Social Marketing: The One Hard Question You Have To Ask Forbes All marketing initiatives exist to drive sales; there's no other reason to put money and time into a campaign, whether it's in social media or traditional media. But the challenge with social media marketing is that sales develop so slowly. It's not a ... |
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Social Marketing: The One Hard Question You Have To Ask - Forbes
Engaging with your target audience and improving your online brand presence with social media marketing is vital to any business.
Driving more targeted audiences and page views to your website can be difficult. Getting started without any knowledge and experience about social media marketing can also be time-consuming.
I have come up with 5 really good social media marketing tips that will help you improve your online social media presence.
Killer content marketing and social media victories demand more listening than talking (theres too much yapping of the mouth online).
The first thing that comes to mind with social media marketing is putting your content or marketing message out there. You want to create a consistent social media presence, but this is only half the battle!
You need to learn to listen and absorb.
A great way to do this would be to read the comment section of your blog posts. Also, read the blog posts of your competition to see what their followers are saying. Listen to what people are talking about and determine how you can provide solutions to their problems. Knowing your audience pain points will give you the insight you need to contribute and establish your credibility.
Think about it Would you openly engage with people if they didnt listen to your needs?
Webcast, February 2nd: Behavioral Marketing Tactics to Drive Sales and Retention
This is perhaps the most important rule of all. Social media marketing is not just about promotion. Dont spend your time and money trying to reach your target audience while disregarding the quality of your brand. Do this and your audience will stop participating. Your prospects must be able to get something of value from what youre offering.
For example
you can offer your audience a free report in exchange for their name and email address. Surveys work great too! Give your targeted prospects a discount off your top selling product or service for filling out an online survey.
Add as much value to your online conversations as possible. Write authentic brand storytelling blog posts, reports, and guides. You can also answer potential customers questions on your social media accounts. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are great platforms to engage your target audience in this manner. Doing so will position you as an expert in your perspective field. Try to make it easy for your audience to do business with you, not harder.
This rule is simple: Always be there for your prospects! Dont build an audience, only to lose them within days or weeks because they cannot access old or new content. Nowadays, people online have the tendency to be wishy-washy with all the options out there readily available to them. Gaining loyal followers through consistent updates is a must, therefore, establishing your online presence as an authority leader.
A great way to do this would be to update your privacy policy and terms of service when needed. Be sure to let your audience know of the updates. Also, be consistent with your blog posting. Create an editorial calendar and post valuable content on certain days every week. Make a commitment to answer all incoming questions or concerns in a timely manner.
Sending out updates to your email subscribers is another great way to stay accessible.
Dont expect your audience to talk about you and share your content if youre not willing to do the same. Social media works in a harmonious give-and-take process. Do not make the mistake of focusing solely on your content, consequently, you fail in the end.
You must also acknowledge that other people are trying to grow their business or followers just like you! Having the willingness to help others will benefit you more than you could ever imagine, so spread the love.
Its just as simple as tweeting or sharing an article you enjoyed reading!
Modern day technology is moving fast, and businesses looking to build a loyal audience need to invest in lead nurturing. Some achieve great results overnight (companies with large marketing budgets), as a result, most lose out because they fail to follow-up.
It would be better to take things slow and nurture your leads over time. Your nurtured leads will then turn into loyal customers and raving fans. You can do this consistently by adding valuable and authentic content to all your social media campaigns and email follow-ups.
Dedicating yourself long term will achieve more optimal results during your social media marketing efforts.
Judah Swagerty-Bey is the founder ofNexLevel Connect, a new website where digital marketers find practicalexpert how-to articles on content marketing, SEO, web design, and other digital marketing strategies. Our primary goal is to help you attract more targeted leads and retain customers by giving you the advice, insight, and Viewfullprofile
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5 Tips for Improving Your Online Presence with Social Media ... - Business 2 Community
LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwired - Jan 30, 2017) - Bicoastal, award-winning integrated marketing and public relations agency Marketing Maven today announced a record-shattering year in its rapidly growing social media department.
In 2016, Marketing Maven's social media department earned over 299 million impressions, 2.8 million engagements (reactions, clicks, shares, video views, and comments), and 1.28 million link clicks for its clients. The team also managed an overall community of over 876,000 consumers across all social channels managed.
Marketing Maven's social media department offers the following services for its rapidly increasing roster of global clients:
Social Media Manager Stephanie Siewert, who leads the department said, "No two days are alike at Marketing Maven, which definitely keeps things interesting. We become experts in many different product categories to get in the mind of each target audience and it's really exciting to receive instant feedback from consumers on social media when new content is published. You know pretty quickly if you're resonating with the right audience or not."
Marketing Maven CEO and President Lindsey Carnett said, "Our innovative and expanding social media department is an example to the rest of the company and to every PR agency's social media department of what digital media can mean for an agency and its clients. We often look to Stephanie and her department to guide the rest our marketing and traditional PR efforts for clients and often take cues from its work to identify key messaging and branding."
About Marketing Maven
With offices in Los Angeles and New York, Marketing Maven is a full service marketing and communications agency. With origins in direct response public relations, Marketing Maven has developed into a premier voice in brand strategy, social media, innovative media relations, event marketing, tradeshow support, multicultural marketing, reputation management and search engine optimization. As a 2016 Entrepreneur 360 company, Marketing Maven leads the industry in utilizing advanced metrics to measure their clients' marketing reach and providing competitive analysis unparalleled in the industry. For additional information about Marketing Maven, visit http://www.MarketingMaven.com.
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Marketing Maven Announces Banner Year for its Social Media Division - Marketwired (press release)
Making Social Media An ROI Positive Channel For B2B Businesses By Jingcong Zhao
With $5.4 Billion spent on social media marketing in the U.S. alone last year, its clear that social media is being cemented as a marketing function in most B2B organizations. Yet, 61% of marketers claim measuring ROI is a top challenge. In addition, 36% claim tying social to business goals is a challenge, and only 9.4 % are able to quantify the revenue driven by social. Why is social medias ROI so elusive, despite marketers increased focus on this function and despite the proliferation of social marketing tools?
The biggest reason for this challenge has to do with the mindset with which B2B marketers have approached social. Most B2B marketers are still using a social media playbook developed by B2C companies. B2C companies were the first ones to take advantage of social media. They saw social as a channel to build their brand, by taking a broadcast approach and posting content with broad appeal. This approach works well for B2C companies who care most about branding, but doesnt work for B2B companies whose biggest directive is to generate demand and provide qualified leads to a sales team.
Today, a majority of B2B marketers still think of social media as a top of the funnel play. Its there for brand awareness. Its a good way to get our messaging out there. Its a place where we have to be because our competitors are there. However, most of us still dont have visibility into how our efforts translate to business outcomes such as new leads generated, MQLs, opportunities and revenue. To make social media an ROI positive channel in a B2B context, we need to change the mindset that social media is just an isolated channel or just a top of the funnel play. While social media is a great way to build a brands reputation, it can also be a powerful driver of demand.
Social media activity data is a vast source of real time customer intelligence. You can search through social profiles, user generated content, and engagement patterns to identify your target prospects who are just entering a buying cycle. Because B2B buyers are inundated with marketing messages, you need to find new channels to communicate with your prospects. Social provides a one to one engagement channel with your target audience. Private message features like Twitter DMs, LinkedIn Mail and Facebook Messenger provide new channels to communicate with buyers. This type of private channel can be used in the same way as email, enabling delivery of relevant and timely content to your prospects and customers.
If your goal is to use social media to drive real business outcomes, you need to take a step back from the frenzy of building an editorial calendar and response management. Take time to think through how social impacts each of your marketing channels and each stage of the buyer journey.
Attract
To attract an audience of potential prospects, its important to show that you understand your target buyers problems by sharing content that builds trust. Your potential buyers are just starting out their research process and prefer to look to a variety of information sources to self educate. At this stage, posting useful content that educates your buyers on industry trends, tips and best practices that they can apply in their job is the way to go.
You want to help your potential buyers by offering them new ideas and solutions rather than promote your own products. To figure out what content your prospects crave, visit social forums where your target audience are having discussions. Audit the social profiles of influencers in your industry and see what theyre posting. Follow publications in your space and see what content gets the most engagement on their social profiles. By posting high quality, educational, engaging content, you can grow a community of prospects and influencers who amplify your messages and help you grow your social media presence.
Convert
At this stage, the goal is to drive potential prospects to your website so that you can capture their contact information through gated landing pages and start to qualify prospects through nurture programs and content. By using social media in a targeted way, you can bring the right audience into your marketing funnel.
Discovering Potential Buyers
B2B buyers reveal a lot about themselves on social networks as they share content, ask questions, interact with brands, influencers, peers, and react to the events they attend. By using conversational keywords (event hashtags, topical hashtags, mentions of brands, mentions of influencers) and bio keywords (job title, company, location), you can really hone in on your target audience and find those who are actively researching solutions in your space. You can use this insight to craft personalized, relevant messages to prospects who are just entering your buying cycle.
In your message, mention that youre reaching out because you saw they were interested in a particular topic and offer them a resource, an article or e-book, aligned to their interest. For example, lets say a prospect just shared an article from an industry influencer. You had just done a webinar with this influencer. You can send the prospect the link to this webinar. Because the prospect already endorses this influencer, he or she will appreciate the related content you just sent.
Lead Scoring
Today most B2B organizations are using some sort of model to score their leads. Chances are, your organization is already using a lead scoring model that incorporates some behavioral data like email engagement, website visits, ad clicks and downloads of your gated content. Not having social activity data in your lead scoring model means that youre missing a key piece of demand generation data. Social activities provide indicators of buyer interest. For example, someone who clicked on a social post is comparable to someone who clicked on an ad or an email link.
Someone who retweets your post is someone whos endorsed your content. Someone who follows your brand handle is choosing to subscribe to your content and should be equivalent to a blog or newsletter subscriber. Someone who replies to your direct message has taken the time to engage, and can be considered equivalent to an email reply. Whom your prospects follow on social can also provide insights into their mindset. Followers of certain Twitter handles (i.e. influencers in your space, senior executives in your company) or LinkedIn groups are expressions of interest you can score along posts and clicks.
Lead Nurturing
Social media can be an effective channel for lead nurturing. By tracking the social activity of leads in your marketing automation system (i.e. interactions with certain keywords, brands, events, influencers), youre able to know in real time when someone is ready to engage, respond to them promptly, either directly on social media or through a triggered email nurture program, and move them further down in the marketing funnel. For example, if you found that one of your leads just tweeted about leaving a competitor, thats a hot lead that should be sent to sales immediately.
Re-engagement
Social media also presents an opportunity to re-engage with cold leads or lost opportunities. For example, you could identify leads who have not visited your website in the last two weeks, have not opened your emails in the past 30 days, but have mentioned relevant keywords related to your product space in their tweets in the past week. You could reach out to these leads on social and send them a resource to keep lines of communication open.
Close
In the past, our job as marketers was done once we passed the leads over to sales. Now, we are increasingly held accountable for the quality of leads we generate. Were also expected to assist our sales team in closing deals. Marketers have always invested in conferences, trade shows and industry events, because we know that in-person events help close deals. Today, every conference comes with its own hashtag, used by hundreds of attendees as they discuss relevant topics and react to what they hear on social media. As a business attending or sponsoring an event, the conference hashtag is key to targeting, engaging, and closing your qualified leads.
Last May, we sponsored the Marketo Nation Summit. Through our own platform we set up a campaign to track the hashtag #MKTGNation. For any lead who tweeted the hashtag, we sent them an invitation email letting them know that well be at the event and included a link to a form where they can register for our VIP List. Those who attended the event also received an automated email from our sales reps to schedule a one-on-one demo at our booth for a chance to win booth prizes. We were able to set up all of our booth demos using this campaign before the Summit even began.
After the Summit, rather than just calling down the list of attendees we collected from the event, we made sure to stay connected with those who are still the most engaged from the event (based on their social media activities). One of our customers, Dynamic Signal, also used this tactic and as a result doubled the number of opportunities generated compared to their traditional post event follow-up.
Finally, one of the benefits of social media is that you dont actually have to sponsor an event to generate leads. These strategies can be used even without a booth presence. One company, a leader in contract management software, uses a social demand generation solution to generate leads from conference hashtags and handles, and theyve seen enough success from social alone that theyve been able to scale back their event sponsorship budget. Now thats a good return on their investment.
At the end of the day, you want to make sure that all of your marketing channels, including social media, are focused on bringing your sales team qualified leads and opportunities. Social networks and social activity data provides new ways for you to discover, engage with, and nurture your prospects to bring new customers to your company.
Jingcong Zhao is the Content Marketing Manager at Socedo. She is responsible for content strategy and oversees the development of content across the marketing funnel. Connect with her on LinkedIn or Twitter. Socedo is a B2B social demand generation system that helps marketers discover, engage and qualify leads through social media to increase revenue at scale.
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Making Social Media An ROI Positive Channel For B2B Businesses - The Realtime Report (registration)
Loie Greenwood, 19, spent last summer in Columbus doing an internship with Complete Research Connection. As the summer drew to a close, Greenwood realized that there was a need within small and medium sized businesses to expand their online presences. This is how Greenwood came up with the concept ofMe4Me.
I was just trying to be a college kid, but I also wanted to run with something I thought would be pretty sweet, Greenwood said.
Me4Me is a social media consultation business focusing on developing online platforms for small to medium sized businesses.
We take small businesses and learn about their brand and current marketing efforts and design around their brand, Greenwood said. [The businesses] will give us all their brand details and what they like to do and what they want out of our services.
Greenwood partners with an old high school friend, Grant Benniger, who is currently studying at theOhio State University. Together, the two use three different platforms, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and Crowdfire, to coordinate social media postings for a businesss social media presence. These can include anything from Tweets to website promotions.
On Sundays, Greenwood spends roughly four to five hours scheduling posts for clients for the next week or so. He spends the other days of the week consulting with clients. Currently, Greenwood manages seven to nine clients and their social media platforms, including Springfields very own Bada Bing! Pizzeria.
At Wittenberg, Greenwood is double majoring in psychology and marketing while also double minoring in statistics and communication. While managing this course load, he is also the Executive Corresponding Secretary at Phi Kappa Psi, the Digital and Social Marketing Intern at Parkhurst Dining, a member of the Student Leader Fellowship and he works as a Tour Guide and within the Oral Communications Center.
With everything Greenwood is involved in, it can be easy to fall behind. However, Greenwood shared a simple strategy for retaining his sanity amidst everything a college lifestyle can bring.
I am able to prioritize things in my head, Greenwood said. Prioritization leads into time management and a hefty to-do list every day.
Although he spends a great part of his day in classes and consulting with clients, he spends his nights focusing on his schoolwork, and has even discovered a new way to focus.
I picked up listening to Mozart with I was studying, Greenwood said.
While also listening to Mozart, Greenwood has been focusing on learning to put his phone down in an effort to focus on life around him. To keep up his social life, his fraternity brothers pull him out of his room on weekends and he finally gets a chance to relax.
Social life is my priority on Saturdays, Greenwood said.
Overall, Greenwood has one main goal through his creation of Me4Me, a goal that many other Wittenberg students can relate to.
Truly, the goal is to pay my way through college and give myself a good backing for graduation, Greenwood said. I want to come out positive after senior year. Most importantly, I want to gain experience. I want to give myself a fun way to make money rather than working at a Wendys.
Although Greenwood has enjoyed his journey through the process of Me4Me since its creation in August, it hasnt been without its problems. Besides learning how to file tax paperwork, Greenwood has had a hard time getting paid and dealing with some business owners.
The biggest problem so far is the retention rate of clients, Greenwood said. The stereotypical small business owner is going to be a baby boomer and they are not as fluent in the social media and digital media area as we are. When they look at things after a month, they are not seeing how that month with me monetized their company. They think they should be bringing in more money, but it takes some time.
Although he doesnt know the longevity of Me4Me just yet, Greenwood and Benniger have set a goal of generating ten thousand in profit for the 2017 year.
To anyone thinking about starting their own business, Greenwood shared some words of advice.
Write it down, plan it out and truly investigate everything that youll need to do once this business kicks up, Greenwood said. Dont fall back on Google. Go to the library and do some research. Call the Ohio Database Center to figure out how to file. Google will be misleading and contradicting. Plan it out but go for it. If you fail at this age, youre not losing a ton, except for some sleep and possibly your sanity.
Students can find Greenwood on Twitter, LinkedIn and VSCO, as well as around campus within the many things he is involved in. Students can also visit his website: me4me.info.