by tradesmeninsights | May 8, 2012 | Marketing Tools, Social Marketing
Do you know where your customers and prospects are spending their time online? Wouldn’t that be an important part of an overall social media strategy to find and engage them?
If trends continue, social networks will soon surpass internet portals like AOL and Yahoo!
I recently read an article by Phil Mershon in Social Media Examiner that highlighted five ways to use market research intelligence on how consumers behave on social media networks. Although the article is focused more on the consumer side of things, he brings out some points that us in the B-to-B world should take notice of.
Here are some highlights:
- Know where your customers spend their time – Over 21% of internet users spent their time on social networking sites. Do you know where your customers and prospects are spending their time? One way is to ask your current customer base where they find meaningful content.
- Develop content that is relevant to your reader – Content is king and if you want to stand out in the crowd, you need to become a good source for not only product info, but for industry issues. Remember, content isn’t about you but how you can help your customer or prospect.
- Take video seriously – Next to Google, YouTube is the most searched site. Video views have increased 43% and currently over 100 million videos are viewed daily. What are you doing to tell your story and points of differentiation?
- Consider the role of Mobile – 8% of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices. Make sure your website is mobile friendly and that content is easy to consume and respond to.
Using key words and investigating sources on the internet, you can find places where your customers and prospects are spending time. Get there and start engaging them.
If you like this post you may like:
Why a Mobile Strategy is so Important in Reaching the Professional Tradesmen
2012 Trends of Smartphones and Tablets
by tradesmeninsights | May 2, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
So what do you do when someone engages you on a social media platform? Hopefully you respond and give them the info they requested, answered their question or directed them somewhere to get an answer. But then what’s the next step? Hopefully you don’t turn them over to your sales force without first determining where they are in your sales funnel.
Does everyone within your organization understand your different stages in the selling cycle? Most sales funnels were set up for developing traditional leads. A question you must ask yourself is whether social media leads fit into your existing process and if so where? As a rule, social media leads take longer to convert because they are engaging you earlier in the process.
Nurturing social leads needs to be handled differently.This will include decision-making content designed to answer questions, overcome objections and provide opportunities that arise during the purchasing process.
I recently read a good post by Nichole Kelly in Social Media Examiner, 5 Tips for Moving Social Media Leads Into the Sales Funnel that I thought might be of interest to you. She makes useful points from understanding the sales funnel to optimizing the path to conversion and explains why social media leads need to be nurtured differently.
What do you think? Have you successfully converted social media fans and followers into revenue? Are you still trying to figure out how to do this?
by tradesmeninsights | Jan 24, 2012 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
Everybody does some sort of events in their businesses. Open houses, counter days, new product launches to name a few. Have you ever considered using social media to help create buzz?
I recently read a post by Ekaterina Walter in Social Media Examiner called 15 Ways to Bring Social Media to Events that I thought was really good. Even though some of her points were more for a retail/consumer approach, here are four of her tips that I thought would be applicable to this audience.
- Create pre-event buzz – Start early with registration. Encourage attendees to share details. If you’re having speakers, make sure to include their Bios and Twitter handles.
- Keep attendees informed – Use QR codes to access presentations if it’s being done outside. Collect your speaker’s blogs all in one place and create a dashboard of their latest posts.
- Help them share information – Use Twitter back channels so you can get questions and feedback. Share images and presentations. Open your event to virtual attendees.
- Post event – Publish your Twitter wall and give all access to your talks with links to videos.
I’m sure there are other ways to use social media for events, and I’d like to hear ways you’ve used it.
by tradesmeninsights | Dec 14, 2011 | Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Traditional Marketing
Here are some facts we can’t ignore: According to Hubspot, mobile devices will be the number-one way we access the Internet by 2013. Comscore just released a white paper that shows in the U.S. right now almost 7% of Internet traffic is coming from non-computer devices with mobile phones leading the way.
So it begs the question – is your website optimized for mobile users? I recently read an article by Jamie Turner in Social Media Examiner, 9 Tips for Optimizing Your Website for the Mobile Users that I thought was very helpful. Here are some highlights:
- KISS – keep it SIMPLE.
- Plan your site layout – keep pages to a minimum and the layout simple.
- Match branding elements – make sure mobile site looks like your regular site (look and feel).
- Avoid Flash and Java – Apple products don’t Flash and many phones don’t support Java.
- Reduce the amount of text entry – use dropdowns, checklists or prepopulated fields when possible.
- Use mobile redirects – make sure your site has the correct software so it can identify a mobile user and send them to that version of the site.
Have you made sure your website is mobile friendly?
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 19, 2011 | Marketing Tools, Social Marketing
To listen to all the “experts” Google+ is the next best thing to come down the pike and will eventually replace Facebook in the B-to-B space. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but since they opened it up to the public a few weeks ago, there are over 50 million users and it’s growing everyday.
I have to believe that if Google is involved then it has a pretty good chance of succeeding. I’ve been on it and have started building my circles, but have yet to fully understand all the ways we can use it.
I recently read an excellent post by Debbie Hemley in Social Media Examiner, 20 Ways to Improve Your Google+ Knowledge that I thought was very helpful. She gives tips on how to get through the basics and highlights ways that you can use it in everyday B-to-B applications from setting up your circle to creating your profile, setting up notifications, plus much more. Here are some highlights that I found interesting:
- Engage and learn – go to Google+ tips on Twitter and see what others are saying and dive in.
- Watch and learn – look at Google+ help and watch videos from people who created it.
- Set up Google Sparks account– that way you can get the latest developments on what’s new.
- Create a cheat sheet – to help you format and utilize hotkeys until you become more familiar.
- Show off your Google profile – by putting it on your blog or website.
- Go mobile – make sure you get the mobile app so you can use it from your phone.
So I’d like to know if you’re on Google+ and if so, what are your thoughts?
