Social media has long been thought of as an unknown, especially when trying to work out its effectiveness.
Many companies are resisting the urge to Tweet, Facebook or Pinterest until they know they can assess the ROI on their activity.
So, how can you begin to work out the impact of social media on your overall business goals?
Well, those wonderful peeps at socialmediaexaminer.com have come up with a post that outlines 4 social media goals every business should measure.
Their 4 impacts that should be measured are:
Raising awareness of your brand
The effect it has on your website traffic
Looking at website visitor loyalty (increasing the time spend on your website/blog)
Conversion rates
So, to find out more about how you can measure these important factors, pop over to Social Media Examiner (click the button below) and take a look at what they have to say.
“OK, this is it lads. We’re going to create a viral video for our latest project. Any ideas?”
Well, if that’s how you think the process starts to create viral marketing for your business, you couldn’t be more wrong.
For a start, you can’t make something go viral – that’s the public’s job.
What is viral marketing?
Well it’s a way of using social networks to promote brand awareness (or boost sales) through a self-replicating viral process. Which means that you create something others love and feel compelled to share with their friends…who then share it with their friends…who then share it with their friends…who then share it with their friends….you get the idea.
And that is precisely why you can’t ‘make’ a viral video, image, eBook etc.
Qualities of viral marketing
The only way you’re going to make your piece of marketing go ‘viral’ is by creating an emotional connection with your view/reader.
Someone isn’t going to share your collateral just because you ask him/her to; it has to resonate with them and compel them to click the share button or talk about it to their friends.
There are no rules to say it has to be funny, gimmicky or super clever – it just has to evoke an emotional response.
OK, that kind of leaves the door wide open, but quite often the simplest ideas are the best.
That means studying your audience, studying your product (and the relationship between the two) and then working out which emotional connections your brand needs to make to kick-start the immediate ‘need to share’ reflex.
With the country gripped by Olympic fever, this has to be my favourite video on YouTube at the moment. OK, it’s not a product or a sales pitch, but it captures the excitement of a nation:
Reaction of the BBC commentary team as Mo Farah wins with 10,000 metres in London 2012.
What’s your favourite?
We’d love to compile an ‘all time favourites’ list of viral marketing, so leave a comment below with details of the one that captured imagination – and tell us why.
If you think marketing and advertising are one and the same, there’s a pretty good chance your marketing efforts are being less than successful.
If you cast your mind back to the bad old days, companies would advertise to you left right and centre. You would be bombarded by less than subtle sales messages wherever you went.
Our TVs, magazines, newspapers and mailboxes were full of ‘buy from us now’ messages desperate to grab your hard earned cash.
But the landscape looks very different these days, with businesses moving away from advertising and towards marketing.
Nope, still don’t get it
In that case, you’re probably a business that has dabbled in social media, blogging, article and video marketing only to decide that it doesn’t work for you.
Well, the reason it’s not working is probably because you’re still advertising rather than marketing.
Let me explain.
If you’re advertising, you’re effectively shouting at your customers ‘buy now’ with little regard for what they actually want.
Perhaps that approach used to work for you, but today’s consumers want more than that, they want to be appreciated, wooed and persuaded.
The subtle art of marketing
Today’s marketing channels are social media, video and article marketing and blogging. Each of these disciplines offers the consumer engagement, information, and advice – effectively something for nothing. Or at least that is how it appears.
You see, people now want to feel as though you, as a company, value them and their business. They don’t just want you to come along, take their money and then head off into the night.
Today, you must engage with them, talk to them, offer them great information, be responsive to their questions and generally take in interested in what they want. And that’s why you must market and not advertise to them.
You see, marketing is all about getting to know your customer and being interested in what they really want, their likes and dislikes and being prepared to chat with them to build relationships.
Think carefully about them and how your product or service will benefit them and then show them.
The days of the blatant advertising are numbered; today your consumers want more. Talk to them, engagement with them and give them something for nothing. As you do so something magical happens, they begin to trust you and that trust will be manifested in the form of their credit card.
Market to your customers and they’ll be customers for life.
Pinterest is a pinboard-style social photo sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, hobbies, and more. Users can browse other pinboards for inspiration, ‘re-pin’ images to their own collections and/or ‘like’ photos. Pinterest’s mission is to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting” via a global platform of inspiration and idea sharing. Pinterest allows its users to share ‘pins’ on both Twitter and Facebook, which allows users to share and interact with a broad community.
Personally, I haven’t. It’s not something that I really ‘get’ – admittedly because it doesn’t really appeal to me.
But there are a lot of buisnesses out there who’ve had a lot of success with it and a study by SteelHouse identified that ‘Pinterest users are nearly twice as likely to purchase than Facebook users.’
However, many B2B businesses (like my copywriting business) are struggling with the whole concept of promoting themselves through this pictorial platform.
Thankfully, those wonderful people at SocialMediaExaminer have come up with a post helping people just like me.
OK, that’s not much of a blog post, but it sums up what follows.
One of the main arguments for businesses not engaging in social media is that they don’t have time to do it.
Really?
You don’t have time to:
Promote your business?
Talk to your customers?
Build relationships with new customers?
Add value to your existing customer base?
Well, that’s a shame because if you did have time to do all of that, your business would be flying high, even in today’s economic climate.
You may think that you do enough face to face networking to bring in the new customers you need, so why bother with social media too?
Well, fair enough, you can find new customers that way, but what about looking after the ones you’ve already got?
We all know that it costs about 6 times more to get a new customer than it does to keep an existing one, so surely it makes sense to ensure the service you’re providing keeps your existing customers happy.
I’m not just talking about saying a big ‘thank you’ when they buy from you, or sending the occasional newsletter. Social media gives your customers the opportunity to engage directly with you. In an instant you can make them aware of special offers and events through your Facebook Business Page or Twitter.
Social media is all about a two way conversation between you and your customers, adding value to your connection with them through hints, tips, offers and entertaining conversation. It’s all about relationship building.
If you’re still not convinced, here are some facts for you that might get you to change your mind:
Social media users’ revenue grew at 19%, whereas non-social media users’ only grew at 6%
The client base of social media users grew at 12%
61% of LinkedIn users gained a client through social media
35% of Facebook users gained a client
47% of blog owners gained a client
36% overall gained clients through a social network
