into marketing.
BtoB Magazine recently reported on a Forrester survey that proves the point that this is huge challenge: only 8% of B2B companies say they have tight alignment between sales and marketing. Just 8%. They identify marketing’s long-term view vs. sales’ short-term view as the main reason for this disconnect.
So how can marketing and PR lead our organizations to better alignment with sales? The answer is social media.
A recent survey of 175 CMOs by Bazaarvoice and the CMO Club tells us that 74% of CMOs will tie their social media activities to quantifiable ROI in 2011. While that should help address the timing differences, I think there is more to it.
Today more than ever, marketing sells and sales people are marketing. And we are all communicators—some of us just more highly trained or capable. As Joe Pulizzi recently exclaimed, “Yes, We’re All Media Companies. What Now?” We need the content we produce across our companies to be professional, solve real customer problems, and be easily found.
Along comes social media, causing even more of a collision between sales, marketing, and PR/communications. The reason? We are all trying to align around customers through social channels. Add customer service, support, HR, and operations folks, and we have a real social media cocktail party happening.
Steps towards social alignment:
- Define the goal. Marketing and PR should help lead our organizations to a better total customer experience in alignment with sales, but also across our entire organizations.
- Work together. Social media can help us all get along (better). Marketing and PR should continue to take a leadership role in social media by defining how to best orchestrate social media strategy with sales, customer service, support, and other customer-focused groups across our companies.
- Develop a crisis plan. This is really where PR can take the lead. They have the skills and best practices knowledge, but they also need to partner with marketing, sales, HR, and customer service so that a 360-degree process is identified. As the Kenneth Cole fiasco on Twitter showed us, the crisis can come from anywhere, even within. So get your crisis plan in place today.
- Manage responses. One of the biggest opportunities for companies in social media is to develop a full response plan for inquiries, complaints, and so-called “trolls.” Here is an excellent example of a social triage process that can be used a model. By taking a leadership role in defining how we listen to social conversations and how we will respond, our companies can begin to achieve the true goal of a positive total customer experience.
I believe that by following these steps, we will start to see marketing, sales, PR, and all the functions across our companies become much better friends. And we just might create some new, happy customers along the way.
Posted in Alignment, B2B, Best Practices, BtoB Magazine, CMOs, Content, Conversations, Crisis Management, Customer Experience, Customers, Demand Generation, Engagement, Forrester, HR, Integrated Marketing, Lead Generation, Listening, Marketing, Michael Brenner, Public Relations, Relationships, ROI, Sales, Strategy | 2 Comments »
April 13th, 2011
By Rob Croll, Professor at Full Sail University
Successful organizations know that their customers now “find” them online in many ways, including Google searches, Facebook pages, customer review sites, social shopping sites, and more. Some interesting facts and figures:
- More than 16 billion searches were conducted worldwide during October 2010, according to data from comScore.
- More than 250 million people use Facebook on a daily basis.
- Twitter claims more than 50 million tweets per day.
That’s a lot of online activity, happening in a lot of different places. For organizations trying to maximize their effectiveness, it can be difficult to prioritize. Factor in limited budgets, and it’s easy to fall into either/or arguments, particularly regarding search and social marketing.
The arguments for search engine optimization (SEO) typically include that it’s often more targeted, that searchers are actively “looking,” and that traffic from search frequently converts better. The arguments for social media marketing typically include that it’s better at building longer-term relationships with customers, that it gives you more control since it’s not reliant on search engine algorithms, and that the social aspect allows for customers to engage with and evangelize brands.
However, any argument over which is better—search or social media—fails to consider the inherently symbiotic relationship between the two. In today’s world, focusing on one to the exclusion of the other is folly for most organizations. Of course, the relative merits of each differ depending on the goals of the organization and, more importantly, the objectives of the web user.
In a post called Comparing SEO and Social Media as Marketing Channels, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz noted that “search is an intent-driven activity. We don’t search casually (much), we search to find answers, information, and goods and services to consume.” Visitors who arrive at a site from a search engine are specifically looking for something. Generally (though not always), these searchers are further along in the purchase decision-making process and thus potentially more valuable, at least in the short term.
Social media marketing, however, brings potential customers of a different type. These visitors expect more dynamic content and more opportunities to engage and interact. Even if they don’t have an immediate intent to purchase, these potential customers represent a longer-term opportunity for organizations. If they feel positively about your brand, they may share that enthusiasm within their own circle of influence, expanding the reach of your marketing activities. Building a relationship with them also greatly enhances the likelihood that they will do business with you in the future. For example, studies show that individuals who have been exposed to a brand message in social media are more likely to click on an organic search listing for that organization.
Finally, consider that results from a searcher’s social graph now appear in the search engine results directly. These social results typically include an image, which increases the likelihood that they’ll be clicked. In an article on Search Engine Journal, Bill Sebald gives an anecdotal example of getting search engine traffic for keywords for which his blog didn’t organically rank well. That traffic was being driven by what he calls “the eleventh listing”—the “results from people in your social circle” on Google.
It’s clear that the relationship between search and social will continue to grow in the future. Search engines have been seeking to incorporate more social signals for some time now, and the momentum shows no signs of slowing. With advances in technology and shifts in consumer behavior, it’s time for marketers to look at search and social media as two critical—and inherently interrelated—components of their overall efforts.
Posted in Branding, Engagement, Facebook, Google, Marketing, Relationships, Rob Croll, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Social Shopping, Targeting, Twitter | 2 Comments »
