You may have heard of this! It’s transforming marketing, for the better most would say. We’ll help you navigate social media with a strategic approach sharing approaches from the leading commentators and companies.
You’ll know Facebook is the most important consumer social network in most countries. For many companies, the Facebook presence has become more important than the web presence, so getting Facebook marketing right is a priority.
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Although launched end June 2011, Google Plus is the fastest growing social network ever, so it’s worth keeping a close eye on even if many of the early adopters are people like us!
Thanks to the social effect Groupon is now reaching and influencing many customers so it’s important for retailers to weigh it up.
As the premier business social network, LinkedIn is one of the most effective ways to market to other businesses today. Here we explore techniques and new approaches that work best.
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One of the biggest questions in social media is “how do we measure the ROI?“. We show the range of measures to help you answer this question for your business.
There are many companies “doing social media” but without the right policies in place to help manage it effectively. You need to respond to customer ideas and complaints and involve staff in a positive way, but if you’re too relaxed there are plenty of examples where it can go damagingly wrong.
Monitoring online conversations through social media listening is often rightly advised as the starting point for developing a social media marketing strategy.
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Many companies have a presence on the different social platforms, but want to take it to the next level. Our advice gives you the structure you need to optimise.
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Many companies are doing social media, but few have a strategy. We’ll show you how a strategy can help and what’s involved.
Some doubters thought Twitter would be part of Facebook or Google by now, or replaced by their services. But Twitter is still growing rapidly and is popular with both consumer and business audiences alike.
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Did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine in many countries. Here we cover all aspects of YouTube marketing to increase your awareness and engage more customers.
We think the CIPR Social media panel defines social media marketing well:
Social media is the term commonly given to Internet and mobile-based channels and tools that allow users to interact with each other and share opinions and content. As the name implies, social media involves the building of communities or networks and encouraging participation and engagement.
Their definition emphasises that we need to use different digital media channels to encourage our prospects and customers to interact to form communities. It also hints at the challenges of encouraging engagement.
Michael has defined 7 different product categories for brand reputation management and social media monitoring software which you can see in the 7 colour coded sections of the table.
Reputation managementSocial media listeningAnd what to do about it Social media is not a standalone skill-set, nor is it even a vocation in its own right. It’s a mindset, a set of specific tools and most importantly, it’s a process weaved into content and social media marketing. Our post showing the scope of Social CRM shows how social media marketing
Social media strategy5 Examples of Facebook Brand Pages to learn from As marketers constantly look for better ways to use social media to engage with customers and generate positive word-of-mouth and sentiment, a well-designed, thought-out Facebook page is a key platform to target consumers. Facebook brand pages can offer businesses, both large and small, an excellent opportunity to create
Facebook MarketingA B2B case study (with learnings for B2C too) Here’s an interesting case study about how Eloqua ran a project on Facebook company page optimisation. We’ve summarised some tips based on this project run by BrandGlue, which grew the Eloqua Fan page by 2,500 percent, increased Facebook-referred traffic by 150% and increased Fan engagement to about 3x industry averages. The
Facebook MarketingHow NOT to use social media to communicate It’s confession time. At some stage or other I have probably committed most of these crimes while posting to social media. Some I still do on a nearly daily basis, although am trying to unlearn them. How do you score? 1. Using social media as a one-way broadcast communication
Facebook MarketingTwitter MarketingImproving the accuracy of web analytics for social media tracking There is a big elephant in the web analytics room… We are less likely to accurately track visits referred from social networks than we are visits from more traditional sources. ‘Less’ likely because the rise of those sources of traffic has coincided with (or helped cause)
Social media analyticsLeaked Email from Twitter reveal costs per follower Value/Importance: ★★★★★ Recommended link: Original post on the Drum Our commentary on the costs of Twitter advertising These are the costs revealed in the leaked email from Twitter’s ad sales department: Cost of $2.50 and $4 per follower $0.75 to $2.50 for each click, favourite, retweet or reply. Commitment to a minimum campaign spend
Internet ad analyticsTwitter MarketingHow are you measuring the success of social media? This question remains contentious to say the least. This infographic shares some insight into just how the “R” in ROI can be interpreted. We hope it helps! We also have a post from earlier in year on the goals and challenges of social media marketing which may also
Social media optimisation (SMO)Using Facebook for marketing – this post is a showcase of businesses of a range of sizes from a range of sectors who are using the recently revamped (Feb ’09) Facebook pages which now look more like individual profile pages.
Facebook MarketingFacebook accounts for 52% of sharing on the web New AddThis report for social sharing during 2011 AddThis, the social share bar tool used by more than 11m websites and 1.2Bn users, with their owners Clearspring, have followed the popularity of their 2010 report with a new 2011 update – see the info-graphic based report below. The story
Social media marketingSocial media’s rising star refers more traffic than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined According to aggregated data from Shareaholic, Pinterest has had meteoric growth, accounting for only 0.17% of referral traffic in July last year, whereas today it’s 3.6% of referral traffic. …..
Social media marketing Read more7 techniques to drive website interactions that generate leads and how to measure them We find that there’s lots of discussion online about how to reach and convert audiences, but not so much about encouraging the softer interactions. We reference …..
Social media strategy Read moreHow Vision Express developed their social media marketing strategy In this case study, we talk to Kate Webb, the Online Marketing Manager at Vision Express. Kate talks about how they have developed a strategy and manage social media marketing across …..
Social media strategy Read morePutting Facebook at the centre of communications strategy including 8 techniques to engage Facebook fans The brand we’re featuring in this case has created the third most engaged Facebook Page in the UK. Although Vets Now is the UK’s leading provider of …..
Facebook Marketing Read more6 key management issues to include within all social media strategies Social media marketing is now a mainstream business activity. The State of Social Report 2011 indicating that almost two-thirds of companies say they are now beyond the experimental phase, and are integrating …..
Social media strategy Read moreFacebook releases new marketing advice for businesses Value: Recommended link: http://www.facebook.com/business Our commentary: In the first week of August, Facebook announced “Facebook for Business”. While this sounds like an attempt to compete with LinkedIn or Google+, in fact it’s just …..
Facebook Marketing Read more1. Set business goals for your social media – it’s best not to experiment without a clear idea of how social media will support your business goals.
2. Create a social media strategy. A strategy will help you to deploy social media in the best way to reach your goals by prioritising on the channels in our RADAR which are most effective.
3. Active social listening and reputation management. Most advice on social media marketing strategies advises to start by listening to your conversations. We prefer the term coined by Brian Solis in his book Engage of “Active Social Listening” since this shows the need for a feedback cycle within social media marketing.
4. Define content and engagement strategy. We’ve noted that encouraging engagement and participation are the biggest challenges to social media marketing, so clear strategies are needed to show how to achieve these.
5. Define communications strategy. In the social media era, a continuous communications strategy is necessary to engage your audience through the many channels available. Key issues here are defining the types of content value you offer through different social channels and the frequency. Integrating different digital channels including email marketing through a social media marketing hub is also a key issue here.
6. Deploy best practice approaches for the core social media platforms. Each social media platform such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has unique characteristics and audience needs. There is also a bewildering array of tools to deploy and etiquette to follow so you won’t be seen as a spammer.
7. Social media optimisation. You may have a presence established, but this is only the beginning in your journey to optimise your presence to deliver real value for your business.
Please let us know your comments on our Quick Guide to social media marketing. Tell us what you like, don't like or other ideas of what it should include. Thanks!
