by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 28, 2009 | Marketing Tools
Twitter is the micro-blogging platform that will help B-to-B marketers grow their brand. It’s not a fad (upwards of 10,000 people a day are signing up).
Twitter helps you:
- Build brand awareness
- Generate traffic via followers
- Gain insight via polls/surveys
- Get to people you wouldn’t necessarily get to because of re-tweets
Twitter support applications that I find useful for B-to-B applications are:
TweetLater. Schedule tweets like you would an e-mail campaign so that you’ll have several going out each day automatically.
TweeterSearch gives you the ability to receive e-mail digests of key word activity so you can track and participate in conversations. You can now know who’s saying what about your company or brand.
Ping.fm. If you have a Facebook or LinkedIn account, you can post updates across all your social media sites.
Twitter on Facebook. You can forward your Twitter updates directly to your status updates on Facebook.
TwitterFox. If you use the web browser Firefox, you can view your tweets in you browser as in a pop-up menu so you don’t have to be going to Twitter to check .
Tweetdeck. A personal browser that connects you with your contacts across Twitter and Facebook and allows you to follow your friends.
Twitter is so much more than a micro-blog limited to 140 characters, and when used properly, can help your overall marketing program.
Have you used other tools to help you get the most out of Twitter? Share them in the comment section below.
by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 27, 2009 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
A lot of people don’t know or understand enough about the dynamics of SEO. They either choose to ignore it or become targets of SEO companies that start guaranteeing results. Remember the old saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” “There is no free lunch.” You get the idea.
These companies use techniques called “black hat” which in the short term could raise your traffic, but in the long term it could get you banned from search engines and then who would really lose? It’s important to remember that no SEO company controls rankings on competitive search key words.
I read a post recently by Janet Meiners, Five tips for avoiding deceptive SEO companies, in which she outlines both questionable and downright deceptive tactics. Here’s a summary of what she wrote:
- Putting too many key words on your site. It’s called key word stuffing and they repeat words/phrases. This is an ineffective practice that does nothing more than confuse everybody including the spider.
- Overuse of bolded text or too many links. It looks terrible and doesn’t build trust with people.
- Hidden Links. These are hidden in code or in the footer and may not even be related to your site.
- Complicated link schemes. Google can detect unnatural link patterns. Some people build programs that link automatically that are full of spam content.
- Multiple domains with virtually the same content but different key words. Content is deliberately duplicated across domain names in an attempt to manipulate search engine results.
There are no short cuts. The best rule of thumb is to make your site a good experience for your visitors. This means good original content or other elements that want to make people want to link to you. And as in looking at any service provider, do your home work, get references and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 21, 2009 | Marketing Tips
A professional tradesman worth his salt, whether he’s an electrician, plumber, HVAC technician or a MRO specialist, doesn’t have a million answers on how to solve problems.
Why not ask the right questions and get engaged in a conversation?
After all, isn’t that what social media is all about — ENGAGEMENT!
One of the biggest benefits of social media is the ability to put something out there (the universe) and let those to whom it applies to identify themselves as users. Where could you corral that much experience in one place and then get input from them (it’s like shooting fish in a barrel).
This beats traditional focus groups hands down. You get a quick, more honest feedback from a broader section of your target audience.
Here are 5 reasons to ask Tradesmen questions:
- New application– You may have a new tool or application that you want to get feed back on.
- New product- what better place to do some real beta testing to see if you’re hitting all the right points with the user.
- Quick tips– ask for theirs and you will be inundated with ideas.
- Identify new uses for products– it would sometime amaze you how these guys are using your product(not according to instruction manual).
- Market research. use polls and surveys to collect valuable marketing info on the product,its applications and the competitors!
When was the last time you talked to a tradesman who didn’t want to tell you about something? Why not ask?
by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 20, 2009 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
So you think social media is just a phase, well think again. Here are some numbers from a post by Stan Schroeder, The Web in Numbers: The Rise of Social Media, that will blow you away.
According to Nielsen Online, latest research shows that social networking is now more popular than e-mail. 66.8% of Internet users use social media while only 65.1% have used e-mails.
- YouTube. In March, it reached 100 million monthly views in the U.S.A.^.3 billion videos were viewed on the site. YouTube will serve 75 billion videos to 375 million unique visitors in 2009.
- Facebook. Has grown from 100 million to 200 million users in less than 8 months. If it were a country, it would be bigger than Brazil
- MySpace. Is now lagging Facebook with only 54.1 million unique visitors.
- Twitter. Is growing at a crazy rate. It grew 76.8% in one month (Feb-March 09). Its yearly growth rate is 1,382%. Twitter has 7 million unique visitors a month.
by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 20, 2009 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
E-mails have been around and we’ve used it to asked tradesmen to forward on valuable information to their peers about our products or programs. It’s not easy and isn’t reliable because you’re asking the customer to do a lot of work on your behalf. E-mail is also a one-way street in that you don’t make it easy to respond back to the original source.
Joint research by Ball State University,Exact Target and e-mail networking association reveals that more than 46% of e-mail marketing campaigns this year will use social media and e-mail in tandem compared to just 13% in 2008.
E-mail combined with social media offerings like Linked-in, Facebook and Twitter allow you to get your message out quicker to more people and give them an easy way to reply. In other words you’re engaging them and that’s why social media is so important. By clicking a link, you are sharing content with influencers that you might not have had reached.
I read a post recently from Karen Bannan, Combining e-mail with social media,where she shared thoughts from Ryan Duetsch from StrongMail Systems on ways to get the most out of your efforts.
- Use ESPs. Most major ESPs (like StrongMail and Sliverpop) and e-mail providers are making it easy to send e-mails directly to your Facebook page for example.
- Create your own social network. Create your own community. If you’re targeting professional plumbers for example, the discussions that go on provide great resources for e-newsletters. You know what the hot topics are and can address them as an expert.
- Add opt-in links to all your marketing collateral. For example, if you post a new video on Facebook, make sure it contains a link at the end so viewers can opt-in. Once it’s shared, you’ll be reaching thousands of prospects making sure you give them a way to ask for more information.
- Use your status to publicize your e-mail newsletter. Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter give users the option to publish information. Take advantage of this and even send out a reminder before you actually send out the e-mail that it’s coming.
- Change your layout. If you’re sending people from a social media site to your web site, make sure your opt-in links are very visible.
- Use search functions. Follow your company and brand names on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter to gain market knowledge. Twitter search lets you follow everything that’s mentioned about your company.
- Be a Joiner. You need to get involved. You want to become a trusted source, and in order to do that, you need to join Linkedin groups, respond to questions and get involved in discussions.
by tradespeopleinsights | Apr 20, 2009 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
It used to be that marketers counted on “word of mouth” to help spread their message to the tradesmen and maintenance professionals. Today, social media takes this to the next level and does it quicker and better.
Since you already know who you’re focusing on by using viral marketing, you can make it easier for your message to be passed on. Viral marketing has gained popularity because it produces results that are measurable while increasing your brand awareness. A recent post by Chase McMichael, The 3 pillars of viral marketing, outlines ways you can put viral marketing on steroids. Here’s an overview of how using these techniques can help you reach the professional tradesman:
- Target your audience. Social media makes it easier and faster to reach your target. More people are posting their personal profiles on social networks allowing you to data mine them and identify and rank affinities within specific communities like HVAC -TALK.
- Reach your audience. Once you’ve identified your user, you can quickly pinpoint influencers and begin enticing them to become brand ambassadors.
- Create the right call to action. If you’re doing your homework by monitoring these communities, you will soon identify the issues that need to be addressed and the appropriate call to action. It might be good to join a great online community that you have or sign up for the latest performance charts of a specific tool or application,
Conclusion: Messages that connect with you target can drive a high degree of brand awareness and acceptance. Practical and simple to access technologies help drive engagement and participation.
