Category Archives: Social Media

Lead Generation Using Social Media

Posted on April 12, 2012 by
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Marketing Integration

Everyone wants more business and more and more people are looking to social media to help them generate leads.  But the question is how do we use social to get leads.  We first must look at what social media is good at, conversations.

Getting involved in conversations is a great way to begin building your social media presence.  It isn’t that far from real life.  If you’re the person at the party that sits in the corner and waits for people to come talk to you, you might have 1 conversation all night.  However, if you are active, approaching others, LISTENING to what they have to say and responding intelligently and authentically, you are talking all night.  You are engaging.  You are memorable.

The same is true in social media.  Listen to what is being said and participate, authentically.  This is not the time to “sell”.  This is simply a conversation.

Know Your Audience

Understand how the people you’re conversing with work.  What are their likes and dislikes.  Where do they spend their time online. What sites do they use.  While your audience may not be on facebook a lot, they might be on linkedIn.  They might comment on popular blogs, forums, etc.

Develop Your Social Media Strategy

Dale recently wrote a blog about why you need a strategy for digital marketing.  You must have a plan and then execute that plan.  We don’t want to roaming around the digital landscape and not know where we are going.  Spending all our time on one platform when another is the fertile ground.

Consistency Is Key

Some say absence makes the heart grow fonder but in business it makes the mind wonder.  Wonder what happened.  Ever find your self thinking I wonder what happened to them….  When people stop hearing from you, they assume the worse.  They don’t assume you are so busy you can’t talk.  They assume you are so dead you don’t want to talk.  Make sure you are talking, consistently.  This is hard, I know.  We struggle with it too, but it is something we are constantly working on.

Be Authentic

In the day and age of 24/7 information, anything is a simple google search away.  You must be true to who you are and don’t try to fake the details.  Just be you.

In the end, social media is a relationship building tool.  You aren’t going to gain a new customer from social right when they like you.  You are just getting started.  You then use that platform to let them know what you are about, what you stand for, and how you think.  You grow that relationship over time.  More importantly you learn about them. Who are they, what do they like, etc.

So, I encourage you to start the conversation below.  Let’s get the party started!

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Categories: Online Advertising, Online Marketing Strategy, Social Media, Social Media Strategy

Relieve The Stress of Social Media

Posted on April 11, 2012 by
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Even though most people consider social media to be 3 sites, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (and now maybe four with Pintrest), last time I checked there were over 600 sites that considered themselves to be a social media platform.  How overwhelming can that be, that there are hundreds of sites to work with?   First step take a deep breath.  Second step,  look at who your customer is, what information they need from you, and where your customer is spending their time in social media.  For a small business to business company there are great opportunities on LinkedIn, Digg, and Faceook.  For a business that is selling a product to consumers, Facebook, Twitter and Pintrest maybe the best social media platforms for you.  Once you have figured out what platforms you want to be active on, plan out how many post per site, and when would be the ideal time to post them.  Put this information in a calendar or spreadsheet, so you know exactly  when and where you will be posting.  Not only will this schedule help you plan, it will save you time and stress.      I know that when I have a schedule of what needs to get done and when it needs to get done, it makes the tasks less imposing and also decreases my chance of procrastination.  In three steps you just put together the beginning of your social media strategy.

There are many benefits to having a social media strategy, but the one that I like the most is I do not have to worry when or where I am going to post, I just check it off my list, and move on to the next task.  Since I am not trying to figure out what to post, I have much more time to listen to what other people are saying and join in to meaningful conversations with my network.  Another great benefit of having a strategy in place is it makes social media much easier to track how it is doing.  By knowing how often you posted, and where you can see what are the best times to have a conversation with your customer and what they are talking about.  So the last step is review your strategy and make tweaks to it for the next month.  What tactics do you use to relieve the stress of social media?

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Categories: Social Media, Social Media Strategy | Tags: , , ,

We’ve Made More New Friends

Posted on October 13, 2011 by
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I wanted to take a second to say “Thank You” to everyone that has responded so nicely to the talk that I gave that the American Advertising Federation District conference in the Detroit area last weekend.  What a great group of people!  I have since had a number of conversations of people that attended our presentation and we’ve had great conversations about how Social Media Marketing can not just help their companies but how they can use Social Media Marketing to help their clients.  We’ve received a couple of requests for the presentation, so here is where you can download a copy
of that social media marketing presentation

 

Thanks again, for the opportunity and for the great camaraderie.

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Categories: Marketing, Social Media

Email & Social Marketing Together

Posted on October 11, 2011 by
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Social media may be the new flashy kid on the block but email marketing is the work horse. In a recent survey of marketers 77% said that email marketing is their primary vehicle for online marketing. The reason that these marketers are still focusing so much energy email…it just works!

The problem with email marketing, however is that most marketers have failed to integrate their email marketing into their other campaign channels. Email grew up in a silo mainly because in the beginning email was so vastly different than direct mail marketers planned and executed email campaigns independently from every other marketing effort. They just couldn’t figure out how to blend the channels. Now the same thing is starting to happen with the social media channel.

Social can provide a tremendous amount of support for your email marketing efforts and email can support your social marketing efforts. Think about what happens if you were to use social media marketing to announce an upcoming email campaign that offers a special promotion, information on an upcoming event, or even promotes a new service. Then imagine that the social campaign that you run promoting this upcoming email has a link to the email signup form on your website. All of a sudden your email will see increases in open rates and you’ll probably see even greater increases in new email subscribers.

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Categories: eMail Marketing, Social Media

SEO, SEM, PPC, SMM…WTF!? IDK.

Posted on May 18, 2011 by
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As hilarious as this video is, there is a layer of truth to it too.

As marketers, we often fall into the buzzword trap. It’s difficult to explain what we do to an “outsider” but that doesn’t mean we can revert to speaking only in canned, over-used phrases and acronyms. Sure, it might work when we’re fraternizing at tech conferences, but we need to learn when to turn off the industry-speak.

I’m going to be honest: my first couple weeks working in this industry felt a little like watching that video. Except that what I was hearing actually made sense, I just hadn’t learned to speak the language yet. When I first started, I had crossed over from the design world and had no clue what any of these acronyms meant.

I picked up the industry language quickly but clients usually don’t. And we shouldn’t expect them to.  We are hired by clients because we are the experts. Our clients are experts in their respective fields and shouldn’t be expected to speak our language. As agencies, it is our job to articulate the who, what, when, where, why and how of a project in plain English (or French, Spanish, Klingon, etc).

Clients feel stupid having to ask for explanations of all our industry buzzwords and acronyms. So they’re not going to ask. They’ll just find another agency that has learned how to not speak marketing.

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Categories: Marketing, Search Marketing, Social Media, Web Strategy

The Death of a Terrorist and the Life of Technology

Posted on May 2, 2011 by
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Bin Laden's Compound on Google Maps

The death of Osama Bin Laden might be a chance for us to chant USA! USA! USA! but it also gives us the opportunity to compare technological advances and their impacts on our lives between the initial 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the death of Bin Laden in 2011.

2001:
On September 11, 2001 I was twelve years old and heard about the attacks while in my middle school social studies class. Our teacher was alerted of the news via phone and we watched the events unfold on a TV she wheeled in from the library on a giant cart. I sat in front of the TV with my family all afternoon watching the news and listening to President Bush address the nation that evening.

10 years later in 2011:
Last night, I first heard the news of Bin Laden’s capture and death on Twitter. I was conversing with thousands of people online about the news before the President addressed the nation. When he did, I watched it streaming online from the White House.
Even when President Obama was addressing the nation, I had Twitter open and was surveying the commentary while listening to his speech. I believe this highlights the biggest difference between then and now: technology has eliminated undivided attention.

In 2001, we were a nation huddled around our TVs drinking in every word we heard on the evening news.

In 2011, we are a world turning to our peers on social networks and engaging in discussions before the news hits the newsroom.

It’s no longer a news anchor talking to the masses. It’s the masses talking to each other while a news anchor shouts to get our attention.

Last night and even still this morning, Twitter was full of jokes about Bin Laden being captured because his iPhone was tracking his location or because he checked in on Foursquare.

Now you can even check out Bin Laden’s compound on Google Maps (and I recommend reading the reviews for a few patriotic laughs).

How did you hear the news in 2001 compared to 2011?

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Categories: Social Media, Uncategorized