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Posts Tagged ‘Social Marketing’

As I meet new businesses, I often hear, social media does not work. With that statement, I usually ask, how often are you posting? What topics is your audience interested in? And, how does social media fit in with your “traditional” marketing efforts?

Many businesses open social accounts because they “know they need to”, but, then abandon them, or, don’t create a solid marketing plan to integrate the activity alongside their other marketing (like print ads, flyers and email).

If you want to see success using social media marketing, follow these 3 tips:

1. Get your Fans into your Sales Funnel. This is where you drive people to your ordering path, such as, getting them opted into email where they can start to hear about your specials and offers on a regular basis. Drive people back to your OWN website whenever possible. Use your blog to write great content that you can link to and make sure you have a way to capture anyone who visits your web site with a “sign up for emails” box.
2. Post Good Content. Make sure you are posting what your audience is interested in. Be sure to deliver great information and yes, you can “sell” to them as well. But, most often, Facebook (for example) is a great tool for reinforcing your brand. You may not make as many “direct sales” from someone clicking on a link. But, you are staying top of mind when they are ready to purchase. And, it’s GREAT to build your list here by posting about upcoming events you are holding or FREE seminars they can “share” with others and opt into your list. You never know where someone is in their buying cycle or what post you make is the one they need at just the right time.
3. Ask for What you Want. Your audience already likes you, which is why they are a Fan! All you need to do is tell them what you want them to do. Ask them to “like”, “comment” and “share” and they will. Plus, give specific “calls to action” that provide urgency. “Order by Friday and get 10% off – please share with your friends” and give a link and a code to get the discount.

Marketing is a continuous effort not a one shot deal and there is no silver bullet in any marketing campaign. But, it is just that, a campaign, filled with many efforts that keep you in front of your customer, lead and target marketing so that you are there with the right offer at the right time when they are ready to buy.

(Image credit clickz)

I’m excited to be interviewed on by the team at Conscious Social tomorrow with their webinar “5 Keys to Social Media Success”. On the webinar, I will be sharing tips and showing examples of how businesses are being successful using social media marketing.

Conscious Social is an online community that offers FREE Social Media Webinars hosted by Laura Rubinstein & Karriann Graf. You can find them in Twitter at @KarriannGraf and @CoachLaura. Visit ConsciousSocial.com to attend my webinar for free and keep coming back to them to hear other experts reveal their marketing tips every week. You’ll also have access to time leveraging tools, and learn insider social media tricks.

Learning to navigate the Social Media spaces is definitely something you need to be taught in order to use your time efficiently. I highly recommend Conscious Social webinars as a great online resource. And, if you are looking for one-on-one, in person, Social Media training in San Diego, I can help. Or, if you are a small to medium sized business that does not have the in-house resources to facilitate your own social media campaign, HowDoIMarketMyBiz.com provides monthly social media services, speaking as your company voice.

YouTube is now the second largest search engine, next to Google. Four times as many small biz owners now have video on their websites as they did one year ago making video not only the present but also the future of social media marketing. If you are not taking advantage of video in your social media campaigns, you need to be.

YouTube is another great social media site that is free to use, all it takes is your time. I recommend to all my clients that they set up their own keyword rich YouTube channel and post with frequency to their Facebook page and embed video in their own blog posts.

On websites that have video, the average viewer stays 6 minutes. On websites without video, the average viewer stays 57 seconds. Video is great for engaging your prospective customer for LONGER, which can boost your conversion rate.

It’s important to not only have a professional video created, but, also to get a flip cam and create your own quick messages on the spot. Both are effective and achieve the goal of allowing your potential customer a way to learn more about you and become pre-sold on your products or services.

Plus, video can help you make that all important PERSONAL connection with your prospective clients and in this day and age of social media, building relationships is what it’s all about.

Visit my friend at http://jilladdison.com to learn more and get a top quality, professional video created at a reasonable price.

Contact me today for a FREE Social Media Marketing Report!

• Do you know how to use Social Media to get new customers?
• Are you looking for better and easier ways to market your business online?
• Were you aware that Facebook, Twitter and a Blog can help your business be found in Google search when you use your “keywords”?
• Did you know that Social Media is new newest way to network online?

Don’t miss your opportunity to get new customers and get the word out about your business, products, services or fund raising efforts using social media.

If you are in business you need to be using online marketing. If you are not yet using social media marketing or you have created social media accounts in Twitter and Facebook and are saying to yourself… “Now What?”, please email me to receive my FREE Social Media Marketing Report: “Top 5 Reasons Businesses Should Use Social Media Marketing”.

“I don’t have time”… “I don’t know how”…

If you know you need to start using social media but “don’t have time” or “don’t know how” to use these tools, I am here to help with training, consulting or implementation of your social media marketing campaign. I have over 15 years of experience in corporate Direct Marketing and I am trained in social media. I am dedicated to helping businesses add social media marketing to their traditional marketing plan for increased results.

Call or email me today for your FREE report.

And, if you don’t have time to read my free report, call me for a free 1/2 hour consultation via phone or in person (if you live in San Diego, CA) and I’ll tell you why your business MUST be using social media marketing!

Contact Joann Whetstine
Social Media Marketing Consultant
#858-212-8185

joann@howdoimarketmybiz.com

http://www.HowDoIMarketMyBiz.com

twitter.com/howdoimarketbiz
facebook.com/howdoimarketmybiz
linkedin.com/in/joannwhetstine

Here’s my last installment of notes from the Social Media Success Summit webinar. These are great social media marketing tips from two top bloggers. Blogging is so important to getting your keywords found online and having a social media marketing strategy in place BEFORE you begin your social media efforts in Facebook, Twitter and your blog will help you achieve your business goals.

“Making Your Blog a Social Media Destination”
There are 1.8 billion people online which equals 26% of the world population. You’ve got to be found online and dominate search results for your keywords. So, what can a blog do for you? Technorati’s “State of the Blogosphere” reports these numbers about blogging:
71% = Blogging provides greater visibility for your company
63% = It gets clients to purchase
56% = Helps you be regarded as a thought leader
40% = Makes you more visible so you are asked to speak at conferences on your product/service

If that’s not enough, here are more reasons why you should blog: Enhances reputation, Establishes your brand, Builds credibility, Helps you get traffic (SEO), Helps you build your list and most importantly, it Brings you more business! Be sure to create great content, use your keywords, and tap into what your readers want. Via @denisewakeman

“Easily Integrate Social Media Into Your Marketing Mix”

Some people are just broadcasting in social media spaces and not responsive to customer service and replying to people. Don’t create a social media account unless you have a strategy in place to support it. Social media is about the pre-sale and relationship building. Once they love you, they will refer. Find out what your audience is interested in and give it to them in the way they want it. Talk to people about their problems then direct them to your articles that solve that problem. Network with those people who influence your audience for a bigger reach. Via @chrisgarrett

Wednesday May 5th was the first full day of webinars for the Social Media Success Summit 2010 #SMSS10. Here’s a quick recap of some the great social media marketing takeaways from the three webinars:

Optimizing Your Facebook Fan Page
@MariSmith gave a great class on “Optimizing Your Facebook Fan Page”. What I loved the most was seeing all the great examples of Facebook welcome pages. Did you know that your Facebook Fan page does not have to be just your wall of posts? You can have fans land on any page you like and if you have access to a great graphic designer, make use of Faceboook Markup Language (the FBML app) and create something that meets your business objectives like one of these:

1. This one makes you click “like” button to see it interact with you: facebook.com/CarrotCreative
2. This one uses video to engage you: facebook.com/stevespangler
3. This one lands you right on a product page to purchase and has the “like” widget next to each item: facebook.com/threadless
4. More video and a great example for a company that is not product oriented: facebook.com/EZINEARTICLES

The main goal of your Fan page should be to create a call to action. What do you want someone to do when they visit you? Become a fan? (or, now, show they “like” you?) Collect their email address? Order product? Use your Fan page to meet your business objectives. Plus, you can split test welcome pages, as each one has a unique URL. See which one works best for you!

5 Ways to Measure Social Media
@JasonFalls spoke about “5 Ways to Measure Social Media”.
I liked these 3 points regarding how to measure social media success (besides just strictly sales and google analytics):

1. Community: Fiskars has a great example of how they created a “community” of ambassadors for their product at: http://www.fiskateers.com/ Always good to keep people singing your praises!
2. Customer Service: You can measure effectiveness of social media if your customers are using it to get answers so you get less contacts to customer service, or your call center. Plus, the more ways a customer can contact you = happy customers. Compare survey results for more concrete results.
3. R&D: Use social media to help you come up with new or improved product/service ideas. No cost way to generate market research. Ie.) Dell “Idea Storm” http://www.ideastorm.com/ has received 13,000 comments. 415 ideas were used and many were revenue generating. Also, Joffrey’s Coffee http://www.joffreys.com/ reached out to bloggers and said “what coffee flavor do you like?” and created a new one based on their input called “coffee 2.0” which was then in turn blogged by them out to their followers.

Creating Ravings Fans with Social Media
And, finally, @Ramon_Deleon the Chicago Dominos Pizza owner who uses social media to WOW his customers daily talked about “Creating Ravings Fans with Social Media”:
Ramon has a huge audience of college kids on twitter and Facebook and as these kids move into corporate life, he keeps in touch with them regularly. He’s built a strong brand for himself and really keeps customers engaged in his social media spaces. I like these tips he shared:

1. Think about how you can help the customer and give them positive reasons to talk about you.
2. Promote them so they will tweet about you and share.

For example, he prints up a flyer that he puts on his pizza boxes with his favorite customers twitter handles on it, it has big impact. This is a case of doing someone a favor before they ask, so, you are on their good side when you need something. He also volunteers at many events in Chicago and always has a big Dominos sign along to get lots of photos taken to share in Facebook. He’s also great at quick videos to thank customers and even apologize for errors if needed. All these techniques using social media keep him top of mind to the customer and when someone thinks of pizza in Chicago, they think of him first.

Sure you’ve heard about social media marketing. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are in the press daily. Companies are blogging about their products and services but you’re wondering if it’s the right thing for your business. Here’s 5 reasons why you should add social media to your marketing mix:

1. Branding
   Social media can help you build your brand. Every time you tweet, write a blog or post a status update, you are keeping your company top of mind to your followers, fans and subscribers.
2. Get New Customers
   When you use keywords in your copy on all your social media platforms, you are improving your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and have a better likelihood of coming up in natural search.
3. Find Business Leads
   Wondering how to build your business? You can find people in Twitter that are in your business niche and connect with them about joint venture partnerships.
4. Find Others to Promote You
   Writers and bloggers are all over the internet. Conduct a Google Blog Search to find top sites with great page rank and a mass of followers and ask them if they will write about your product or service (and link back to you on your keywords.)
5. It’s Free to Do!
   And, the best thing about social media marketing is that it’s FREE! Writing blogs, creating and managing Twitter accounts and Facebook Fan pages for your business costs nothing but your time. But, the business impact can be incredible!

So, get online and build a social marketing presence for your business. Just a few focused, strategic minutes a day will get you hooked. You’ll be glad you did. And, if you start a blog, Twitter or Facebook account for your business and then say to yourself, “now what?” I can help.

Print is dead. Ok, it’s not really, but, it sure feels like it. How many people do you know who still use the printed Yellow Pages to find a business? I sure don’t. Those are dusty doorstops at my house. I don’t even know why I keep them. They should just go right into the recycle bin the minute they get left on my doorstep. I find everything I ever need online! All the time. I love the internet. And, if for some strange reason I can’t find the answer to my question in Google search results, (oh, yes, I’m loyal to Google!), I ask a friend to refer. Instead of picking up the phone, I text, email or post questions in LinkedIn or Facebook to my friends and business colleagues. And, that’s what social media marketing is all about: networking, building relationships and referring online.

Think about how you’ve purchased something recently. Something specific that you weren’t sure a store in town would have, or maybe it was here in town, but you didn’t know what store would carry it. Did you search for it online first? It’s very easy to search and even buy online, instead of driving all around town not knowing whether you will find the item you wanted or not. I did this a few times recently with local bookstore. I was feeling guilty that I would always just go to Amazon.com to buy the book, CD or DVD I wanted. So, I thought, no, this time I’m going to shop in town. And, you know what, twice I was disappointed because they didn’t have the item I wanted in stock or even in their computer system so they could order it and I could drive back and pick it up later. Online is easier. Online is convenient. Those who shop online enjoy the fact that the product comes right to their home, no fuss, no muss.

There are 70 million people conducting daily online searches on the internet. These people are searching for products, services and solutions to problems. The question I pose to you, is, if your customer searches for your products or services, can they find you?

Hello and welcome to social media marketing. This is where marketing is at right now. The future is here, today! No longer will the old way of marketing work anymore. Print ads and yellow pages are a thing of the past because most people are getting their information online. And, if that’s where your customer is, you need to be there too. Sure, you have a Web site, but, in today’s online world, a static Web site isn’t enough. You need a blog that is updated frequently with relevant content about your product or service. This blog also serves as a way to get an open dialogue going with your customer. They post comments (good or bad) and you reply in turn. Google spyders love it when people comment on your blog, you get better page rank and come up easier in natural search results. And, that’s the reason to have a blog, the ability to come up in natural search. And, blogs are FREE, by the way. All they take is your time. If you don’t have time, I can help. I provide businesses that dedicated social media marketing resource they need for their business. (Oh, and Twitter and Facebook fit into the puzzle too….. I’ll write a post about that later, so, come back and visit us again).