Posts Tagged social media

Google has reaffirmed their strong interest in social media once again. After all, Facebook is getting way to much traffic, and they offer pay per click advertising just like Google.

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Become a Trendsetter in Your Market Utilizing Online Social Media

With Social Media, your communication goals should remain quite simple. They are to educate, entertain, engage, excite and evangelize your online audience with all things that concern your brand and market. These 5 E’s (educate, entertain, engage, excite and evangelize) of online marketing will bring increased message clarity as well as increased sales. Let’s take a quick look at the 5 E’s of online social media marketing.

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This is what the marketing model looks like when applied to social sites like Twitter.

1. Target your customers quickly and easily through Twitter

You can find and follow potential clients online very quickly by using the Advanced Twitter search feature that lets you geo-target them within a certain radius and city. With it, you can get pretty specific quickly with Twitter when it comes to reaching out to potential clients. You can also use sites like Nearby Tweets to target in on future customers with their geo-targeting and industry specific search features.

2. Build Your Twitter Followers

Once you have located and followed them, tweet about content that is helpful and informative to your potential client, and they may return the “love” and follow you back. If you badger them with sales messages, you can expect a very poor follow rate.

3. Create a Blog

Include your link on Twitter in your profile that gives people the option to dig a little deeper into what your services and products are. You do not have to set up a blog but you will get the most benefit if you do and we will discuss why in the next step. You can also use a website or your Facebook page to provide more information about your products and services. Make it easy for visitors to find your services, products, and special offers once they arrive from Twitter onto your site.

4. Write Quality Blog Content

There are plug-ins available for Word Press that allow you to tweet the title of your blog posts automatically to Twitter. The tweet will include a link back to the blog article where people can read the full blog post. Once they are on your site, that is your chance to sell to them. These Twitter posts that include your links may get retweeted to their followers which will bring your blog more traffic.

5. Track the Traffic and Results

You should be tracking and taking a look at your traffic statistics to get a good understanding of where your traffic is coming from and how much traffic you are getting. Google offers the very popular free tool known as Google Analytics to help you do this. It is very easy to set up and only takes about 10 minutes to do so. By tracking your Twitter traffic, you will see what is getting you the best results and you will be able to adjust accordingly for better results.

There are many forms of media that can be utilized as tools for an effective marketing campaign. There are billboards, magazines, websites, email campaigns, brochures, direct mail pieces, posters, television ads, newspapers, radio spots,  promotional items such as your company slogan on a coffee mug, and lastly, social media sites like Twitter. We will refer to these tools as forms of media. All of them can be effective when used properly. Over time the tools in our toolbox may change, but the laws of marketing do not and must be applied to every tool in our  marketer’s tool belt. When a new tool appears it does not change the laws of marketing, it just changes how we reach the customer. It is merely a channel.

Here is a quick breakdown of the 4 laws of marketing that are used without such tools as Twitter and other forms of social media:

1. Locate Your Customer

First we must create a profile of the ideal customer. We need to determine  such things as their age, race, gender, yearly income, location, and educational level to name a few. We also need to know how and where they spend their time. Whether it’s when they are online, at work, or in a store. The data that we are gathering at this stage is commonly known as demographics.

2. Create Your Campaign

Once we know who our customer is, then we must reach them with the best tool or tools in our tool belt. For example, if you know that women who go to a certain mall purchase high end purses, then a billboard closely located to the mall featuring your high end purse would be the proper tool to use to help influence the desired purchase, even if you sold solely through an 800 number, and did not have a store in the mall.

3. Track the Campaign

You need to know what your sales numbers are before and after the campaign in order to measure the results effectively. It’s obvious that if net profits increased then the campaign was a success, and if they went down, we need to analyze the campaign to determine why. Once the campaign was run, we then must make adjustments to the campaign even if we had a net profit. With just a few little tweeks, we may be able to make more money from an already successful campaign.

4. Survey Your Customers

Poll your customers to find out where they saw your ads. Continue to put the most marketing dollars into the highest performing ads while closely monitoring the lesser performing ads. Don’t cancel the weaker ads immediately. Be sure to give them a little time before you declare them a success or failure.

With the the internet and social media in particular, companies need to be more transparent and own up to their mistakes. They also must take the time to fix them quickly before things get out of hand, and that can happen quickly. One of the best ways to monitor your brand and its reputation is to set up Google Alerts for your company name and monitor what is being said about your business on the web. Google will send you emails or RSS feeds for anything that they index in their search engine that pertains to your business name. You can also monitor products and services that you offer and you can even keep a good eye on your competition too. These Alerts can be read in Google Reader. Both Google Reader and Google Alerts are free services from Google.

If you try to hide your mistakes online, you will get eaten alive with social media sites like Twitter. Everybody knows everybody’s business now. You will want to respond very quickly to any negative feedback left about your company because if you don’t, serious damage can be done because it is easy for an angry mob to form. Just a little helpful information can quickly diffuse the situation and help keep your brand image in a positive light.