social+media+strategy further steps

7/30/2019 Social+Media+Strategy Further Steps

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University of Trento

School of Economics and Management

Master in International Management

Academic Year 2012/2013

TRENTO MARKETING CHALLENGE

November 2012

Social Media Strategy: channel analysis

Company: U-Hopper

Product: sQRmap

Students:

Abera Alem

Akhmetova Yulia

De Sio Federica

Meloni Sara


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0. Introduction

The following report is intended to give further hints about the Social Media Strategy,

already set up for sQRmap in terms of objective and general setting, and define a concrete

way of implementation through the chosen Social Media channels.In particular, we will go through the use of Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Vkontact and give

some tips for the future use of e-mail direct marketing.

The aim of the strategy and its further steps is to exploit Social Medias potential for market

penetration and advertising. Within this respect, the only geographical differentiation that

has been made is about Russian market, where the most popular Social Media is Vkontact,

analyzed below. Given its similarity to Facebook, same actions are advised to be undertaken

in this context.

For the other two markets, Germany and Italy, no geographically related differences in the

use of Social Media have been detected. Therefore, it is reasonable to suppose that thestrategy will run smoothly through the biggest channels.

The particular structure of the reviews may vary, depending on the different characteristics

of Social Media analyzed in turn. The general summary includes:

presentation of the reasons why the particular channel has been chosen, in terms of

what benefits it is able to bring to sQRmap advertising campaign;

practical tips about how to effectively use the potential offered by each channel, in

the perspective of saving time on future actions and reducing the number of trials;

suggested measures for assessing effectiveness of the undertaken action (e.g. post,tweet, group entry..) in terms of re-actions (e.g. likes, shares, retweets...).

1. LINKEDIN

In this part we will start by illustrating the benefits of including task that involve the use of

Linkedin in carrying out the Social Media marketing campaign that we believe will bear fruit

in promoting sQRmap.

We will then go on to suggest some Linkedin groups that might be helpful to join, as they

present us with an audience of people that are open to innovation, marketers and experts ofsocial media marketers, and any other group that might provide us with potential customers.

Linkedin Groups

Linkedin was born as a social networking website for people in professional occupations.


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However allowing for the creation of groups, where people with the same interests or

operating in the same professional field can get together and discuss issues of relevance to

them, made it the best place to market ones business.

Sources on the web1

say that its not easy to incur into anti-spam measures, to the extent

that there now exist a range of firms who offer a spamming service for this very purpose

2

.Therefore given the wide audience that can be reached in Linkedin groups we might be able

to advertise and promote sQRmap in interest groups.

Moreover the advanced search of Linkedin, which allows you to search by industry,

keywords, company and title, to mention a few, will allow us to target and get in touch only

with the people that interest us and get the leads that we are seeking.

Once we get the leads a good idea would be to get in touch with them through personal

messages (a premium account is needed for this), however this would take a more

personalized approach and more resources to be employed on this function. So we will keep

it aside for now.

Strategy

With more than a hundred million of members Linkedin is capable of generating numerous

leads to your web-page and to other social media accounts.

To take advantage of this opportunity we will adopt a two-step strategy.

First step: join already existing groups of interest

The first action to be undertaken will be joining groups that are relevant to sQRmaps

business and industry.

Interacting with the other members of the group quite frequently is important but this

should be done in an intelligent way (following netiquette in short).

We will start with a professional introduction of the company and of sQRmap, avoiding

oversharing3.

In order to be able to fully exploit the potential of Linkedin it is important to try and earn the

trust of other members. We suggest to actively participating in the groups, taking part in

discussions, offering help and suggestions to fellow members.This can be done by using Linkedin Answers.

Below are some smart tips to make the most of this tool:

1. Have a schedule and interact regularly, either weekly or daily

1wikipedia

2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn#Groups

3http://smallbusiness.chron.com/use-linkedin-groups-company-10990.html


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2. Pick a handful of topics to focus on and become a heavy hitter in these sections of the

site

3. Provide overly useful answers, pointing to many resources. The more helpful you are

the more attention you will get from potential business partners and customers.

4.

If you are acting as a company, use multiple people to support each other indiscussion in a show of force. There is no need to game the system and just comment

with attaboys and I agree. But having multiple employees with smart helpful

discussion can only help your cause.

5. Make sure you dont go into sell mode and overwhelm other users by pushing your

product constantly or aggressively.

6. Again, look for opportunities to reuse your answers and discussions as blog posts to

keep the thought leadership going4.

So we said that regularly answering questions of other users can help you gain credibility.

Linkedin allows you to monitor certain categories of questions and answer and whenever a

question on a topic youre competent about pops up you can be the first to answer.

Below is a screen-shot5

of what the Answers application looks like and of some of the

categories that you can monitor.

Upon identifying an interesting question we should follow the following tips to build

powerful relationships through LinkedinAnwers:

4http://socialfresh.com/linkedin-marketing-tips/

5http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/top-5-ways-to-market-your-business-with-linkedin/


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1. Research the person who asked the question, and find a way to tie in a personal

response with something from their LinkedIn profile.

2. Be as helpful and resourceful as possible when answering the question. Give tips,

website links with additional information, or even recommend someone who is the

best expert on that topic.

3. Leave the answer with an open invitation for more communication by asking them tocontact you privately if they need any extra help

6.

We must aim at becoming top Influencers, that is to say group members whose

contributions cause the most contributions from other group members7

so we will focus on

quality, rather than on quantity.

The Top Influencers ranking updates every 3 hours and resets completely every Sunday at

midnight8.

Once this has been done it will be easier to introduce our service, without giving the

impression of having joined the group only to exploit it.

Polls are another useful tool to convince the members of the group you are targeting thatyouve joined for engagement and not for spam and only blatantly promoting your

product/service. Linkedin allows you to share not only the groups but any poll and discussion

that you might have created extending the reach and increasing engagement opportunities

even more.

This will also help us create a wide network of professionals and of people. Creating these

connections will be conducive of other connections that might translate in many new

customers.

Once well have earned a positive reputation we can start discussions.

After doing some research we found these three useful practical tips:

The title should be kept short to ensure that its eye catching;

Some additional details should be provided, but kept to a minimum to keep users

attention;

Include links to the corporate web-site, blog, giving interested users an easy way to

reach you9.

Measurement on Linkedin mainly regards the impact of ones Linkedin Groups participation,

which can be measured by employing Bit.ly links and tracking tockens to see how many

people click on the links one has shared10

.

Suggestions of group of interest:

6http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/top-5-ways-to-market-your-business-with-linkedin/

7Ibidem

8Ibidem

9http://blog.linkedin.com/2012/07/17/linkedin-groups-for-marketers/

10Ibidem


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Inbound Marketers

Social Media Marketing

Mobile marketing parlaitaliano

Social media marketing Italia

Mobile Marketing and Advertising Online Marketing

Mobile marketing association

Second step: create a Linkedin Group

After performing a search of Linkedin groups discussing about the topic of QR codes, we are

convinced of the necessity of creating one where not only we will introduce members to the

idea of qr codes but which we will use as a way to discuss the potential of offline to online

campaigns and therefore of the service sQRmap.

We suggest not creating a group exclusively dealing with sQRmap in order to make the group

appealing to a wider section of Linkedin users.

The group will be an open group to allow it to grow more easily and we will promote it on

our existing channels while at the same time promoting our existing channels by posting

about them in the group.

It is suggested to invite brand champions and customers that have had positive experiences

with sQRmap (once there will be some) to post and participate to discussions in the group

from time to time.

Of course setting up a group and moderating it go together, as does participating to

discussions, answering to other members questions and so on.

Creating a group will also help us get inspiration from the best and most recurring open

discussions for blog posts and posts on the other social media11

.

2. TWITTER

With some variability at country level, data about usage of Twitter follow an upward trend:

today the platform has 500 million registered users, even if only 140 million are active

users12. It makes twitter the second most frequented Social Media after Facebook. Thepurpose of the platform was initially general; it was not a social media, rather an instant

11http://socialfresh.com/linkedin-marketing-tips/

12http://iab.blogosfere.it/2012/11/twitter-2012-linfografica-con-i-dati-del-2012-i-top-users-e-i-tweets-prodotti.html
http://iab.blogosfere.it/2012/11/twitter-2012-linfografica-con-i-dati-del-2012-i-top-users-e-i-tweets-prodotti.htmlhttp://iab.blogosfere.it/2012/11/twitter-2012-linfografica-con-i-dati-del-2012-i-top-users-e-i-tweets-prodotti.htmlhttp://iab.blogosfere.it/2012/11/twitter-2012-linfografica-con-i-dati-del-2012-i-top-users-e-i-tweets-prodotti.html


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messaging facility13

. Now it allows people to share brief sentences - their thoughts in 140

characters.

Twitter is used by many companies to advertise their product and to drive online attention to

their brands. Researches show that 50% of active users follow companies, brands, products

and 67% of them are more likely to buy from businesses that they follow.Not to be understated, even the power of the word of mouth count in this picture: 79% of

users will recommend to other users brands they follow14

.

It is a cheap instrument, which can be used with low investment both in terms of financial as

well as human resources. Following some practical tips may help to optimize ROI from

Twitter campaign.

Reasons for using Twitter: what can be expected to be achieved

Twitter is regarded as the most effective instrument for giving exposure to business and gain

a regular clientle15

. We want to use this instrument to engage with potential customers and

prospects, enhancing the brand at the same time.

The biggest opportunity deriving from the use of Twitter is that it helps Search Engine

Optimization - with search engines being the main starting point for consumers business

search - by promoting contents.

This is the most effective instrument to target your sponsored contents to a global interested

audience (we will see how in next paragraphs). Within this respect, quality of people you

follow and follow you back, rather than quantity, is important. Engaging in direct

conversations raises the exposure of your profile. However, even numbers are important,

because they raise your credibility and make you more attractive to be followed back.

Moreover, it allows your company to have direct and real-time reactions and feedbacks for

adjusting content promotion strategy16

.

Twitter is a powerful means to increase traffic through company website, by enhancing

engagement and information level of consumers. It helps minimizing risk, by helping

completeness of information and creating trust among your public, reading your tweets17

.

However, some drawbacks arise due to the difficulties of people to directly relate to business

and the fact that Twitter is not the right instrument for overselling your product. The strategy

that you may want to implement for getting the most out of your Twitter followers is more

13http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/06/10/12-keys-to-success-on-twitter/#6HvIoEKAC9eMrb1L.99

14http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/11/28/social-media-marketing-10-inspiring-infographics/# and

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/21/11-new-twitter-facts-figures-and-growth-statistics-plus-infographic/15

http://workwithpatrickmcconnell.com/using-twitter-for-your-business/16

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/21/11-new-twitter-facts-figures-and-growth-statistics-plus-infographic/17

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/11/28/social-media-marketing-10-inspiring-infographics/#
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/06/10/12-keys-to-success-on-twitter/#6HvIoEKAC9eMrb1L.99http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/06/10/12-keys-to-success-on-twitter/#6HvIoEKAC9eMrb1L.99http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/11/28/social-media-marketing-10-inspiring-infographics/http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/21/11-new-twitter-facts-figures-and-growth-statistics-plus-infographic/http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/21/11-new-twitter-facts-figures-and-growth-statistics-plus-infographic/http://workwithpatrickmcconnell.com/using-twitter-for-your-business/http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/21/11-new-twitter-facts-figures-and-growth-statistics-plus-infographic/http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/11/28/social-media-marketing-10-inspiring-infographics/http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/11/28/social-media-marketing-10-inspiring-infographics/http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/11/28/social-media-marketing-10-inspiring-infographics/http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/21/11-new-twitter-facts-figures-and-growth-statistics-plus-infographic/http://workwithpatrickmcconnell.com/using-twitter-for-your-business/http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/21/11-new-twitter-facts-figures-and-growth-statistics-plus-infographic/http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/11/28/social-media-marketing-10-inspiring-infographics/http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/06/10/12-keys-to-success-on-twitter/#6HvIoEKAC9eMrb1L.99


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indirect, than direct - you may also be willing to adopt a problem solving approach and

suggest your product as a solution.

Twitter is a very sharp tool for businesses running a blog18

. Since sQRmap already has one,

this may be a useful starting point. The idea is that Twitter marketing strategy and blogging

should be carried out hand by hand.

How to setup your Twitter campaign: step- by- step approach

First step: create a presence on Twitter

SQRmap already has a twitter account, in addition to a dedicated website and a dedicated

blog. We already have all the instruments needed for implementing our social media

strategy.The Twitter profile looks good: it includes all references for the products (description and link

to the website), the background is customized and the profile picture is that of the logo. It

will be a good thing to have the same profile picture displayed in all social media channels, in

order to enhance brand awareness.

However, current bio description may be too obscure: exploiting all the possibilities 160

characters give, would probably be a better strategy to catch users attention and have the

profile displayed more often in search results, both in Twitter search engine and in Googles.

Note that it is advised to have some hashtags included in the description, for the same

reason. In the case of sQRmap #mobile, #mobilead, #QRcodes will be appropriate.Worth to notice, some people, such as @jeffbullas, advise to keep your product Twitter

profile personal19

, by putting personal pictures and trying to engage people with a direct

personal approach, rather than business. The reason for this is that people are more likely to

investigate about real persons or brands they trust, while they avoid spammers or business

accounts created only for promotional purposes.

However, we would better suggest keeping the product account as it is. It is true that

personal attitude usually drives more reactions and responses but we do not personally think

people are uncomfortable at engaging with business account. Some successful examples of

business tweets driving high number of responses can be easily presented. A mediationbetween the two approaches can be made: for example, you could set up an account

keeping @sqrmap, but using your name and surname as id displayed20

.

18http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/06/how-do-you-use-twitter-infographic/

19http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/06/27/how-to-create-a-twitter-marketing-strategy-that-rocks/

20For more hints see http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-simple-steps-to-getting-your-business-on-twitter/
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/06/how-do-you-use-twitter-infographic/http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/06/how-do-you-use-twitter-infographic/http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/06/27/how-to-create-a-twitter-marketing-strategy-that-rocks/http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/06/27/how-to-create-a-twitter-marketing-strategy-that-rocks/http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-simple-steps-to-getting-your-business-on-twitter/http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-simple-steps-to-getting-your-business-on-twitter/http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/06/27/how-to-create-a-twitter-marketing-strategy-that-rocks/http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/09/06/how-do-you-use-twitter-infographic/


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Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all other Tweets marked with that keyword.

Hashtagged words that become very popular are often Trending topics

Third step: Engage with your Interested Audience

Here are some tips about strategies that you may want to implement for creating engagingcontents to tweet about. Some of them are simple and common sense, but they have been

selected in order to act as reminds.

About contents:

Conversation strategy27

for sQRmap may include breaking news contents, blog related

entries, promotion (in the sense of sQRmap related tweets). It would be necessary to keep

attention to engagement by tweeting questions and answers to followers question28

. Note

that the measure of engagement is sometimes taken as the number of private messages you

get and answer to.

About Tweet rhythm:

It should be consistent and spread throughout the day. Remember that you can always use

tools such as scheduled post, available in both Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. As the Social

Media guru @TinHangLiu explained in a seminar he held at Trento University, best time to

tweet is on weekends, lunch-break hours and evenings, because more people than in work

hours is active on Twitter. Tools such as Socialbro allow you to know when most of your

followers are online and therefore choosing the best time to tweet. You may be willing to

check out Buffer, as tool for scheduling and automatically thanking people for retwitting, if

you want to achieve even more visibility

29

.

Fourth step: enlighten your interested audience

While breaking the news and be the first to provide information can be a good strategy, a

better one is to create or relate to valuable contents that do not make your tweet

immediately outdated. Especially for what regard blog entries or industry related articles

(yours or not), you may be willing to sponsor them to your interested followers and in this

way create a reliable presence.

In the case you are sharing third-parties contents, it would be appropriate to refer to themand thank them. Following the Twitter etiquette, you should also retweet your closest

followers.

27ibidem

28Social Media Marketeers weekly newsletter

29http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/3-twitter-marketing-tools/
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/4-tips-to-maximize-your-twitter-marketing/http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/4-tips-to-maximize-your-twitter-marketing/http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/3-twitter-marketing-tools/http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/3-twitter-marketing-tools/http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/4-tips-to-maximize-your-twitter-marketing/


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Twitterfeed is a tool that allows you to automatic retweet a content from a RSS source you

trust30

.

Your aim should be to represent a point of reference for your audience on Twitter. Drive

attention to sQRmap as good solution for mobile advertising needs, as milestone in

marketing instrument for professionals of the sector by educating your followers andproviding them with some relevant materials on the topic. Once you have effectively selected

your audience, you are pretty sure that they will find your content interesting. The graph

below shows the three elements you need to drive reactions. The first one is exposure and

deals with the number of followers you succeed to have. The second one is attention, and

this is related with the amount of tweets you post per day. The third one is the point that you

want to reach, is related with enlightment mission.31

Source: danzarrella.com

Fifth step: measuring and monitoring

In previous report we set up objectives we would like to reach in our twitter campaign. Now

we indicate the instruments through which measuring them.

30http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/06/10/12-keys-to-success-on-twitter/#6HvIoEKAC9eMrb1L.99

31http://danzarrella.com/viral-math-r-naught-and-zarrellas-hierarchy-of-

contagiousness.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DanZarrella+%28Dan+Zarrell

a%27s+Blog%29
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/06/10/12-keys-to-success-on-twitter/#6HvIoEKAC9eMrb1L.99http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/06/10/12-keys-to-success-on-twitter/#6HvIoEKAC9eMrb1L.99


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We are interested in number of followers, rate of growth of our community, number of

tweets per day, number of retweets and favourites of our posts

Some of the instruments mentioned before, such as Hootsuite, allow you to have some

analytics regarding your account, even if the free version is not complete in all its

functionalities. Socialbro seems to be even a better one.We would like to turn the attention to Klout, as tool for measuring user influence, just for

making a remark about the fact that some people raised concerns about its unbiasdeness32

.

3. EMAIL MARKETING

Integrating your social media channels with your email can provide the best of both worlds33

.

Most chief marketing officers know that e-mail marketing is still a very effective marketing

tool and in fact a survey revealed that CMOs still consider it as a top priority in their

marketing plans for 2010

34

.The real benefit of social media is its ability to leverage your message and amplify your

content as people spread it on their social networks.

Whereas with email, your reach is equal to your list size, with social media, your reach is

equal to your followers, fans, subscribers plus all of their connections, which gives your

campaigns more leverage through people consuming and sharing content35

GetResponse conducted a survey and found that integrating social media by introducing

sharing buttons in e-mail produced a greater than 30% improvement in click through rates36

.

The average click-through-rate (CTR) was 115% higher for emails that included any

social link; 5.6% CTR for emails including social sharing icons;

2.6% CTR for those that do not include social sharing buttons37

.

In order to optimize their email marketing campaign and social media companies should

perform the following actions after ascertaining which social media their customers and

potential customers use and setting up profiles on each of these.

Reasons for using e-mail marketing: what can be expected to be achieved

Integrating and optimizing Social Media with e-mail campaigns will result in

38

:

32http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/11/23/does-klout-measure-influence-accurately/#GhbZI0ySkZSjI06s.99

33http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/08/03/how-email-marketing-can-boost-your-social-media-presence/

34http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/07/01/10-ways-to-integrate-your-social-media-and-email-marketing/

35http://www.jeffbullas.com/2009/07/22/5-steps-to-optimize-your-email-for-social-media/

36http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/07/01/10-ways-to-integrate-your-social-media-and-email-

marketing/#HdsyzGCPOlrjk8KX.9937

http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/01/11/the-one-thing-most-social-media-marketers-forget-plus-

infographic/#MJCr68lwqTaB5Wxx.99
http://www.getresponse.com/documents/core/reports/Email_Marketing_&_Social_Media_Integration_report.pdfhttp://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/11/23/does-klout-measure-influence-accurately/#GhbZI0ySkZSjI06s.99http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/11/23/does-klout-measure-influence-accurately/#GhbZI0ySkZSjI06s.99http://www.getresponse.com/documents/core/reports/Email_Marketing_&_Social_Media_Integration_report.pdf


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An increase the number of mentions in social media

The number of subscribers to a companys social media profiles will rise and

A jump in the amount of traffic and leads from social media sites (for this lead

generation type of content) due to that buzz on these sites.

Summarizing the following are some ways to integrate social media and e-mail marketing

39

Broadcast your blog entries via e-mail

Add social media channel subscribe buttons on your e-mail newsletter such as follow

us on Twitter

Place a link to your e-mail newsletters on your social media pages such as Facebook

Send out e-mail newsletters that are excerpts to your blog with links to each post

Include social media share options in your e-mail newsletter

Provide e-mail sign up options in your companys social media channels such as your

Facebook page

When asking for an e-mail opt-in option at your company call center also offer asocial media opt-in option

Use the sidebar on your e-mail-marketing newsletter to list and link to all your

companys social-networking profiles

Use your purchase is successful confirmation e-mails to link to your social media

help forums or YouTube video tutorials

Provide an option for customers to join your social media networks on your e-mail

newsletter registration page

How to setup your e-mail marketing campaign: step- by- step approach

Step 1: Add links in the emails sent out to customers to follow or subscribe to the companys

social media profiles. It follows that people already subscribing to your emails will most likely

follow you in social media so its important to let them know where they could find you.

Social media also gets a leg up on email in that an email address may not stick with someone

as they move from one job to another, but social media profiles and subscriptions will.

Step 2: Add links/sharing buttons in your emails to post your content to these social mediasites. Make it easy for your recipients to share the content with their networks on these

social media sites.

38http://www.jeffbullas.com/2009/07/22/5-steps-to-optimize-your-email-for-social-media/#1LUyA3E3vX8Mjxrt.99

39http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/07/01/10-ways-to-integrate-your-social-media-and-email-

marketing/#HdsyzGCPOlrjk8KX.99


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Step 3:Integrate social media at all stages of the communication. Follow the user from the

email to the landing page*

and conversion40

.

*Look into the use of Lead Capture pages (by seeing who fills out the forms in the Lead Capture pages you can

have a clue of whos visiting your advertisement campaigns, visiting your page etc..) + Put AdTrackers in the emails

(As your subscribers receive your letters, they click the AdTracker URL in the letter. This is what is known as aclick-through (someone clicks the link to go through to your website). Each time someone clicks the AdTracker

URL in any letter or ad, your systemkeeps track41

. Seewww.trafficwave.net

4. FACEBOOK

Companies today have the opportunity to interact with consumers on different social

networks and being the number one social network website with over one billion users (as of

October 2012)42

Facebook stands up front. Among the total one billion users, 600 million are

mobile users allowing them to visit Facebook frequently43. Based on these facts Facebook

should be part of any social media marketing plan, if not the most important. The fact that

businesses can create Facebook page for their products free of charge is another plus.

Benefits of having Facebook page

Currently companies can create Facebook page for their products free of charge. Being able

to create a Facebook page in the largest social media without any cost and interact with

potential customers is a big advantage to small businesses like sQRmap. The Facebook page

will help to increase awareness of customers about sQRmap and QR codes in general by

interacting with potential and existing customers.

Companys presence on Facebook helps to increase traffic to website, improves search engine

rankings enabling customers to find your business not only on social media but also on search

engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. With millions of users every day, Facebook can be the

perfect medium to lunch viral marketing campaigns. It also helps companies to gain

consumer insights.44

Apart from the free services Facebook allows paid ads targeting a specific group of people

based on age, personal interests and more.Facebook's advertising platformkeeps a record of

all like activities allowing companies to access this data and produce more highly-targeted

40http://www.jeffbullas.com/2009/07/22/5-steps-to-optimize-your-email-for-social-media/

41http://www.trafficwave.net/Guide_To_Email_Marketing.pdf

42http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2012/10/04/facebook-hits-1-billion-active-users/

43http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2012/10/04/facebook-hits-1-billion-active-users/

44http://businesstips.ph/20-benefits-of-having-a-facebook-page-for-your-business/
http://www.trafficwave.net/http://www.trafficwave.net/http://www.trafficwave.net/http://www.facebook.com/advertising/http://www.facebook.com/advertising/http://www.facebook.com/advertising/http://www.trafficwave.net/Guide_To_Email_Marketing.pdfhttp://thenextweb.com/facebook/2012/10/04/facebook-hits-1-billion-active-users/http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2012/10/04/facebook-hits-1-billion-active-users/http://businesstips.ph/20-benefits-of-having-a-facebook-page-for-your-business/http://businesstips.ph/20-benefits-of-having-a-facebook-page-for-your-business/http://businesstips.ph/20-benefits-of-having-a-facebook-page-for-your-business/http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2012/10/04/facebook-hits-1-billion-active-users/http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2012/10/04/facebook-hits-1-billion-active-users/http://www.trafficwave.net/Guide_To_Email_Marketing.pdfhttp://www.facebook.com/advertising/http://www.trafficwave.net/


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ads. It helps companies to achieve a greater degree of relevance with their advertising .45

Facebook can also examine user profiles to place your ads only on pages that mention a

specific keyword.46 Promoting posts is also another new form of paid ad on Facebook.

Businesses with more than 400 likes on Facebook can access this in order to have their

brand viewed by the public more easily and effectively.

Step one - Creating and promoting Facebook page

In order to get the benefits provided by Facebook businesses should create their presence by

opening a Facebook page for free. sQRmap has already opened a Facebook page and the next

task is promoting the page. The different techniques that help promote Facebook page will be

discussed below.

Strategies to promote presence on Facebook

Mentioning Follow me on Facebook Everywhere:47Adding a clickable link at the end of

every post, blog or website and asking the reader to become a fan of your product on

Facebook is one of the effective methods to increase your number of fans. This can be done

usingSocial Plugins widgetswhich would help insert that link at every post automatically. In

addition, telling customers to follow on email signatures, newsletters and printed ads can

also increase followers.

Using status tagging:48This is a new feature introduced by Facebook and another way to

find followers. We can tag popular pages or individuals related to QR codes, social media

marketing or related areas by simply typing the @ sign before the page or individual's name

we want to tag. The status updates will be visible to the fans of the tagged page or individual

and we may find some fans who like your page.Connecting Facebook to Twitter:

49 its possible to convert your Twitter followers into your

Facebook Fans by connecting your Facebook page to your Twitter account using different

applications. Then whenever you update your status, post a photo, link, make a note or make

any new event on your Facebook page, a tweet will be sent out by your Twitter profile

automatically to let your followers know what is going on, on your Facebook page. Other

45http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/2723-8-Benefits-to-Facebook-Likes-

46http://www.superpages.com/supertips/top-10-benefits-of-advertising-on-facebook.html

47http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/effective-ways-to-increase-facebook-fns/


http://developers.facebook.com/pluginshttp://developers.facebook.com/pluginshttp://developers.facebook.com/pluginshttp://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/2723-8-Benefits-to-Facebook-Likes-http://www.superpages.com/supertips/top-10-benefits-of-advertising-on-facebook.htmlhttp://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/effective-ways-to-increase-facebook-fns/http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/effective-ways-to-increase-facebook-fns/http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/effective-ways-to-increase-facebook-fns/http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/effective-ways-to-increase-facebook-fns/http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/effective-ways-to-increase-facebook-fns/http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/effective-ways-to-increase-facebook-fns/http://www.superpages.com/supertips/top-10-benefits-of-advertising-on-facebook.htmlhttp://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/2723-8-Benefits-to-Facebook-Likes-http://developers.facebook.com/plugins


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than connecting your Facebook page to your Twitter profile, you can also put a link in your

About Me on Twitter, which might also bring in some fans to your Facebook page.

Facebook Ads: Facebook ads are a form of paid advertising, allowing companies to choose

the basic demographics of the audience they want to address, helping to reach people who

arent connected to the page yet increasing chance of placement in the news feed.

Promoting Posts is also a new paid feature of Facebook which can be used by Facebook

pages with more than 400 likes on Facebook. It helps companies to have their brand viewed

by the public more easily and effectively.50

Joining Facebook groups: Joining popular groups in your niche and making useful posts on

the wall and in the discussion boards also helps to find new fans. Posts will stay on somediscussion boards for quite a while, and lots of people will see your posts with your links and

this will generate good traffic to your page.

Using Suggest feature: Inviting and suggesting groups, individuals and friends who have

interest about QR codes will increase the number of followers.

Step two Strategies for effective engagement with Audiences

After opening our Facebook page and get some followers the next step that should be

considered is how to stay in touch with our followers, what kind of information should be

posted on our page to engage our audiences ...

Timing of post:51

Timing is extremely important when it comes to posting on facebook. A

research by Buddy Media reveals that one of the ways to create the most effective

engagement for businesses when interacting with their fans on Facebook is to post during

times when fans are not at work and between the hours of 8pm and 7am. Posting during

non busy days and hours helps to increase engagement level of audiences. The reduced

posting frequency by brands on the weekend and evening time periods reduces clutter, and

using these times can create more opportunity to catch a Fan's attention.

Content of post52: Customers want to be informed and engaged and the way companies

communicate with them matters. Rather than a simple status post or links, images have high

50http://blog.kissmetrics.com/increase-engagement-on-facebook/

51http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/02/29/10-powerful-tips-to-increase-fan-engagement-on-facebook/



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potential to engage audiences. So mixing up status updates with photos or videos can

increase engagement. posting news or stories related to your business and providing unique

commentary or insight also increases engagment.

Frequency of post:53The frequency of posts has an impact on the way customers react and

the level of engagement. When you first launch your page, you may start off by posting once

a day and see how your fans respond to that. If necessary you may increase your posting

frequency to several times a day or you may decrease your posts to several times a week.

The idea is to find the rhythm that is right for your fans.

Call to Action:54Call to actions instill psychological nudges that help marketers drive their

audience to respond the way that they want to. When updating Facebook page status

include call to action, audiences tend to respond better when they are given specifics as to

what to respond, for example telling them to like, tag, share or comment ro asking questions.

Step three - Measuring effectiveness

Social media marketing is only valuable for businesses if companies use it to meet specific

objectives. such as an increase in the number of fans, an increase in feedback likes, or

shares, or a boost in website traffic. One of the ways to measure the degree to which a

posts effectiveness on Facebook is to measure the number of likes, comments or shares it

generates. There are many ways that can be used to measure how effectively we are using

our Facebook such as Facebook Insights, Hootsuite, Klout etc and we have already discussed

every tool in our first report.

5. Conclusion

In this report we went through social networks, chosen for sQRmap social media campaign.

We highlighted the benefits brought by each social network, after presenting general facts of

each social media. Then, we discussed in detail the strategy to be adopted, with respect to

each item. This includes how to set up the presence, content creation and management and,

finally, how to measure the results of the action in each social environment.

We are planning to start the campaign on December 1st/2012 and hit the set targets by the

end of the year.


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