Entries Tagged 'social media marketing' ↓

Does that sound familiar?

Come on, be honest, I bet at some point you’ve muttered those 4 words.

You’re not alone; it is the most frequently proffered excuse for someone not to do social media (closely followed by “I don’t understand all that stuff”).

Blogging, Facebook and Twitter (amongst others) can and will do wonders for your online marketing. They are the tools to use to build your credibility, offer advice, become an expert in your field and get to know other business owners and your customers.

Most people understand they need to do it but, at the same time, they say they don’t have the time.

Marketing time

If you have avoided social media marketing let me ask you a few questions:

• Do you go out networking?
• Do you spend time writing and submitting small adverts?
• Do you do call/warm calling?
• Do you send out mailings to attract business?

I’m sure you do at least one of those activities regularly. So if you can build those into your working day, why can’t you slot in some social media time?

At the end of the day social media is just another tool in your marketing armoury. But it is a tool that can carry your voice a lot further than an advert or phone call. Blogging, Facebook and Twitter help you reach your audience directly. You can start conversations with them and interact with them.

One thing a week

Get yourself started by doing one task per week.

It could be writing and scheduling a few blog posts, write an article, submit your website to an online directory, post to Facebook or getting to grips with Twitter.

By breaking down your marketing into manageable chunks, you’ll find it easier to cope.

Before you know it, you won’t have to pay a small fortune for a tiny little ad that’s surrounded by your competitors in a magazine with only a small circulation. You won’t have to make those cold calls anymore and you can say good bye to those tedious and unfruitful mailings.

You will only get something out of social media if you’re prepared to put something in – your time. We’re not talking hours – just a few minutes a day will make a difference.

Come on, make your time work harder for you and get cracking on your social media marketing strategy.

If you’re already ‘working it’ leave a comment and share your experiences with us. Tell us what worked for you and what didn’t. Have you had any successes? If so tell us.

Plus, stop by and say hi on Twitter and Facebook.

This is a question that most of the bosses in the world want to know.

Resistant to taking on this new marketing form, their usual argument is:

“Sure, we’ll use social media if you can quantify its ROI to me.”

Hmm…there lies a problem – how can you work out the ROI of something that doesn’t seem to have one?

Does Social Media have an ROI?

Recently, Finextra’s international series of social media events was kicked off at Thomson Reuters’ London headquarters. A gathering of participants from the financial services industry chewed over the opportunities and pitfalls presented by the likes of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

A flurry of tweets ensued including one that caught my eye saying “There is ROI in social media, finding it is the Holy Grail!”

In my humble opinion, social media is more about the ROR (return on relationships) than ROI. How can you put a value on the relationships you build with your followers? This revelation  then prompted another flurry of tweets between myself Sean Clark, Huw Sayer and Gary Dickenson and prompted Sean’s blog post What’s the ROI on Conversions?.

Sure, you can monitor the work your social media activities generate but that’s not what Twitter is about for me. It’s an incredible tool for communication. By listening to what people are saying you can be there to instantly offer advice when someone needs it. If you monitor it you will get to know when something goes right or wrong with your service so it’s an excellent customer service tool. Not only that but it also helps as part of your SEO strategy.

In short, your ‘ROI or ROR’ will depend on what you’re trying to get out of it. And that’s going to be different for everyone.

What about numbers?

That’s all well and good but there are still a number of CEOs out there that are going to want numbers. So you have to determine precisely what it is you want to get out of your social media strategy.

It could be:

• To drive sales
• To drive enquiries
• Boost brand awareness

Once you know what you’re trying to achieve you can then attempt to quantify your effectiveness.

Maths was never my strong point so I was interested to find a post on Social Media Examiner that addresses this issue.

So if you’re adamant you have to have numbers to quantify your social media activities take a few minutes out and read A Simple Way to Calculate Social Media Return on Investment.

Do you have other ways of measuring your social media effectiveness?

Do you think having a numerical measure is important or do you prefer to see it as a way of building and nurturing relationships?

This is a debate that’s going to rumble on for a while yet so please take a few minutes to share your views by leaving a comment below.

Sally Ormond – Copywriter, Blogger, Social Media Fan

Social media is great for marketing your business and raising your profile – every one knows that.

But it’s also a great relationship builder and customer service tool.

Monitoring your name and brand on the various social media grape vines helps you identify what people are saying about you, alerts you to any potential problems (such as customer service issues) and also tells you when you’re receiving a big thimbs up from your customers.

The problem is hearing all of that through the background noise.

You can use Google Alerts (although they are limited in their effectiveness) or use various paid tools that are available.

But wouldn’t it be great if you could build your own tailormade social media listening device for free?

Well you can.

Tony Ahn has written this incredibly useful post and how-to guide on Social Media Examiner which takes you though the steps required to create your very own social media listening device.

Now you too can monitor social media to find out what people are saying about you.

Take a look now and learn How to Build a Free Social Media Monitoring Dashboard

Thanks Tony!

David Murton has been helping companies build and maintain their online relationships with customers since 2006. On a more personal note, David is an avid piano and accordion player, drawn especially to music of the classical and romantic periods.

The author’s views are entirely his own and may not reflect the views of FreelanceCopywritersBlog.com. If you are interested in producing a Guest Post for this blog, please get in touch with your ideas.

Serious SEO services and bloggers realize the importance of using both SEO tools and social media to increase their online visibility. Embracing both methods to enhance recognition is more effective than using either approach alone.

An event involving Rebecca Black of SEOmoz is a good example of what social media can accomplish. She was unhappy with Verizon Wireless and spoke with a customer service rep to correct the issue, but to no avail. She tweeted her dissatisfaction and promptly received a tweet in return, by a different rep that solved the issue. Social media made that happen because of the connections it creates.

Benefits of SEO

• Link building
• Keyword research
• AdWords
• Analytics

In short, SEO is strategy. Any kind of website can be well-known in certain communities, but without an effective link building campaign spurring traffic, competitive sites who build links see more visibility. Keyword research is an effective aspect of increasing rank, especially thorough long-tail keyword research, contributing to conversion rates. AdWords is paid advertising links. Google Analytics is a robust set of marketing tools that monitors activity and measures everything.

Benefits of Social Campaigns

• Digg
• Reddit
• Stumbleupon
• Blogging networks
• Similar communities

Websites and blogs at the top of the SERPs don’t get there by SEO alone. They have strong communal ties, discussion boards and other interactive aspects. Social news websites like Digg, Reddit and Stumbleupon allow the dissemination and sharing of links to content, as well as commenting and voting.

The Left Brain / Right Brain Approach

Lefty:

SEO is the left brain, logically categorizing data. The left brain analyzes website dimensions and metrics, collating all that data to form a strategy that will appease search engine spiders and visitors. “How do I optimize R = S / V?” “I have to increase PS = (N – W) / S!” That is SEO, tactically building an online presence geared a little more toward feeding code to search engines than reaching out to people.

Righty:

Social media is the right brain, seeing the bigger picture. Holistic synthesis is a tool of the right brain, imagining several components working in harmony. Social media is about making new connections, building an online presence that leans more toward sharing with responsive people than churning out code for unfeeling search engines.

Websites can be effective, entertaining or informative with a low rank, and without an SEO strategy in place. Conversely, websites can rank fairly well due to good SEO, yet be ineffective, unfunny or uninformative. Both types of websites do not fare well in the long run. Competitors to such sites lead the way because they implement SEO while leveraging the power of social media to their benefit.

Everyone Benefits

Not long ago, social media and SEO were separate entities, serving different purposes. Once businesses from large corporations to indie labels learned how to generate buzz, social media/cyber-public relations became an effective partner to SEO implementations, essentially fusing with SEO. The goal of social campaigns is brand recognition.

Whether your brand is a product, service, or just you – many times it’s all three – remember that people drive your business. Opening 20 different accounts on social sites and leaving them to gather dust does no good. The social sites themselves add no value to your brand, nor do they generate traffic or revenue. Recognition, traffic and revenue come from people, the new acquaintances made during a social campaign. Like building links, a social campaign is promotion that’s done offsite. Also like link building, a strong social campaign is an ongoing process rather than a quick remedy.

1. Use SEO to tweak code, enhance conversion rates and increase search visibility.

2. Add social campaigns to drive more traffic to your well-oiled machine.

3. Reap the rewards.

As a self-confessed Twitterholic, I’m always on the lookout for great advice on how to get the most out of the social media revolution that is Twitter.

One of the questions I get asked a lot by people who are just starting out on their Twitter journey is how do you find people to follow?

Once they set up their account, follow friends, family and colleagues they suddenly hit a brick wall. Where do they go now? Who should they follow?

I began using Twitter in 2008 and I’ll admit to not understanding it all to begin with. It took quite a while before the penny dropped and I worked out how to use it, how to find people and that it was OK not to follow everyone back who followed me.

I used various search tools to find fellow tweeters in my industry (copywriting), those involved with marketing and social media and those who just seemed interesting.

But what I would have found really useful was a list of tools that could be used which would have sped up this process.

Luckily for you I came across Leon Widrich’s post on SocialMediaExaminer.com which shows various tools you can use to find interesting people on Twitter who you’ll want to follow.

His post shows you some of the tools to use and how to engage with your followers to make the most of your Twitter experience. Whether you’re new to Twitter or have been tweeting a while it’s well worth taking a few minutes out of your day to have a read and discover how you too can build your Twitter following.

Thanks for the tips Leon.