Entries Tagged 'social media marketing' ↓

Do you need a parachute when you jump out of a plane?

Every business, if they engage in social media, needs a policy in place.

The social media channels you use are a direct line to your consumers (and competitors). Everything happens in real time – as soon as you hit send your message or tweet goes out to potentially thousands of people.

Get your message wrong and you could find yourself in serious hot water.

The implementation of a social media policy will help protect your company by:

• Ensuring you can avoid PR nightmares
• Making sure all your employees know what you expect of them
• Keeping you out of legal hot water
• Protecting confidential or sensitive information about your company

You must decide what your company’s line will be in the case of defamatory comments being made about it.

How will you react to positive comments?

Who will be monitoring your social media activity and who will be engaging with your followers?

Social media is an excellent tool for businesses to use but, especially for larger companies, it can be a potential mine field so you must ensure you have a social media policy in place before you begin to dabble.

Before you go any further check out this useful post on Mashable – 10 Must Haves For You Social Media Policy.

Engage and enjoy social media, but make sure everyone knows what they’re doing.

A beginner’s guide to social media interaction

Social media – does it strike fear into your heart?

Do you suddenly experience hot flushes when someone asks if you’re on Twitter or Facebook?

Do you have the blankest of all blank moments when it comes to starting your blog?

You’re not alone. Those that ‘get’ social media make it look effortless and will wow you with their success stories. Those that don’t ‘get’ social media will tell you it’s a complete waste of time.

One of the biggest hurdles a social media newbie will experience is working out what they’re going to say, when they’re going to say it, and how to interact with other people.

I have put together a few tips to help you on your way and to demystify some aspects of social media.

How should I look on social media?

Once you’ve set you account up, you should upload your avatar.  Some people upload company logos, others don’t upload anything and just use one of the platform’s generic images.

First off, use a photo of yourself and not your company logo, especially if you’re a sole trader. People like to know who they are interacting with. If your company is a partnership or larger organisation, try adding a photo of the person that tweets on your Twitter home page.

Use a good photo (not something that’s grainy or hard to make out), and a recent one. That way you’ll avoid the embarrassing moment when you meet face to face and you’re unrecognisable.

How do I follow people?

As you know Twitter is a social media platform where you gather ‘followers’.

If you want to control who follows you, you can protect your tweets so people have to ‘apply’ to follow you. The only problem with that is that you come across as being very secretive and unapproachable and therefore may actually put people off interacting with you.

One thing I’m often asked is what if you don’t want someone following you? Well you can block them if you want but the main thing to remember is that you don’t have to follow them back if you don’t want to.

The most important thing about Twitter is that you follow people you want to follow and that you interact with your followers. Very few people will check out who’s following you first before they decide whether they want to or not. A following decision is usually based on:

• Who you are?
• What you have to say?
• Are in an industry relevant to them?
• Are your tweets interesting?

One of the great things about Twitter is that it makes people accessible – people you wouldn’t normally have contact with. But don’t worry if not everyone follows you back. Celebrities for example don’t always return your follow.

As for whether it’s the done thing to follow your competition, why not? They’ll follow you and you can learn a lot about them from their tweets. Most people enjoy interacting with people in the same industry. As a freelance copywriter I follow a number of fellow scribes and enjoy interacting with them, exchanging stories and tips for best practice.

What should I say?

The first thing to remember is that social media channels are social – they’re not paid for advertising space which you can constantly promote your business through. If you do, you’ll become very lonely very quickly because people will get fed up with your constant spam.

Comment on other people’s tweets/posts/blogs and promote them to others if you find them interesting.  If someone shares your content by retweeting, thank them but don’t retweet their praise and then thank them – that’s bad form.

If you want to retweet something (or blog about someone else’s work), make sure you credit the original source. Also if someone does retweet your content, comment on your blog or post something on your Facebook page, thank them.

What else do I need to know?

When inserting links in your blogs, tweets or Facebook updates, make sure you always disclose whether they are affiliate links, or a link that you’ll benefit from in some way – be honest.

In the same way, if you’re writing about a client or using them within a case study etc., make sure you mention them and link back to them.

I get the interaction stuff now, but how can I promote my business too?

Blatant and constant self-promotion will be frowned upon, but that’s not to say you can’t promote your business.

Giving great information and sharing with others will show you as someone who is knowledgeable, approachable and an all round good egg.

If you have special offers you want to promote, tweet about them but not constantly.  And balance your own promotional tweets with plugs for other people.

Plus if you want to encourage people to retweet your stuff, make sure you leave room for them to do so. Tweeting something that’s 139 characters long doesn’t make retweeting very easy.

The final aspect I want to cover is the use of direct tweets and direct messages on Facebook. Promotions made this way are really annoying because you are targeting people specifically – it’s a bit like having a doormat full of junk mail all day long.

Go forth and socialise

If you’re not already on social media, do it. It’s not scary, it doesn’t have to take over your life and it can be great fun and a great source of new business too.

Using Facebook (I’m at freelance copywriting) and Twitter (@sallyormond) have been great for my business and they can be for yours too.

Feel free to follow me and ask for any pointers, I’ll be happy to help you get to grips with the wonderful world that is social media.

More companies are beginning to utilise the power of online content marketing. It enables them to educate, communicate and, influence readers generating a stream of new customers.

However too many understand it is what needs to be done in today’s online world but jump in without thinking.

Their lack of strategy, experience, understanding and their unrealistic expectations lead to the onset of apathy and bewilderment resulting in the misguided belief that online content marketing doesn’t work.

But as a copywriter, I have been using online content marketing to promote my business for the past 4 years and it really does work. You just have to know what you’re doing.

Get an online marketing plan

The number one mistake made by companies that launch headlong into content marketing is their lack of empathy with their readers.

They write about what they want to know about rather than what their readers want. It’s this disparity that leads to a big fat nothing in the effectiveness of their marketing.

So before you even consider blogging, tweeting or Facebooking you must find:

• What they’re looking for
• How they want it presented (their content preference)
• When they need the information

How do you find that out?

There are a number of ways you can research the information you need to know –

Ask them – the good old fashioned survey either through email, blogging or just asking them face to face. Do they need ‘how to’ guides? If so, what format (eBooks, video, podcast etc)?

Analytics – look at your website analytics and see what they’re looking at. If your website has a video on it and it’s not getting any hits, perhaps your visitors are trying to tell you something.

Social media – if you‘re using social media, listen to what your customers are saying, that can give you some great clues about what their needs are.

Keywords – going back to your analytics, the data on your keywords can tell you a lot about what people are looking for, the words they use to find you etc.

If you want your content marketing to be successful you must listen to your customers and provide them with what they want, when they want it and in a format they like.

Of course not everyone will want the same things so your strategy will have to flexible. But listen, understand and then react.

Why is it that everyone else seems to totally ‘get’ social media?

Are you beginning to feel left out of a world that is passing you by?

Yes, there are loads of workshops and courses you can go on, but do you really have time to do them? Not everyone can take time out of their hectic schedules to try and get to grips with the likes of Twitter, Facebook, blogging etc.

But there is another way.

Using YouTube to improve your social media skills

We all know YouTube contains millions of videos on all sorts of subjects, but have you ever considered it for social media training?

Chris Brogan has written a post about this very subject and has even inserted a few videos to show you what’s available.

You can check it out here – Improve your social media efforts.

Using video tutorials like these are a great way to hone your skills. Plus…

• You don’t have to leave the office
• It won’t cost you a fortune
• You can learn at your own pace and at a time that suits you
• You can concentrate on the areas which you are interested in

So why not have a search though YouTube and see what you can find. It might be a bit of a DIY approach to learning social media but its flexibility will enable you to learn the skills you need at a time that’s convenient to you.

Social media and social networking sites appear to be taking over the world at the moment.

Practically everyone seems to be Tweeting, Facebooking, LinkedIn-ing so how do you keep on top of everything? Is there room for another new site?

Let’s look at the first point – How do you keep on top of everything?

Firstly, if you tried to be active on every social networking site out there you’d soon end up in a padded room.

The trick with social media is finding out which applications work for you and your business. Don’t sign up to everything just because ‘everyone else’ seems to be doing it.

Do your research – what do you want to achieve from social media? Once you’ve worked that out, find out which one(s) is the best match for your needs.

Next up – Is there room for another site?

With the recent emergence of Quora it would appear a the answer to that is a resounding “yes”.

Unlike other sites, Quora is based on a question and answer format. Like Twitter you have followers and can follow questions that are specific to your industry and expertise. It is an opportunity to respond to other users and pass on your knowledge or post a question to which you need an answer.

Hub Spot Blog has recently published a very useful post to help anyone looking to dabble in the waters of Quora to see if it’s for them. Entitled A Marketer’s Guide to Quora it’s well worth a read and will explain how you can use Quora to help your own business and online marketing activities.

As a relative newcomer, I had initially set up my profile and started following questions in my areas of expertise such as copywriting. But now, thanks to those wonderful people at Hub Spot, I have discovered how I can use Quora to help me and others.

Thanks guys!