Don't Let Your Social Media Efforts Backfire

In days gone by, advertising, marketing, and communications were one-way outbound channels and could be controlled by the brand. Brands could regulate what messages were disseminated, to whom, where, and when.

Today with social media, a whole separate conversation among consumers is going on behind the scenes. For the most part, your coveted brand reputation and purchasing influence has been transferred to the whims of consumers.

Through social media channels, consumers can comment and rate products and services either positively or negatively. These trusted testimonials carry a heavy influence with prospective customers. Most amazingly, comments along with video, and pictures can be transmitted in real-time from mobile smartphones to an unlimited audience with little effort on the part of the sender.

Recognizing the perils of negative media, brands are being compelled to be more open, honest and transparent. Seeking to hide or disguise legitimate issues on social networks is likely to fail.

Most important, in today’s social media marketplace you must deal with a negative issue immediately. Assign a skilled, knowledgeable, and empowered resource to monitor and deal with the discourse.

Remember you are dealing with real people in a two-way conversation. Never be formal, or authoritarian with your responses to negative posts. Be genuine and take responsibility for actions within your control.

Above all, your goal is to show you are reasonable, fair, and easy to work with.

Written and produced in beautiful Naples, Florida by OnFast.com. Visit OnFast.com today to get your free trial subscription to our Social Media Marketing Service.

 

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Social Media News For The Week Of 10/11/13

Twitter’s Comcast Partnership Moves It Leaps And Bounds Ahead Of The Competition In Social TV

In the emerging trend of Social TV, Twitter has positioned itself ahead of competing social networks by entering into a deal with Comcast. This partnership is the biggest step taken so far in the convergence of social media and television. Comcast will embed  a “See It” button in tweets by Comcast’s NBCUniversal. The button will take the user to a live program either on a mobile device or a television. To use this functionality users must be subscribers to Comcast’s Xfinity service. Full Story Here:


Tune-In Your Social Media For Customer Focus And Better Business Practice

Social media can be a highly effective tool for small businesses to keep in touch with their customer base and meet their needs. Social media can provide companies with valuable market research information. Listening to your followers, linking all social accounts, and planning a clear strategy for your social media campaigns will lead to success with the medium. Full Story Here:


The Top Twelve Business Etiquette Tips for Social Media

Society functions best when people follow basic rules of etiquette in their interactions with others. The same holds true in social media networking. Businesses must be polite and treat their customers on social media the same way they would in a face-to-face encounter. This article offers guidelines for companies to follow in polite engagement with their fans and followers on social media networks. Full Story Here:


Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media Tips for Small Business Owners

Small business owners should never forget where their attention should always be in all their social media posts. The reader should be the focus point of all postings on social media channels. Never make your brand the point of anything shared in blogs or social networks. Full Story Here:

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Social Media News For The Week Of 10/4/13

The Death of Social ROI - Companies Are Starting To Drop The Idea That They Can Track Social Media’s Dollar Value

Businesses are realizing that their social media marketing efforts can’t be measured in the strict terms of revenue-per-customer metrics, according to a study conducted by Business Insider. The report found ROI tracking use by marketers fell from 17 percent to only 9 percent and the tracking of conversion rates dropped from 25 percent to 21 percent. At the same time investment in social media by firms is up and expected to reach 16 percent of the total marketing budget of companies by 2018. As businesses have moved forward with social media they have learned to concentrate their efforts on audience-building, brand awareness, and customer relations. Full Story Here:

 

Social Media Strategies to Grow Your Business

Frustrations over the lack of measurable returns for a company’s social media investments results when they fail to understand the nature of the medium. Social media is about building relationships between people, not products. Learning who the business’ target audience is and connecting with them will lead to successfully leveraging social media marketing. Full Story Here:

 

4 Businesses That Use Social Media for Growth

While social media is about interaction and connection between people, the end goal for business is to get those people talking about the brand’s products and services. This article provides a few good examples of businesses who have successfully grown as a result of their social media marketing efforts. Full Story Here:

 

Why Social Media is Now The New ‘Word of Mouth’

Social media has taken over the role of ‘word of mouth’ advertising. A successful social media marketing campaign results in a large number of people talking on the medium about a firm’s products and services. The brand’s fans, in a sense, do the marketing for the company. Social media thrives because of the ever shrinking attention span of modern society. Social provides instant gratification in the form of social opinion provided through instant communication. Full Story Here:

 

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Do I need social media if I have a website?

Companies that have long relied on their web sites as a means of attracting customers are now finding that a website alone is not enough. In today’s marketplace, social media presents a better opportunity for enhancing relationships and expanding brand awareness. No one will deny that the web has become the most cost effective, “Go-To” method for finding answers to problems and identifying resources.  Google is clearly the world’s number one research tool with billions of searches daily. 

When it comes to building and maintaining relationships, finding employees, and researching clients, social media presents far better opportunities. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn should be among your first choices. Social media’s biggest advantage is that it is an open conversation among like-minded people. Your audience can ask questions and leave replies. Most important, your viewing audience can share your posts with people you don’t know but have an interest in what is being said.  If you use social media, your web of influence will proliferate organically and you will win friends and likes. Do it now!

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A Contest Generates Excitement

If you’re considering clever ideas for a social media marketing campaign to help get your message across, try running a contest to attract viewer attention.

People crave freebies. Have you ever noticed at a trade show how willing people are to enter a contest?  Running a social media contest on your Facebook page or company blog will produce the same results, especially if you include a quality picture of your prize as a visual aid.

Asking people to enter your Facebook contest will get valuable prospect names and addresses. Even small prizes like T-Shirts and gift cards will produce a flurry of activity.

Be sure to make the contest period reasonable and always post the name of the winner. You can purchase custom T-shirts at www.zazzle.com

If you are successful, you may consider offering contests on a regular basis to draw in new fans and viewers.

OnFast offers an easy no hassle way to set up a contest. Try it for free during our 30-day trial subscription at www.onfast.com

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Social Media News For The Week Of 9/27/13

Does Small Business Understand Social Media?

Many small businesses may have a few misconceptions about social media and what it can and can’t do for their business. Many small business owners have jumped on the social network bandwagon with unrealistic expectations of miracles. Social media is about being social with people, real people. It is not the place for advertising campaigns to be thrown in the faces of the brand’s followers. True engagement between people is the name of the game. The end result will be, over time, increased sales. Full Story Here:

 

Social Media Demographics: The Surprising Identity Of Each Major Social Network

It is crucial for businesses attempting to reach out to their target customers on social media to choose the correct networks for the concentration of their efforts. Each social media network has its own unique demographic makeup. Business Insider has released their latest figures this week for each of the top social channels. A few interesting takeaways - On Facebook the 45 to 54-year-old age group has seen the largest growth since the end of 2012 at 45 percent. 27 percent of the 18 to 29 year old age bracket use Twitter as compared with only 16 percent of those in their thirties and forties. Pinterest is still dominated by female users at 84 percent. Full Story Here:

 

How To Generate Leads And Engagement Through B2B Social Media

Quality content, which is relevant to the target audience of the brand, should be central to any social media marketing campaign. Google and LinkedIn are the favorite social channels for businesses that primarily derive their revenue from other businesses (B2B). These social networks have grown tremendously in the last year and will see continued growth in 2014, especially Google . Full Story Here:

 

3 Annoying Social Media Mistakes Businesses Need to Avoid

The worst social media mistake, which any business can make, is to forget the true purpose of the medium and blatantly self-promoting with an endless stream of marketing and advertising content. Some other missteps include not sharing the content provided by others and being insensitive about controversial or sensitive subject matter or even being overtly offensive. Full Story Here:

 

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Marketing A Small Business In The 21st Century - Part 3

Today, marketers can produce and share their own homemade video marketing messages, alongside all of the other technological developments in marketing discussed in parts one and two of this series. The small business marketer still has some tried and true older techniques to fall back on as well. Television, radio, and print, in addition to the good old yellow pages are still viable options alongside the newer and more provocative marketing choices.

 

Video 

The video sharing social media site, YouTube, has provided the do-it-yourself video marketer a tremendous platform from which to launch their videos across the third most visited website on the planet, after Google and Facebook. Since being bought by Google, YouTube also offers one of the most powerful search engines, second only to Google’s own search engine. Videos on YouTube can become extremely viral due to the medium’s nature. An important factor in what can make a video go viral is the fact that YouTube videos can be embedded across a wide spectrum of social media networks and websites. With billions of views every day, YouTube offers your marketing videos a potentially massive audience.

 

Traditional Marketing Tools

The marketing tools used by businesses to promote their products and services in the past, including television and radio ads, print newspaper advertisements, and even the yellow pages, are still useful tools at the disposal of small business marketers. The more modern platforms discussed here should be seen as additional marketing options, not necessarily replacements for tried and true techniques. These older methods should be fully utilized while they are still available, especially in the case of yellow page and newspaper ads. Your company should want as many eyes to see your products and services as possible.

 

The options available to market a small business to its target have never been more broad and exciting. Today, small firms truly have the tools available, if properly utilized, to compete with much larger companies and reach a worldwide audience. 

Written and produced in beautiful Naples, Florida by OnFast.com. Visit OnFast.com today to get your free trial subscription to our Social Media Marketing Service.

 

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