Archive for June, 2010
We’re back to the swing of things here on SMMarketingBook.com After a week off due to illness and vacation, the 45 Social Media Insights Over 45 Days is back in full swing. Today’s chapter in Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media is chapter 10, “Come Bearing Gifts”.
If you are a company, a marketer for a company or a consultant doing the marketing for a company and you are engaging in social media communities but are never giving back, you will find yourself out in the cold before too long. It’s important to remember to reward your community with the very things they find of most value. Giving the gift of content, or coupons, or special offers is a great way to “give back” to the community who is taking the time out of their day to share their experiences with you.
Today’s three tips focuses on the types of gifts you should consider giving.
- Understand What Is Of Value To the Community
- Content Can Be Valuable
- A Gift Needs to Be Unique
Full video transcript after the jump…
Increasingly companies are trying to tie real world value to their interactions in Social Media. How much is a tweet worth, how much does the effort cost to get a retweet, or acquiring friends on MySpace or fans on Facebook?
These are ever elusive and for each company the value is going to be different based on the amount of resources (both money and time) invested into the implementation of the particular marketing tactic of the social media marketing strategy.
eMarketer had a interesting post this morning about a report from digital consulting firm Syncapse and research company Hotspex. In their report they came up with an empirical formula that puts an average value of $136.38 on the Facebook fans of the site’s 20 biggest corporate brands. They based this how much they see that fans will spend on the brand’s products & services, with additional dollars coming from customer recommendations, loyalty and earned media.
There have been other studies that have shown social followers are more likely to buy a brand’s products if they are a Facebook fan. These studies though focused more on the brand loyalty aspect rather than the true dollar amount companies could actually connect with their efforts of building a fan base, particularly in Facebook.
So are you measuring the the Return on Conversation or the Return on Investment in your Social Media Marketing Strategy? What kind of value are you putting on a Facebook Fan, a Twitter Follower, or a friend in a forum or message board? What is their interaction worth to you and what’s the likelihood that those friends, followers and fans are going to recommend you, pass on your media or purchase from you? Those are all things that companies need to plan for, set goals for and keep constantly measuring if there is success to be had in their social media marketing strategies.
The world of social media is pretty big and there’s a lot of different types of sites out there that fall under the broad term of social media. In chapter 2 of the book, Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media, I go into specific detail about the different types of social media that are out there and how they appeal to different types of community users.
Understanding your audience is half the battle to securing a successful online social media marketing strategy. Another piece of that puzzle is understanding the types of social media out there and how they appeal to different demographics, different ethnographics, as well as different profile within social media. Today I highlight three different types for this video in the 45 Social Media Insights Over 45 Days series. Again, remember, these are just three of many that are written about in depth in the book.
- Social News
- Social Bookmarking
- Social Sharing
Full video transcript after the jump….
Programming Note: Due to vacation (I’m heading to the lovely city of New Orleans, LA) there won’t be any video posting Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday. We’ll be back in the swing of the series on Tuesday June 16th, 2010. I might have a post or two about relevant topics during that time, but videos won’t be posted.
Listening is probably one of the most important things you can do when you are implementing engagement tactics in social media communities. It’s important to remember we were given two ears and just one mouth for a reason. Listening to the community members can queue you into things that you would not normally be privy too if you were just relying on focus groups or surveys.
Today’s three tips are from Chapter 26 “You Need to be All Ears” in the book Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media. Of course the full chapter digs a lot deeper into aspects of listening as opposed to just “hearing” what’s being said and how listening can even help your company out with problems it may be facing. Today’s three quick tips are:
- People Want to Be Heard
- Learn the Lingo
- Listening Helps Avoid Disasters
Full video transcript after the jump…
Two weeks ago I had the delightful opportunity to be interviewed for WebMaster Radio‘s Cover Story by Meg Walker (who’s the Director of Online Marketing at PR Web). We got to talk about a lot of different things that have to deal with Social Media and how to market, plan strategies, use tools and even about writing this book. The interview runs about a half an hour so if you have the time, let it play in the background.
In the interview I talk about some tips you can integrate into your social media marketing strategy. I also talk about what you’ll find in the upcoming in Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media. Then in the last segment I talk about Social Snap. What’s Social Snap? Well it’s a tool that’s going to be very valuable to any marketer who’s venturing into online marketing, especially social media. Social Snap is a social media monitoring & measuring dashboard tool that allows marketers, senior level and c-level management to easily be able to see how their social media marketing tactics are performing. Not only that, but it combines buzz monitoring and analytics into the mix. One stop shopping… so to speak.
Want to learn more about Social Snap? Drop me a line on the contact page and I’ll get you more information. 
Take a listen to the interview in the meantime to learn about Social Snap, the book and get some more tips! (Just hit the little play button to get started)
Social Media Strategies and Tools: Interview on WMR Cover Story [ 33:59 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadWhile a lot needs to be focused on the ROI (Return on Investment) in social media marketing, marketers and even senior level (C-Suite) team members might have a hard time wrapping their minds around how to measure that when it comes to engaging in social media. That’s why looking at it more as the Return on Conversation can make it a little bit easier to comprehend and even likely a little more realistic in some cases where engaging in social media doesn’t end up in a “click to sale” situation.
Today’s chapter is “It’s the Return on Conversation” which is Chapter 4 in the book Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media. This chapter dives into the issues that surround how to measure the conversation, what can you get back from engagement, and things happen when you start to engage without a forced expectation. Today’s 3 high level tips in our 45 Social Media Insights Over 45 Days series are:
- Monitoring the Conversation
- Participate Without Expecting Anything
- Join a Random Conversation
Full video transcript after the jump…
Marketers get attached to tools, tactics, sites and cool new things. Sometimes those cool new things aren’t the best thing for your social media marketing strategy, but how do you know and what do you do if they aren’t? It’s pretty tough unless you put somethings into place like measurable goals, metrics and monitoring. You also have to have an open mind, to not get attached to tactics that are within your strategy.
Today’s 45 Social Media Insights In 45 Days features chapter 14 which is “Don’t Be Afraid to Throw Out What Isn’t Working” that’s in the book Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media. Today’s three insights that are covered in our video tips are:
- Monitor, Monitor, Monitor
- Measure
- If It Isn’t Working, Just Stop!
Full video transcript after the jump…
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What do you get when you cross an application for a smart phone with a social media community with a rabid following? A community that has no need for a web browser to find places to eat! Yelp & OpenTable, according to Fortune, have just joined forces to allow Yelp’s community to make reservations via Yelp. This means if you are using the Yelp application on your smart phone (they have apps out there for just about every smart phone available), you can now use OpenTable through that app.
Yesterday I talked about “It’s Not Just the Web Browser Anymore” which is chapter 42 in the book, Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media. The book dives into the reasons why social media marketers or marketers dipping their toes in the social media marketing pool need to think beyond IE Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari or Opera. Each day social media communities are looking to connect their members together when they are away from their computers.
Even eReaders are starting to become a place for marketers to consider. If I had a Kindle, (I don’t, I have a Nook) I could order groceries, or even the Old Gringo Cowboy Boots I wanted, not just books. On my Nook, I can browse other websites, and if Barnes & Noble sold other things, I could likely order those too. All this without IE Explorer.
Everyday new applications are being created for smart phones, eReaders and other gadgets that don’t need to be tied to a computer. Everyday this opens a new channel that people can connect to social media communities. Do you know how to plan for this in your social media marketing strategy?
From smart phones to desktop applications, social media users are no longer tethered a web browser anymore to access their favorite communities. From blogs to geolocation communities, member can access their networks through a variety of different portals, gateways, and channels to connect, share and engage. The times have changed, no longer is it just the web browser marketers need to keep an eye on and plan for, it’s a lot of different venues of communication.
Chapter 42 “It’s Not Just the Web Browser Anymore” of Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media, talks about this subject at length and gives you in-depth information about what you need to keep in mind when you are planning for your engagement in social media communities. Today’s 45 Social Media Insights Over 45 Days high level tips are:
- Audiences Consume Media in Many Different Ways
- Smart Phones, They Matter Now
- Desktop Applications Serve Up Content
Full video transcript after the jump…
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I’ve been pondering this idea for the last couple of weeks. I toss the idea out to friends to get their opinion. Most of my friends are on at least one Social Media community, most are on more than one. Overwhelmingly when I ask, “Do You Think Social Media Communities Could Come Up With a Solution for the BP Oil Crisis?“, the answer is yes.
As anyone around the globe knows, this isn’t the Exxon Valdez situation, this is a crisis that can affect all areas the globe even the Antarctic, some experts claim. With the BP CEO spouting off foolish words like “I would like my life back“, I for one am not confident that BP can ever fully resolve this crisis. I think I’m also probably with the majority of the world’s population that is tired of all the finger pointing in this tragedy of immense proportions between BP, Transocean and anyone else these companies want to point a finger at.
Vivek Kundra spoke at last year’s Open Government conference in Washington DC. He spearheaded the “Apps for Democracy” project when he was CTO of Washington DC, he is now CIO of the United States. This social media experiment turned out some of the most out of the box thinking when it came to creating applications to help residents of the Washington DC area. Why can’t the US government now do the same kind of social media experiment? Especially in light of everything BP has tried and failed to stop this oil from continuing to spew into the Gulf of Mexico.
Take a look at “If It Was My Home“. This website’s application accesses NOAA’s information made readily available to the public. Just as Washington DC’s project let the 311 data available to the public to make applications, it’s applications like these that try to make our lives better, or bring information closer or into a more personal perspective. What if someone from our government took the iniative to ask the public for help or ideas to help solve this crisis?
Some of the most brilliant out of the box thinking comes from college students attending places like MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon and even tiny schools only your local neighborhood really know about. What if we asked them for ideas or help via a social media initiative similar to “Apps for Democracy”?
I’m really curious here, I for one think a way could be found by asking for help, but what say you?
