BrightEdge Customer Column: Adventures in Social Networking
Speaking of the Hollywood industry, legendary screenwriter William Goldman ( Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid , Princess Bride , Misery ) once said, “Nobody knows anything.” Although the now-celebrated quote is often mistakenly used to suggest that studio executives are stupid, Goldman really meant that, prior to a release, Hollywood has no idea which film is going to be a hit and which won’t.
As Web 2.0 continues its gold rush, and as social platforms forge ahead, steering the way we interact, one may be tempted to say that it holds true in the realm of social media—not only because the channels are continually changing and expanding, but also because that slippery social landscape keeps morphing on us.
So, how do you determine the best course for your company to get into Social Media Marketing? As in Hollywood, it appears the best and only way (after studying the landscape and applying some good old-fashioned intuition) is to simply do it. Luckily, there are some ruts in the road we can follow to “get there” faster.
Content is the Real Estate of SMM
Content is the terra firma of a social media campaign—and I mean quality content. Good, entertaining, informative content is oceanfront property. Some businesses have taken the approach of carpet bombing blogs, forums and platforms with bland fortune cookie advice, boring photos, flat product descriptions and ham-handed rewrites of other people’s work. That’s landfill. Don’t let that be you. Whether it’s about your company’s products, services or news, your primary goal is to engage, entertain and educate the reader. Put some personality in it; develop a genuine voice. Then once you’ve created the content, there are several ways to distribute it: on your site (such as interest or how-to pages), writing a blog, or submitting it to influencers (bloggers, reviewers, journalists) and other sites that would take an interest in your subject matter. Only then will you get the “likes,” “shares”and “follows”– not to mention a growing fan base that will carry your message to others.
Also, as with any SEO, make sure the content is search-engine-sticky and rich with carefully-placed placed keywords that are important to you, and links that will take them to your front door.
Start a Blog
The fastest way to find an outlet for your content is to create it yourself. A blog is an ideal format for generating informative, outreaching copy because you can write as much— about as much—as you want without annoying anyone, you can edit articles later should you decide to make corrections or additions, and (most importantly) you can find your “voice.” The Beatles performed live in Hamburg, Germany over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964; before that, they were known in club circles as “that bum band.” Sure, you may not be churning out Sgt. Pepper anytime soon, but as Stephen King always said, a good writer writes .
But writing isn’t even the hardest part about blogging—it’s getting an audience. It’s going to be a long, arduous process, involving the use of Facebook, Twitter and other channels, loitering and commenting in a lot of other blogs and forums, submitting guest posts on other sites, and more. Be sure to post viral content like striking photos and videos, and fresh, different perspectives on familiar topics. Invite guest bloggers from widely-followed sites and make their audiences yours. Eventually, they will share your posts with others, the viewership will climb and now we got a whole new ball game. Also, remember to include Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest buttons on your blog template.
Influencers
Influencer Marketing is probably the most powerful part of social networking. An “influencer” is an already-established voice with a significant following– and the ones you need to connect with are the ones talking to your audience. There are four steps to successful influencer marketing:
a) Identifying the Influencer : Google topics, products or services your company is involved with. Are there predominant editorial, blog and forum sites, or names of advocates that come up in the search results? That’s them.
b) Marketing to Influencers: Visit those sites, register with and follow them, comment frequently on the. Become familiar with and reach out to the site owners and/or editorial advocates. Write a blog article about a topic on their sites and invite them to comment. Usually they’ll link their site to your article.
c) Marketing through Influencers: In addition to getting them to link to your articles, develop relationships with the influencers and look for ways to have your business mentioned on their site—perhaps by announcing an event, promotion or issue.
d) Marketing with Influencers: Invite influencers to write contributions on your blog and post your articles on their sites. Perhaps even persuade them to write about you on their site.
Obviously, the most valuable result of creating relationships with influencers is that their followers become your followers– at least a portion of them—and this will exponentially expand your network.
Social Networking Sites
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other like channels are the easiest, fastest and most obvious methods of social networking. For example, with a Facebook Friend Invitation email campaign to existing customers, and a Facebook button on all your site pages and promotions, you can rack up followers relatively quickly. Then, with their ‘likes’ and ‘shares,’ it takes off from there. Remember, the more interesting content you can provide, the faster it will go: photos, videos, links to your blog, polls, sale and coupon announcements, etc. Just be aware, most of your followers won’t be as engaged as you’d like. It’s a numbers game, and you have to get a LOT of numbers here to make a noticeable dent in your business. The most effective way to use any of these sites is to network them with each other as well as your blog and, possibly, forum.
Other Social Marketing Channels
Depending on time and resources, there are other avenues to take to establish your social network campaign and, as I’ve mentioned, new ones keep coming. I’d like to address two:
a) The Forum : This is my favorite social outlet for a couple of reasons. First, it generates the most interaction and engagement from the audience. Forum members provide most of the content, communicating with the site and each other. It’s a front-row view to what the audience is thinking, what their concerns and interests are, etc. Second, it forges the most loyalty and trust, and becomes a hangout for members of the core audience. If you want a message received, this is the place to go. Unfortunately, a forum isn’t exactly a set-it-and-forget-it kind of medium. If it starts generating the kind of numbers you want, it’ll require a lot of attention and administration. But if you can get it running, it will be invaluable in getting your brand out there and sending people to your business.
b) How-To and Interest Pages : If you have an opportunity to add DIY or subject/category interest pages to your site, do it! Not only does it further engage your target, but it’s great SEO material. For example, for how-to pages, whether it be recipes, computer troubleshooting or steps to fixing a leaky pipe, the right quality content (making sure to include your product or service, and links to your site) will earn you a growing readership, rising search rank and real customers. The same goes for interest pages. If someone is looking for ideas about something related to your product, such as planting a garden or planning a trip– your article could be a threshold to new business.
Defining Success In Social Networking
So, what exactly is the value of a “like” or a “share” or a “follower?” What qualifies as engagement? What do we do with it? How do you measure it? How do you attribute conversions to it? The truth is, there is no sanctioned scale as of yet… although there are some colorful attempts at gauging the numbers. Some have implemented tracking methods such as planting promo codes in articles and Facebook posts to follow sales. Some, like TinyPrints and Feeding America , have used Twitter to drive traffic from search engines and directly from Tweets, respectively. Such experiences move the needle in the quest for measuring ROI from social networking.
Social networking is a valuable, cost-efficient way to expand your target audience, brand awareness and customer base, and by NOT engaging it as part of your marketing plan, you run the risk of giving your business to the guys that did… and they’re out there.
Obviously, this is a broad-stroke explanation of social networking, created to make you aware of what options are out there. I hope this helped. In the future, we will address one or more of the social platforms in greater detail, as well as looking at the competition and figuring out what ideas to pattern, what to dismiss and what to tweak. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at bronxzoodave@gmail.com or @HFTDave.