Entries Tagged 'social media marketing' ↓

A new wave of marketing is taking over.

OK, to be honest it’s not that new but it is changing the way you do business.

Cast your mind back to the way it used to be done. Marketing your products and services involved paying vast quantities of cash for newspaper or magazine articles – one little add competing with hundreds of similar ads.

You sent cold mail shots or put inserts in your local paper…which usually ended up in the bin or used as an impromptu coaster.

Finally you unleashed your secret weapon – the cold call. Every day you would sit with your list of phone numbers crossing them off one by one as you doggedly dialled them in the hope that one day someone would say ‘yes’ rather than ‘**!~~~@@#####’.

“But it works!” I hear you cry. Does it really?

Do you love having your evening interrupted by an unsolicited call trying to sell you double glazing? Do you enjoy your working day being interrupted by a persistent stationery salesman who just won’t take no for an answer?

I didn’t think so.

And is the one sale to the person who said yes (just because you happened to phone them at the exact moment they were considering buying an entire set of Encyclopaedias)really worth hacking off the other 299 people?

Forget ROI and think ROR

Social media marketing has opened up a wealth of new opportunities for businesses.

Now you have the opportunity to listen, engage and converse with a massive market place. You can tweet with people and offer advice when they are in need of your help. By helping them and giving them tips you’ll build trust which could land you some serious sales.

So what’s stopping you?

Many businesses are obsessed with ROI – and the one thing that’s very difficult to measure through social media is your ROI. But you can’t think of it that way. What’s far more important to your business is the ROR – return on relationships.

Listening and talking to people is worth its weight in gold. Giving timely advice when people need it will show your company as one that cares, that wants to help, and that’s open and approachable. In other words, your company is one that will be good to do business with.

As a freelance copywriter I use social media a lot. By listening to my followers on Twitter (and others through searches) I can step in and offer advice and guidance when they need it the most.

What have I gained from it?

• New clients
• Great friends
• Help and advice when I’ve needed it most
• More traffic to my website and blog
• Service providers
• A lot of fun

So what are you waiting for?

Get yourself online and join in the conversation. If you need some pointers follow me (@sallyormond) and I’ll be happy to show you the ropes.

Most people today (in business or otherwise) know how powerful social media is.

Millions of people are participating in it in some shape, way or form every day – you can’t ignore it any longer because it’s here to stay.

If you’re in business yourself you are probably already using it to widen your market appeal, find new customers, market your brand and find new suppliers.

But what if you’re not a business owner? What if you can see the obvious potential it could have for the company you work for but the bosses aren’t having any of it.

• It’s too much like hard work
• We don’t have time for that
• Our customers don’t use social media
• We can’t monitor its effectiveness

Do those excuses sound familiar?

Well, if you can see a case for using social media within your company, it’s up to you to make your boss see the light and drag him out of the Jurassic age.

This great post on socialmediaexaminer.com helps you do just that. It looks at 7 tips for selling executives on social media to help you come up with a cunning plan to show your bosses exactly why they need to get social media savvy before they get left behind.

Show them:

• What it means in their terms – i.e. remove all the jargon to make it accessible
• How it will impact on sales
• That it’s measurable
• You’re serious by making a plan

Provide them with that type of information and how can they possibly say no?

What have you go to lose? You know social media is the way forward all you have to do is make them see it too.

Try it out and then come back and tell us how you got on.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter, blogger and social media addict.

If you’re a business owner breaking into the world of Twitter you’ve probably set up your account, uploaded your avatar (using your photo), written your short bio and are now sitting in front of the screen scratching  your head.

How do you go about using it as a business/social media platform?

Unless you want to land yourself the leading role in Spamalot don’t constantly bang on about business all the time.

Admittedly some of your offers will be useful to your followers but if you constantly tell people when you’re doing, how amazing your business is and what you’re selling they are going to get seriously cheesed off. The result will either be a lot of people hitting the unfollow button or a bunch of people that aren’t going to be interested in engaging with you.

So if you can’t use it for business bombardment what can you use it for?

Well, let’s get one thing straight, you can mention your business and tell people what you’re doing but just not all the time. Intersperse business tweets with personal reflections and comments. Twitter is all about building relationships and as such people need to get to know the real you. The only way that’s going to happen is by your personality shining through.

Have you gone pale at the thought of being ‘you’ online?  That’s why I love Twitter so much. As a one-woman-band I think it’s really important that people get to know who I am. So my tweets usually consist of:

• Links to my latest blog posts
• Links to other things I found interesting
• Inane ramblings (there’s a lot of those)
• Copywriting/marketing tips
• Retweeting other people’s tweets
• Pleas for help

That last one highlights one of the major benefits of Twitter (certainly in my eyes). Since I’ve been tweeting I’ve had various IT issues and the such like which I’ve tweeted about only to have several knight’s in shining armour come to my rescue. And when you work alone that type if support is priceless.

Of course it has also proven very beneficial to me in finding new clients too. You can read all about that in Mark Shaw’s fantastic Twitter Your Business book (click on  the image to go and take a look at it). At just £10 it’s a great investment to make sure you get the most out of Twitter – and before you ask, no, I’m not on commission!

If you need some help getting going follow me @sallyormond and I’ll follow back and give any help I can.

Twitter is full of great people so take the plunge and come and join us – you might enjoy it.

Can Twitter really help with your SEO?

That’s the question answered by Wasim Ismail on searchenginejournal.com.

The web is becoming more and more social. Social media is becoming a major part of business marketing strategies and is not just the latest ‘thing’ for teenagers. The search engines recognise their importance and are constantly finding ways to integrate social and search results.

Why?

Because social media is the voice of internet users and can no longer be ignored.

Of all the social media platforms out there, Twitter is probably the most popular micro blogging platform (that is until the next big thing comes along).

Due to its vast size, Twitter really does have the potential to help your SEO activities as your tweets can help build your online brand and reputation.

In his post, 10 Tips to Improve Your SEO Using Twitter, Wasim shows how you can utilise your Twitter account and tweets to enhance your SEO activities on line. This is a must for any Twitters out there looking to make the most of their social media activities.

So grab a coffee and have a read – it could be the most productive 10 minutes of your day.

You may have been trying to ignore social media but whether you think it’s for you or not, it’s here to stay.

Leveraging the social power of the internet is vital for any business today regardless of industry. Understanding how to use it correctly is the key to success so you must come up with a strategy before you dive in.

The most important aspect of any social interation is listening. Without listening you won’t know what your customers are talking about, what’s important to them, or where they’re hanging out. After all, what’s the point in using visual channels such as YouTube and investing a shed load of cash in video marketing if your audience use Twitter and Facebook?

Listen – Content – Socialise – Measure

Those four words are the key stages of any successful social media strategy as identified by Lee Oden in his post 4 Steps to Social Media Success on toprankblog.com.

If you want to develop a great strategy that works it’s well worth a read. Lee helps you understand the importance of listening to identify where your market hangs out, the importance and types of content you can generate, how to socialise effectively and, most importantly, how to measure your effectiveness.

This basic structure will help you develop a strategy that will promote your brand, develop relationships with customers and potential business partners and generate content that will also help make you stand out in the search engine rankings.

Social media is here to stay. It will constantly evolve so now’s the time to get on board.