Building platforms for conversations to take place about your business, products and services also allows you to monitor and be a part of the conversations that are already taking place.
By monitoring what people are saying, you have an opportunity to join in on the conversation to help convert prospects to customers. You also have the opportunity to discover potential issues before or as they arise, so that you can proactively react to these issues.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Benefits of Adding Social Media in Your Marketing Mix
Integrating social media into your marketing mix is just one additional tool that allows you to turn existing customers into repeat ones, but it is a powerful one.
Check out some of the benefits you get from including social media marketing:
1. Social media extends your reach to attract new customers
2. It allows you to extend your sales force without increasing your marketing budget
3. Social media marketing gives you an opportunity to effectively react to conversations about your business
4. And, to get your marketing messages out there
5. You can use social media to build up referrals as a way to boost Business, whether your company is business to business (B2B) or business to consumer (B2C) focused.
Check out some of the benefits you get from including social media marketing:
1. Social media extends your reach to attract new customers
2. It allows you to extend your sales force without increasing your marketing budget
3. Social media marketing gives you an opportunity to effectively react to conversations about your business
4. And, to get your marketing messages out there
5. You can use social media to build up referrals as a way to boost Business, whether your company is business to business (B2B) or business to consumer (B2C) focused.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Social Media Networks
With a dizzying amount of social media networks that exist, and new ones popping up every day, it can be a confusing task to choose which ones you should be focusing on for your business – especially, if you are a newbie to using social media.
Keep it simple by focusing on the primary social media networks, like:
• Facebook
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• FourSquare
• Twitter
Each one of the social media networks has the same purpose, which is to help promote and market your business through online communication. Each one also has its own unique set of advantages or tools that make it different from the other social networks.
Facebook
Facebook is the number one social media website on the Internet. Facebook has more than 800 million registered users; these users spend one-third of their Internet time on the site, with roughly half visiting the site every day. This equates to people spending about 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook, Facebook allows its users to connect with friends, family members, co-workers and other people they know. But, do not let this fool you into thinking Facebook is just for staying in contact on a personal level.
• The average user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events
• About 7 out of 10 Internet marketers are using the Facebook “Like” button on their business website and business content or plan to implement it in the near future
• Over 700,000 local businesses have active pages
• The top three reasons people connect with a brand on Facebook is: (1) To learn about new products (35%); (2) To receive coupons and discount offers (37%); (3) To advise people they know what products/services they support (41%)
• 30 billion pieces of content, which include web links, news, blog posts and more are shared on Facebook every month
The moral of the story is that large pools of your ideal clients on Facebook, and they are using it often, most of them on a daily basis. You can leverage this as a way to communicate with your existing customers, as well as reaching entirely new audiences.
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing social media website. Companies upload how-to, advice, tips and tricks videos that pertain to their industries, promoting their businesses in the process. The videos do not have to be professionally shot and edited. In fact, the majority of the videos on YouTube are amateur videos.
Even as an amateur, you can use computer-editing software to easily add a banner along the bottom or top of your video to promote your business, or simply mention your business contact information in the video.
If you are wondering why you should bother, take a look at the numbers:
• In one year, the number of advertisers on YouTube increased by 1000%
• 20 million YouTube videos also get uploaded to Facebook each month
• There are over 2 billion views on YouTube daily
• Every minute, 24 hours’ worth of video content is uploaded to YouTube
• 9 billion video streams are served on YouTube monthly
LinkedIn
LinkedIn has more than 50 million members worldwide, with approximately 1 million more members joining every month. LinkedIn focuses more on professional social networking than either Facebook or YouTube.
As such, LinkedIn allows each user to upload information about their professional background, including their current company and position. LinkedIn has sharing tools and groups, similar to Facebook, but, again, the focus is strictly business-focused.
LinkedIn is similar to a real live networking event at a hotel meeting or ballroom, but instead it is done with an online networking site. Many professionals use LinkedIn to find businesses to outsource to or professionals for a temporary project. The advantage here is that users can see highlights from your company’s professional past, connect directly to members of your staff and see recommendations.
Need another reason?
• LinkedIn has more than 365,000 company profiles
• More than 12 million small-business professionals are members of LinkedIn
FourSquare
FourSquare is one of the most innovative social media tools because it targets the mobile society—people that are always on the go, always on their cell phones—but still want to share with other people where they are and what they are doing.
As an added bonus, users of FourSquare get special discounts, coupons and deals when they use mobile devices to “check-in” to a business location.
In other words, if you have a brick-and-mortar store, you would use FourSquare to encourage customers to help you spread word-of-mouth advertising by offering those who check-in at one of your locations a special deal, coupon or offer.
For example, an iPhone user walks into your clothing store and hits the check-in button on FourSquare. Immediately, the customer receives a coupon on his or her smartphone to save 20% off any purchase they make from your store that day. FourSquare can also tell customers what sales and specials you have going on in the store as well.
Another innovative part of FourSquare is that it can lure new customers into your store if they are near your store. Assume your clothing store is in a retail shopping strip mall. FourSquare uses geo-targeting to locate the user of the cell phone to identify where the cell phone user is and sends them alerts of all of the stores that are offering specials or deals.
Even if the person was there to visit another store, knowing they will receive a 20% off coupon for shopping in your clothing store may draw them in to look around and entice them to make a purchase.
Approximately 3 million people are checking-in on FourSquare.
FourSquare primarily offers four types of programs:
1. Check-in Specials: These are special offers that are received when the user checks-in at your business location.
2. Mayor Specials: A mayor is someone that reaches a status for sharing and recruiting others to use FourSquare to check-in at location. As a loyalty reward program, mayors receive special deals that regular members do not.
3. Frequency-based Specials: Frequent shoppers are rewarded with special discounts. This is similar to any loyalty program, similar to the old punch card system, except it is a loyalty reward program that takes place online and on mobile devices.
4. Wildcard Specials: These are just random specials that run on FourSquare as members check-in to specific location.
FourSquare is an especially effective tool for location-based businesses, but Internet-only businesses have also been able to put the tools available online to good use for word-of-mouth advertising, rewarding loyal customers, drawing in new customers and staying in touch with existing customers.
Twitter
Twitter claims to have 190 million users and that more than 100 million Tweets flying around the “Twitter-sphere” on a daily basis
The most interesting thing about Twitter is that it limits what you have to say or share, which is known as a “Tweet”, to 140 characters – not 140 letters,140 total characters, including spaces and punctuation.
In other words, it keeps to the “KISS” rule, Keep it Short and Simple.
For businesses, Twitter is an effective way to share quick snippets of information, like a promotion, appointment cancellation or quick tip.
Almost all business Tweets should include a link, where your Twitter followers can go to obtain additional information on the Tweet. To save on characters, most social media experts suggest that Twitter users use a URL shortening tool, which shortens the length of the URL shared.
This way, you won’t eat up too many of your 140 characters.
Keep it simple by focusing on the primary social media networks, like:
• YouTube
• FourSquare
Each one of the social media networks has the same purpose, which is to help promote and market your business through online communication. Each one also has its own unique set of advantages or tools that make it different from the other social networks.
Facebook is the number one social media website on the Internet. Facebook has more than 800 million registered users; these users spend one-third of their Internet time on the site, with roughly half visiting the site every day. This equates to people spending about 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook, Facebook allows its users to connect with friends, family members, co-workers and other people they know. But, do not let this fool you into thinking Facebook is just for staying in contact on a personal level.
• The average user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events
• About 7 out of 10 Internet marketers are using the Facebook “Like” button on their business website and business content or plan to implement it in the near future
• Over 700,000 local businesses have active pages
• The top three reasons people connect with a brand on Facebook is: (1) To learn about new products (35%); (2) To receive coupons and discount offers (37%); (3) To advise people they know what products/services they support (41%)
• 30 billion pieces of content, which include web links, news, blog posts and more are shared on Facebook every month
The moral of the story is that large pools of your ideal clients on Facebook, and they are using it often, most of them on a daily basis. You can leverage this as a way to communicate with your existing customers, as well as reaching entirely new audiences.
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing social media website. Companies upload how-to, advice, tips and tricks videos that pertain to their industries, promoting their businesses in the process. The videos do not have to be professionally shot and edited. In fact, the majority of the videos on YouTube are amateur videos.
Even as an amateur, you can use computer-editing software to easily add a banner along the bottom or top of your video to promote your business, or simply mention your business contact information in the video.
If you are wondering why you should bother, take a look at the numbers:
• In one year, the number of advertisers on YouTube increased by 1000%
• 20 million YouTube videos also get uploaded to Facebook each month
• There are over 2 billion views on YouTube daily
• Every minute, 24 hours’ worth of video content is uploaded to YouTube
• 9 billion video streams are served on YouTube monthly
LinkedIn has more than 50 million members worldwide, with approximately 1 million more members joining every month. LinkedIn focuses more on professional social networking than either Facebook or YouTube.
As such, LinkedIn allows each user to upload information about their professional background, including their current company and position. LinkedIn has sharing tools and groups, similar to Facebook, but, again, the focus is strictly business-focused.
LinkedIn is similar to a real live networking event at a hotel meeting or ballroom, but instead it is done with an online networking site. Many professionals use LinkedIn to find businesses to outsource to or professionals for a temporary project. The advantage here is that users can see highlights from your company’s professional past, connect directly to members of your staff and see recommendations.
Need another reason?
• LinkedIn has more than 365,000 company profiles
• More than 12 million small-business professionals are members of LinkedIn
FourSquare
FourSquare is one of the most innovative social media tools because it targets the mobile society—people that are always on the go, always on their cell phones—but still want to share with other people where they are and what they are doing.
As an added bonus, users of FourSquare get special discounts, coupons and deals when they use mobile devices to “check-in” to a business location.
In other words, if you have a brick-and-mortar store, you would use FourSquare to encourage customers to help you spread word-of-mouth advertising by offering those who check-in at one of your locations a special deal, coupon or offer.
For example, an iPhone user walks into your clothing store and hits the check-in button on FourSquare. Immediately, the customer receives a coupon on his or her smartphone to save 20% off any purchase they make from your store that day. FourSquare can also tell customers what sales and specials you have going on in the store as well.
Another innovative part of FourSquare is that it can lure new customers into your store if they are near your store. Assume your clothing store is in a retail shopping strip mall. FourSquare uses geo-targeting to locate the user of the cell phone to identify where the cell phone user is and sends them alerts of all of the stores that are offering specials or deals.
Even if the person was there to visit another store, knowing they will receive a 20% off coupon for shopping in your clothing store may draw them in to look around and entice them to make a purchase.
Approximately 3 million people are checking-in on FourSquare.
FourSquare primarily offers four types of programs:
1. Check-in Specials: These are special offers that are received when the user checks-in at your business location.
2. Mayor Specials: A mayor is someone that reaches a status for sharing and recruiting others to use FourSquare to check-in at location. As a loyalty reward program, mayors receive special deals that regular members do not.
3. Frequency-based Specials: Frequent shoppers are rewarded with special discounts. This is similar to any loyalty program, similar to the old punch card system, except it is a loyalty reward program that takes place online and on mobile devices.
4. Wildcard Specials: These are just random specials that run on FourSquare as members check-in to specific location.
FourSquare is an especially effective tool for location-based businesses, but Internet-only businesses have also been able to put the tools available online to good use for word-of-mouth advertising, rewarding loyal customers, drawing in new customers and staying in touch with existing customers.
Twitter claims to have 190 million users and that more than 100 million Tweets flying around the “Twitter-sphere” on a daily basis
The most interesting thing about Twitter is that it limits what you have to say or share, which is known as a “Tweet”, to 140 characters – not 140 letters,140 total characters, including spaces and punctuation.
In other words, it keeps to the “KISS” rule, Keep it Short and Simple.
For businesses, Twitter is an effective way to share quick snippets of information, like a promotion, appointment cancellation or quick tip.
Almost all business Tweets should include a link, where your Twitter followers can go to obtain additional information on the Tweet. To save on characters, most social media experts suggest that Twitter users use a URL shortening tool, which shortens the length of the URL shared.
This way, you won’t eat up too many of your 140 characters.
Monday, December 5, 2011
How Social Media Plays a Role in Business
To put it simply, social media is one of the myriad of marketing tools you should be using to get in front of current clients as a draw to bring in repeat business. You should also use social media to get in front of new or prospective clients and boost your business.
When you use social media as part of your business, you are creating a persona for the business. You are demonstrating there is a real person (or people) behind the business—people who care and want to be there for their clients.
The proof is in the numbers:
• By November 2007, social networking usage (time) surpassed email usage
• By July 2009, the number of social networking users had surpassed the number of email users
• Social networking accounts for 50% of all mobile Internet traffic
• Over 800 million people have social media accounts
When you use social media as part of your business, you are creating a persona for the business. You are demonstrating there is a real person (or people) behind the business—people who care and want to be there for their clients.
The proof is in the numbers:
• By November 2007, social networking usage (time) surpassed email usage
• By July 2009, the number of social networking users had surpassed the number of email users
• Social networking accounts for 50% of all mobile Internet traffic
• Over 800 million people have social media accounts
Friday, December 2, 2011
The Role Social Media Plays in Society
For a moment, forget that social media marketing takes place in an online world. Think back to the type of oldf ashioned, word-of-mouth marketing that has been taking place since the beginning of time.
For example, when you need to buy a new vacuum, you probably ask your family members, friends and even co-workers what kind of vacuum they have and their experience with the vacuum.
While the information they provide to you may not be the only factor you consider in making your vacuum purchase, receiving a recommendation from someone you know may be the deciding factor on which vacuum you buy.
Social media plays the same word-of-mouth role, however, the reach is much broader because you are not only reaching the lady who lives around the corner, you’re also reaching everyone that is her “friend” or “follower” on her social networks.
To give you an example of the impact this can have, the average Facebook user has 144 friends. Assume Client A buys your vacuum and raves about it on her Facebook page.
Right off the bat, you have reached 144 additional customers without doing anything. You have not spent one penny or exerted any energy. The buyer of the vacuum is the only one who put forth any effort by posting her comment on her Facebook page.
Now, the 144 people that news of the vacuum cleaner has reached also have their own set of friends. Assume each of the 144 friends also have 144 friends. With just one posting on a Facebook page, you can easily get in front of tens of thousands of people as the word spreads (approximately 20,736 from the 144 friends from the original poster and the 144 friends of those 144 people).
For example, when you need to buy a new vacuum, you probably ask your family members, friends and even co-workers what kind of vacuum they have and their experience with the vacuum.
While the information they provide to you may not be the only factor you consider in making your vacuum purchase, receiving a recommendation from someone you know may be the deciding factor on which vacuum you buy.
Social media plays the same word-of-mouth role, however, the reach is much broader because you are not only reaching the lady who lives around the corner, you’re also reaching everyone that is her “friend” or “follower” on her social networks.
To give you an example of the impact this can have, the average Facebook user has 144 friends. Assume Client A buys your vacuum and raves about it on her Facebook page.
Right off the bat, you have reached 144 additional customers without doing anything. You have not spent one penny or exerted any energy. The buyer of the vacuum is the only one who put forth any effort by posting her comment on her Facebook page.
Now, the 144 people that news of the vacuum cleaner has reached also have their own set of friends. Assume each of the 144 friends also have 144 friends. With just one posting on a Facebook page, you can easily get in front of tens of thousands of people as the word spreads (approximately 20,736 from the 144 friends from the original poster and the 144 friends of those 144 people).
Thursday, December 1, 2011
What is Social Media?
Before we go deep into the benefits that using social media can have on your business, let us first talk about the true definition of what social media is.
You, as a business owner, need to think of social media from a business point of view. Whether your target audience is consumers or other businesses, social media networks are where you can find existing and new business. Plus, not only can you reach your target audience through these networks, you can find them in large numbers and in one place.
Further, the social media platform forms a circle of trust, so it adds credibility and trustworthiness to your business when:
• One of your existing customers talks about how great your business product or service is, or how it solved an issue they were having
• You share information about your products, services or industry that speak to resolving a specific problem your ideal customers are having
• You respond to a complaint or an issue that a customer is talking about having with your business
• You can monitor and quickly respond to the good and the bad conversations that are taking place about your business
• You offer followers and friends on your social media networks special offers that nobody else receives
You, as a business owner, need to think of social media from a business point of view. Whether your target audience is consumers or other businesses, social media networks are where you can find existing and new business. Plus, not only can you reach your target audience through these networks, you can find them in large numbers and in one place.
Further, the social media platform forms a circle of trust, so it adds credibility and trustworthiness to your business when:
• One of your existing customers talks about how great your business product or service is, or how it solved an issue they were having
• You share information about your products, services or industry that speak to resolving a specific problem your ideal customers are having
• You respond to a complaint or an issue that a customer is talking about having with your business
• You can monitor and quickly respond to the good and the bad conversations that are taking place about your business
• You offer followers and friends on your social media networks special offers that nobody else receives
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