Mediaboss Marketing

If I told you servicing your smaller clients is different from managing your enterprise ones, Id probably win the understatement of the year award. These smaller companies likely have fewer employees, fewer customers, and fewer dollars to allocate to their marketing budgets.

So its important that you take advantage of strategies that will get them the most bang for their buckand one of these is hyperlocal social media marketing.

Why Go Local?

Consumers are paying more and more attention to how brands interact with them. Theyre fed up with generic messaging that doesnt connect with them on a personal level, so theyre relying more on local recommendations to find brands that meet their specific needs.

In fact, 88% of customers trust local reviews as much as they do in-person recommendations, and with 95% of 18- to 34-year-olds likely to follow a brand on social media, what better avenue to reach a local audience.

Hyperlocal social media marketing gives your clients the opportunity to reach highly relevant audiences in a way that fosters trust and affinity. Its different from other forms of online marketing because it positions the company as a local expert in its industrywhich is appealing to consumers who are tired of batting away irrelevant, insincere marketing messages.

Of course, you can implement this highly valuable strategy for both your small and your large clients, but you will have to take a different approach for each.

Implementing Hyperlocal on a Large Scale

When it comes to implementing a hyperlocal social media strategy for your larger clients, you face the steep challenge of not only appealing to their local audiences, but also maintaining their global brand voice. Finding a balance can be difficult.

In that vein, its important to first establish a specific set of social media guidelines to prevent off-brand interactions. These guidelines specify etiquette, brand voice, etc. And because larger clients are more likely to have the budget and a larger audience, their social media marketing efforts often require more manpower from your agency. These efforts mean there are a lot of moving parts, but when done well, big businesses can see great results.

For example, when Walmart promotes the grand openings of new stores, each store is marketed differently to appeal to individual regions based on reach into each communitys values tofind ways for the store to fit right inwithout compromising Walmarts global voice.

Dont Discount Smaller Clients

Smaller clients likely dont have the same kind of money to invest as your larger ones, but that doesnt mean you cant implement an effective hyperlocal social media strategy. In fact, their smaller size often allows you to forge deeper, more personal connections with itstarget consumers, who are much more likely to engage with their social pages.

After all, local companies are typically more relevant to consumers daily lives, so consumers are more likely to engage with social media posts from, say, a local coffee shop than a global coffee brand. Its why Facebook users engage with local business pages three to four times more than with global pages and why local pages grow twice as fast as their global counterparts.

By implementing a hyperlocal social media strategy, youll position your smaller clients as key members of their communities. Heres how:

1.Target nano-markets Thanks to hyperlocal search and social media, its easier than ever to find consumers who are truly passionate about companies through these niche markets. Even better, most of the tools to do this are free or inexpensive, so youll be able to implement this strategy without breaking your clients bank.

2. Keep customers top of mind Consumers can sniff out insincere marketing efforts from a mile awayits why so many struggle to trust large brands. Make sure you deploy hyperlocal social media messages that position clients products in ways that showcase value and authenticity. Empathy and personalization go a long way, and your smaller clients proximity to their customers puts them at a great advantage.

3.Address feedback promptly Communication is key when it comes to hyperlocal marketing. Work with your smaller clients to actively respond to any negative reviews or feedback. Coach them on how to address the complaint and resolve the issue. Sometimes, acknowledgment is the best way to build loyalty.

Hyperlocal social media marketing is a unique strategy that rings more authentic than traditional push marketing campaigns, and its effective for clients both large and small. So get out there and establish community connections, and say hello to lifelong loyalty.

Sarah Clark is the president of public relations firm Mitchell, part of the Dentsu Aegis Network.

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How to Implement a Hyperlocal Social Media Strategy - Chief Marketer

By Virginia Haley

Destination marketing organizations such as Visit Sarasota County strive to be at the forefront of new trends in marketing and public relations. Its imperative because travel is a competitive industry and brings millions of dollars in economic benefits to Sarasota County.

Marketing trends change often, especially with the constant evolution of digital and mobile platforms. Several years ago, the buzz words in marketing were authenticity, social media and content. Today, influencer marketing is the term with all the buzz.

Influencers have always been around, albeit not by that name.Basically,an influencer is a person viewed as a thought- and opinion-leader. They are the people others go to for trusted advice. The evolution of social medias popularity and availability, along with the proliferation of content marketing, led to the birth of influencer marketing. This is the practice of working with these individuals who have branded themselves and have significant numbers of friends, followers and interaction with their followers on digital platforms such as blogs and Facebook, Instagram,Twitterand YouTube.

These individuals are trusted by their followers to provide authentic and honest information about products, restaurants, destinations and many other things. Influencers reach thousands of consumers, and brands work with influencers to share the brands' stories in an authentic way.

Destination marketing organizationsare incorporating influences into their brand strategy in numerous ways. We at Visit Sarasota County view this type of marketing as an extension of public relations and content and social media marketing. It's similar to recruiting brand ambassadors for the destination or to working with travel journalists. And, like them, not all influencers are created equal.

Micro-influencers have a small number of followers but usually focus on a niche, such as travel. These micro-influencers are typically very engaged with their followers on a regular basis. Large influencers have alotof followers but may or may not be as engaged with them. Lastly, there are communities of influencers, such as Igers941, a locally based group ofInstagramerswho share all there is to see and do in Sarasota and the nearby area.

Visit Sarasota County vets all influencers before working directly with them to ensure that their voice and individual brand resonates with our brand image. Visit Sarasota County and theinfluencerswork together to develop a plan to either conduct an Instagram takeover or to host influencers and bloggers on in-destination familiarization tours so they share images,videosand articles about the destination on their respective social media platforms and blogs.

In the past year, we have organized several opportunities, such as Instagram meet-ups, for local influencers to come together and to learn more about an aspect of the destination. These influencers are encouraged to take photos, use hashtags and tag the destination in these photos.

Visit Sarasota County does not tell them what to share or how to share it but encourages them to use their own voice to authentically tell the Sarasota story to their followers.

Additionally, we have had local influencers take over our Instagram account for a day. Visit Sarasota County worked with the influencers in advance to set expectations and outcomes. The influencers then showcased, through their own authentic style and voice, select areas in which their audience could shop in Sarasota during our Shoptember event.

This summer, Visit Sarasota County will layer this approach with the launch of its You Ota Visit campaign. This public-relations-driven campaign will focus on the influencers in our area, both thought-leaders with influence and those who influence via social media channels. The campaign will involve locals reaching out to their friends and family to tell them they Ota visit Sarasota. We will film various thought-leaders in the community as they explain why their friends and family "ought to" visit them and explain why this is such a wonderful place to come for a summer trip.

The videos will be shared via social media platforms, and Visit Sarasota County will work with digital influencers to share the message while also providing alternative digital opportunities for locals to use to invite their friends and family to come to Sarasota.

In the end, working with influencers, whether they be traditional thought-leaders within the community or those individuals with a significant number of people interacting with them on social media platforms, we recognize the importance of cultivating a community of ambassadors who help us share our messages.

Virginia Haley is the president of Visit Sarasota County. She can be reached at 941-955-0991 or vhaley@visitsarasota.org.

Link:
HALEY: Taking our marketing message to the social media masses - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

LinkedIn has come a long way since being a CV portal, with the platform claiming its own importance as a business-to-business sales avenue.

This even comes from the horse's mouth, as the platform pushes through its content marketing agenda.

However, for Nicholas Kontopoulos, global vice president of fast growth markets marketing, SAP Hybris, the platform serves as an avenue to have conversations with like-minded peers.

For me LinkedIn is more about a content platform to create and share with like-minded peers, who I happened to be connected with. It has the benefit to be able to connect with individuals across the globe and have conversations with them, said Kontopoulos, who was LinkedIns most engaged marketer in Singapore in 2015.

The platform thus serves as a knowledge broking platform and is a great barometer for whether an idea will fly or sink like a lead zeppelin, according to Kontopoulos.

The idea for me is I will create and share content and hope that I am adding the body of content around that topic. The community will decide if thats good or not, whether they like it and share it, or tell you the idea is one that is too early or not great, he said.

As such, selling on the platform via connections will require a focus on the social aspect rather than just selling Kontopoulos cautions.

If you are adding to that body of content and knowledge, people will start to show an interest in what you say, theyll connect with you, and I have seen as a result of that, my ability to then to go on present to customers. I have been invited by global brands to present in their internal kick-off sessions on the topic of customer experience, said Kontopoulos.

That started through me sharing a slide share presentation on one of the talks I delivered, which then led to a conversation on LinkedIn, which then led to me presenting to something like 200 technology professionals. Thats fantastic and thats gold dust if you think about it from a marketing and sales perspective, that ability to secure those engagements, he added.

Approaching this is the correct way will see the sales come, claims Kontopoulos, rather than having sales as the key element, which is the biggest problem with social selling.

People making money off of it [social selling], they are focusing on it as a quick way to make money. In some respects sellers, sale professionals and leaders are making the same mistakes that marketers made when Facebook and Twitter first burst on the scene, said Kontopoulos.

Marketers when LinkedIn and Twitter first came around, thought, wow, now I can talk about myself, at scale! The content was pretty much around the brand and not about the individual, and that took some time, marketers took four to five years to figure out that actually it is about listening, he added.

LinkedIn thus presents marketers with a listening platform, and enables SAP to listen intently to what people are saying, according to Kontopoulos.

To me its about listening versus spamming those executives straightaway, in some cases whats happening when they [sales] access these tools and are told to sell socially, so they start emailing and linking with all these executives requests to have a conversation, without any clear benefit or outcome thats beneficial to the brand, which is a big mistake, said Kontopoulos.

As a marketing leader I spend money through vendors, and I have a lot of vendors reaching out to me through LinkedIn, but often they basically connect with me, they almost want to go straight from dating to getting married type of things. Hang on, lets get to know each other first, how about before I have that conversation, how about you find out more about me through my LinkedIn profile, he added.

For Kontopoulos, who is a heavy user, he claims that people will be able to get a sense of him, something which he rarely sees.

Whats happening is a lot of sales guys are being told, heres a tool, you got to social sell, thats the new thing so go for it. Then they start spamming, this is the challenge, there is more focus on the selling than the social element of it, he said.

Connecting and building along brand values

For Kontopoulos then, social selling requires connecting with people with a social context and creating value for them. This leads to the point about creating and sharing content over time rather than spamming people with it.

I want to be mindful with how often Im sharing, so Im not filing their feeds with Nicholas Kontopoulos. Sometimes that content shared leads to me actually having an exchange of conversation with someone that leads to a blog, which is a great way of generating new ideas for new content, said Kontopoulos.

Theres a lot of people who are just sharing for sharings sake, thats a problem, if you havent really read the article and someone does, you can damage your own brand. You should really read the article you share, because it may outline an opinion that you or your company doesnt share, and you got to be mindful on LinkedIn youre representing your brand.

Thats why I say to sales guys on LinkedIn, dont have in your profile, looking for new opportunities. Thats really bad, because you want me to buy from you, but youre happy to go to a competitor tomorrow. There is still a lot of learning to be had, he added.

While these sales reps are out there on LinkedIn looking for sales, each of them represents the brand in their interactions, which can be risky. Thats where education comes into play according to Kontopoulos.

You have to have a clear strategy on how you educate, and this is where SAP has invested heavily into, to position itself and SAP in the right way, in a way that creates value for both. As I said before if someone is sharing something on LinkedIn, if it is negative, it not only has a negative impact on the person but on the brand, he said.

One of the challenges is how social selling has been approached by lots of people out there, [to them] its a quick fix to get your quota up, get yourself plugged into LinkedIn, no real training provided to the sales rep, beyond maybe a 40 minute webinar with no real resources for them to tap in to. That to me is destined to fail, because you get people running off executing without any coherent strategy, he added.

B2B brands thus need to invest in understanding the positives and negatives of social selling, Kontopoulos cautions.

Very much about the old adage, people, process, technology, LinkedIn is a technology platform, but unless you invest upfront with the people and process element, theyll probably not deliver the returns of investment on that tool, or see the negative impact from bad experiences, said Kontopoulos.

A bad sales rep before, he or she impacted maybe 10 to 50 customers out of a 1,000. With LinkedIn, the bad behaviour of a sales rep is amplified on a global scale, thats the risk element. Doesnt mean you should avoid it, just got to be mindful of it, without risk there will be no innovation, no ability to get a step ahead of your competitors. You need to look at how you are moving beyond the status quo, they [brands] shouldnt be fearful of it, just mindful of what the challenges are, he added.

See the original post:
Marketing and selling effectively through LinkedIn requires focus on social than selling - The Drum

Sina Weibo has partnered with digital marketing agency IH Digital to provide advertising solutions and Weibo account verification services to businesses within Southeast Asiain its capacity.This is a new appointment made by Sina Weibo for the region.

Both services will be offeredconcurrently through IHs offices inSingapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. According to IH, each of the services will have their respective set of conditions and duration periods.

Founded in 2006 with a presence in Southeast Asia and Greater China, IH is currently the official agency for Google, Baidu, Sina Weibo and Meituan-Dianping.

Sina Weibo, Chinas largest microblogging social media, offers a wide range of advertising and marketing solutions, ranging from social display ads and promoted feeds, to event-based ad and activity solutions. Its services have been adopted by businesses for social marketing since 2011.

George Foo (pictured), chief operating officer for IH Digital, emphasised that businesses outside China should have a specialised team to support advertising campaigns on Sina Weibo due to the countrys unique digital landscape.

According to him,while Chinese messaging app WeChat allows enterprises to providecustomisedservices to individual stakeholders, Sina Weibo is more suitable for businesses lookingto driveawareness, engagement, and leads among Chinese consumers.

In particular for businesses who do not have established operations in China, but are looking to reach Chinese consumers, Sina Weibo is the best Chinese social media platform for them to build awareness and credibility, Fooadded.

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A lot of people talk aboutinfluencer marketing,but few understand how it is priced.

Influencer costs can range from a couple of hundred to millions of dollars on one platform or across social networks, because of all thefactors that go into it, including exclusivity, engagement rate, following size and usage rights.

Pricing influencer posts is part art, part science, said Henry Langer, lead account manager for influencer search platform Hypr. [In some cases,] terms such as CPM and CPC dont tend to apply.

While there isnt a well-developed pricing structure behind influencer marketing, we asked agencies, talent agents and social stars themselves about some general guidelines that brands can refer to when they write influencers a check for their endorsement deals on Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube.

Instagram: $1,000 per 100,000 followers Chelsea Naftelberg, associate director of content and partnerships for social media agency Attention, estimates how much her team should pay an Instagram influencer based on$1,000 per 100,000 followers. Then she negotiates the deal from there, adjusting the price up or down based on other factors like engagement rate, campaign length and the client budget. If I have a great brand offering, sometimes we will pay no fee because the influencer is excited about the product or experience, said Naftelberg. Also, if you are working with a talent agent instead of directly with an influencer, expect to pay a little more to take their fee into account.

Langer thinks that brands can start with $250 per Instagram post for social stars with less than 50,000 followers, then add roughly $1,000 per 100,000 followers per post. For well-known celebrities, the price has to go much higher. Kim Kardashian, for instance, reportedly charges over $250,000 for an Instagram photo.

Snapchat: Starting at $500 per campaign in 24 hours Audiencesize is not available on Snapchat, so social stars on the platform typically negotiate an endorsement deal based on active views. Since repeated views only count as one view and views are more intentional on Snapchat, rates on the platform could be higher than other networks, according to Snapchat influencer Cyrene Quiamco.

Quiamco shared the following rates given by brands and agencies based on conversations with roughly 35 Snapchat influencers in her circle. (View numbers are only valid for 24 hours.)

An anonymous influencer said that pricing often falls on the agencies. Shops specializeon Snapchat marketing typically pre-decide their budget per influencer and book social stars for content by bulk. The agency would sign them up for 20 campaigns with minimal turnaround time, for instance. And then after 20 campaigns, the agency will pick up a new round of social stars and continue the cycle.

This is really taxing on the influencer but really helps the agency cut down on cost, said the influencer. The agency then upcharges each influencer campaign, sometimes up to 90 percent.

YouTube: Roughly $2,000 per 100,000 followers Influencer pricing on YouTube is much more fragmented than that on Instagram and Snapchat because YouTube allows marketers to drill into specific audiences and video content requires much more effort than image- or text-based posts.

For YouTubers with more than 50,000 subscribers, marketers can add roughly $2,000 per 100,000 followers per video, up until around 1 million subscribers, at which point a dedicated video could cost upwards of $25,000-$50,000, accordingto Langer.

Super successful YouTubers like Bart Baker or TheGabbie Show could easily cross the $100,000 mark, he said.

Of course, that is just a general pricing guideline for influencer marketing on YouTube. For instance, a Redditor posted that a very popular YouTuber with a few million subscribers offered an endorsement deal for a rate of either $17,600 for two to three talking points or $22,000 with an additional description link in the video.

AdamWescott, partner and co-founder for talent agency Select Management, saidthat pricing of endorsement deals on YouTube can run from $200,000 to half a million per video, depending on if it is a 30-second brand mention, a customized promotion video or other format.

Pricing is also based on subscriber count, time watched on the video and the industry the YouTuber is focused on, said Wescott.

And aYouTuber like Gigi Gorgeous who has accumulated over 2 million subscribers can earn more than $100,000 per video for dedicated brand integrations, he said.

Go here to read the rest:
What influencer marketing really costs - Digiday