Social Equity

Social Equity: Video Blogging

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How is there a benefit to Social Equity from video blogging?

social equity video bloggingWhen it comes to video marketing, it is no secret that there can be substantial benefits and value derived from the practice. On Facebook, photos might generate twice as much engagement as text updates, but videos are shared 12X more than links and text posts combined!

With that kind of engagement, and the already existing Social Equity derived from blogging, it is no wonder that video blogging can add considerable value to your business.

(For more great info on the value of visual content on social media, click here.)

Giving a Face to Your Brand

People do not like to interact with a business, they like to engage with a personality. Social media is designed for one thing: engaging. You build a brand personality on social media and it is with that personality that people engage.

Video blogging provides a face for your company and humanizes your brand. With a more humanized brand comes a more approachable brand, and with a more approachable brand comes growth.

Make the Pitch

While one of the most regularly repeated rules on social media is that you should not focus on selling, video blogging provides a slight loophole in this regard.

The ability to tell a story using video means the ability to showcase a problem. When you showcase a problem, you allow yourself an opportunity to showcase a solution – your solution. Thus, with video blogging, you can sell your product in a way that is much less direct, and therefore much less intrusive than with other forms of social marketing.

Say a Lot More with Less

A minute of video can say what a thousand-word blog post cannot. And that is mostly due to the fact that most people would not sit around and read a thousand words.

Frankly, people do not care about how important your information is. If it takes too much time to get through, they are not going to read it to completion. Now, with a video entry sharing the same content with some added visuals, you can expect to see your engagement increase significantly, which means that the important information you need to get across will be much more effectively delivered in a video blog than in a traditional post.

Video blogging can be a great asset to your business. It compliments your social marketing strategy nicely and provides you with an entirely new avenue of marketing. With regards to Social Equity, a great deal of value is derived in terms of the aforementioned benefits that come along with video blogging.

Do you video blog? How has it helped your business? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

t2social social medis marketing strategies

Social Media Case Study: Cadbury

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How did Cadbury make their social media presence as sweet as their candy?

social media case study cadburyIt was early in 2012 that Cadbury realized they were approaching the 1 million fan mark on Facebook. It was around that same time that they realized that only about 16% of fans ever saw any of the content they were posting to their social networks.

Cadbury wanted to get the most out of their social media marketing, and they knew that for an internationally-recognized brand, 16% simply wasn’t good enough. So they decided to do something so big that it would grab the attention of a lot more than a mere 16%: they built a Facebook ‘Like’ thumb out of chocolate to say thanks!

The results of this gesture were 40,000 new Facebook fans and engagement of well over 30% for this campaign. Clearly, there are a few takeaways marketers can pull from this campaign by Cadbury.

Always Engage Your Audience

Engagement is going to be at the forefront of any successful social media campaign. Your audience needs to have a purpose for viewing your content, and providing engaging content is always going to be on top of that list of reasons.

Simply sharing promotional information, or a piece of text, isn’t going to entice anyone to share, comment, or necessarily like your content. The results? It hurts your EdgeRank and can be somewhat damaging to your brand’s growth on social media in the long run, due to the lack of exposure.

social media case study cadbury 2Let Your Fans Know You Care

Whether you are a Cadbury with 1 million fans or a Mom n’ Pop with 100, you should always let those that have become fans know that you care.

Success on social media stems from the ability to reach a wider audience than on any other medium, and each fan is another new network of possibilities. So when reaching milestones, show your fans you care – you’d be surprised at how appreciated those gestures are.

Never Ignore Your Analytics

It took Cadbury until the million fan mark to realize that only 16% of those fans were engaging with the brand. Moreover, Cadbury is an international brand; imagine how few fans are engaged with your small business on Facebook if only a small fraction are engaging with a brand like Cadbury!

The reality is that roughly 98% of people who ‘Like’ a brand never return to that brand’s page. You need to find a way to optimize your content and your strategy in order to get those numbers as high as possible. Don’t ignore your analytics. They are providing valuable information that is going to help your brand blow up on social media!

The social media case study on Cadbury’s Facebook campaign provides a great set of Do’s and Do Not’s for marketers.

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

t2social social medis marketing strategies

Social Equity: The Big (Now Even Bigger) Value of Tumblr

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Tumblr has long been a great tool when it comes to creating Social Equity, and recently it’s value increased even more.

social equity tumblrAt the beginning of the week, Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo!, and the value of the social blogging platform increased significantly; and that is up from a significant value to begin with.

Blogging is one of the most crucial components to getting found online. Companies that blog get 55% more traffic and 70% more leads. Blogs are a great way of establishing your expertise and developing brand loyalists. We discussed the value of blogging in a Social Equity segment not long ago. The added value of Tumblr is the inherent social aspect.

Tumblr is a social network designed specifically for blogging. The value added to your business is derived from the existing base of readers (Tumblr users) and the integrated social sharing capabilities.

The Social Equity Derived from Tumblr

As noted above, there are two major factors that contribute to the Social Equity derived from your business’s use of Tumblr.

First, there is the existing readership. When you create a blog – either a standalone blog or one on your company’s website – you have to work at reaching a new audience. Essentially, you are one of the billions of pages on the web vying for the attention of a very distracted bunch. Furthermore, you are trying to get a group with an 8-second attention span to read a post containing several hundred words – that’s a tough goal to accomplish.

Tumblr’s existing user base of 216 million monthly visitors are coming for the express purpose of reading an article. The ability to optimize your blog and reach out to an already established audience means a great deal of time and effort saved, and a greater chance of showcasing your brand and expertise to an engaged audience.

Second, there is the social aspect that is inherent to Tumblr. As we mentioned, Tumblr is a social network. The ability to share your content across multiple networks and to reach an audience that expands far beyond your Tumblr followers is of great value. It means that you can quickly build your clout on the network (as well as others) and engage users on Facebook and Twitter (the two additional networks to which you can share your content directly from Tumblr) that might have otherwise never known you had a blog.

social equity yahoo tumblrTumblr’s New Value

The biggest news of the week was Yahoo!’s acquisition of Tumblr. While it is speculation at the moment, one can make a few educated assumptions about what that will mean for the future of the network.

As we have seen with Google+ and YouTube, social networks operated by search engines tend to be given heavier weight in search rankings. Therefore, we can safely assume that this same added weight will be given to Tumblr (with regards to tags, keywords, links, etc.) in Yahoo! search results in the very near future. This adds considerable value on top of what was already an impressive degree of Social Equity from the features above.

To read up on some additional facts and figures related to Tumblr, read this article.

Are you using Tumblr? Where do you see the value derived from your activity on the network? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

t2social social medis marketing strategies

Social Equity: The Viral Effect

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We all strive for the viral effect when sharing content on social media, and when it happens, we need to know where Social Equity is derived.

social equity the viral effect t2socialVirality is one of the most common terms when it comes to social media measurement. How many people are we reaching? Is our content being shared? Is our network growing? Is our business growing? It all relates to virality. Yet, while we measure what the viral effect might be, we may not be taking note of how it adds Social Equity, and therefore value to our business.

In this week’s Social Equity segment, we aim to explain how the viral effect on social media adds value to your business in three ways: credibility, exposure and network growth.

Credibility

If Company A and Company B are both pitching your project but Company A has an outstanding track record, dozens of referrals, an impeccable portfolio and a proven history of success, whereas Company B has no distinguishing benefits, you will most likely choose Company A. That is not to say that Company B might not be capable of producing good work, but without the same level of credibility that is backing Company A, it is hard to choose Company B.

The viral effect adds a tremendous degree of credibility to your brand. Your name popping up on news feeds, timelines, in groups and on search engines means you have made a name for yourself. When it comes to making a choice between you and your competitor, you can bet that the credibility garnered from the virality of your company’s content will make a big impact.

social equity social media exposureExposure

Once again, if you are choosing between two companies, and Company A is easily discoverable for a given topic while you have to dig deep to even find a mention of Company B, chances are the choice is Company A.

Discoverability is at the heart of success in the online world. The goal we are all aiming to achieve is inbound business. According to the inbound marketing company, HubSpot, inbound leads cost 61% less than outbound. The exposure you receive from viral content can translate directly into inbound traffic, calls, leads and business.

Network Growth

If you’ll recall, our first Social Equity segment discussed the example of the dentist. Essentially, the added value of the dentist’s online presence and the size of his network allowed him to sell his practice at a much higher price than if he was relying solely on his current patient roster. The growth of your network resulting from the viral exposure of your content will lead to Social Equity in the long-run.

Keep in mind, virality is not a one-hit-wonder concept. Of course, there are examples where content goes viral without a business strategy behind it. (It is almost guaranteed that the sneezing panda wasn’t intending to capitalize on the massive audience that watched the video.) In business, if your content goes viral, you can expect to see a spillover effect. While not everyone exposed to your content will look to familiarize themselves with your brand, there are those that will. Down the road, this increased network will mean big value for your business.

Have you seen any of your content go viral? Tell us what you noticed in the comments below or on Twitter!

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Social Equity: Big Value in Company Pages

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Social Equity receives a major boost with the added value from company pages on different networks.

social equity company pagesFrom LinkedIn to Facebook, there is a way to feature your company, its services, history and expertise on almost every network. the result? Major Social Equity.

In this week’s Social Equity segment, we look at how company pages on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube add value to your business.

Facebook and Google+

We all know about Pages on Facebook and Google+. But with so much taking place on the networks, it is easy for your content to get lost in the noise. The most frustrating part? You might have some great content and a product that attracts a lot of potential customers. Having Facebook and Google+ Pages allows those leads to find everything you are offering in one central place.

Facebook takes a lot of criticism for their EdgeRank algorithm. But the truth is, EdgeRank provides a means of filtering out the noise so that those who “Like” your page, product and content have all of the information you share to the pages featured on their news feed.

The value in Facebook and Google+ Pages is simple: these are hubs that allow reciprocal engagement between your brand and fans in a central place while offering you a chance to share content towards which they have expressed an interest. On the plus side (that’s a pun, considering the point that follows) +1 and shares from your pages add a considerable benefit to your SEO, which further derives value to your business.

social equity linkedin t2socialLinkedIn

The Company Page on LinkedIn is the strongest in terms of adding value to your business.

First, there is the Services tab. The ability to showcase your products and services to an engaged audience disrupts the conventional model of print advertising. Furthermore, the ability to link these sections to appropriate landing pages means both the ability to create backlinks and the ability to drive sales and traffic through LinkedIn.

Second, there is the ability to build a following on your page (as with other networks) and share content to those followers in an effort to drive new business. Unlike Facebook and Google+, LinkedIn offers the ability to broadcast and showcase your business to the engaged audience following your page. Users are following you knowing that LinkedIn is a medium in which companies aim to derive new business, and an active, engaging and popular page translates into Social Equity.

social equity youtube channelYouTube

A YouTube channel is an important feature, and one that can be very beneficial both in terms of its value to your business’s image and your overall Social Equity.

The ability to centralize all of your videos means two things: first, viewers can easily find your videos and, on the channel, discover more about your business and research your company further, outside of YouTube. Second, the optimization of a channel and your videos can be a tremendous SEO tool. Lone videos in the YouTube universe can easily disappear. With a discoverable, optimized channel, your business is easily showcased to your audience in video form.

Effectively, the true value of all of these pages lies in the disruption they cause to conventional marketing. No longer are you required to focus on print marketing. These pages are your corporate portfolio, and they are live, evolving elements that continually showcase your business.

In which social media company pages do you find the most value? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

t2social social medis marketing strategies

Social Equity: Communities on Social Media

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Building and joining niche communities on social media can be one of the greatest assets to your business.

communities on social media social equityCommunities on social media have been a growing trend since the concept originated with the networks themselves. While any network – like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. – can be considered a community, the true Social Equity derived from communities on social media comes from the niche communities filled with like-minded and highly engaged individuals from around the world.

In this week’s Social Equity segment, we aim to understand how social media communities add value to your business, and where there are unique traits to these communities compared to other types of communities that may also be beneficial to your business.

Niche Communities on Social Media

One of the most touted features of Google+ is their Google+ Communities. In these groups, content is shared with each member without any filtration, as each community consists only of users that have an expressed interest in the content being published. These communities can range anywhere from five or six members to tens of thousands or more; it all depends on how interested people are in the content.

The benefits of communities like those on Google+, groups on LinkedIn and others around the social web is the ability to reach an audience far greater than what was ever possible. Furthermore, unlike conventional, expensive digital and print marketing, communities on social media offer an inexpensive way of reaching out to an engaged audience, sharing relevant content to prospective clients all over the world.

communities on social media social equityThe Key Difference with Social Media Communities

As noted above, there are a few key differences between communities on social media versus conventional business communities. Think about your LikedIn groups and Google+ Communities. Every member is there for the same reason.

The only other type of communities like this that exist are business networking communities, and before social media, these were local business people who may or may not have shared an interest or mutually beneficial business opportunity. Of course, there were conferences, but for many small business owners the cost of attending one is prohibitive, and thus few people (relatively speaking) were able to take part.

Now, with these social communities, opportunities exist where there were none before, and for a fraction of what it would have cost to reach an audience as targeted and wide as those in these social media communities.

Social Equity of Communities on Social Media

The ability to build influence and drive new business in a community on a social network is perhaps the most crucial aspect of the Social Equity derived from these communities. In an infographic we posted recently, we noted the importance of influence on social media. These communities allow you to build that influence with a very targeted audience, very quickly. This in turn results in your market power increasing and, subsequently, your business increasing.

In addition to influence, there is also the ability to reach targeted audiences worldwide without incurring massive costs as with traditional forms of marketing and advertising. Therefore, there is a twofold bump in Social Equity: business generated from engagement in social communities and expenses saved from your involvement in them.

Communities can be a major asset to growing your business, and there is no doubt that they add a considerable degree of Social Equity to your brand.

Where do you see the benefits of communities on social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

t2social social medis marketing strategies

The Importance of Influence on Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC]

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What metrics exist to show us that there is a great deal of importance when it comes to influence on social media?

We are all familiar with influence measurement sites like Klout, Kred and PeerIndex, but what makes influence on social media so important?

There is a lot of talk about your influencers and the people and brands you influence on social media, and people and brands go to great lengths to figure these things out. In fact, in a recent social media case study we looked at Honda’s use of Pinterest influencers to penetrate new markets and reach a massive audience with little cost to the brand. While there are many ways to go about reaching out to influential groups on social media, we might not be sure why they are so important, or how they can benefit our brand.

This infographic does a great job showcasing how and why influence is so important. The most crucial point? Influence on social media translates into influence on decision making. A recent finding showed that 85% of  Facebook brand fans recommend those brands to friends and followers, compared to 60% of average social media users. That’s a substantial group. When you consider the power that comes with influence on social media, you can’t ignore its importance.

Take a look at some of the stats in the infographic below and let us know which ones you find to be the most shocking or important! Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

influence on social media infographic

Social Media: Week-in-Review, April 27, 2013

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In case you missed some of the topics we covered this week, here is the social media week-in-review!

seo on page optimizationEffective SEO Tips for Optimizing Content on Your Page

There is an curious irony when it comes to SEO: everyone knows that it is important when it comes to getting found, but few people understand how it works. While it may seem like a complicated endeavour to optimize your content – what with all the talk about algorithms and pandas –  there are few simple steps you can take that will make a big difference!

Social Media for Small Business [INFOGRAPHIC]

Social marketing is not something that should be adopted only y big companies. Businesses of all sizes, even small businesses, can use social media to their advantage and help grow their business! Find out how social marketing is helping small businesses in a great infographic!

What are ‘Targeted Tweets’ and How Should You Use Them?

Recently, Twitter unveiled their newest marketing tool: Targeted Tweets. This new feature brings in an entirely new advertising angle from which marketers can take advantage. Find out what these updates are and how you can use them to gain a competitive edge early!

pinterest marketing social mediaSocial Media Case Study: Honda

About a year ago, Honda noticed a growing trend and near-obsession with Pinterest. They decided that the best way to promote their newest CR-V was to launch a cost-effective campaign aimed at spreading the word virally. The approached worked and Honda created a campaign worthy of a feature in this week’s social media case study.

Social Equity: The Effect of Social Media on Your Brand

How does your brand’s image benefit from your involvement in social marketing? In this week’s Social Equity segment, we decipher how your brand equity increases both in the short- and long-run with the strategic use of social media marketing.

Have a look through some of these great articles and enjoy your weekend!

t2social social medis marketing strategies

Social Equity: The Effect of Social Media on Your Brand

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

social equity brandingSocial 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.

social equity brand influenceInfluence 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!

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