Archive for June, 2009

Having come from the world of direct marketing, the importance of a strategy is well ingrained in me. Yet I recognize that the world of social media is very different. Our goal as social media marketers is to create relationships that are mutually beneficial, not convert individuals to buyers in one single action.

It seems we are evolving as a species. We’ve got sales marketing down to a science, and now we are just beginning to understand the art of reaching out to individuals for the pure sake of building a relationship.

Consider these 5 Steps for building an effective marketing strategy for your Facebook Business Page:

1.  Create awareness. How?

• Provide links to guide traffic to and from your web/blog site
• Create content that people will share. This is where the viral power of Facebook kicks in.
  

2.  Educate your audience about who you are

• Connect with individuals on a personal level to give them an understanding of the human factor behind the business
• Let your audience know what service you have to offer them
• Deliver content that motivates viewers to become fans
• Work on building your fan base to enhance the credibility of your page

3.  Create opportunities for engagement to strengthen your relationships.

• The deeper that your fans engage with you, the stronger the relationship becomes.
• Deliver a high volume of content that will inspire comments and participation.

4.  Produce ongoing efforts to inspire a call to action. New fans are not likely to make a huge commitment out the gate. Make a habit of offering low-risk steps they can take to get more involved with you such as discount coupons, a newsletter subscription, free downloads of value

5.  Repeat engagement and call-to-action efforts. Think of your Facebook page as an opportunity to build relationships, not generating one-time sales or actions. You will be successful in generating valuable long-term customer relationships through repeated engagement.

“Recognition: the state or quality of being recognized or acknowledged”  Google

“There are two things people want more than sex and money. . . recognition and praise” Mary Kay Ash

The most powerful aspect of social media is a company’s ability to find conversations about their products or services by their consumers, interact with their consumers, and create positive perception with their audience. Yet with all of this power at their fingertips, many companies continue to completely miss the most important piece to social media engagement: recognition.

Recognition: The Power of Acknowledgment

Why is recognizing a consumer or client so important? The power of acknowledgment. People want to be recognized and acknowledged for their efforts, opinions, actions, and thoughts. The key is to value your audience and their input.

Recognition and Acknowledgment: Two Steps to Customer Engagement

This incredibly simple, but vastly overlooked strategy requires two steps:

1. Recognition: recognize a consumer’s opinion, thought, or request with a direct communication to that consumer. Make sure that the message is personalized and not a canned or scripted message that lacks sincerity
2. Acknowledgment: publicly acknowledge that the consumer’s message is important, relevant, and of value to the discussion

“Social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content.” –Wikipedia Social Media

Social Media: What Is Wrong

A large number of companies base their “social media” messages and strategies on actions that are not social nor interactive:

• Broadcasting: broadcast messages that inform their audience about events, product launches, or developments pertaining to the company business without monitoring reactions or interactions from their audience
• Announcements: announcing special offers, discount savings, or limited time deals that appear more like spam than valuable information
• Crowdsourcing: asking their audience for ideas about their products, services, or changes that would benefit the company without interacting directly with the audience

5 Strategies of Interactive Communication

Interactive strategies would create far more engagement, better relationships, and return visits for companies than “social media” strategies that do not have an interactive component. The following are examples of interactive strateies:

1. Engage: engage with anyone who has responded to your social media efforts. If a company has a Facebook page, they must interact with the fans that communicate directly with their brand.
2. Recognize: recognize people-companies publicly for participating in a discussion. If a company is on Twitter then they must follow all who follow them regardless of their business. Recognizing your audience, even those who are uninterested in engaging, will ensure you reach all possible opportunities
3. Research: research people-companies that seek to provide feedback. Find out who they are and what their business is all about before engaging in interactive communications. A simple Google or Linkedin search will provide the necessary information
4. First Interaction: stop waiting for your audience to ask the first question or make a request. Proactively target your audience, performing research first to determine who you wish to engage, and make the first interaction and communication with them.
5. Do Not Ask: do not ask innocuous self serving questions, designed to create answers that support the company, that provide no interactive opportunities or value to the audience

Radian6.com cited this Innerarchitect post: 6 Elements of Effective Social Media Benchmarking

First adopters of social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and blogging understand that their success can be measured and based on audience engagement, recognition, and involvement. Yet, Social Media’s Achilles heel, in the eyes of corporate decision makers who still utilize Web 1.0 analytics and measurement for their marketing, sales, and promotion efforts, is the lack of compelling ROI case studies: until now.

Dell’s Twitter Strategy: ROI of Engagement

The Washington Post reported on Claire Baldwin’s  article in Reuters “Twitter helps Dell rake in sales“:

• Twitter: Dell established their Twitter account two years ago
• Measurement: Dell measures and “track sales with proprietary software”
• ROI: Dell “has raked in more than $3 million from Twitter followers who clicked through its posts to its Web sites to make purchases.”
• Trend: Dell has “made more than $1 million in the past 6 months” utilizing Twitter

@DellOutlet: Dell’s Twitter Strategies

Dell has over 650,000 followers on Twitter. Although they are only following 23, they are known as a value provider:

• Coupons: Dell distributes valuable discount coupons through Twitter
• Customer Service: Dell answers questions and solves problems by engaging with their audience
• Crowdsourcing: like their efforts at Ideastorm, they crowdsource their Twitter network for ideas on products, services, processes, and anything related to making their consumers satisfied
• Network: Dell brilliantly and seamlessly integrate their Twitter network of followers with their Facebook fans for their Facebook company page. They convert many Twitter followers to Facebook fans and vice-versa

Having spent 12 years in a former life as a list broker, I probably have a very different perspective on how to find targeted prospects than the average social media marketer. Having had to identify the most likely buyers for offers than ranged from Soviet-inspired gifts to incontinence products to patio spas, one thing I’ve learned is that razor sharp targeting requires digging. And it’s in the digging that you find the gold.

Facebook Groups: A Marketing Opportunity

Facebook Groups offer the ability to reach numbers of people who gather around a particular affinity. As social media marketers, these Groups provide us with the opportunity to  engage and create relationships with people who are likely to have an interest in what we have to offer. We just need to identify the right Groups.  It sounds easy, right? Well it is if you have the patience of a saint. Or if you have discovered the Advanced Search Application for Facebook.

Advanced Search Application: Dig for Your Gold

The problem with using the standard Facebook search to locate Groups is Facebook’s limited options for filtering a vast number of results. You’re either stuck wading through hundreds of Groups that match a broad search, or you can tighten your search so much that nothing shows up. The Advanced Search Application is powered by Google and drills down into the Group contributor content searching for matches. This enables you to uncover golden networking opportunities that would never have matched on Facebook’s standard search.

This application has 33,427 monthly users as I write this, with a 1.9 rating out of 5.  I guess that means most people don’t think it’s so great, but there’s that unique targeting perspective I mentioned earlier. You’ve got to dig to find your best customers and this tool certainly does that!

Have you tried it? I’d love to hear your thoughts.