All posts tagged social media
Less Is More with Social Media Strategy…
Courtesy urbn.com
Is it really good business practice to get on the bandwagon just because everyone else is doing it? Like a moth to a flame, you will end up losing more time and resources by blindly following the latest marketing trend. Resist the urge, and instead, devote yourself to articulating your product and brand strategy – what it is and what it is not.
1) Test and measure your needs Here, the old adage applies, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” As of now, what social media channels are you working with? Active channels only. Dead accounts with profiles but no activity don’t count. Say your company has a presence with a consistent blog and Twitter that is managed by your CEO. That’s not a bad start. First, can you measure which of these is either 1) creating online dialogue or 2) creating leads or partnerships (these metrics are more telling than the simple follower or fan count). For the latter, those will take time to quantify – a year or more! With these results, you might even find that you can eliminate one that isn’t producing or redirect to a new audience, find a professional writer, etc. If your audience likes re-tweeting quick and easy micro-blogs, no need to spend hours writing blog posts.
2) Assess your resources and prioritize The caveat to your toolkit is “Don’t bite off more than you can chew.” No need to give in to peer pressure and create a blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube channel, Tumblr, etc, etc all at once if you can’t create and manage enough (useful) content for them all. How big is your marketing team? One full-time person? Three part-time contractors? An intern?
First rule – don’t make it harder than it is! You don’t want to over-manage too many outlets and duplicate content that you can streamline. For instance, Facebook is getting better with automatically integrating website blogs into their feed.
3) Creator vs. Contributor Your marketing efforts should reflect a healthy balance between “creator” and “contributor” – meaning you should generate content for your own blog while writing guest post for blogs on partner sites (and linking the two!). Your platform for doing so will also be determined by length – from short tweets, to tumblr photo or FB status updates, to full-length blogs and articles. These tasks will become much more manageable if you outline these posts in a calendar. If your industry is particularly volatile or fast-paced – do this every two weeks or so – but if not, every month or quarter will do. That does not mean scripting out tweets 10 days in advance (but that’s okay too!), but having a theme in mind for a fixed period will give your feed focus and add credibility to your expertise. For those of you with promotions and peak sale seasons, opt for focused banner and ad space with external expert bloggers in your industry. io9.com, a blog for sci-fi geeks(and its sister sites and themes managed under gawker.com) displays ads for related television specials and movie trailers. Foodgawker.com, a crowd-sourced “feast for the eyes” has cleverly placed adds buried amongst their appetizing photos.
The overall message is not to succumb to the pressures of creating pages and pages of content – but rather implementing a well-rounded presence online on diverse platforms.
Social Media Behavior in National Crises – and Business Lessons
Courtesy Google Images
Has social media demonstrated yet another side to its under-estimated potential in the wake of national crises? People began reviewing the impact of Twitter and Facebook during the uprising in Egypt and the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Similarly, the current flooding in Thailand has also leveraged social media as a tool in public health and public opinion – in a context where such information might not be as candidly expressed through traditional channels. This “democratization” of information-sharing isn’t news (especially for cultures where public criticism is not a norm) – but upon closer examination, how can businesses apply these social media behaviors learned in dire circumstances?
First, what does social media and national crises tell us about our online behavior?
- A crisis brings a sense of urgency that increases online activity. Human nature: we act under pressure or shock. Many Bangkok residents began posting pictures at the first sight of their neighborhoods waist-deep in water. But again, with parts of the city somewhat immobilized, folks do have idle time with to surf the net.
- Online information during a crises is limited to its consumer base, and it is at the mercy of the digital divide. Other provinces of Thailand have been submerged for months, but Bangkok updates are more visible because of its greater usage of smartphones and in-home computers.
- Television and print journalism outlets (including an increase in English language news with the Bangkok Post or Thai PBS International targeted at expats) are posting on their Facebook pages every few hours – with the latest water management and redirection measures at the street and district level. Most impressively, fans are asking questions about their streets and getting prompt responses!
- YouTube videos are going viral to spread the word on public health tips as well as the country’s (lack of) flood management policies. A pro-bono group of researchers, scriptwriters and animators called “RooSu Flood” have banded together and created webisodes that increase awareness on water-borne illnesses and common dangers in a flood (electrical short-circuiting, protective footware, food rationing and consumption). An individual even posted the Thai King offering counter-measures to address Bangkok’s vulnerability to flooding – videotaped in after the last major capitol flood in 1996 – that eerily foretell this year’s flood devastation. And beyond these are a slew of home-made music videos depicting the current “plight of the people” floating down the street in a recently purchased rowboat.
- Social media has also allowed for speedy group organizing and networking. Thai diaspora communities outside of Thailand have joined forces to network across the globe to share their own local relief fundraisers.
Finally, what are the business applications to these trends?
- Step outside your day-to-day sales challenges as marketing manager to see the “big picture.” Smell the air and keep an ear out for these urgent and time-sensitive issues happening in your industry and field of expertise where you can get involved and be seen on social media as an advocate and advisor.
- Join the conversation and actively participate. Those RooSu Flood saw a unfulfilled need to increase public health awareness and got to work. To bring the lesson a little closer to home, if I were a distributor of tents, medical supplies or camping gear, I would see a very visible opportunity with Occupy protestors – which leads to the next bullet point…
- Getting involved with national causes and heated topics gets messy (even natural disaster relief has political implications) – and alienating potential customers and partners who don’t identify with your stance is inevitable – but it is also a true test of your brand and integrity as a business-owner. You might lose 5 fans but gain 3 “super-fans” who are worth their weight in gold (or marketing dollars).
The Balancing Act Behind Social Media Marketing
Courtesy Google
Let’s take a moment to contemplate the underlying principle of this latest breed of communications. At its core, social media is just what it claims to be – a dialogue. The poster – whether the business itself or an external party – provides a stimulus (a question, a promotion, a product launch) to which users can respond. But most importantly, not only can they respond, but conversations are open to mass viewing and participation, leaving companies exposed, and to be frank, vulnerable to attack. Will the next post become a PR treasure chest or a Pandora’s box? Assuming that you would prefer the treasure chest of “likes” and endorsements, having an authentic social media marketing program requires entrepreneurs and managers to hold up a mirror to dissect their services, products, and platform and ask themselves, “Are we prepared?”
Thus, there’s good news and bad news to social media marketing. Starting with the bad: public posting invites criticism and complaints on both personal profiles and company profiles. Even worse, customers have been known to create their own “anti” groups and pages (sometimes involving profanity) that cause irrevocable damage to your brand. Companies committed to implementing a genuine, uncensored social media presence should create a contingency plan. Frontline customer service reps will be the most qualified to compile and analyze your company’s negative feedback.
Depending on your available resources, you can decide your level of response:
- Short-term “bandages” (such as a discount or refund)
- Long-term preventative measures (take the issue back to product design and solve the problem). Customer-centric marketers will be the first to confront these issues head-on and engage their community about the problem before customers get the chance to start their own damaging threads.
- Furthermore, the bad news isn’t entirely bad. The consumer electronics industry has benefited from online public forums – communities who share repair instructions and tricks with their fellow consumers, saving company resources in their technical support departments.
Similarly, the good news, actually amazing news, is that social media can be your best advocate. This same engine that allows customers to launch their own smear campaigns also enables them to sing your praises to networks that trust them more than they trust you. The resulting man-hours saved (and profits earned) due to unsolicited social media endorsements should be diverted to building the damn-good products that inspire these virtual “word of mouth” promotions. However, every business needs to formulate a strategy to fit their industry and goals. Facebook might be naturally suited for promoting lifestyle and entertainment, such as restaurants and events while other industries are still testing how to best leverage a Facebook audience.
To start, examine the mechanics of your Facebook or Twitter sharing (which would be prudent for your personal profiles too).
- What is the “useful life” of any status update? How many hours until your post becomes buried and unseen beneath friends’ and followers’ impulsive, stream of consciousness? Because when you play business with social media your competition then becomes your college roommate counting down days to their next vacation. When are you posting? Midweek? Early morning?
- Do you diversify your media with links to blogs, articles, videos, photos and tags of other users? Garnering “likes” and comments will also extend the lifespan of your post and increase visibility. If you’re not collecting much response, you might need to revisit the content and appeal of your posts.
- Be deliberate and conscious about your posts – create an editorial Tweet calendar with your marketing team or determine your high traffic Facebook periods. And in the end, there’s nothing like seeing someone else posting an ego-boosting “pat on the back” on your feed for a job well done (accompanied by 22 likes).
Social media integration into your business model becomes the dual prioritization of maximizing positive feedback and mitigating the risks of public criticism. Getting the most out of your social media campaign means making it both a marketing tool that increases visibility and exposure as well as a research and evaluation tool that influences your overall business strategy.
5 Ways Social Media Optimization Compliments SEO
We’ve all heard a lot about search engine optimization (SEO) and the impact it can have for business. Having a well crafted and thoughtful SEO campaign can be the difference between running a thriving business or being left behind by your competitors. While the importance of SEO is easy to measure and understand, it’s not as easy to grasp the importance of establishing a complimentary social media optimization campaign (SMO). Social media optimization’s importance to business can be found not only in its ability to reach new audiences and promote content, but in its ability to compliment SEO. Simply put, not having a complimentary social media optimization plan means leaving money on the table. Below are five key ways in which social media optimization can compliment SEO and can help business’s improve search rankings.
1. User Generated Content:
Having active user communities on your site in the form of blogs, forums, or other types of social media allows users to contribute content, including important variations of site specific keywords. User generated content is not only cost effective, but highly prized as a source by search engines. It is organic and often has a higher level of “trust” in online communities, which in turn lends itself to being more credible to search engines.
When engaging with user communities, it’s important for the business’s social manager to become a fixture in the communities the business interacts with. Ideally, the social manager engages in discussion not only to foster goodwill, but to keep content fresh and updated. These conversations in turn help SEO, as quality content is not only engaging but easy to share, and that helps increase search rankings through increased page content and links to your site.
2. Link Building:
Social media is an extremely powerful tool for link building and creating both direct and indirect links. A direct link is created from the platform directly (links in a comments box on a blog, profile links in comments on Facebook, etc) while indirect links are created by bloggers, webmasters, or others who find and share your content indirectly (this can be through other blogs re-posting the content or adding re-shared content to another social medium). Link creation of this manner is essential due to social media’s propensity to spread compelling content in a viral manner. The more links that are cultivated through social media, the more a business will improve its search ranking.
3. Brand Related Search:
New metrics available for social media have determined that an increasing number of brand related searches originate on a social media outlet. These can be a fan page, review, or recommendation made through a friend, and in-turn searched by someone in their social circle. Consumers see these outlets as the new “front window” of a business and use them to take a peek inside the store to see if its worth their time to investigate further. Do their friends like it? Is the business socially responsible? Do they have an interesting product line? Consumer’s are using social media to answer these questions and conduct brand related searches.
4. Ranking:
Search engines rankings are valuing social media more every day. Factors such as comments, ratings, shares and other social metrics determine how valuable the search engines view content across social circles. Google +1 goes even further by tailoring your specific search results based on who in your social circle has “+1’d” the content, and how relevant that reviewer is to you. Therefore, if a friend has “+1’d” a business, your search results for a similar business or product will show that same business much higher in rankings than if they had not “+1’d” the business. Simply put, the more relevant that members of your social circles find the content, the more likely it is to rank highly on your search results. Combining a strategy to encourage customers to share, like, or +1 a business’s content with a solid SEO strategy can greatly increase a businesses search rankings through relatively little work.
5. Reputation Management:
Utilizing as many social media outlets as possible gives you more opportunity to have more of your products on the first page taking up more real estate. Because content taken from social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg etc. ranks so highly on search engines, it becomes easier for your business to take up more of the first page. Ideally, when a brand is searched, their Facebook, Blog, and Twitter should all rank on the first page along with their home website. Increasing mediums through which a business represents itself online gives it a tremendous opportunity to take up lots of prime real estate on the first page.
While there is tremendous opportunity, there are also many pitfalls that the social media manager needs to be aware of, such as negative sentiment being spread. This reality makes the social media managers job of monitoring conversations even more important. With more channels comes more conversations, and with more conversations the possibility of negative conversations getting out of control increases. The social media manager needs to make sure they stay tuned into their communities and address any negative content swiftly and in an open manner. As positive content and conversations increase, so do search rankings which makes it all the more important to vigilantly manage your businesses reputation via social media.
Search engine optimization continues to evolve and change in a constant attempt to gives consumers the highest quality and most relevant results to a search possible. As consumer habits evolve its important for a business to evolve with them as well to ensure that they retain their current customer base while attracting new customers as well. By adopting a complimentary search engine optimization and social media optimization plans, a business can ensure that they are staying on the cutting edge of consumer trends and demands. Any successful optimization campaign starts with a plan and goals. Keeping the above points in mind when establishing a complimentary optimization plans is key, and by using them as guidelines to establish goals a business can ensure that it stays relevant to its consumers and successful in the long term.
You Get By With A Little Help From Your Friends
At one point or another we have all turned to our friends for help. Whether it’s a helping hand with moving, a recommendation for a movie or restaurant, or just a sympathetic ear, it’s our friends that we turn to first. This should be no different if you own a business and need to grow. Friends will often help promote your business to others through word of mouth, but may fall short by not spreading the word through social media channels. Businesses often establish a strategic plan for their search engine optimization, but fall short of considering the impact that a complimentary social media optimization campaign can have. In order to maximize the exposure friends can give a business, a solid social media optimization plan needs to be established that spurs friends into action on behalf of your business.
Any small business looking to gain a foothold in the online search world needs to learn to leverage their friends to help grow their business by encouraging them to help spread the world. Twitter posts, Facebook ‘Likes’, and positive reviews on websites such as Yelp and Citysearch all help to boost a company’s all-important search engine ranking. Search engines like Google and Bing are taking social circles and social sentiment into account more often when ranking and displaying search results. This is where the importance of friends come in. When your friends, or fans of your business, express a positive sentiment towards your business either in the form of a shared ‘Tweet’, Facebook ‘Like’, blog repost, or any other number of ways, Google and Bing take note and rank your business higher in their search results for your friends and friends of your friends.
What this means is that having a large social reach across various social media outlets, and reaching key “influencers” (friends or fans that not only have many friends but influence them to take action), is just as important for your business to develop as SEO alone. Along with a comprehensive SEO plan, a business needs the ground work for a complimentary social media plan that makes use of social connections and all available social mediums. Not doing so is simply leaving money on the table.
With the bond between social media and SEO growing everyday, it’s becoming a must for any business wishing to maintain a strong foothold in search engine rankings to establish a social media plan and reach out to their friends and customers to help spread the word. Identifying key influencers, friends, and customers is key, as is motivating them to share information about your business, whether through incentives or simply a quality service. We all get by with a little help from our friends, and that should be no different in business. Establish a plan, reach out to your friends, and watch your rankings rise and your clientele grow.
Google+ Arrives
source: www.TheSocialMarketingDiva.com
Feeling a little left out because you haven?t received your invitation to Google+? Don?t worry, that?s the point. After struggling through three previous incarnations, the New and Improved Google Social Network, awkwardly named Google+ is officially open for business. This is not to be confused with ?Google +1? which was released a few months back, and was ostensibly an opening salvo in their newly heightened battle with Facebook over social media supremacy. That was merely the Google version of Facebook?s ?Like? system. With their unveiling of Google+, the search giant is now ironically acting as giant-killer in launching their own full-fledged answer to Facebook?s social media juggernaut.
So you haven?t gotten your invite yet, but the artificial scarcity that Google is engineering here (perhaps taking a page from the Steve Jobs handbook) is to engender a grassroots, viral campaign feeling to their roll-out. You’re probably a bit more inclined to join if invited by your best friends than by having it forced down your throat every time you log into your Gmail. It?s savvy marketing, and by all accounts, the buzz seems to be positive (no pun intended – Google would rather forget that little misadventure). Tech Crunch, Gizmodo, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and a slew of other respected publications and blogs have given it high marks, some with the caveat that it may be a little late in the game to be taking on Mr. Zuckerberg.
But for all intents and purposes, Google+ seems to strive to be the anti-Facebook on one fundamental level – that the world of online socializing is taking on a more grown-up approach. What they seem to be betting on is the long-held, and valid concern that Facebook is too social. When you make an announcement, post a video, ?like? something or interact in any way, it?s broadcast to all of your ?friends.? And let?s be honest, how many of those people are your friends? Granted, Facebook has grudgingly made adjustments to this problem through “Groups” and the like, but Google+ has made it easier, more streamlined, and by some accounts, somewhat fun to group your acquaintances into corresponding groups that are privy only to the info that you deem worthy for that particular “Circle”. While some have lamented this approach (some commenters say they like this aspect and how it differs from real-world interaction), as social networks evolve into becoming an integral part of ?real-world interaction? people of legal drinking age require a more nuanced approach.
Either way, if it reaches some modicum of success, Google+ will be a welcome alternative for many disenchanted current and former Facebook members. But we?ll see – after all, it?s not a success or a social network at all unless people are using it.
Mobile Apps Transforming Online Interaction
Is it too soon to claim that ?The Web Is Dead?? Wired magazine trumpeted that headline a few months back, and new data published by Flurry would seem to lend some credence to that. Perhaps it is a bit sensationalistic to say that the web is dead, but for the first reported time, time spent per day on mobile apps has exceeded time spent browsing. Flurry combined their own analytics data on mobile app usage, which is – according to their report – ?…now exceeding 500 million aggregated, anonymous use sessions per day across more than 85,000 applications,? and data from comScore and Alexa on Web browsing to come up with the provocative results.
This comes on the heel of a report four months ago by Mary Meeker and Matt Murphy at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers that in 2011, smartphone and tablet shipments exceed those of desktop and notebook shipments. While this does mark a startling trend towards the increasing role of mobile devices in our respective lives, it surely does not indicate the death of anything. Other than that of phones that only do one thing – call people.
In light of these trends, effective online marketing now has taken on several dimensions, and to succeed in all areas and keep one?s audience engaged requires both skill and a clear strategy. Social media marketing and optimization is now an essential part of reaching new customers and keep them happy and coming back. Because, while people are now increasingly addicted to their smartphones and tablets, those weren?t really built for browsing anyway – they are best used through apps. And furthermore, gaming and social media applications are the driving force behind the aforementioned statistics:
Web design is catching up to being more mobile device friendly, but apps are still clearly the most efficient and user-friendly way for a consumer to shop, game, and interact on their phones and tablets. Effective online marketing must acknowledge and adapt to the more diffuse ways in which the online audience accesses the Web.
Is Above the Scroll Still Relevant?
Until fairly recently, conventional web design often favored keeping homepage content ?above the fold?, applying the old newspaper term which referred to placing top headlines and advertising above the physical crease on the folded paper. During the early to mid-90?s, websites oftentimes did not feature scrolling; however, by the latter part of the decade, as people had grown accustomed to scrolling, most websites began to expand vertically.
A common trope of the Web 2.0 revolution was a rejection of this pattern. Of course, that?s not to say that scrolling was abolished wholesale, but rather that vertical scroll bars began to shorten and rapid advances in web design made hipper, more concise pages more desirable and attractive. Depending on the type of site (commercial, news, blog, social media, video), this still largely holds true today. Homepages need to grab the eye while holding the attention, and the endless scroll bar is a quick way to lose that attention. This holds especially true of landing pages, which need to make a quick, effective impression that translates to conversions.
While some claim that the scroll wheel killed the ?above the scroll? gospel, this is a bit too simplistic. Sure, it makes scrolling much easier, but it doesn?t necessarily hold a viewers attention or make the site any more pleasing to the eye. Recent data supports this argument. Veteran usability consultant and researcher, Jacob Nielsen?s eye-tracking study from last year shows a dramatic drop in viewing time for ?below the fold? content. According to the study, viewing time is 80.3% to 19.7% for content above and below the scroll, respectively. Eye-catching numbers, pun-intended.
What are the implications of this old/new data? Accordingly to Nielsen:
“the material that’s the most important for the users’ goals or your business goals should be above the fold. Users do look below the fold, but not nearly as much as they look above the fold. People will look very far down a page if (a) the layout encourages scanning, and (b) the initially viewable information makes them believe that it will be worth their time to scroll. Finally, while placing the most important stuff on top, don’t forget to put a nice morsel at the very bottom.”
In other words, don’t be a slave to the “above the scroll” design mythos, but respect it nonetheless. The explosion of social media and smartphones in recent years has added a new dimension to this debate, since people have grown accustomed again to scrolling in these specific instances. However, for desktop and laptop browsing on most websites, good design above the scroll on truncated pages means better visitor response.
Google Plus One
After several months of anticipation, Google released its new social networking feature ?Google Plus One? (or Google+1) in what, at least superficially, appears to be an attempt to compete with Facebook?s wildly popular ?Like? feature. This could have a wide-ranging impact on online search as well as online marketing for a few reasons. The first is that it escalates the very public fracas between Facebook and Google to cull more and more user data for eventual use in more targeted advertising and marketing campaigns for their paying clients.
Until now, Google and Facebook have largely operated in separate spheres; Google revolutionized search engine marketing with AdWords, PageRank, and Analytics, while Facebook has shown the importance of recommendations and testimonials from friends as a powerful tool for learning about virtually any demographic or individual?s behaviors and desires.
Google has recognized this encroaching competition for some time, and Plus One is their bold attempt to not only compete but turn the tide in their favor. While Facebook partnered with Microsoft last year to offer user data and ?Likes? for improving search results for Bing, Google is now trying to create one monolithic tool for combining the already proven strength of their search algorithm with personalized user feedback to even more finely tune search results and advertising.
Google search engineer Matt Cutts has said recently that the PlusOne feature won?t initially be added to the search algorithm as it will take at least several months before the data is sufficient to draw any conclusions on how to integrate it. But make no mistake, one of the main reasons for introducing such a tool is for helping weed out spam and content farms and raising the rankings of more relevant, popular sites. If Google is the web?s police, then Plus One turns all of us into the neighborhood watch.
As for paid search, the ability to give a text ad +1 gives both Google and online marketers more finely tuned data and feedback on their advertising. This will have an obvious impact on how PPC ads are developed and marketed because the accumulation of +1s will be desirable for ranking and word of mouth. The click through rates and general responses in testing has been very positive, and because of this, most companies will want to opt-in to including Plus One on their paid search. Sites can also opt-in to include Plus One on their actual pages, and when a user gives a +1 here, it will be included onto the paid ad on the relevant search engine results.
Plus One could be a game changer for online marketing and viral advertising. Some have been less than enthusiastic about the initial roll-out (like the requirement that to use it, one has to be signed into their Google account). And while the critics may eventually be somewhat right, Google will be probably be content with having some modicum of success in the social network sphere, especially after the PR bungle and widespread antipathy surrounding Buzz.
Online America
In late 2010, the Pew Research Center published a fascinating study revealing some of the online activities and trends among different age groups within the United States titled the Generations – 2010 report. Only the second annual report issued by Pew to examine online behavior, it displays the increasing desire to try to understand how we use the internet as a society, and where we?re going in the near future.
Some of the data was fairly obvious, such as the fact that younger age groups are far more likely to use a social networking site. However, one surprising trend revealed that older generations such as “Young Boomers” (ages 46-55) and also “Older Boomers” (ages 56-64) saw a higher percentage increase in their social media usage than the “Millennials” (18-33) and “Gen X” (34-45). This probably indicates that while the younger generations are far heavier users, they are traditionally quicker to latch onto new trends, thus meaning that the older generations are only now beginning to become more accepting of the role social media networks now have in our daily lives.
As the data indicates, perhaps your parents are hipper than you thought. And from a social media marketing perspective, this data represents positive news indeed. It was already generally understood that Facebook could reach the Millenial and pre-Millenial generations in profound ways, but now it seems that their parents and grandparents are beginning to message, post, and network right alongside them – and perhaps opening up to its marketing campaigns therein.
We need not point out that the so-called ‘Millenial’ generation is also that traditional demographic long coveted by advertising and marketing experts. And along with their frequent use of Facebook and other social media, they use search engines even more so. More staggering still, is that all demographics are now using search engines in their daily lives on an unprecedented level.
For all adults (ages 18+), search engine use is 87%, and among Millennials, it’s 92%. There was no data on the under 18 demographic, but one could reasonably surmise that when they come of age, search engine usage will be (if it isn’t already) close to 100% within their age group. Taking this all into account, the Generations – 2010 Report from Pew clearly displays the importance of using search engine and social media marketing as a focal point for any organization looking to increase both its exposure and its overall success moving forward.
