by tradesmeninsights | Aug 26, 2009 | Marketing Trends, Social Marketing
Would it surprise you to learn that the biggest gains in who’s using social media are among older users? According to a report in eMarketer, “consumer internet barometer” U.S. internet users who visited a social site in the 2nd quarter of ’09 rose 16% over last year. Females still lead males in usage and 70% of users were under the age of 35. The most popular sites in order were: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Now that we know who uses it, we can tackle the why.
According to a post in eMarketer, marketers surveyed by Marketing Sherpa in late 2008 found that increasing brand reputation and awareness, along with improved search engines, headed up the reasons why they thought social media was an effective tool. Blog or social media advertising, online news release distribution and blogging led the way as far as tactics they thought to be useful.
Now based on what you just read, what do you think business executives think of social media?
Sean Callahan from BtoB online reported recently on a survey conducted by Russell Herder and Ethos business law that business executives were grappling with social media. The online survey of 438 executives showed:
- 51% fear social media and that it could be detrimental to employee productivity
- 49% said social media could damage the company’s reputation
At the same time they said:
- 81% can enhance relationships with customers
- 69% can aid in recruiting
- 64% it could function as a customer service tool
About 70% say they are going to increase their social media, however only 33% had a social media policy in place.
I don’t know about you, but I think these guys are talking out of both sides of their mouth. The only thing they should do is support a social program. They should stick to what they know and do well and let the marketing departments do their jobs.
What are your thoughts?
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 30, 2009 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing
Before you answer that question, you first have to have something to measure it against. Set expectations and goals, then make a plan, execute it and then monitor it. Why are you even playing with social if you’re not looking to reach new prospects. You first need to identify your audience, make them aware of who you are and then engage them. Use metrics to keep you on track but don’t get obsessed with them.
Use measuring devices first of all to help you monitor what you’re doing and secondly to fend off the bean counters as to what are we getting out of this. Are you reaching the people? Are you engaging them and building a relationship? If you have a blog, how is your audience embracing your message? With social you have numerous tools that will help you monitor your progress from Google Analytics to Twitter Search, Technorati or BoardReader.com. With my blog, I know immediately if I’ve hit a home run with a post. With Twitter, you can monitor what people are saying about you or your competitors. LinkedIn lets you participate in groups that gives you the opportunity to gain visibility and credibility and hopefully start engaging new potentials.
Several folks have got their own processes in place. Bill Seaver has a L.A.C.E. method which stands for – Leads, Awareness, Customer Service and Engagement. Tarla Cumming’s method is called M.O.M. – Monitor, Outreach and Measure. The point is everyone’s circumstances are different. Try something and if it doesn’t work or it needs to be revised, then do it.
I’d like to hear what others are doing to measure their effectiveness and whether you’re doing it as a quality control issue for your content, or if you’re doing a numbers thing for management.
by tradesmeninsights | Jul 21, 2009 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Traditional Marketing
Social media has dominated the news lately, and many marketers are considering moving out of traditional e-mail programs and focusing more on social. My advice to them is that neither one is the answer by itself, especially when it comes to reaching professional tradesmen who are slower to jump on the social bandwagon.
Social elements are just more tools marketing can use to gain attention and begin a dialog. Until social media came along, a good e-mail campaign only had their web site to fall back on for support. Social media complements e-mail efforts. B-to-B marketers who want to stay on top of their game must learn how to make them work together.
Here are 4 tips to get the best out of both worlds:
- Create ONE strategy – Create the objective and then see how each element can help you meet those objectives. By working towards one goal, you’ll be much more effective in the long run.
- Create content simultaneously – You need to make sure messages are coordinated (and are using the same voice) and are working together and not against each other. You don’t want to be duplicating content.
- Utilize sites like Facebook and LinkedIn – These and other sites allow groups to their group members. Make sure when sending messages to these groups to target your message.
- Use e-mail to give them something special whether it’s a sneak preview of a new product, a discount on a current one or some scoop about an upcoming company event or trade show activity. Then make it easy for them to share. Encourage them to share the news with their friends on LinkedIn or Facebook.
Make the most out of your marketing program by making the elements work together.
I’d like to hear what you’re doing to maximize your efforts using social and e-mails.
Here are some other posts that might be of interest to you:
7 Ways to Combine Social Media with E-mail to Reach the Professional Tradesman
Stay Up on New Trends But Don’t Forget Old Friends
by tradesmeninsights | Jun 30, 2009 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
So, you’ve been reading about all this social media stuff…your friends have been talking about Facebook or Twitter, but you haven’t yet taken the plunge. Come on in, the water is fine. The longer you wait, the farther behind you’re going to be. Social media has made it to the mainstream which means businesses (you) need to get on board.
The best way to learn is by doing it yourself. Don’t worry, you can’t break anything. This whole social thing can be overwhelming, so I’d recommend you start off slow, and as you get comfortable, expand your horizons. If you want to get up to speed quicker, I’d recommend hiring a coach. When we decided to get into the social market, we wanted to be up and running in a short period of time, so we hired a coach that helped us identify our niche for a blog, and helped not only set up the basic accounts (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter), but helped us to get our networking going. Your timeline will be dependent on what you want to accomplish. If you are going after the professional tradesman or other industrial-type markets and want to ramp up your activity quickly, we do offer a program to help you do that, and if you want more information, you can click here.
Here’s what we are recommending to our clients who want to get started:
- LinkedIn. Beyond the basic profile info, make sure you link to your web site and eventually your blog (if you decide to do). Start inviting your friends and business associates to join (you might be surprised as to how many are already on). Join groups that are appropriate to your industry and start watching and participating in discussions, surveys, etc. Once you start getting a following, you can start asking for recommendations. Also consider starting your own group. Our agency started our own group, Sonnhalter.
- Facebook. You need to make a choice of either doing a personal or company profile. Once that’s determined, you need to fill out the profile making sure to include your web site and leave room for a link to your blog (again, if you plan on doing one). Facebook also offers pages, which are set up similar to profiles, except people are fans of pages making it a good option for companies, products or brands. You need a profile before you can create a page. On Facebook, you can also add photos (either personal or work-related depending on how you set up your site). Start inviting friends and engage in the conversations.
- Twitter. Sign up and start adding followers. Rule of thumb is if someone follows you, you should reciprocate. The idea is to have more people following you than you are them. Twitter has some useful tools, one of which I’d recommend you start off with is Twilert. This is a tool where you can put in search terms (about your company, its products or your competitor), and they will identify any tweets that have mentioned those terms.
- Google. Through Google, you can set up Google Alerts which again uses search terms and gives you daily updates on the latest web and news pages on the Google web search. They also have a tool called Google Reader which lets you assemble, in one place, all of your reading resources and links from various sources.
(Remember, our target audience is manufacturers who want to sell to the professional tradesmen, but these suggestions apply across the board.)
A link you will find interesting from Nicky Jameson, How to create your own social networking site on a shoe string.
Suggested reading, Monitoring the Social Web, by Larry Weber
Comic courtesy of Automation.com
by tradesmeninsights | Jun 25, 2009 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing, Twitter
Beyond those who have signed up for your blog and those that reach you through organic searches, here are two ways I drive people to my blog.
1. Twitter. One of the applications, Tweetlater, allows you to pre-program when and what you want to tweet. I schedule tweets every hour during the business day and have got tremendous action. Twitter is by far my best source for page views.
2. LinkedIn Groups. One of the great advantages of LinkedIn, in my opinion, is that it’s more of a business site and you can join groups of like-minded folks. For example, I belong to the Industrial Marketing Mavens, E-Marketing Association and Sustainable Construction Groups. Each week I go up and post what I think is a relative subject to that audience under the news section. I get great feedback from them. I also use the group’s discussion option to get feedback on questions or issues.
We even put together a media schedule so we know what’s tweeting when and what posts were put onto LinkedIn. This gives us another way of monitoring what’s bringing in the best results.
These are some ways I try to maximize my posts. I’d like to hear yours.
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