Social Media: Quality Over Quantity

So often I've come across a big brand on social media and discovered that they have some obscene amount of accounts attached to their name. I'll take some time and look through them and find that, more times than not, their mess of pages is unorganized, under-resourced and lacking the appropriate effort necessary for success. I always wonder what the point is of having so many touch points with their customers if none of them are any good.

Many companies feel it necessary to have a general page, a customer service page, a page for a specific line, a page for company employees and whatever else they can think of. These pages usually come in the form of a half-dozen Twitter pages, a Facebook page (or two), a couple Instagram feeds, a Pinterest page, a couple LinkedIn pages and possibly a Google+ page or two. I'm assuming that the thought is, "We need to get to EVERY potential customer, on every site, and address any possible concern, all the time." At last check, 73% of online adults use social media sites, and that number is larger when you consider teens on social media sites. This means there are hundreds of millions of people, or customers, online and these brands feel they need to reach every one of them.

Social media marketing is a lot like traditional marketing in the fact that you can't reach every person every time. You simply need to be positioned in the places where your audience spends their time, and be available when they need you or your services. So many times companies think they HAVE to be everywhere. Speaking as a consumer, that just makes it more of a hassle.

One example is Xbox Live. They are an online service offered by Microsoft that allows you to play video games online with people across the world and it crashes... often. One day I was having issues and I decided to check Twitter to see if other people were reporting similar issues. When I couldn't find anything I decided to tweet at Xbox Live to ask if they were having issues, or if it was somehow my problem. When I searched I found a regular XboxLive handle, a Xbox Live Support handle and a Xbox Live forum handle, among others. Now, I wasn't confused with which to use, but I did wonder why they had three accounts. Why would people tweet to Xbox Live if it wasn't support based? Do they really get enough non-support traffic to justify having split accounts? What was the forum handle for? Was that for people to talk about the brand? Why wouldn't that be part of the main handle? It made little sense to me as both a marketer and a consumer.

I was talking to a friend recently who manages all of the social media accounts for an international brand. They hired her to take their social media from nothing to something. She told me that when she came on board they started with a single Facebook page and Twitter account. For the first year all they did was manage the hell out of those two accounts. They posted all different content and touched on all of the various segments of their business. After a while they began to notice dramatic trends in the engagement on their page, for example, every photo that they posted received massive amounts of traffic. This clued them in to the fact that photo-centric social networks were worthwhile for their brand. In response to this information they started Instagram and Pinterest pages, which have been very successful.

Something else they learned was that posts on a specific part of their business, in this case weddings, were very popular. They had received numerous questions and interactions regarding their wedding services. Since this section of their business was also a strategic priority for their marketing they decided to start a blog focused on it that answered the questions they were getting; it has since become a huge part of their online platform.

The moral of the story is to focus on the quality of your pages rather than the quantity. The goal is not to get as widespread as possible as fast as possible. The goal is to provide valuable content to your audience so they will connect with you and purchase from you. Start with the basics - Facebook and Twitter - and then let your audience let you know what areas they'd like to get more information on, and on what types of social networks they'd be most inclined to interact with you. If you can find a reason to separate your audience into multiple accounts and pages then do so AFTER you have a reason to believe you audience will appreciate it.

Your Marketing Strategy Should be like a Thanksgiving Meal

With Thanksgiving here and gone, we can now look back fondly on the good times, the laughs, and of course, the food. You can’t say enough about the food at Thanksgiving; it is the perfect complement to the cold days and the warm atmosphere. Like a perfectly planned Thanksgiving dinner, your business marketing strategy should work together to create a unified experience that is greater than any of its parts. While each dish passed is good on its own, it isn’t until they are eaten together that they really become special.

Turkey – Website

The turkey is the staple of most every Thanksgiving dinner. It is the centerpiece of the meal and takes the most planning in its preparation. For your business, your turkey should be your website. It should be developed with careful planning and attention and, when complete, will be the centerpiece of your brand. With more and more people going online to find products, and businesses, it has never been more important to have a website that meets your customer’s needs and leaves them feeling satisfied and full.

Mashed Potatoes – Search Engine Optimization

The perfect companion to the turkey is the mashed potatoes. The same can be said about Searching Engine Optimization (SEO) to a website. Adding an SEO strategy to your website will improve the likelihood of people finding it organically through search. You can build your website without SEO, but that is like, well, Thanksgiving turkey without mashed potatoes.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising – Corn

For many people, corn is an accessory to the potatoes on your plate. After grabbing a big ol’ scoop of mashed potatoes, they follow with a scoop of corn right on top. Those people feel that the corn adds something extra, and takes the potatoes to another level of taste. Such is the relationship between pay-per-click advertising (PPC) and SEO. By running ads on Facebook, or through Google, Yahoo, or Bing, you reach out to those that are looking for your services. This increases the reach of your pretty website and brings more customers through your door. Again, you can have a PPC campaign on its own, but when paired with proper on-page SEO, it creates a 1-2 punch for generating new business opportunities.

Traditional Media – Stuffing

Stuffing is one of the more debated dishes on the menu at thanksgiving. Most people believe that it is a must, and HAS to be included for the meal to be complete, and yet others totally hate the stuff and don’t see any reason why it needs to be present. This can also be said about incorporating traditional media into your marketing strategy. There are those out there that say that traditional marketing is “dead”. They say that everything is going digital and there is no place for TV and radio in your marketing budgets. There are also those that still believe that nothing can deliver the reach and general awareness generated as a well-executed TV spot can. We tend to believe that, like the stuffing at dinner, it should be addressed in the planning stages and, depending on the goals of the campaign, incorporated into the strategy in a way that makes sense. If there isn’t a way to make it work then there is no need to force it.

Gravy – Branding

So now we have a plate full of food; mountains of deliciousness that your taste buds are dripping at the thought of. There is just one last thing to bring it all together: a generous portion of gravy. This final piece ties the whole meal together and blends everything into a sweet symphony of flavors. This is the role of Branding in your marketing mix. Branding is the unified message and personality of your business. It includes everything from your company name and logo to your color scheme and tone. Like the gravy on your plate, your brand needs to extend over all areas of your marketing strategy to ensure that your customers are receiving a unified message from your company.

Social Media – Your Family & Friends

After all, what is the point of having this wonderful meal if you don’t have anyone to share it with? You now have your meal made, and you sit down at the table with your family and you discuss. You talk about the meal, you talk about your life, and you talk about everything and anything. You learn about each other and strengthen the bonds between you. Social Media serves the same purpose. Giving yourself a table to sit at with your customers will allow you to connect with them in a way you have never been able to before. You can tell them about yourself, and learn about them. Find out what they like and what they don’t like. Give them access to you, and let them know they can trust you. After all this has happened, when they need what you have, they will come to you first.

This holiday season is about so much more than presents and food and days off of work. It is about a sum of experiences and memories that will stay with you forever. Your marketing strategy should incorporate the same belief. By taking the time and energy to craft more than just a website, or a Facebook page, you can create an experience for your customers that will endear them to you and create relationships that will last forever.

Setting Up Your Facebook: The Little Things Count

At this point in time we’ve established that having a Facebook page for your business is probably not a bad idea. The area that a lot of business owners are still struggling with is the creation and management of their page. Many have decided that a Facebook page is something that could, or should, be managed by themselves or their staff, and for most of those pages it shows. There is a big difference between a page built by someone who has experience and one that is built and managed by someone that doesn’t. Here are some “little” things that will improve the look and functionality of your page.

Deleting links from posts

Many people copy a link and paste it into the status box which generates the link preview. Then they type in their comments and hit "post". What this does is send out a post with your comments, the actual URL, and the link preview. When you are sharing a link from an obscure page on a large site (like Amazon for example), it generates a massive link for that page. I can’t think of a quicker way to get someone to look away from your post then to have a bunch of URL code in the post.
Luckily, this one is an easy fix. When you get ready to post your update with the link and comments in it, just highlight the link and push backspace. The link is gone from the text but still attached to the post. This way anyone that sees it will just see your words and the link preview - nice and simple.

Adding a cover photo

When Facebook added the cover photo last fall, the intent was to create a way to customize your page and add some visual impact. Now that it has had time to become one of the more popular features of the “new” Facebook, it is something that people look for when they visit a page. To a new visitor, the lack of a cover photo is a very obvious sign that you don’t place much value in your presence online.

Resize logo to fit “Profile Picture” box

This one in particular I never quite understood. Often I see business pages that have a wide or tall logo. Since the box where your profile picture is located is square, Facebook crops your logo to make it fit. What you end up with is a square portion, from the middle of your logo, that shows up every time you post - or comment, or share, or anything. That does you no good if you are trying to attain some brand recognition.

Take the time to resize your logo to fit in the space provided. You can do it easily in Paint or a similar program, and it will make your logo more recognizable and valuable to your brand. You could also hire someone to design a square version of your logo to use in similar applications. It will cost you, but you’d be surprised how many ways you could use it.

12 Quick Tips for Building Your Online Following

The hardest part about social media marketing is finding people to market to. Since the medium requires you to get people to follow and interact with your page, you have to go out and convince the population that there is value in connecting with you. Here are some quick tips that will encourage people to follow you.

1. Follow others – Pretty simple, follow people and some of them will follow you back.
2. Send people messages – There are occasions where someone that SHOULD connect with you just needs to be made aware that you exist. Send people a message and let them know you’re there.
3. Share other people’s content - You’d be surprised how far a retweet will go in building a relationship online.
4. Tell people offline to follow you online – If you are in a business that has a physical location, or if you utilize “traditional” advertising, you should be including some sort of notice that lets your customers know that you have an online presence.
5. Tell people online to follow you online – Put it on your website that you have Facebook. Put it on your Facebook that you have Twitter. Tweet that you have a Blog. You see where this is going.
6. Share shareable content – The best way to get people to follow you is to get your followers to recruit new people for you. Let them do the work. Share things that your target audience will like (Pictures and Videos work best) and let your followers share it.
7. Ask Questions – One of the most underrated aspects of Facebook is the “Poll” feature. This allows you to ask questions of your followers and they can vote on the answer. What makes it special is that when people answer your questions it posts on their wall. Ask the right questions and you will find some new followers.
8. Make your content searchable – Utilize hashtags for Twitter, and make sure your YouTube video descriptions have keywords in them.
9. Become an expert on something – Showing people that your page is a go-to page for a certain topic will give it life of its own. If you truly become an expert at a topic people will find you, share you, and your following will grow.
10. Give stuff away – People flock to free stuff. Give away something, anything, and people will find you.
11. Advertise online – If you have the budget, pay-per-click ads for Facebook and Google can draw people to your page. You will essentially be “paying for followers” but sometimes you got to do what you’ve got to do.
12. Be Different – This is pretty straight forward, do something that isn’t being done online and people will notice.

These are just some tried and proven ways to “get” followers, but they aren’t the only options. Try something bold, and try something new. You might find that a handful of your ideas will fail miserably, but it only takes one to make a name for yourself. Change the way you think and you will become memorable.

Social Media Marketing Should Be a Group Effort

Social media marketing for a small business, or any business really, should not be a one person job. If you think about it, there is a reason that larger corporations have a team that handles their social media. It’s not just because there is more volume, although that is a reason, it is because the more people contributing to a social media strategy the better, and more successful, it will be. There are several reasons why it is best to have many people involved in a social media campaign.

The first reason is pretty obvious: The more hands involved, the more work you can get done. If a big part of your strategy is to create content, or go out and curate content, it is easier to get greater amounts of good “stuff” if you have more people involved. If you tell your employees to keep their eyes out for any interesting articles they might find, or write down any ideas they have for a post, you significantly increase the likelihood of finding great content to share with others.

Another great reason, for having your staff involved in the content creation process, is that it encourages them to share and promote your pages. If they are active in the process, and they feel a sense of responsibility over the content on the pages, they’ll be encouraged to further the cause by sharing with their friends.

The final reason, that is equally beneficial, although maybe less obvious, is the idea that every person looks at every situation with a different perspective. There are those that view things has “cups half full”, or the less popular group of people that view everything as “cup half empty”.  There are people of different races, or religions, or financial standings, and all of this contributes to a perspective that is totally unique from your own. By allowing these people to contribute to your content stream you’ll find that there are great articles, and ideas, out there that you’ve never thought of. You’ll see that there are many different sides to different problems and you’ll not only be able to learn something yourself, but you’ll be able to share that insight with your followers.

Now, none of these things are especially profound or unheard of, but they tend to be things that marketing managers, CEO’s, or even the social media marketers themselves don’t recognize. Everyone seems to think that having one guy off in the corner “doing social media” will take full advantage of the marketing medium. That’s not the case. You need to collaborate, share, gain a new perspective, and have some fun with it.