Influence Marketing Archives

Influence Marketing

Social Equity: The Effect of Social Media on Your Brand

April 26, 2013/by Corey Padveen

The direct impact that social media can have on brand equity translates into a significant boost in Social Equity.

Social media has created an entirely new avenue of measurement when it comes to brand equity. The value of a business is based on, among other things, the quality of work it produces, the position it holds in the market and, perhaps most important, the public perception of the brand. Social media tackles each of these aspects in some way or another, and that level of power means that the benefits to Social Equity can be great.

There are three key areas of focus when one looks at the impact social media has on a brand’s image: reputation and crisis management, customer service, and market influence. Social marketing has quickly become one of the cornerstones of increasing a brand’s value in each of these categories, and the results are increased Social Equity for a business in both the short- and long-term.

Reputation and Crisis Management on Social Media

The power of social media can make or break a company’s reputation. Peer-review sites are among the most trusted in the industry, and a poor reputation here can mean a fast downfall of your brand. Managing your brand on social media can significantly boost your Social Equity.

People look to engage with a brand, particularly in the time of a crisis, and if you are listening and conversing with these users, you not only quell any unease customers might have, but you have the opportunity to turn these people into brand advocates.

By carefully monitoring and managing your brand’s reputation in real-time on social media, you eliminate much of the risk of bad press being out there and not even being aware of it.

Customer Service on Social Media

This is a relatively new concept referred to as Social Care. In a recent study by Nielsen and NM Incite, results showed that one-third of active social media users prefer to engage with brands on social networks in order to deal with questions or complaints as opposed to conventional methods of customer service (e.g. by phone).

The ability to engage with your audience on multiple platforms adds to both your brand’s transparency and approachability. These are both crucial to developing customer loyalty and, in turn, building your Social Equity.

Influence on Social Media

There are plenty of services, like Klout, Kred or PeerIndex, that aim to measure a brand’s influence on social media. Influence is of ever growing importance, particularly when it comes to brand equity. Building your industry influence and establishing your brand as the foremost expert in your vertical has never been easier than it is with the strategic use of social media.

Using multiple networks and implementing a methodical engagement program can quickly help you boost your credibility to a much wider audience than ever before. Furthermore, it can be done much faster than ever before. The results? Increased brand trust and subsequent business and Social Equity.

Brand and reputation management are of ever growing importance. The ability for an international set of consumers to share opinions, complaints and praise of brands with one another has never been easier. With the right strategy in place (and a good product never hurts!) it will not be long before you see the impressive results from your efforts in terms of Social Equity.

How do you manage your brand’s reputation online? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Case Study: Honda

April 25, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Honda was looking for a way to promote their new CR-V to a specific demographic, and they found that the best way was through Pinterest.

The Honda CR-V has a very specific audience in mind: young adults on the verge of a major step. Whether that is starting a new career, getting married, or beginning parenthood, the Honda CR-V is aimed at making the transition easier for this group.

So how do you market to them?

The Campaign

In 2012, Honda decided to take advantage of the growing addiction to Pinterest among young adults to market their brand. How? By making people stop (for a whole day)! The #Pintermission campaign was intended to get influencers fitting the targeted demographic to stop using Pinterest for 24 hours and go out to live life. This is the aura Honda aimed to cultivate with the new CR-V, and this campaign was how they got that message across.

What was the reward for not pinning? Well, Honda reached out to a group of 5 key influencers and asked them to stop pinning for one day. In return, Honda offered them $500 to put towards making one of their dream pins a reality. Each of the five users was given a board on a designated Honda Pinterest page and asked to pin about activities they dreamed of doing. The reward money for not pinning over the course of 24 hours was then to be put towards making one of these dream activities a reality.

So how did the campaign do? Nearly 5 million users were exposed to the Pintermission boards. Furthermore, these five pinners managed to garner over 5,000 repins and 2,000 likes in a very short time frame. And what’s most impressive? There were over 15 million impressions on different media platforms. That’s a lot of exposure for Honda.

The Lessons

Some of the most important lessons from this social media case study appear to be counter-intuitive when it comes to marketing and advertising. But the proof is in the numbers; this method works.

Never Ignore the Power of Influence

Similar to our social media case study on Kotex, Honda reached out to influencers on Pinterest in the hopes that their reach would mean a viral campaign. Once again, this method proved to be a winner.

Influencers can take your campaign to the next level. Honda reached out to five people. Five. Granted, they have an internationally-recognized brand to fall back on, but they still attained those numbers with little effort. The brunt of the reach was due to the fact that these pinners had 6- and 7-figure follower counts.

Never ignore the power of influence on social media. Your average high-school senior can have more social clout than the most powerful executives in the world. Keep that in mind.

Make It Easy for Others to Do the Work

Apart from creating the #Pintermission campaign and the designated boards for the five pinners, Honda did not have much involvement in the evolution and growth of the campaign. They simply asked that they be included as collaborators on the individual pin boards in order to garner exposure.

There were no fancy apps or special requirements for the pinners to qualify, they simply offered five people a chance to win $500 (that’s right, the campaign only cost $2,500 plus some time) for not using Pinterest. After that, it was entirely up to the participants to provide the content.

By making a simple, straightforward campaign, Honda managed to reach audiences far beyond expectations and for minimal cost. When you open the door for others to collaborate on social networks, you can very easily decrease the costs of running a campaign.

Engagement > Selling

Honda did not, at any point in their campaign, try to sell a car. That was not what this campaign was about. The CR-V is intended to get people off the couch and outside to experience life. This campaign was about making people realize that, and having Honda to thank.

By creating a campaign that promoted the spirit of their product, and linking that product to the campaign, very superficially, Honda managed to capture the attention of a massive portion of their target demographic.

One of the most important marketing rules when it comes to social media is to avoid selling (at least, in most cases). People are on social networks to engage, not to be bombarded with promotional offers. Honda recognized that and their success is the proof that it worked.

What is your favorite aspect of the Honda #Pintermission campaign? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Pinterest Marketing: 7 Useful Tools

April 9, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Pinterest marketing recently received a boost with the integration of backend analytics on Pinterest. These 7 tools can further benefit your Pinterest marketing strategy.

Little by little, Pinterest is becoming more business friendly. First, there was the launch of business pages, and recently there was the announcement of integrated insights for businesses. This is an exciting time for Pinterest marketing, and for those evangelists, here are some great tools to help boost your Pinterest marketing efforts.

1. Piqora

Formerly known as Pinfluencer, Piqora is a fantastic tool when it comes to Pinterest marketing. With Piqora, users can build campaigns, track results, obtain more in-depth insights than those provided by basic analytics and measure both your influence in your community and the influence others have on their communities. This is an excellent tool for those serious about Pinterest marketing.

2. Pinpuff

Ever wonder how influential you are to your Pinterest community? Pinpuff is a fairly simple and easy-to-use tool that lets you know how influential you are to your community on Pinterest. Similar to the influence-measuring features in Piqora but without all of the technical elements.

3. Shopinterest

We have mentioned how to create catalogues in Pinterest, but what if you took your Pinterest marketing a step further and allowed your followers to not only see products you offer, but purchase them? Shopinterest, in beta at the moment, is currently offering users the ability to build stores and sell goods to engaged users – for free!

4. Reachli

Reachli is great not only for Pinterest, but any form of visual marketing. The tool allows you to build your campaigns and market them across a variety of networks. You can then closely track the progress of your campaigns with the broad analytics offered in the backend, and adjust your campaigns according to where you see the most success.

5. Pinalytics

A great tool that takes the insights offered for free in the backend of your own profile and applies them broadly across the entirety of the social network. Use Pinalytics to search for a keyword, term or user and see all of the trending activity and analytics that go with that search. This is a great tool to see what topics are garnering high levels of engagement.

6. HelloInsights

This great Pinterest tool provides you with a set of helpful insights that allow you to ‘pin intelligently’. Use the information to find out what is working, what isn’t and where, when and with whom you are getting the best results.

7. Pinstamatic

Ever wonder why some people have better boards than everyone else? With Pinstamatic, you can be right on top with your competition. This tool allows you to customize your boards to maximize engagement with add-ons like quotations, music maps and much more!

These are just a few of the great tools out there that should help with your Pinterest marketing. Pinterest is still an evolving tool, so keep your eyes open for new changes and updates that are geared to help marketers.

What tools do you use when it comes to maximizing your Pinterest marketing strategy? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Case Study: Gillette

April 4, 2013/by Corey Padveen

With the strategic use of YouTube, Gillette managed to capture and engage an entirely untapped demographic.

In 2010, as the World Cup approached, the marketers at Gillette were wondering how they could capitalize on the growing use of social media and garner a new client-base. Through the strategic use of YouTube, coupled with a global initiative, Gillette managed to engage with a population of new and future customers (males under 25 years old) in Italy.

Let us first take a look at an overview of the campaign, followed by some statistics and, finally, lessons for social media marketers.

Gillette’s ‘Future Champions’ Campaign

In Italy, Gillette launched the ‘Future Champions’ campaign in association with its global ‘Gillette Champions’ initiative. The global campaign featured a wide variety of media for advertising, extending anywhere from television to social media. The ‘Future Champions’ initiative in Italy was aimed at a younger audience, hoping to capitalize on a relatively untapped market of new and emerging clientele (with regards to shaving – hence the focus on males under the age of 25).

Effectively, Gillette focused its efforts on the booming popularity of social media (YouTube, in particular) to market to this demographic, and the results were outstanding.

Campaign Statistics

YouTube alone reached 10% of their total audience, and all of their online and social media efforts reached 31% of their total audience reached. (It is important to note that this does not factor in those who were reached by YouTube, online and social media and other forms of marketing. That number was significantly higher.)

On YouTube, 62% of those reached fit the demographic Gillette was targeting (males under 25). Furthermore, the graph below shows how the campaign influenced intent.

YouTube was also the most cost efficient form of advertising. On average, reaching 1% of the target demographic on YouTube was over 7 times cheaper than reaching that same number on TV. Lastly, YouTube helped Gillette reach an audience that would have been lost without social media. 35% of those who were exposed to the brand’s campaign on YouTube had no contact with the television campaign.

Lessons for Marketers

Considering Gillette managed to reach a huge proportion of their target demographic and appeal to those individuals, persuading them to buy, it is no wonder that this is an excellent social media case study. This was no accident, however. The marketers at Gillette did their research and knew exactly what they were doing, and these lessons are some that should be adopted by all marketers, social media or otherwise, when constructing a campaign.

1. Know Where Your Audience Is

With regards to social media, this refers to knowing in which network your target audience is having a conversation. For marketing in general, it means which medium (i.e. TV, radio, print, social media, etc.).

The marketing team at Gillette knew the power of social media, particularly when a target demographic is under the age of 25. We have posted about social media demographics on our blog, and firmly believe that in order to be successful, your understanding of social media and your strategy when it comes to social marketing needs to go beyond simply having great content. You need to know where your audience is and when they are around in order to ensure that they see your content. Gillette understood this and it was a major factor behind their success.

2. Use Every Avenue at Your Disposal

One important thing that the campaign’s statistics showed was that adding YouTube to the mix of media used did not cannibalise other forms of digital advertising. In fact, of the 31% of people reached through YouTube and other online forms of advertising, there was an overlap of only 7%.

It is important to note that when you are trying to get a message out to your fans, followers and leads, you need to be aggressive. There are hundreds of millions of conversations taking place on social media at every moment of the day, and if you want to be heard, you need to be loud.

Do not confuse “loud” with careless, however. You need to make sure that your strategy is executed in such a way that you do not turn people off to your product. But market research, as done by Gillette, will help ensure that your message is both heard by everyone you wish to target and will help avoid redundancies in your marketing efforts.

3. Create a Marketing Hybrid

There were two major findings in the study: first, television alone was tremendously expensive and reached a massive audience (71%). Second, YouTube alone was extremely cost efficient but reached a smaller audience (17%). Together, however, they reached nearly the entire target audience and were quite cost efficient.

The takeaway here is that conventional forms of marketing still work, but they are no longer enough. In order to be successful, you need to create a hybrid marketing strategy that take the tried, tested and true media and incorporates the new, booming and efficient media. Together, the old and new cover all of your bases.

Remember, there are more cell phones in India than there are functioning toilets, so in many cases, the new has far surpassed the old in terms of reachability.

These three lessons are crucial to the success of a marketing strategy. Through the use of YouTube, Gillette managed to reach a huge proportion of their target audience, increase brand awareness and engagement, and increase intent to buy. What’s more, a huge proportion of this success can be attributed directly to the use of social media and, above all else, YouTube. The marketing team at Gillette understood their audience and marketed for them, not simply to them. This ultimately proved to be the most successful step taken.

Which of these lessons do you feel is most important? Why? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

10 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools

April 3, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media is all about listening to what people are saying about you, and monitoring your brand online. These 10 free tools are a great asset for any social media marketer.

While all of these tools feature paid and enterprise versions, the basic, free versions contain a wealth of information and are fantastic resources for any marketer looking to optimize his or her social media marketing.

1. HootSuite

Many people know about HootSuite. And for anyone who has used it, it should come as no surprise that it sits on top of this list. There are plenty of neat listening and monitoring features available in HootSuite, including the ability to listen to keywords and geo-target your monitoring to see what people are saying in a given radius.

2. TwentyFeet

Ever wonder how you can optimize your social media activity for maximum results? TwentyFeet is a great tool to help you get there. TwentyFeet aggregates your social media activity and mentions from a number of social media channels and helps you determine where your social efforts are paying off and where you could use some help.

3. PeerIndex

PeerIndex is a great tool for those looking to build up their influence in certain categories. The tool helps users determine their level of authority in different niches based on conversations taking place and the level of engagement a brand has with its fans.

4. SocialMention

With regards to free listening tools, SocialMention is among the best. This tool allows you to listen for your brand, company, product, service, competitors or industry keyword mentions across a multitude of social media channels. Data is pulled from dozens of social media services to give you the most accurate, real-time information.

5. SocialPointer

Engagement with your audience is crucial to the success of a social media program, and SocialPointer allows you to track mentions of your brand on different channels and respond to your audience in real-time. This is a great tool for those engaging in social care (social media customer service).

6. HowSociable

Ever wonder if your social media marketing efforts are enough? HowSociable measures your social media activity and provides you with a score to help you determine whether or not you or your brand are engaging enough on social media to be successful.

7. Brand Monitor

For every conversation you find about your brand, there may be hundreds if not thousands more taking place across the social sphere. Brand Monitor helps you track all of the mentions of your brand on different social networks to give you a better feel of how the conversation is taking place and where you should be involving yourself to improve your brand’s online reputation.

8. Kred/Klout

Kred and Klout are two scoring services that review your social media activity, engagement, influence, authority, etc. and provide you with a score that tells you how you rank compared to others on social media.

9. SocialBro

SocialBro is a great tool when it comes to determining your influence and success on Twitter. The insights offered drill deep into your follower lists and provide helpful analytics to determine if your Twitter marketing is paying off, if you are targeting the right audiences and whom you influence.

10. Topsy

Topsy is a real-time social media search engine. Configure your account to pull data only relevant to your industry, brand, product, competitors, etc. and receive plenty of real-time information that you can use to improve the success of your social media marketing.

As we always point out, these tools are a great asset to compliment your social media strategy, but real success is ultimately going to come from a well developed and properly implemented social media strategy. Tools alone cannot run a social media program. People are out there talking and you need to be able to use these tools to listen and then properly engage with your audience.

Which of these tools have you used? Which ones are you going to try? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media and SEO: 25 Important Tips and Hints

March 27, 2013/by Corey Padveen

When it comes to SEO, social media is of ever-growing importance.

Social media is a major factor when it comes to SEO. In fact, within every one of your social networks there are small details that are referred to as social signals, and these are extremely important when it comes to improving your rankings.

One of the major differentiating factors with regards to social media when compared to other forms of search engine optimization is the fact that social signals are updated in real-time, and as such, your SERPs (search engine results page) can rise much quicker than they did with conventional methods of SEO. So, in order to ensure that you are being found on search engines, it is important to understand what factors contribute to your improved rankings when it comes to social media.

Below are 25 great tips and hints that should help you optimize your social media activities to factor in how your actions on social networks will impact your search rankings.

An engaged audience is the cornerstone of successful social media SEO; keep your audience engaged with your content and your rankings will skyrocket.
A big audience is nice, but a smaller, targeted audience is much better.
Your employees can be crucial to helping you spread your content across social media channels, which helps bolster your rankings.
Going “viral” is something that happens naturally, not something you can plan. (So don’t!)
Social signals are admittedly important to both Google and Bing.
Social sharing (i.e. Facebook share, re-tweet, Google +1) are more important social signals than direct signals, like optimizing your About Us section on Facebook.
Captivating images with Alt Tags are easily shared and great for SEO (particularly when it comes to Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Google+.
Build your boards on Pinterest! These register as social signals but individual pins do not.
Of Facebook, Twitter and Google+, Google+ is the best network in which to engage with influencers in your industry.
Authorship authority on Google is important to improving your rankings, and a good way of doing that is with Google+.
Three important criteria for your Facebook EdgeRank are affinity, interaction and timeliness.
Facebook Graph Search (in these early stages) is most beneficial to the entertainment (movies and TV), fashion, restaurant, travel and hotel industries.
Twitter is an arena important to customer service – engage with your audience when they are reaching out to you and you will be rewarded in your SEO.
Create 5 different tweets for the same blog post.
Don’t be afraid to post tweets linking to the same content on Twitter more than a couple of times per day; your followers are not going to be watching everything you post throughout the entire day.
Keep creating content – the more content you create (both on social channels and on your blog) the higher your rankings will increase over time.
Engaging, share-friendly content should always be what you strive to post.
The most clicked content titles consists of: “How To”, “Do/Do Not”, “Top 10/25/100”, Tips, Reviews, etc.
Creating good titles for search engines is nice, but creating compelling titles that intrigue your audience is much, much better.
Links in SlideShare presentations can be crawled and registered with Google (as a social backlink – among the most powerful ranking criteria).
Google auto-complete is the feature most beneficial to registering your keywords.
Optimizing a mobile app/site/piece of social media content is a crucial feature to engaging with your audience, particularly now with Google’s Universal Analytics.
Be sure to optimize your website and all of your social media profiles (especially Google+) for your address; this will benefit your local rankings significantly.
When it comes to mobile search, the only engine that really matters (well, matters more than anyone else) is Google. (#AppleMaps)
Be active in the conversation! Optimizing social media channels and blogs for SEO are one thing, but to really see your rankings shoot up, make sure people are familiar with your brand (and you!) by engaging in the conversation online!

Overall, the one thing to remember is that in order for social media to factor into your search rankings, you need to have an engaging brand. And that works both ways. It doesn’t happen overnight. Social media might be a faster means than any other when it comes to driving traffic and increasing your rankings, but it still takes time and plenty of commitment.

How are you optimizing your social media channels for SEO? Have you seen any results? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Twitter Marketing: 7 Tools to Maximize Your Success

March 25, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Twitter marketing is greatly improved with the help of certain tools, but it is important to remember that your strategy is what drives your overall success.

Twitter celebrated their seventh anniversary late last week, and we thought it would be fitting to open this week with a discussion of Twitter marketing tools, and what seven of the best tools are when it comes to your success with regards to Twitter marketing.

Before we delve in to the list, however, it is important to note that Twitter marketing tools are great when you have a strategy in place, but you cannot expect your efforts to succeed with the tools alone. These are complimentary tools to simplify the Twitter marketing process and help you maximize your success on Twitter in the most efficient way possible. What is important to keep in mind is that you need to utilize the information that these tools provide and incorporate that into your strategy in order to reap the most benefits. Now, with that disclaimer in place, here are seven of the best tools to help you optimize your Twitter marketing.

1. Followerwonk

Followerwonk is Twitter lists on steroids. Imagine the ability to delve deep into Twitter profiles, analyze leads and segment those leads based on the information you extrapolate. That is the Followerwonk specialty. Furthermore, you have the ability to track followers and watch ongoing statistics and insights as they are gathered in order to keep your Twitter marketing efforts up to date.

With Followerwonk, you can compare, analyze, track and sort your followers in order to keep your Twitter profile as organized as possible and increase the efficiency of your marketing.

2. Tweriod

We recently posted an article detailing some of the best times to post to social networks. Tweriod is all about your best time to post on Twitter. It takes a sample of your followers, analyzes their activity and provides you with a detailed report on when to post to your Twitter feed to maximize your exposure.

3. SocialBro

SocialBro, in similar fashion to Tweriod, produces reports to help you optimize your Twitter marketing. Where SocialBro differs, however, is in the depth of these reports. The pro version of SocialBro provides detailed insights about your followers, your community, your lists – you name it, SocialBro has reports for it.

The in-depth analysis in the SocialBro reports also tell you about your influencers and whom you are influencing. Using this feature, you can monitor your Twitter clout and see where your efforts to build up your reputation are paying off.

4. Twitonomy

Twitonomy is a Twitter analytics tool to help you analyze and modify your internal Twitter strategy. The tool breaks down your activity on the social network and provides you with insights to help you increase the efficiency and appearance of your profile.

Furthermore, it is a great tool when it comes to cleaning out your profile and keeping your following list as professional and targeted as possible.

5. TwileShare

Ever wanted to share more on Twitter? Sure, you can upload photos and now, with Vine, some short videos, but to get the most out of sharing on Twitter, TwileShare is your go-to.

With TwileShare, you can share plenty of content (e.g. photos, PDFs, ebooks, documents, etc.) and monitor statistics to see how that content is being shared and viewed on the network.

This is a great tool for those looking to look deeper into their viral exposure on Twitter.

6. Twilert

Social listening is crucial for brands looking to manage their reputation using social media. Twilert allows you to monitor mentions of your brand, service, competitors, etc. and receive a digest email letting you know what those mentions are. For those looking for a simple, easy-to-use and free listening tool, Twilert is one of the best ones around.

7. Twitter Counter

Twitter Counter has a free version and a pro version. For all things Twitter profile-related, Twitter Counter is an amazing tool. It shows you the growth of your account, insights into your activity, the average activity on your account and your place on Twitter relative to others.

Of course, the pro version of Twitter Counter has plenty more to offer as far as in-depth insights into your account.

These are just a few of the great tools that exist when it comes to maximizing your internal Twitter marketing efforts. As we noted above, Twitter marketing is all about strategy. These tools are intended to add to your existing efforts, not replace them entirely. Understanding Twitter and how to approach the network from a marketing perspective is worth much more than any tool can give you. But with this knowledge, these tools will make the job that much easier.

What tools do you use when it comes to Twitter marketing? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Effective Social Media Engagement: 5 Tips to Swear By

March 19, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Engagement on social media is one of the cornerstones of an effective social media program; but too many people go about it the wrong way.

So what can you be doing when it comes to social media engagement to ensure that you are doing it the right way? People are constantly talking about engaging on social media – ourselves included – but so few people give effective tips on how to engage with your fan base properly. Sure, every person and brand is going to develop their own unique voice when it comes to social media, but there are certain DOs and certain DO NOTs that everyone should be following when it comes to engaging with their fan base on social networks.

Today, we have decided to feature some of those tips to help your brand engage effectively on social media to ensure that you don’t run the risk of losing your audience or worse, having them comment negatively in a social forum.

1. DABC: Don’t Always Be Closing

In the Mamet-penned monumental monologue in the classic film Glengarry Glen Ross, the character of Blake (played by an Oscar-nominated Alec Baldwin in the film adaptation) gives a haunting speech to a group of terrified realtors wherein he tells them that they should follow the ABCs of selling: Always Be Closing. That might have worked for those realtors, but the reality of social media is that a better piece of advice would be to follow your DABCs.

You can’t always be closing when it comes to engaging on social media. Sure, the goal for most social marketers is to eventually convert leads generated on social networks into customers, but we can’t jump into our engagement attempting to close. We need to build a rapport with our leads and the only way to do that is to engage with them on a human level, not on a salesman-only level. That’s sure to turn them off.

It also brings us to our next point.

2. Talk Like a Human

If there’s one thing that people hate about engaging with certain corporate accounts, it is that it feels like just that: all business. There is no emotion or opinion behind a comment or post. Now, of course one has to take into account the political aspect that comes with running a social media program as a large company. Those in charge of engaging cannot say whatever they want. There is an image to maintain and thus, a certain standard to keep.

That said, if you feel like social media is the right place for your business to have a presence, then develop a strategy for engagement before you get started. People are going to reach out to your brand, and they want to feel like they are talking to someone there, not a computer directing them to simply call a customer service line for more information.

3. Don’t Discriminate

You might think that the only place where you stand to benefit from your engagement is with your industry’s influencers. And while it might be true that engaging with people who have thousands of fans or followers might lead to a quick gain, it is not always going to pay off. There are far more people out there with seventy-five or one hundred followers than those with seventy-five or one hundred thousand.

In a social media case study we did about Old Spice a few weeks ago, we noted that where Old Spice found the most success was in their ability to engage with any type of user in the same way, whether they were famous or simply Twitter fans with a few dozen followers. The payoffs were enormous for Old Spice and any marketer should take this as a lesson that it doesn’t pay to discriminate when it comes to engaging on social media.

4. Fashionably Late is a Social Faux Pas

Social media is an ongoing conversation. People are talking constantly and, when it comes to your brand, they are talking to you. And when it comes to all that social media has to offer and the fact that a recent study showed that the average online attention span is roughly 8 seconds, you can’t expect people to be waiting around for your response for too long.

We live in a fast-paced society and nothing embodies that better than social media. So when someone engages with your brand, do everything you can to respond as quickly as possible. You are half of the social conversation, so you can’t be late to the party.

5. Never Ignore Questions or Negative Comments

We thought we would save the most important for last. This is one rule we advocate above all others. When it comes to your brand’s image both in the eyes of your customers and the general public, the two types of posts you never want to ignore are questions and negative comments.

First, let’s look at questions. When someone goes out of their way to engage with your brand and ask a question, they are generally doing so because they want an answer. They are, for lack of a better analogy, calling for more information. This is a traditional call to action that we see in ads and commercials, and social media takes the first part of that CTA out of the equation. So when someone has a question, answer it! You wouldn’t have a hotline for leads to call in to if you didn’t have anyone manning the phones, would you? This is the same concept.

Next, you should never ever ignore negative comments. In doing so, you are basically burying your head in the sand while the whole world sees your flaws. If anything, negative comments are a great way to do two things. First, they are a chance for you to show the world how much you care about your customers by dealing with an issue on the social stage for all to see. Second, they are a great way to turn people into brand advocates. Social media is one of the best avenues in which to generate new brand advocates and negative comments are one of the ways to go about doing this.

What is your strategy when it comes to social media engagement? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Equity: LinkedIn and Your Business

March 15, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social Equity is given quite a boost with a LinkedIn presence – and not just for B2B companies.

LinkedIn is widely known as the professional social network. So, it would make sense for people to assume that it is largely for B2B companies. While it is true that LinkedIn is one of the most beneficial social networks when it comes to B2B, the Social Equity a brand can garner as a result of having a LinkedIn presence – whether it is B2B or B2C – is quite high.

Today, we aim to explain where the Social Equity of a LinkedIn presence is found, and how you can determine the value added to your business as a result of having both a personal and company page on the social network.

The Benefits of LinkedIn

To understand how we can derive Social Equity from LinkedIn, we first need to understand what the benefits of a LinkedIn presence are to our business.

As we noted above, LinkedIn is often perceived as the professional network. As such, it is an arena in which professionals actively seek out industry influencers, leaders and authority figures. Therefore, it is one of the easiest niches in which to establish yourself as an industry-leader within your market. Social networks on the more general scale, like Facebook and Twitter, are mediums in which we can establish our brand as an authority with the general public, but for any company, be it B2C or B2B, LinkedIn is the best avenue through which we can build our credibility with members of our own industry.

On the other side of the spectrum, LinkedIn is an excellent network for seeking out the advice and tips of other leaders and professionals, and applying those bits of advice to our own strategies. Though LinkedIn Answers was a great feature in which to do this before it was removed, LinkedIn Groups are still a powerful tool, and include higher engagement rates than almost any other feature on social media. Contrary to many social networks, LinkedIn is a place where professionals are seeking out the opinions and inputs of others, and the element of self-promotion (not in its purest form, but close to it) is not only accepted, but in many cases encouraged.

So, how does this all add value to your business?

Social Equity Derived from LinkedIn

Having both a personal account and an active company page on LinkedIn can generate quite a bit of Social Equity for your brand. With a well-orchestrated strategy in place, we can quickly build our authority in a given field and begin driving referrals to both our personal pages and our websites. This holds true for both types of businesses. Even as a B2C entity, we are still looking to build market authority, and LinkedIn is one way of doing that.

Say you are a local and online retail store, for example. Now say you create a profile on LinkedIn and begin sharing short articles you write about running a successful retail location, or a successful e-commerce website. By posting to your updates (your network), your company page and your groups pages about the retail industry, you will quickly see your influence, network and, most important for building business, your LinkedIn referral traffic begin to shoot up.

It is important to understand that in any industry, people want to associate themselves with the best. Whether you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or a retail-savvy basement blogger, industry leaders and influencers receive the most attention on a network like LinkedIn, and that translates to Social Equity.

The value added of a large professional and referral network is highly coveted. Consider not only the calculated value of your business assets, but the value added of an extended network, an established industry leader at the helm of your company and your industry influence. All of this is capable through the strategic use of LinkedIn.

How are you using LinkedIn to generate Social Equity for your business? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Case Study: Kotex

March 14, 2013/by Corey Padveen

The use of Pinterest and social media by Kotex proved to be one of the most successful and innovative social media campaigns run to date.

With the major announcement yesterday that Pinterest would now provide analytics to its business users, we thought an appropriate social media case study this week would involve the use of the social network. And what better Pinterest-themed social media case study than its use by Kotex last year to celebrate women’s inspiration.

The Campaign

As the world of social media exploded with the introduction of Pinterest last year, the first network of its kind, dominated almost entirely by women, Kotex and their social media marketing team had the brilliant idea to run a social media campaign centered on the women of Pinterest.

The brilliance lay in how they decided to design the program. Effectively, Kotex sought out the 50 most influential women they could find on the social network after reviewing thousands of accounts and their followers, and began searching through their boards to determine what inspired them. After that, they put together customized gift boxes inspired by these women’s boards, and reached out to these influencers on social media to share these gifts with them. They asked for only one thing in return: to repin the gift.

The results were far greater than what Kotex could have hoped for. Not only did nearly 100% of the 50 women comply with the simple request, but they went above and beyond. These women posted pictures of each component of the gift on both Pinterest and Instagram, made comments on Twitter, Facebook and reached out to their extended networks to tell them all about this wonderful gesture by Kotex.

By the end of the campaign – well, the end of Kotex’s analytics of the campaign, without measuring the extended secondary reach that the virality of the campaign created – Kotex had measured over 2,200 interactions and nearly 700,000 impressions. That’s quite the reach from contacting only 50 people directly!

Take a look at this video for a more comprehensive breakdown of the campaign:

The Lessons

There is a lot we can learn as marketers from this campaign. But when we consider the fact that this social media campaign relied heavily on a viral effect, we think the best lessons to pull from the Kotex social media case study relate to the importance of influencers.

Find Your Influencers

Kotex knew their demographic and the audience they could reach, but they knew that referrals are so much more powerful than direct marketing. It was for that reason that the marketing executives at Kotex went looking for their social media influencers on Pinterest.

These were women who had a reach far beyond that of Kotex alone. And they were women with an audience that filled two vital criteria: the audience was made up of the right demographics and the audience was highly engaged with these influencers. When you can turn influential people into brand advocates, you can rest assured that you are going to generate quite a bit of new business. But in order to find these influencers, you need to keep this next lesson very much in the forefront of your thinking.

Influencers Can Be Anybody!

The women to whom Kotex sent gifts were not on any Forbes power list, they were not First Ladies and they were not Manhattan socialites – they were normal. (Well, that is not to say that these other women are not “normal” but you know what we mean.) These were every day women who happened to build a large and highly engaged following on Pinterest by simply being active and posting content their followers loved to share. It took a lot of insight for the marketing executives at Kotex to understand this.

When it comes to social media, industry influencers are no longer part of a closed off group comprised of the economic and social elite – anyone and everyone has the ability to be an influencer. Marketers need to keep this in mind.

Small Gestures Go A Long Way

The gift baskets sent by Kotex did not include fancy electronics, or high-priced jewelry. They were simply made up of small knick-knacks that Kotex knew these women would love because they did their research. Kotex could easily have sent them gift certificates for a lifetime supply of Kotex products, but rest assured, the returns would have been far fewer.

The reason why there was such a high response rate and such a viral effect was because Kotex customized these gifts to the tastes of the recipients. They did not need to include lavish, overpriced items because they knew that what they had included was worth much more. A little research into their industry influencers resulted in the numbers you see above. So remember, a little thought can get you a lot further than the easiest option.

Create Limitless Campaigns

Kotex asked these women to do one thing: repin the gifts. A simple request. But the beauty of social media is that these women decided, on their own accord, to take the Kotex campaign to the next level, and involve virtually every avenue of social media they had access to. Kotex created a campaign that had an inherently viral element to it; by giving these women individually-inspired gifts and making them feel unique, it was only a matter of time before they shared the experience with their communities. Furthermore, Kotex did not give these women an ultimatum. The gifts were not a bribe, they were simply gifts with one small request. Giving these women the freedom to do what they wished with regards to sharing the gifts and experience with their communities led to them immediately taking the opportunity to boast about how special they felt thanks to Kotex.

Don’t Hope to Go Viral – Work Your Way There

Kotex was lucky that the campaign was as innovative and original as it was. At the time, Pinterest was the newest, hottest social network and Kotex was the first brand to take advantage of it in the way that they did. First-mover advantage worked wonders for the Kotex brand, but we cannot all hope that our social media campaigns will go viral the way the Kotex campaign did. So, when putting together your next campaign, reach out to your influencers, but don’t neglect the average customer or social media fan. After all, by targeting influencers, the ultimate audience whom you hope to reach is the average user, so make an effort to reach out to every person you can. Brand loyalty is brand loyalty wherever you find it.

The Kotex example is one of the finest uses of Pinterest and social media to date. As marketing on social media continues to evolve, it is certain that we can expect other campaigns to catch on as virally as this one did, but with regards to the use of influencers, it is hard to think of another example as perfect a social media case study as this one.

How are you reaching out to your influencers? What methods do you use to determine who your industry influencers are? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

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