by tradesmeninsights | Aug 17, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
As we all dive into the social media scene, we find that most of us have several different audiences we’re trying to engage with. That’s why it’s important to assign a community manager to each of these important market segments. Community managers are the social media voices for their brands that fulfill multiple roles and therefore you need a strategy to keep things on track.
I recently read a post by Janet Aronica in Social Media Examiner on 5 Tips for Building a Community Management Strategy that I thought was well written. Here are some of the highlights:
- Define metrics – What are the goals of the program? Make sure they are clear cut.
- Listening – Be where your targets are. Identify hashtags, blogs and forums that target your audience.
- Create a content plan – In order to draw people in, you need a plan. Identify an editorial calender, identify potential bloggers for your team and identify key words.
- Leverage email – Build a list, develop a schedule of launch dates and plan your content.
What are you doing to manage your community?
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 16, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
I just read a post by John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing that really hit home. He said,
“Most organizations focus their attention on growing their customer base. The real focus should be on growing your circle of trust.”
I got to thinking that the acquisition costs to start from scatch to identify and then take them through several stages of your selling cycle to get them to try your product are pretty high. He made the point to have you think about the last time you purchased something. Most likely you were influenced by the reviews online or by countless others singing the praises of that product (sort of a testimonial).
He said that basically we fail to understand that the bigger your circle of trust, the bigger your business potential. Here are some of his suggestions to build your circle:
- Tell stories – everyone loves a compelling story.
- Ratings matter – decisions are made on how other people rate your product.
- Blog comments matter – this type of engagement conversations is influential when you read all the threads.
- Social fans are important – whether it’s Google+, Facebook or recommendations on LinkedIn.
Hopefully we’ll all take pause and consider John’s thoughts.
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 11, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
If you’re a manufacturer and don’t have anything on YouTube, you’re missing a great opportunity. What better way to show a customer or prospect how to use your product, highlight features and benefits or even have a customer testimonial. Next to Google (who by the way owns YouTube), YouTube is the highest searched. The numbers are staggering:
- In May of 2011, there were 15 BILLION videos streamed.
- Internet viewing was up 35% and mobile viewing up 20%
- 35 hours of video are uploaded every minute
I recently read a post by Rich Brooks in Social Media Explorer that explored ways to maximize your YouTube presence. Here are some of the highlights:
- Create compelling content – Address the needs of your customers.
- Make it findable – both in and out of YouTube. Your Title, Description and Tags are important.
- Brand your channel – Create a custom background that goes along with your branding . Use “Player View” as your layout and select autoplay feature.
- Post a bulletin and alert your friends and subscribers – Create a link and put it on your home pages.
- Leverage other social media platforms – Blog about it, Tweet it, post it on Facebook and submit it to StumbleUpon.
What are you doing to leverage your YouTube videos?
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 10, 2011 | Social Marketing
Hopefully one of your objectives for social media is to generate new business leads. Obviously one of the ways is to be more active. Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or your blog, you need to be visible and active in order to create followers.
Social Media Explorer shared some interesting stats on new research that bigger may be better. Here are some highlights:
According to Hubspot and Edison Research, the more frequent you post on your blog, the better the chances of getting leads. According to them, a blog has a shelf life of around 72 hours so it makes sense that more is better. It’s like anything else – it’s a numbers game, the more you do, the better chance of catching someone’s attention on a topic that’s relevent to them. While it may not be possible to post each day, the more frequently you do, the better your chances of generating leads. The key is consistency.
The same holds true for Twitter. According to Elijah Young, those of us who have over 1,00o followers saw 6 times as much traffic to their account.
Facebook fan pages result in better results. According to Hubspot, fan pages that have over 1,000 fans have 22 times the amount of traffic.
Additionally, the size of your Facebook fanbase will dramatically impact how many leads you receive. Businesses with 501 to 1,000 fans saw 4 times as many leads as those with 1 to 25 fans, and businesses with over 1,000 fans saw 12 times more leads. For tips on growing your Facebook fanbase, see this popular article by Mari Smith called 21 Creative Ways to Increase Your Facebook Fanbase.
So what are you waiting for. The more you do, the better the results!
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 9, 2011 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
I still am amazed that marketing executives, especially in larger companies (80% 0f companies with 100 plus employees), acknowledge that social media is a legit marketing tool, but yet fail to take the time to develop a strategy for it.
It’s like ready, fire, aim!
A recent post in eMarketer.com, Executives Fail to Focus on Social Media Marketing Strategy, quotes several sources as to the reasons.
Here are several disturbing points:
- No surprise, most of these executives feel tentative about making social strategy a priority.
- They are not overly optimistic about their current strategy.
- It looks like small and medium sized firms have the advantage over larger ones.
It’s funny that that the marketing priorities for social – customer retention, customer acquisition and branding – are not foreign words to marketers, but somehow there is a disconnect when putting an integrated plan together that includes both traditional and social in the same plan.
I don’t get it. If they put together a traditional plan they way they do social, they probably wouldn’t have a job.
by tradesmeninsights | Aug 4, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Traditional Marketing
Beyond the normal marketing things you do, what are you doing to get closer to your customers and LISTEN to what their issues are?
May I suggest a tradesmen council? You all have brand advocates out there, why not get them together a few times a year and get a better sense of what’s happening in their world and what keeps them up at night. You could even pass by new product ideas before putting them into production. If you make the meetings about them and not you, the outcome will be more positive.
You know these guys talk to each other either through social media like forums or at association and trade meetings. Meetings could be planned around major trade shows or meetings, and you’d ask them to come in a day ahead of time for say a half-day meeting.
I’d also suggest that some of the meetings could be held at your location (at your expense) so they get to meet other members of your team. Keep these meetings on track with an agenda that should include issues they want to talk about as well. There also should be action items coming out of each meeting where they can see that you actually did listen and are taking some action. Note that all action items don’t have to have a positive resolution, but the council needs to know that you at least took it under consideration.
Other than the ultimate end user, do you sell through independent reps and or distributors? These should be on your radar screen to get closer to as well. Rep and Distributor councils can also reap great results.
- Reps are in the trenches daily and can give you valuable insights not only on the end user level, but also what’s happening at the distributor level.
- Distributors can give you insights on not only current avenues of business, but might be able to point out new possible areas of growth.
Bottom line is, I’ve seen firsthand what a well planned council can bring to a company. It’s a great long-term strategy that will help you set your brand apart.
