SOCIAL MEDIA SOLUTIONS

“Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words and pictures. It’s media (content that is published) with a social (anyone can add to it) component.”

What's Your Social Media Strategy?

Social media marketing can be a marketer's windfall or landmine, depending on how well it is understood and utilized in light of measurability and impact to the bottom line.

In today's challenged economy, it is imperative to invest marketing budget and time wisely, optimizing technologies and techniques that will pay off, and scrapping those that don't.

From Oversight to Opportunity

Your website doesn’t speak to different types of buyers.

You’ve got missing or irrelevant content/offers.

You’re losing conversions at your landing page

Your PPC campaign is trying to “do it all.”

You’re not inviting people to your house (list, that is).

The following five tips are designed to get you thinking about how find your social media marketing strategy by seeing social media participation as an integral part of your entire e-marketing efforts.

You need to research the social media landscape, understand the unique environments, establish clear business goals, metrics, measurement and reporting processes, and then develop and communicate clearly and effectively in the social media world.

Here are five best-practice tips to finding your social media strategy, the online places where the payoffs are worth the time invested.

1. Listen Before You Launch

Do you know where your customers and prospects hanging out online?

Do you know who is already talking about your organization, either in good or bad terms?

Before you begin any initiatives, it is wise to identify those who are the influencers in your space, and see also what your competitors are doing and saying.

Social media, by definition, is a two-way street. You can talk, but you’d better also be listening.

1. Listen (continued)

The easiest way to find out who is talking about your company’s products, services or people is to do a little digging yourself.

Start with answering these questions:• What is being said about your brand? •What bloggers are talking about issues that you care about? •What is being tagged on del.icio.us and Digg?• What applicable communities and comments exist on Twitter and Flickr? •Which of your url’s are saved on del.icio.us?• Is anyone reviewing your brand on YouTube?• What influential contacts exist in your space?

2. Set Social Media Goals

The best executed marketing programs are ones that are closely tied with clear, measurable business goals and objectives. Once you understand the current social media landscape, and the unique environment, you can establish clear business goals, metrics, measurement and reporting processes, and then identify the best places for you to get involved.

What are your goals for your social media initiatives? They may be to: increase traffic to your website, microsites, landing pages or blog; increase the number of links to these same areas; increase brand awareness, protect your brand name by monitoring what others are saying about you; identify new opportunities for your service; or increase leads.

3. Get Blogging

Any company can quickly get started in the social media space by starting their own blog, as well as participating in relevant outside blogs.The two keys to a successful blog is great content and active visibility.

Make sure you establish a solid editorial calendar and stick with it. Better yet, establish multiple champions in your company to blog on certain issues or topics. Remember that content should convey trust, though leadership, sharing and honesty; in short, authentic engagement. This is not the place to spin or promote your own product or service.

4. Integrate SMM with SEO and Web Analytics

Many social marketing media efforts pay big dividends in raising SEO rankings and link popularity. Anytime you can publish to either your own blog or a related blog in your space, you have the opportunity to create traffic back to your website. Social Media Optimization involves trying to get your social media content more widely distributed through on-page voting, using tools like Digg or Reddit. Off-page social media marketing can include involvement in a blog, submission of a video via YouTube, or participation in other relevant social media networks.

A good SMM strategy begins with leveraging your existing SEO efforts into new media through extending keyword optimization, link popularity, visibility and traffic. Once you understand conversations and communities, you can move to build participation and visibility. You should develop key performance indicators so that you can effectively analyze results from your efforts.

5. Promote your Social Media Efforts

With your own blog, you can’t assume that if you “build it, they will come.” Use the same promotional tactics for your blog that you do for your website. Promote your blog via email communications, PR, directories, and other customer and prospect communications.Evaluate the conversations that are happening on the blog, and use this information to update the content on your editorial calendar.Engage new audiences by creating new content (text, audio or video) and posting it on relevant sites. Then measure the value through increased visibility, links, traffic, leads, and new paths.

Marketing 1.0 (outbound) and 2.0 ( inbound)

Telemarketing Trade Shows Direct Mail Email Blast Print Ads TV/Radio Ads

SEO/SEM Blogging Social Media RSS Free tools/trials Viral Videos

Knowing New World of Icons

The New Way to run Marketing

The New Way to do Publishing

The New Way to Share

The New Way to Network

“The shift in contemporary communications strategy has already happened.  How we – as individuals and as members of organizations – deal with the challenges before us will definitively impact the ways in which life world over will be encountered, understood and embraced by many people”. 

Just as the invention of the printing press – one piece of technology – impacted literacy rates, education, universities and libraries, economies and more, so too is social media shifting the way people think, act, connect and find meaning and value in their lives.  Those organizations that identify this shift and align with it will be positioned for success in the coming years. Those that don’t will feel

greater strain and may not survive. 

•While it’s relatively simple to offer tactical training on this tool or that, the greater context of web sites and social media requires a larger shift in thinking and strategy.  The social media movement offers great opportunities to organizations if used well, as we are in the business of building community. While it’s relatively simple to offer tactical training on this tool or that, the greater context of web sites and social media requires a larger shift in thinking and strategy.

•Tech Success offers an intensive experience for organizations which are interested in learning about social media tools, culture, and strategic implications for their work.  The training includes intensive in-personal seminars, a series of webinars, and one-on-one and small group coaching and consulting throughout the year.  Each participating organization is required to build a team of at least 3 representatives, including both staff and lay leadership.

•This new, one year program is designed to increase your understanding, comfort with, and use of social media in your organization, for marketing, communications, community building, education, fundraising and more. The program will engage teams of staff and lay leaders in a skill building, knowledge sharing and coaching experience, offered through in-person meetings, webinars, and conference calls. 

Your Daily Vitamins

How We View the Marketplace Today

Industry Findings March 2009

Top three questions marketers want answered: (1) What are the best tactics to use, (2) how to do I measure the effectiveness of social media and (3) where do I start?

• Marketers are mostly new to social media: A significant 88% of marketerssurveyed are using social media to market their businesses, BUT 72% have only been doing so for a few months or less.• How much time does this take? A significant 64% of marketers are using social media for 5 hours or more each week and 39% for 10 or more hours weekly.• The top benefit of social media marketing: The number-one advantage isgenerating exposure for the business, indicated 81% of all marketers, followedby increasing traffic and building new business partnerships.• The top social media tools: Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook were the top four social media tools used by marketers, in that order.• Social media tools marketers most want to learn about: Social bookmarking sites were ranked of highest interest, followed closely by Twitter.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing

Commonly Used Social Media Tools

People want to learn more about

Comparison Chart

Question, Comments, Concerns

Time Frame to Success? Cost and Budget Priority? Return on Investment Your Questions Your Comments About the Subject Your Concerns about Taking The Next

Step

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