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 3, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
B-to-B and manufacturing companies alike face the same challenges when it comes to developing and implementing social media programs. They’re too busy taking care of business to make adequate plans, let alone implement them.
Social media is a cost-effective addition to your marketing program and you should try to utilize it as much as possible. I recently read a post from Heidi Cohen, Social Media Strategies for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, that brought up some good points that can be applied to the manufacturing sector. Here are some highlights and thoughts:
- Give your prospects information that’s useful – how to info, troubleshooting tips, something simple that even could be tweeted.
- Solve a potential problem – people are always looking for help, and as a manufacturer, you want to build your thought leadership.
- Go where your customers are – no matter what kind of business you’re in, there are niche communities either through trade associations or industry forums that you can participate in.
- Create your own online community – start small with a group on LinkedIn ,Yahoo or Google.
- Educate and train – capitalize on your videos and other training aids already in place for your source of info.
Those are some of my suggestions. What are you doing to develop cost-effective strategies?
