Social media is meant to be fun, not just all business, right? These folks certainly have found an interesting and strange way to engage.
Some of the attendees at this conference were very surprised. What do you think?
Social Media Integration Tools can help you “see” and “engage” your marketplace in an easier, faster way. If you are not familiar with them, we showcase a few of them here. It will totally help the way you operate social media.
You can follow along to see how much it costs (if any), if they are available for mobile platforms, how they integrate across other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, Foursquare, RSS and more.
When you are engaging with social media in 2011, it’s key to make sure you connect across platforms, since your audience will be located in many places, i.e. using more than just one social network. And, if you post on Twitter, wouldn’t you want your fans on Facebook to also see what you are up to? Doing this manually is not helpful.
Social marketing integration becomes important for your own time management and overall organization. Here are five tools compared and reviewed next to each other.
Take a look.
Often when we think of social media use for business, we think about well known companies that are near and dear to our hearts.
We would assume that Southwest Airlines would leverage social media, as would Dell Computers and Apple. They are what we would call “hip” brands that follow trends and embrace change and pursue innovation. Social media marketing is a given, right?
However, there is a growing trend of companies trying social media you may not think of.
Here is a list of social media campaigns that is working for other large organizations.
B2B (Business to business) marketing and sales programs represent big budgets here (US) and abroad, but often not seen by the “masses” (hence the name). B2C (Business to Consumer) is more visible, popular – and part of the common marketplace. Therefore, B2C marketing is more seen, or better known. When you add strategies like social media marketing to the mix, it can often be “easier” to create campaigns around the B2C marketplaces. Not only because they are bigger, but they often have a faster, wider adoption. How cool is it to create social media campaigns for Sony Pictures, versus an unknown brand like this ugly website/company? (generally speaking).
If the work is not as much fun, more challenging and speed to market (recognition) is slower, should you dismiss Social Media Marketing for B2b’s?
How’s your social media experience going? Are you having fun with it? Are joining, listening, engaging? Enjoying the huge cocktail-party of the web, are you?
Social media is simply ‘media that is social’.
The two-way communication and interaction using social networks is a must in today’s online world (if you want to live under a rock, that’s your choice). This ‘new’ way of operating is true for both personal and business. (Interestingly enough, lots of searches exist for “how to delete my Facebook” account, and many requests come from mobile devices).
But, if you find a social network and a community you can belong to, exchange & share ideas, and get help from, you’re way ahead.
In business, it’s the same. But, I still see the “one-way” communication approach. They push all their ideas, products in one direction and expect people and prospects to engage with them. They don’t.
You should change by opening up a bit more, and use social media tools that will make things easier.
Agressive headline. Know it.
However, if you understand how important users, visitors and traffic is to your website, it should get you into action faster. (and you can use this tool to do it). Read on.
The online marketing space is filled with opportunities to drive more traffic and users. Have a great product or service that people naturally share is an awesome way to do it.
Affiliates can bring a burst of users, but it’s temporary. Try to build something that will be long term, and grows more and more over time. In this post, you’ll see how channel surfing tools gets this company hundreds of thousands of new visitors each month. Yes, I’m talking about StumbleUpon.
You have a website set up and you are creating great blog posts right? Now, what is the next step to promoting the company’s business? Your next step is social media marketing.
The term social media simply means that you are using social skills and methods to market (and it’s not just online). It is the flip of what those commercials do. It’s a give-to-gain model, and sharing-is-caring…
Imagine a company placing commercials on television or big banners along a freeway. In doing so, they are trying to convince you to come to them and get you to act on their specials or discounts – their offers. The company is going out searching for you – their (future) customers.
In social media, customers come to you instead. Rather than selling and pitching your business, you interact, make friends – and get the conversation goin with customers in a way that makes them want to do business to you (later). The days of hard selling are over. Now, it is a matter of building up a network based on the needs and skills of the business or the marketer.
How do you build up this network?
Social media and online marketing using social platforms is something you’d expect in the “hip” markets like the entertainment industry. And, the demographics broadly would also be expected to fall into the teen/youth categories, and certainly the ‘under 30′ group. However, we see that more and more “boring” markets are embracing social media.
“Companies leveraging social media in B2B marketplaces is continuing to grow, but a radical shift in thinking must take place for faster adoption. Corporate America wants to, and it’s about time.” – Jon Rognerud
Here’s a recent study in the financial sector that proves the point. They are behind in social media, but starting to inch out from behind the curtain.
Dear Social Media User: I see your PC!
In the world of search engine optimization, the words ‘black hat’, ‘cloaking’ and ‘IP redirects’ are familiar expressions. So are terms like ‘keyword stuffing’, ‘invisible text’ and ‘doorway pages’.
Google fights hacking attempts, unethical and spamming practices every minute of every day. They have hired the best of the best to combat the rogue internet butt-heads out there.
Traditional cloaking within SEO is often related to spamming search results so that when a user clicks a link, it ‘redirects’ to another website (there are several others). If you searched for ‘baby strollers’ and a click from Google results takes you to a Viagra site – well, that’s an example of the worst kind. You are now hurting human beings as well… Google truly hates anything to do with it (that’s the technical term), but of course – you cannot hurt a software engine. (That’s part of the allure of hackers – try to beat the “Google giant” – and make (tons) money in the process – until they get shut down). Bottom line: if search results are not good/relevant to the query, Google doesn’t make money.
Now, enter a new bug to the Internet world: Cloaked links for Social Media. To a tech person, it’s perhaps not new (a link is a link is a link), but to the average social media user, it can be a scary situation: Your PC can be totally infected from a (seemingly) trusted link within Facebook, for example. It’s too late – you may find that your entire PC has been compromised, infected.
What can you do?
The buzzword Web 2.0 is thrown around a lot. Is there a Web 3.0? It depends on who you talk to. Let me explain.
Throughout the years that the internet has been up and running there have been a number of electronic and technical advancements that have helped to change the shape of the internet, and the way we use it to communicate. When the internet first became popular, the only way to communicate with other web users was through e-mail or live text chat services. With the introduction of Web 2.0, this changed completely.
What does Web 2.0 mean?
Strategies to develop online marketing campaigns generated by bright minds in marketing is not missed.
Examples range from viral campaigns, videos, infographics, email campaigns, specialized tools, news, books to articles that break through the clutter and is meant to inspire, help and make you think. It really can work magic for a business, and when combined with online marketing.
Cause marketing can be one of these. Non-profits use this all the time. Are you familiar with the concept? While some organizations exist solely praying on the human goodness of giving, this post is about real stories of companies that leverage smart business, marketing and social media.
In this post, we’ll look at some examples, and ideas you might generate for your own business. Plus, get the free guide to successful online campaigns and cause marketing.
The digital revolution is changing how we think and engage with companies, people, brands, products & services. Rather than the old one-to-many communications style (mass broadcast), we are now in a personal one-to-one relationship at every turn. This new model is intensely personal, and we have a big, new responsibility in marketing to our prospects, clients, customers – consumers.
More information found from Merkle (Free download – digital revolution – consumer study and attitudes PDF) *2mg
Listen First Then Engage (Social Media)
We know that social media is nothing more than media that is social. If so, why do many businesses have trouble thinking about, or even starting their social media journey? We are not that a-social, are we?
Hmmm…
It appears that way. See, when you are invited to a friend’s BBQ, or a local office party network mixer – you listen more than you talk, right? Two ears, one mouth, etc – we know what to do.
But…
Somehow – when sitting behind the computer, all we do is send people and networks messages about “us”, “our products”, “our services”. How uncool is that – really? Find something more interesting to share.
How do you begin the social media journey then?
Yes, by listening…
Here’s a model that can help you – and aid in beginning to track social media across your enterprise.
Social media is cool.
But, it’s not really great if all you’re doing is pushing buttons and nothing is happening. Your content (assuming you’re working on this several times a week) needs to be seen, and you and users should engage, communicate together. It’s a two-way deal. And, when I say ‘content’, don’t think “mine, mine, mine” – but share content and information that is useful to your audience from a variety of sources.
When you do that – just like you would while sharing and listening to others at a business cocktail party, people tend to like you more. Social media is no different.
Keeping track of this communication, and using some levels of social media automation can work well for you.
Here is the top 20 social media tools list you should consider for your business social media listening, sharing and brand building.
Social media marketing for business to business is here. Front and center, Facebook stands strong with a huge platform to share, collaborate and connect within. Close to 600 million users world-wide and growing. Facebook is a formidable competitor to Google when it comes to views/traffic, but still, they – as a social media channel – are fundamentally using a different approach to prospecting. You’ll have to learn how to update your ways.
Search is intent-driven (they are looking for you), social media is about building relationships and communication (networking). B2B has not traditionally embraced social media as a serious option for lead generation and ROI.
Here are tips to make you (re)think about using SMM for B2B.
The Social Media ROI discussion deserves a much longer post.
However, I wanted to take a look at this from a mathematical approach and look at calculators that are available. It will get your mind stirring, if you are not familiar with how to measure SMM. And, as you’ll see – for social media calculators are flawed, and as it will certainly not be exact for all businesses.
There are too many variables to capture an exact picture, and some things we don’t know until the social media program is under way. We also need time – to collect data – and analyze against baselines from previous periods. Some are guesstimates, as you’ll see. A level of measurement is important to start though.
To find out how well we are doing, we cannot simply use industry data alone. For example – a conversion rate. Industry analysts will say a 1-3% conversion rate is probably “average” – you should not concern yourself too much with it.
Get your own numbers.
How do we do that for social media?
Much is written on the topic of social media and its use within personal and business connectivity and engagement.
While the new knowledge workers understand the keys to social media, there is still a vast number of businesses not embracing social media – even just a little. Entrepreneur Magazine featured a post this week about how social media is changing the way we do business. Read it here.
A combination of “I’ll get to it later”, “don’t know where to start”, or ”my business is different” are all silent killers as we all move our business forward and into unchartered waters in 2011 and beyond.
Everything we do is changing via results from social media.
Celebrated social media leading expert and co-founder of the Alimeter Group Charlene Li predicts:
“Companies that do not get on the social media bandwagon soon–within three to five years–will not survive” – Charlene Li
What do you think?
Are you active on social media and yet feel it is very hard to keep up with all the new opportunities that pop up every single day?
Welcome to the reality of everyone who commits to getting the most out of his or her company’s participation on social media.
(This is a guest post by Phyllis Zimbler Miller. More information about her below.)
When a small business is looking for help with social media marketing, they often will search for talent in their local community.
And, with the search engines, and your Google account status and origin of search, your query results will display with a local dataset as much as possible (you can select or change location easily too). Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Location and Local Services at Google is further making this a cornerstone for local, social search.
When you consider Google’s local search technology (maps, mobile, earth) and combine it with local social media strategies and tools, experts can show you how to win the social media game for your business within your region (and beyond).
If you need help with social media in the Los Angeles region, who are the top experts?
This is just a short excerpt of killer 140 character updates on your public relations, social media and marketing strategies you can use for your business.
Here’s the list (it’s big!):
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