by tradesmeninsights | Sep 7, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Hopefully everyone has jumped onto the social media bandwagon in some sort or fashion. But lot’s of B-to-B companies are struggling with how they approach this new media.
A recent article in AdAge by Noah Brier sums it up,“In a nutshell, they need to act less like brands and more like people.” You need to teach your brand to speak. Brands are not people, although their companies are made up of them. Most companies are driven by the traditional results orientated model of ultimately doing something that results in a sale.
A recent article in Social Media Explorer by Mark Ivey titled, Why Brands Can’t Connect, brings home issues that companies must address to insure the brand’s success in the social media arena. Here are some highlights:
- Don’t be concerned with the mechanics of doing 10 tweets a week or 3 posts a day to your Facebook account.
- Traditional marketing doesn’t work in the social setting.
- Stop thinking like marketers and start thinking like creative humans.
- Think about “What keeps your audience up at night”
- You need to understand that social means your ability to engage your reader, not preach to him on the features and benefits of doing business with you
- Brands typically have a narrow focus while people tend to look at the bigger picture
Noah Brier sums it up very well:
“So what’s a brand to do? For starters, brands can learn from the best publishers on the web, like Huffington Post or Gawker/Gizmodo. These outlets combine small amounts of stock content with large amounts of flow content. The former is used to attract new audience and the latter to keep them engaged. To achieve this, brands need to start thinking about their inputs, or who they pay attention to, as much as their outputs, how they look, act and talk. They have to think of their channels less as CRM and more as owned media.”
The big question is how are you doing?
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 31, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
If you’re reading this, chances are you are somewhat active with social media. At least you’re testing the waters to see what’s out there. I find it laughable the excuses I hear for not wanting to participate from our customers, i.e. they don’t use it thinking social media is for young people.
If you’re still one of those that aren’t sure, please consider this:
- Social media is here to stay. Facebook, for example, has added 100 million users in 9 months.
- Social media can be measured. Marketing folks have got to love that.
- Social media is relatively inexpensive. The biggest investment will be in time.
So here’s a challenge for those who might still be on the fence:
- Step out of your comfort zone.
- You need to try it – it won’t break!
- If you make a mistake, the audience for the most part is understanding.
- If you need help, there is plenty of it out there.
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 30, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Google optimization is based on the premise that the more people like your site, the more credible it is and therefore it gets a higher ranking.
Right, wrong or indifferent…that’s how the game is played. So what are you doing to make sure other sites are linking back to you?
I recently read a guest post on http://www.convinceandconvert.com/ by Nicole Sorochan that outlined 14 Easy Ways to Build Backlinks. Nicole stresses that if you’re going to go to the trouble of doing backlinks to make sure to make them complete.
The more info you give the engines, the better chances you have of getting their attention. I thought I’d share five ways that hit home with me.
- Google profiles – Create for key employeees. Add a custom link with anchor text (words that make up the link).
- LinkedIn – Build a company profile as well as individual profiles on key people.
- Digg – Great place to put articles you want to promote.
- Stumbleupon – Another popular article discovery site.
- YouTube – Create a custom YouTube channel for your company.
So what are you doing to capitalize on backlinks?
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 25, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Listening to customers is not a new strategy, but today we have more options to connect and listen, especially online. Social media and digital marketing is making it easier to monitor customers to see what they are saying about you and your competitors.
Smart companies are taking advantage of every possible opportunity and making it a part of their online strategy.
A recent article in emarketer.com highlighted results of a recent study by Forrester Consulting measuring the success of listening and engagement initiatives.
The key here is if you listen carefully, it will help you identify issues and ultimately start engaging the customer.
What are you doing to listen to your customer base?
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 24, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
For those of you who read this column regularly, you know LinkedIn is one of my best sources for links to my blog. With 100-million-plus on LinkedIn, how many potential customers are out there waiting to be connected?
In a recent post on emarketer.com there were highlights from a recent study from Lab42 that reinforces the notion that users are highly engaged. Here are some highlights:
- 35% check their site daily
- 32% check it several times a week
- 42% of users update their profiles regularly
- 81% are interacting with the site
Among the top reasons why professionals use the site… for industry networking and promoting their brand.
So if you haven’t taken LinkedIn seriously, I’d suggest you spend 15 minutes searching in the upper right hand of the site groups. Type in key words/phrases and you may be surprised on the number of existing groups that share your same interests. Wouldn’t you want to be connected with them?
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 23, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
I recently read an article by Harrison Kratz that talked about communities and how most people are missing the boat when it comes to capitalizing on them and it made me start to think.
He made the point that we’re all so wrapped up in doing the mechanics of social media that we don’t allow time for the next step, and that’s an actual conversation with another human being either on the phone or in person. Let’s face it, isn’t that why we’re doing this?
I never understood the online dating thing, but if you look at that as an example, I would hope your end goal wouldn’t be just to continue the relationship online. I would hope you would want to talk to the person and eventually meet to further discuss things you have in common.
Social media is no different if you think about it, but how many of us are guilty of keeping people at arm’s length and only communicating with them online. Seems like a waste of time to me. The opportunities are limitless and so are our excuses for not participating. I know in my case, I’ve been invited to several cocktail parties or meet and greets from several of my local LinkedIn groups and really haven’t taken advantage of them, yet I go back and forth with them with emails.
From a business standpoint, we all belong to some sort of national group that probably has a LinkedIn group or maybe you follow a work-related forum. Why not initiate a gathering at the next national meeting or trade show? Don’t wait to be invited, do the inviting and take the leadership role. You may be surprised at the response.
For those folks who want to continue to be wallflowers, we can’t change that, but I would encourage you to at least try one local event. People may not remember who they tweeted with, but most people will remember who they had coffee or a drink with.
Social media is only the first step in the process of developing relationships. Social helps you identify like-minded folks and then it’s your turn to see if you can turn some of them into actual face-to-face relationships.
So what are you waiting for?
