Social Media Strategies Archives

Social Media Strategies

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 SEO: The New Backlink Strategy

April 2, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media is of ever-growing importance when it comes to SEO, and the power of social signals when it comes to link-building could supercharge your SEO efforts.

Link building has long been one of the most important features of an effective SEO strategy. Over the course of the last few years, social media has become all the more important when it comes to SEO, and recently, the importance of social link building has gained a lot of traction.

How the New Google Panda Updates Change SEO

It is first important to understand why social media backlinks are so important now more than ever.

Google recently updated their algorithm to incorporate some major changes to the Panda filter. Much like a real panda, the name and appearance of the Google update might seem harmless, but the truth of the matter is that if a site violates any of the conditions set forth in the update, Panda will attack the site, removing backlinks and penalizing the site in terms of rankings. So, what has the result been? Many site owners have seen dozens of links they spent precious time building disappear, and their site rankings have suffered as a result.

So the big question is, how can site owners make up for this change with social media?

How Social Media Boosts Your SEO

In an article by Richard Petrillo, he suggests that the “social vote/social signal” can revive your SEO. Tweets, pins, +1s and Facebook shares are the new backlinks, and because they are effectively personal pseudo-recommendations, they weigh quite heavily into your rankings.

As people read and share your content, others are exposed to it. This works out similar to building links on other sites, but the fact that social media is so personal (at least, that is the intention) the weight of social signals when it comes to your link-building strategy is much heavier.

How to Build Your Social Signals

The simple answer? Produce engaging content that your audience wants to share. Dan Zarrella, social media scientist at HubSpot notes that the optimal number of tweets per day is roughly 20. But he makes it very clear that if you share content with which your audience wants to engage, then that number is irrelevant. The best way to do this is to monitor your engagement levels and take note of the content that boosts your brand’s engagement.

Second, make sure your content is social media friendly. A fantastic blog post is a great thing, but if people have no means of sharing it, then you lose the opportunity of adding a new social link. So in order to capitalize on the power of social media link-building, make sure you incorporate social sharing into your content wherever possible.

Lastly, share your own content outside your site in order to build your own links. It is one thing to rely on others to help you build your social links, but help yourself out wherever possible.

Social media offers us a number of new opportunities when it comes to SEO. Through social sharing and building social signals, you can improve your rankings drastically and much faster than every before.

How do you incorporate social media into your link-building strategy? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Pinterest Marketing: Need-to-Know Updates [INFOGRAPHIC]

April 1, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Pinterest marketing underwent a major overhaul recently with the site’s re-design, and there are a lot of changes marketers need to be aware of when it comes to Pinterest marketing.

Pinterest has long been a favorite medium for the visual marketer. In fact, last week, our Social Equity segment focused on the value added to your business as a result of your Pinterest marketing efforts. Well, we thought we would start the week off in similar fashion by showing you exactly what (major) changes Pinterest has undergone in the last couple of weeks as a result of their site re-deign, and how your Pinterest marketing strategies might need to be tweaked as a result.

One of the most interesting sections in the infographic below is the ‘Features Removed’ category, which details what is no longer available on Pinterest. When it comes to Pinterest marketing, the three most important features to disappear are undoubtedly links, tweeting pins and liking boards on Facebook.

With regards to links, do not forget that embedded links still exist, so make sure to embed a link to your website or landing page in each of your images. It is the featured link in your description that is no longer included. The difficulty that arises with the other two lost features is that it makes one’s efforts to create a cohesive, interconnected social media marketing strategy somewhat more difficult. You’ll need to be a little more creative when it comes to your Pinterest marketing in order to maintain brand consistency across all of your social networks.

That said, the features added to the newly re-designed Pinterest make Pinterest marketing a whole lot of fun, and introduce an entirely new business aspect to the photo sharing social network.

Have a look at the infographic below and let us know what your favorite new feature is or what you will miss most from the old Pinterest design! Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Equity: The Power of Pinterest

March 29, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social Equity benefits from the hidden power of Pinterest.

One of the jewels of social media is Pinterest. Since its launch a few years ago, Pinterest has been an unstoppable juggernaut in the realm of social media, and the Social Equity your business can derive from Pinterest is as impressive as it is unique.

Pinterest is not necessarily for every vertical, and it is important to understand that. While a presence on Pinterest can never hurt, it is not necessarily going to be your top generator of Social Equity if you do not meet the proper criteria – namely, that you are in a visual industry. Furthermore, if your business model is not necessarily apt for Pinterest (your average accountant may not be generating much revenue, Social Equity or referral traffic from Pinterest) you might be devoting precious resources to maintaining your account, when they should be focused on other social networks. Having said that, if you put together a social media strategy and recognize the potential for your business on Pinterest, the Social Equity you generate will be among the greatest of any of the networks we have discussed so far.

First, we should understand what makes Pinterest such a powerful tool when it comes to business.

The Business Potential for Pinterest

About a year ago, Shareaholic released a study that found something incredible: Pinterest was a greater generator of referral traffic than Twitter. Twitter. A month prior to that, it was discovered that Pinterest surpassed Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined for referral traffic. Since then, the social network has only grown in power, and with their recently launched Analytics feature, it is no wonder that we are discussing the Social Equity of Pinterest. Now Pinterest, too, recognizes the value it adds to business.

With the newly launched analytics and insights feature for your Pinterest account, you can monitor exactly how your audience is interacting with your pins and the images on your site. Though it is still somewhat new and in its infancy, this feature can mean big things for the future of Pinterest for business.

Other Important (Often Overlooked) Features

People tend to overlook a lot of the important features in the backend of Pinterest when it comes to generating referral traffic and building Social Equity. First, one should note that pins themselves do not register with crawlers to help with your search rankings, but your boards do, so optimize them.

Second, add links and meta descriptions to your images, because if those are shared outside of Pinterest, all the better for your exposure. And if someone clicks on the image within Pinterest, they are headed right to your site.

Third and finally, by simply adding a price to your pin’s description, you can add a price to the top corner of your image and create a pseudo-catalog (for minimal cost compared to traditional print) and share it with your followers, updating it regularly.

Now if you apply these simple measures, you can start to understand the Social Equity derived from a Pinterest presence.

Social Equity of Pinterest

Captivating images are a great way to build a following. People do not necessarily like text, but they love visual explanations. Just look at the jump in the use of infographics to simplify complex, often dull bits of content.

Pinterest can be a tool to develop a social image for your brand outside of your corporate image. Social Equity is as much about the likeability of your brand as it is the direct value added to your business as a result of social activity. Pinterest is an avenue through which you can make yourself very likeable, very quickly.

Furthermore, on the advertising end of things, Pinterest can, as noted above, provide your brand with a cost effective means of showcasing new products, providing links to an e-commerce store whereby those who like your product can purchase it and, more importantly, save you a tremendous amount of expense when it comes to printing new catalogs. Of course, a business with a physical location would likely do both, but for those who cannot come to your store, imagine the added value of having a virtual version of your catalog that not only features prices and availability, but links directly to the item in your virtual store.

In our social media case study about Burt’s Bees posted yesterday, we noted the increase in online sales Burt’s Bees experienced as a result of simplifying the buying process for their Facebook fans. (You can read the full article here.) Pinterest allows you to do the same thing, and a simple purchasing process with few or no hurdles means more customers and faster conversions.

Pinterest is a constantly and very quickly evolving tool. But with each step Pinterest takes, the Social Equity it stands to generate for your business goes a step further as well. Furthermore, because of its youth, there is still so much that has yet to be tried when it comes to Pinterest campaigns and promotions, and when it is something visual, it is often something intriguing. First to the social media market typically means biggest gains, and that goes both for financial and Social Equity gains.

Where have you found the value added to your business from Pinterest? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Case Study: Burt’s Bees

March 28, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media selling is all about engaging with your audience, and Burt’s Bees has managed to build an engaged Facebook audience of 1 million fans and convert quite a few of them into paying customers.

Facebook was one of the first social networks that businesses sought to take advantage of. As a result, Facebook adapted and created pages. Burt’s Bees, the notable personal care product line, saw Facebook as the perfect medium in which to engage with their audience, and the result has been a growing, highly engaged audience that converts to paying customers.

How did they do it? Burt’s Bees uses Facebook as a place to not only build an audience and share great content, but promote their products in a fun, engaging way that does not turn people away from the brand, and actually converts them into customers.

Selling on social media is a tricky grey area. People do not necessarily want to be bombarded with promotional content, but at the same time, many people follow a brand because they either use it, their friends use it or they want to keep up to date with specials and promotional offers. Burt’s Bees recognized this fact and modeled their Facebook marketing and sales strategy accordingly. In this social media case study, we aim to showcase the lessons social media marketers can extract from the Burt’s Bees brand in order to build an engaged audience on Facebook and convert that audience into paying customers.

1. ‘New’ is Intriguing

People are often curious about new products. There’s a certain mysterious quality about ‘new’ that tends to intrigue people. Burt’s Bees saw this and capitalized on it when it came to Facebook. One of the most prominent features of the Burt’s Bees Facebook page is their promotion of new products in fun and engaging ways. For example, one of the main ingredients differentiating their products is Cupuaçu. Nothing special about that. But when they wanted to emphasize the benefits of the new product, they took to social media to promote it by creating a video wherein they interviewed New Yorkers, asking them to try and pronounce the word.

The video is short, funny and the word stays on your mind. And there is little more than a branded sign off at the end. However, Melissa Sowry, Social Media and Content Manager at Burt’s Bees stated, “Through Facebook, we can introduce new products more interactively than in print or banner ads…and provide a space where [our consumers] can connect with one another.” So, what is this new product? People might like the word and the video, but they were starting conversations to find out more.

Lesson: Find a creative way to introduce new products and your audience will engage with your brand to find out more.

2. Social Media Selling

Burt’s Bees has integrated “Buy Now” buttons into their content and features coupons for Facebook fans. The result? Dramatically increased sales through social media.

Unlike many brands that may feature a product and a link to a store, Burt’s Bees allows users to click through to an e-commerce site from a product post that already has the product in a shopping cart. This may take a little customization on the part of the Facebook page and app designer, but any hurdles (e.g. clicking to the store, finding the product, adding to the cart, checking out, etc.) you can eliminate from the buying process means higher conversions.

Lesson: Help facilitate the buying process for your fans and you will see your conversions skyrocket.

3. Engaging and Influential Content

In addition to fun content like the video post above, one of the cornerstones of Burt’s Bees success on Facebook has come from their ability to engage with their fans in conversations. In an interview with eMarketer, Sowry said, “We also create opportunities for consumer education around skin care, for example, and sampling offers. We ran successful sampling programs on Facebook for our relaunched body lotions and new tinted lip balm.” Furthermore, the brand also asks questions and directly responds to user comments.

An active Facebook page is one thing, but to be engaging directly with your social media audience (particularly when that audience is nearly 1.5 million people large) will mean a returning audience, and that makes the social media sales process that much simpler.

Lesson: Engage with your audience and your products will sell themselves on social media.

4. Educate Your Audience

Burt’s Bees has increased their conversions on Facebook through education. By educating their fans on products and informing them as to which product best suits their needs and why, people want to buy from Bert’s Bees, and they don’t need to do too much research on their own.

The easier it is for a lead to learn about your product, compare it to the competition and ultimately make the decision, the higher the likelihood that you will see social media conversions when it comes to sales.

Lesson: Social media selling should be more about teaching people why your product is the best as opposed to simply telling them.

Burt’s Bees is one of the few examples out there of brands that has mastered social selling. It is not an easy task; not by any means. People do not necessarily want to be sold, but if it is done in the right way, your fans are more than open to the idea of buying from you through social media.

With regards to social selling, Facebook has been around a long time. But people still seem to struggling when it comes to engaging with their Facebook fan base and converting those fans into dollars. Burt’s Bees is a great example of social media selling done right.

What is your Facebook strategy with regards to social selling? Have you seen positive results? 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!

Social Media ROI: 10 Examples [INFOGRAPHIC]

March 26, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media ROI is one of the most highly debated topics of conversation in the realm of social marketing.

People are constantly talking about social media ROI. There are those who say that social media ROI is among the most transparent of measurements when it comes to benefits reaped from marketing efforts, and then there is the (still very large) school of skeptics that believes that social media ROI is a fantasy of social marketers, and that it is not a return that is properly measurable.

Last week, Coca-Cola released a statement saying that their efforts on social media have been “crucial” to sales. That’s a word with a lot of implications. But Coca-Cola is just one example of a major brand that has witnessed tremendous growth and success when it comes to social media ROI.

Below is a set of 10 examples of social media ROI from brands around the world. These brands used a variety of channels and different types of campaigns to reap these rewards, but each one experienced measurable, financial gains from their efforts on social media.

How do you measure social media ROI? What campaigns have you launched on social media that generated positive returns? 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!

Social Equity: The Value of YouTube

March 22, 2013/by Corey Padveen

The Social Equity of your business is increased with a presence on each social network, but there is a three-fold value added that comes from YouTube.

YouTube is among the most interesting of “social networks” due to the fact that it is not. Well, not in the conventional sense, at least. YouTube is a search engine. Like Google (YouTube’s owner), Yahoo! or Bing, YouTube is a medium in which people can post content and generate traffic. Where YouTube differs, however, is in the ability for an individual or brand to engage with their audience directly on the site. That is where the social aspect of YouTube comes into play and that is one of the three key generators of Social Equity when it comes to Youtube.

Today, we aim to pinpoint where it is that we see value added to a company as a result of having a YouTube presence, and how video marketing combined with the power of YouTube stands to increase your Social Equity more so than almost any other network.

Why is YouTube Important?

To understand where the Social Equity is generated from the video-sharing portal, we need to first understand what makes YouTube crucial when it comes to online marketing. Let’s take out the social aspect for a moment and look at some facts and figures that explain the importance of YouTube.

Raw Data

Over 800 million unique users visit YouTube each month
Over 4 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube
72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US
YouTube is localized in 53 countries and across 61 languages
In 2011, YouTube had more than 1 trillion views or around 140 views for every person on Earth
Millions of subscriptions happen each day.

(Data taken from YouTube Press Center Statistics)

There are constantly eyes sifting through the content loaded to YouTube, and by properly optimizing your YouTube videos, you stand a greater chance of reaching the people looking for you on the network. Furthermore, video marketing is a growing trend as it adds an entirely new element to your business.

Giving people a chance to attach a face and voice to your brand takes social engagement a step further with regards to humanizing your brand. People like to engage with personalities, not simply corporate entities. Video marketing is a way to offer this and YouTube is the medium in which to publish it (in addition to your own corporate and personal blogs). Enter the Social Equity of YouTube.

The Three Pillars of Social Equity Derived from YouTube

As noted above, there are three features related to YouTube that generate Social Equity for your brand.

Engagement

When it comes to being social, the ability to engage with your audience on YouTube is a huge asset with regards to Social Equity. As with any social network, people are reaching out to you when they watch your videos. Whether they like it, share it, comment on it or simply watch, they are in some way engaging with your brand on YouTube.

Social Equity is derived in part from the growth of your brand. Video marketing on YouTube is a way to do that. Furthermore, the free analytics made available by YouTube (and Google) in the backend of your account are invaluable. These measure everything from engagement statistics to traffic sources. Thus, by observing and analyzing these insights, you can efficiently and quickly modify your campaigns and strategies in order to maximize the return from your YouTube marketing efforts.

Humanization

There is a humanizing characteristic associated with a corporate video. Even if it is as simple as an introduction, a YouTube presence gives brands a face and voice that people can relate to and appreciate. In our case study about Old Spice a little while back, we noted that through engagement (primarily with videos) Old Spice was able to increase their sales by 107% very quickly. Old Spice has been known to engage with their fan base using personalized videos, making fans of all kinds feel personally connected to the brand.

Old Spice is owned by The Procter & Gamble Company, a company with 2012 revenues of nearly $84 billion. But you wouldn’t know it by the attention Old Spice’s YouTube channel gives to its fans.

Direct Revenue

There are over one million advertisers buying ad space on YouTube and guess what: you’re selling it. By creating videos that people want to see and building a following on YouTube, you increase your chances of having ads placed on your videos and money coming in as a result.

There is constantly the question of direct ROI generated from social media. If this does not answer that question then nothing will.

YouTube is a fascinating network that adds value to your company at every turn. The growing popularity of video marketing and the industry-wide focus on marketing virality are two perfect reasons why every brand should have a presence on YouTube. Your Social Equity stands to benefit tremendously as a result.

Where do you find the value added to your business as a result of Social Equity from YouTube? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Case Study: KLM Airlines

March 21, 2013/by Corey Padveen

This week’s social media case study focuses on one of the most socially innovative airlines around: KLM.

When it comes to social media case studies, airlines often prove to have some of the most impressive, influential and trendsetting results. Yet, despite all of the data that supports the adoption of innovative social media marketing initiatives for airlines, few seem to be as willing to go the distance as KLM.

KLM’s social media program is brilliant…and they know it. When it comes to converting social media fans into paying customers, KLM is among the most successful brands around. In fact, on the KLM Facebook page, there is a section that breaks down their social media campaigns, explains how they went about executing them and posts the results. Effectively, they are their own social media case study as to why social is important to business. But our focus is a little deeper than that when it comes to our weekly case study. We aim to pull out the lessons marketers can learn from the KLM social media program as a whole.

The Campaigns

Featured on the KLM Facebook page are seven of their most successful social media campaigns. These campaigns include everything from “KLM Surprise” whereby special gifts would be presented to passengers who checked into flights using Foursquare or Twitter, to the “KLM Tile & Inspire” campaign whereby Facebook fans were asked to convert their Facebook profile picture into a Delft Blue tile and complete that tile with an inspiring message to be used as part of a mosaic design on a KLM aircraft that would travel across the globe. Below are two videos breaking down these campaigns.

KLM Surprise

KLM Tile & Inspire

Each campaign was equally inspired and generated similar results. For the two campaigns above, KLM reaped some considerable social benefits. The breakdown of the two featured campaigns by the numbers is below:

KLM Surprise Analytics

Foursquare	17.528 followers
Youtube	154,722 views
Twitter	1.597 followers
Tweet reach	2,6 mln

KLM Tile & Inspire Analytics

Created tiles	120.000
Number of countries where tiles were created	154
Views of the 2 videos	1.3 million
Number of destinations the 777 flew to	23

While the analytics are impressive enough as it is, the fact that KLM went on to further convert many of these fans is all the more notable. But what we wish to focus on is what KLM did that was as innovative and bold as it was simple and calculated.

The Lessons

Be Bold (But the Right Way)

KLM has had far from a conventional approach to their social media program. From presenting new meal options using Facebook videos that introduce the “chefs” (the “KLM A La Carte” campaign) to the controversial “KLM Meet and Seat” campaign that gave passengers the ability to preview their seat mates based on social profiles, KLM has dared to be innovative with each of their social media campaigns. But it is important to keep something in mind: the marketing execs at KLM knew exactly what they were doing, and these risks were as calculated as any.

By understanding the lead to conversion process, the KLM executives were able to put these campaigns together using careful market research, amalgamated and improved data from their own failed exploits (discussed below), and a clear understanding of the sales process for both the customer and the brand. You don’t garner new customers from social media by doing the same thing as everyone else (hence, the “Be Bold” part of the lesson) but you certainly won’t find them if you scare them away (and that covers the “Right Way” aspect). So keep in mind that for a social media campaign to work, you need to impress your audience and have the data to support your seemingly daring decisions.

Never Be Afraid to Try Something New

Social media is still in its infancy, and social media marketing even more so. There is no shortage of innovation out there, and with the ever-changing landscape of social media, you should never be afraid to be first to market. Your first-mover advantage will be huge when people see you doing something that no one has done before. KLM understands that and they have capitalized on it at every turn.

The airline only jumped into social media in 2009, but in these short few years they have managed to try their hand at virtually every campaign available on social media. Whether it is a Facebook campaign, a Foursquare promotion, a YouTube contest or a Twitter “Live Reply” campaign wherein the airline responded to user tweets using up to 140 REAL people to spell out the message, you should never be afraid to try something that has never been done before. When it comes to social media, people want something they have not yet seen.

Try, Fail, Fix, Repeat

No one knows failed experiments better than KLM. Sure, they might have the budgetary luxury of making these mistakes, but over time they have learned exactly what they should not be doing in order to perfect their social campaigns. And on a smaller scale, you should never be afraid of the mistakes you make when it comes to social media. As we noted above, this is an incipient form of marketing; people are bound to make mistakes. But when you do, note your errors, redraft your campaign taking that into account, and start again.

For KLM, one of their big blunders came in 2011 when they offered a promotional gift to the first 50 male and first 50 female “Likers” of a post. Within minutes they had 1,500 “Likes” and no way of knowing which came when. Oops! But what is important is that KLM recognized their mistakes, fixed them and, more importantly, accepted their failures. And that brings us to our final lesson.

Humility is an Underrated Trait

People appreciate humility. It is a humanizing trait, particularly when it comes from a company as large and reputable as KLM. That is why the last important lesson to pull from KLM is that, while you might be a big brand, social media is a place for you to simply be a voice in the conversation. While an image needs to be maintained, you can be a little less corporate and little more fun when it comes to social (respecting professional boundaries, of course). As we never tire of pointing out, social media is about exactly that: being social. Not only does KLM have a post on their blog detailing some of their yearly bloopers, but they also make an important point in their step-by-step guide on running their social media program:

“Not that campaigns always need to be global and spectacular. Many of our establishments have successfully launched their local pages, and we’ve learned that the power often lies in simplicity — like showing the interior of a cockpit, or thanking someone for notifying us about broken lighting on our KLM sign. Our creative editorial board delivers a daily dose of captivating, engaging posts through our various channels.

Social campaigns have won us several awards, but it hasn’t been one success after the next. We’ve certainly had our share of bloopers. But rather than hushing them up, we decided to make them public and take them as a learning experience. And as it turned out, people liked us even more for it.”

Well said.

What lesson do you think is most important in the case study of KLM? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!