social business Archives

Social Media Case Study: Standard Life

August 8, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Standard Life provides savings and insurance services and has been doing so for nearly 200 years – nothing so exciting to warrant a social media case study, right?

Social media is everywhere. Whether you are a major cutting-edge tech firm or a staple of the insurance business, social media has a place in your industry. Despite the long standing of Standard Life, Craig Johnston, in an interview with econsultancy, explained how and why the insurance giant decided to dive into the world of social media marketing.

Though the company took a crack (with some success) on Facebook and YouTube, they have found their true social media calling on Twitter and LinkedIn. Why? The marketing team took the time to develop a strategy, target influencers and reach out to very specific audience. The results have been outstanding.

Standard Life wanted to use Twitter as a means of providing additional resources and to engage with influential advisors. Well, after creating a functional content strategy and targeting the 30 users they deemed most influential to their target audience, they managed to garner nearly 67% of them as followers, and are now sharing content with them (and their clients, future prospects) on a regular basis.

On LinkedIn, Standard Life also wanted to reach out to influencers, so they created a private group for advisors and reached out to several they found to be most influential. By speaking to these individuals on a personal level, they managed to persuade many of them to join the group, which prompted several others to join (without an invite) as well.

There are quite a few great points that marketers can learn from this program.

Find Out What Works

This goes for both your industry and your brand. Facebook has a billion users so it must be the best network for you, right? Not necessarily! Maybe you will find that YouTube is where you generate the most referrals and social media success.

What is important is testing each market (with a clearly defined strategy, of course) in order to determine which one is going to work best for your business.

No One Is Bigger than Social Media

This is not saying that social media should replace your other marketing efforts. However, as we pointed out in an article about Social Media Marketing Myopia, thinking your brand is above the consumers’ preferences will leave you clamouring for business you once took for granted.

Insurance may not be the most exciting field, but there is still room for a social media presence. Johnston and his team realized this, and it is important that other marketers realize it as well.

True Value Rests with Brand Loyalists

The longevity of a company rests with its brand advocates. When word-of-mouth spreads far beyond product evangelists, you can feel safe in the future success of your brand. As Johnston notes, “The funnel has now changed so we are always trying to drive advocacy. Companies have to offer customers free stuff, such as information and advice, to add value and help encourage a purchase.”

Showcase your expertise and keep them coming back and wanting more.

What other examples can you think of where companies in relatively unsocial industries found room for social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

The Biggest Social Media Mistake Companies Are Making

August 7, 2013/by Corey Padveen

There is one major social media mistake companies are making and it can cost them big time.

You have no doubt seen it. Posts listed on sites like LinkedIn, Craigslist or other job searching hubs. Wanted: Social Media Manager (Internship). Then, there in the details are some vague “goals” and desired requirements, like a Bachelor’s in Communications and little or no experience.

What is the biggest social media mistake companies are making? It is not misspelled words or sharing unprofessional content (which are both still bad, by the way). It is leaving their social media marketing efforts in the hands of unpaid interns.

Like it or not, social media is a very serious part of a marketing strategy. No – it does not replace your other marketing initiatives; those are still very important. It does, however, compliment them considerably and add an entirely different and important feature to your marketing efforts.

A recent graduate’s ability to share content to Facebook or tweet statistics about their favorite athlete does not qualify them to run all of your social branding initiatives. A major airline would not ask a video game enthusiast to pilot a passenger aircraft across the Atlantic – for free. Sure, lives may not be at stake when it comes to social media marketing, but your brand’s reputation and perception are. Now, marketing departments are not entirely to blame – a lot of executives simply do not understand the power of social media.

Why They Make the Mistake

For some companies, they have limited budgets. For others, they simply do not understand how powerful this platform can be and are therefore willing to entrust it to the most junior of staff.

Take Taco Bell’s recent social media hiccup, for example. A picture leaked of an employee doing something somewhat distasteful to a stack of taco shells. Bad for business and what’s worse, it went viral. As if the picture were not bad enough, many of the comments went beyond the one incident to criticize the establishment and its practices in their entirety.

‘PR crisis’ does not even begin to describe what this was for Taco Bell. Considering the fastest means of communication is to talk to everyone where they are in real time, it would make sense that for any brand, social media would be the right avenue to use when dealing with this kind of issue. How would things have turned out for Taco Bell if an intern with no marketing experience, no financial dependency on the company (unpaid intern, remember) and no understanding of brand and crisis management had been in charge of their social media channels?

Social media is not a fleeting phenomenon with no staying power. The proof is in the (ever-growing) numbers. Companies need to take their social presence seriously – that is where their customers are. Take the situation offline: you wouldn’t rely on a home printer to produce thousands of product catalogues.

Treat your social media efforts the same way you would any other aspect of your marketing initiatives. It is much more important than a lot of people give it credit for.

What are your thoughts on having an unpaid intern in charge of your social media initiatives? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Facebook Marketing: 8-Step Checklist to Getting Started

August 6, 2013/by Corey Padveen

When it comes to Facebook marketing, there are a few steps that need to be taken when getting started.

You have a company, you have a page and you are ready to get started with your Facebook marketing program – all great things!

But in order to find success with your Facebook marketing, there are a few things you need to do right at the outset.

Below is an 8-step marketing checklist for getting started on Facebook (in order).

1. Pick a Page Name (if possible, with a keyword)

If you are John Smith and you own a steakhouse, try and name your page ‘John Smith Steakhouse’. Keywords in the page name are among the few areas on Facebook where they can benefit SEO, so try and get it in there when you choose your name.

2. Create a Vanity URL

A long Facebook URL with a bunch of numbers at the end of it is not very nice to look at. Go to https://www.facebook.com/username and create a vanity URL for your page to maintain professionalism.

3. Optimize Your Sections for SEO

Your About section and your mission statement should have links and keywords close to the front in order to optimize your page for SEO. Do not leave any sections blank. It simply does not look good when people come by.

4. Add Photos and Videos

This includes your profile picture (Hint: 180X180px) your cover photo (Hint: 851X315px) and your page photos (Hint: They fit into 400X400px space on your Timeline). Get content up quickly so you do not have an empty company page.

5. Add Tabs to Your Page

A ‘Like’ box and a selection of photos is not impressive. People want to see that you pay attention to your Facebook page the same way you would pay attention to your customers. Add some custom tabs to your page and make it look great! (Note: Tabs should highlight your goals and expertise.)

6. Promote Your Page

It may sound silly, but people are generally a little hesitant to ‘Like’ a page that has no activity. Reach out to friends and existing clients and invite them to ‘Like’ your page in order to get the ball rolling. You might also want to create a promotion of some of your content for a few bucks to a targeted audience and build your audience that way as well.

7. Familiarize Yourself with Insights

Facebook recently updated their Insights, and there is a lot to learn. As a page owner, you should know what Insights are available, what they mean and how you can use them to increase the business you drive from your page.

8. Start Engaging!

Ask questions, share updates and encourage conversation on your page. Though the average engagement rate on pages falls somewhere in the 0.5%-1.5% range, you should be aiming to shatter that number with your page!

These 8 steps are crucial to getting started with Facebook marketing. However, once they have been taken, it is time to start watching business grow with the help of Facebook!

Which step do you think is the most important? Do you have any others? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Equity: Real-Time Marketing

August 2, 2013/by Corey Padveen

What makes real-time marketing such a valuable asset to business?

Real-time marketing is a phenomenal tool and one that is severely under-utilized in business. According to David Meerman Scott, real-time marketing is only practiced by 28% of Fortune 100 companies, yet these companies saw significant growth in their stock prices over a designated period of time while other that do not engage in the practice saw a 2% drop.

So how exactly does real-time marketing generate Social Equity for your business?

Increased Lead-to-Buyer Efficiency

Imagine the ability to engage with a lead the moment they express an interest in a product or service you offer. Then imagine the value of reaching out to that user before any of your competitors in the hopes of beginning the nurturing process, leading to a conversion.

That is real-time marketing.

By monitoring social media effectively, you can find conversations as they are taking place and engage with users on different platforms in real time. Thus, as the intent to buy is made clear, there is little time lost in nurturing the prospective client. This helps to make the conversion process more efficient and much faster.

Increased Market Share and Presence

As with the point above, the ability to actively participate in conversations surrounding your industry as they are taking place opens an entirely new opportunity to increase your brand’s presence and share in the market.

If, as users of social networks are discussing industry keywords, you (appropriately) participate in conversations and make them aware of your brand, you gain a significant competitive advantage over other industry brands.

Now, it is important to ensure that you are engaging properly, and not deterring potential clients from your brand. However, if done the right way, the results can be your brand coming to mind before any other when buyers are faced with a decision.

Increased Brand Loyalty

People prefer a humanized brand. The big corporate image simply does not work for people. They want to know that the company with which they have decided to do business will care about their needs, help them in any way they can and present themselves as more than a logo or a product.

Real-time marketing offers potential clients that kind of security. By responding to comments, questions and concerns in real time, or engaging in conversations around your industry across the social web, you can reassure prospective clients that your brand will out-serve any of your competitors.

Real-time marketing can have tremendous benefits to your business. Though the advantages are clear, few brands are properly participating in the practice. Be among the first in your industry, and see your success levels increase dramatically!

Is your brand engaging in real-time marketing practices? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Equity: Social Media Monitoring

July 26, 2013/by Corey Padveen

How can social media monitoring generate Social Equity for your business?

Keeping an eye open for brand, competitor and industry news mentions is certainly a helpful practice, but you might be surprised to find out that social media monitoring also generates significant Social Equity for your business!

The ability to track news and stories as they are evolving opens up the opportunity to share content when it is at its most relevant to an engaged audience. This phenomenon also lends its hand to Social Care, the Social Equity of which was discussed here, and provides a first mover advantage, which, as we all know, can be highly beneficial to business.

Let’s take a look at how value is added to your business from social media monitoring.

Engagement

By monitoring your brand, competitors and the industry as a whole, you have the ability to pick up on conversations that you may not have even known were taking place.

Imagine monitoring your competition and finding that a significant proportion of the conversation is negative. By engaging with these users in real-time you have an ability to convert leads that may not have even known they were leads yet.

With regards to Social Care, social media monitoring allows you to monitor your brand and prevent issues from spiralling out of control. By engaging with users speaking negatively about your brand and addressing their issues, you prevent said issues from escalating beyond your control.

First Mover Advantage

In the field of Economics, the ability to capitalize on a market before anyone else has is among the greatest advantages. Social media monitoring provides this kind of value.

The ability to watch industry conversations and analyze trends gives rise to opportunities never before made available in business. Tailoring your strategies and marketing efforts to the observed discussions allows your brand to preempt major (or even minor) changes in preferences as opposed to making said changes in a reactionary way. The value this can have both in the short and long run is virtually unsurpassed.

Social media monitoring can be an exceptionally powerful activity, yet so few brands are properly taking advantage of it.

Are you monitoring your brand, competition and industry conversations on social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

The Place of Social Media in Small Business [INFOGRAPHIC]

July 22, 2013/by Corey Padveen

It is clear that there is a concrete place for social media in small business.

Study after study shows that denying the place of social media in small business is a recipe for disaster. Social media marketing initiatives are no longer quirky add-ons for major brands. Social media has a place in every business’s marketing strategy, and the numbers are there to prove it.

This is especially true in the infographic below.

The statistics showcased in this infographic highlight just how useful social media can be when it comes to building your small business. It also shows the continuing upward trend of marketers using social media for their small business, and how results from social media can be measured to prove its effectiveness in building your business and increasing your exposure.

Perhaps what is most interesting, however, is that this data shows that there is still somewhat of a lack of understanding when it comes to effective social media in small business.

The mantra is simple: social media is about being social! Engagement is the cornerstone of any successful social media marketing strategy. The fact that only 53% of marketers are using social as an engagement tool means that there are plenty of small businesses missing the major opportunities associated with engagement.

Take a look at the data below and let us know what you find most interesting or important. Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Equity: Social Sharing with Email

July 19, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Have you ever received an email and found yourself clicking the ‘Like’ or tweet buttons? There is big value in social sharing with email.

By allowing social sharing on your email content, you are effectively opening up your content to an entirely untapped market. The same way you aim to expand the reach of your content through Facebook shares and retweets on Twitter, you want your email content to have the same opportunities.

There are two main characteristics about enabling social sharing on emails that increase the value of your business.

Rapidly Increase Brand Awareness

Slowly, we are reaching a point where sharing content on social media is becoming second nature to people. Unlike the days of the rolodex, your contacts are a click away, and those clicks happen more often than not.

By allowing people to share your email content on social media, awareness of your brand to new markets and potential clients increases dramatically. The byproduct of such reach is growth of your immediate set of contacts.

There is a certain snowball effect that arises from social sharing. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to start building a quality following on social media (whether it is likes on Facebook, followers on Twitter, subscribers on YouTube, or any other social network) but after time, your network starts to increase at a faster rate and in much greater numbers? This is due to that viral effect we all strive to achieve.

Content alone is not the only thing that can go viral. Your brand can reach those same levels of virality and a large part of that is through social sharing with email. A viral brand is a valuable brand.

Build Your Network of Leads

So what is the result of this increased virality? As people become more familiar with your brand and begin following you more closely (i.e. subscribing to the newsletter that was originally shared) your social rolodex increases. Each new member in said rolodex is a potential client. (Whether or not that is true, the goal to good business is treating them that way.)

If we have learned anything from public valuations of social networks like Facebook, the value of a large database can be greater than any physical property you might have. Big database means big value.

So the two takeaways here are as follows: a viral brand is a valuable brand, and big database means big value. All of this starts with social sharing on your emails, so don’t miss out on the potential value it adds!

Do you enable sharing icons on your emails? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

4 Ways to Increase Your Influence on Twitter

July 17, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Twitter can be a great tool for expanding your reach to a targeted audience, but how you can measure your influence on Twitter?

There is no shortage of tools and marketing suites that offer solutions when it comes to measuring of your Twitter marketing. Great tools like Simply Measured and SocialBro offer fantastic resources when it comes to looking at your influence on Twitter.

There are, however, a few key metrics to consider when determining and improving your influence on Twitter, and these can be done simply, and with little more than an investment of some time.

Create Lists

Look through your followers. Who is retweeting your content? Who is responding more regularly than others? These are important metrics to pay attention to for a number of reasons. Among those reasons is the use of these data when building Twitter lists.

Lists are a great way to segment your followers based on demographics, engagement, influence, etc. Creating lists and carefully watching how users interact will help you know what types of people you are influencing, where your tweets are going and how effective your Twitter audience is when it comes to building business.

Track Your Mentions

When someone mentions your brand, do a little bit of research.

Do they have a lot of followers? Are their tweets retweeted? Do they have original content or simply retweets of others? Find out where your brand is being mentioned on Twitter in order to modify your strategy to appeal to the audiences that are seeing your name most.

It won’t be long before you see this simple activity turn into increased influence on Twitter.

Track Your Links

Using a link shortening service like Bitly goes a long way when it comes to measuring influence. The data provided will help you understand what links are being clicked, by whom and from where.

Your Google Analytics might suggest that a given page or post on your site is very popular, but you might see, using your trackable link, that few clicks are coming from Twitter. Again, this data helps you understand where your influence is and give you insight into how you can improve it.

Identify and Engage Other Influencers

You might find yourself unintentionally hanging on the words of every tweet of a given user. Congratulations – you have found an influencer.

Take a look at different influencers in your industry and reach out to them. You never know when you may be able to collaborate with an industry influencer and find your own influence skyrocketing.

Influence is a key to success on social media. Try some of these tips and watch your influence begin to climb on Twitter.

How do you increase your influence on Twitter? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

5 Ways to Boost SEO with Social Media

July 16, 2013/by Corey Padveen

What can you do to boost SEO with social media?

There is a lot of debate over whether or not social media factors into your search rankings. There are those who firmly believe that social media is the ‘next big thing’ in SEO, and those who feel as though the power of social media has been taken out of context as it pertains to SEO, and that is has not real benefits at all.

The fact of the matter is that social signals do have an impact on SEO, and that you can, through the use of a few key practices, boost SEO with social media.

Focus on Google Authorship

Whether it is through blogging, Google+ or YouTube, you should try, whenever possible, to increase the authority of your name on Google.

Google Authorship is an important social signal when Google ranks its results. Ever see a blog article pop up in Google with a little picture on the left? That’s a ranking factor that should be considered when writing. The more authority your name has on Google’s social layer, the more likely those articles are to pop up when someone searches for a specified keyword.

Share Links with Your Content

When it comes to social signals, link-sharing on social networks is very similar to link-building through anchor text. While keywords do not necessarily hold as much weight on social media, your links do. When someone shares a Facebook post linking back to your site, or retweets a link you shared, search engines tend to pick that up.

Don’t miss out on an opportunity to get noticed – share some links (when they are appropriate).

Consistency

Your presence needs to be felt on social media and your content needs to be ongoing. You should be partaking in conversations on a regular basis if you want to see your search rankings improve. This results from two things. First, your content will be shared more regularly on social networks. Second, the effect of your presence on social media means a greater potential for people to search for you outside of these networks.

Social media networks are a great way to get your name out there, so be there as often as you can.

Go To the Source

Google is the world’s largest search engine. Google+ is a social network owned by Google. Ergo, one can easily conclude that Google+ is important to search rankings in Google.

It’s a fact. In a recent infographic created by Searchmetrics that measures 2013 ranking factors on Google, Google +1s topped the charts. Sharing interesting and engaging content on Google+ is going to lead to +1s on your content. +1s mean more love from Google. Join Google+ Communities, join conversations and share relevant material and you can be sure to see your rankings improve.

Integrate Social Media and SEO

These are not two standalone factors that increase your business. Social media and SEO needs to be approached together. Granted, one strategy might have been in place before the other, but that does not mean that they cannot be integrated into one another.

Look at your keywords, where your traffic is coming from and where you are finding success on both social media and SEO, and create a single strategy where the two act as complements, not competitors.

These are just a few ways you can boost SEO with social media. How have you found social media has an impact on SEO? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Equity: Guest Blogging

July 12, 2013/by Corey Padveen

How can guest blogging add value to your business?

Guest blogging is becoming more common practice in the world of online content development, and for good reason. Guest blogging offers certain benefits to your business that few other practices do, and those benefits translate into significant value added in terms of Social Equity. But before we dive into the great value that guest blogging brings to your business, we should probably understand what guest blogging is.

As a site or blog owner, you have the burden of constantly populating your site with new, engaging content that readers (and search engines) want to see. This may sound easy enough, but managing both your blog and your business can sometimes become overwhelming, and while a blog is a tremendous business tool, it sometimes unintentionally falls by the wayside.

Guest blogging offers business and blog owners an opportunity to invite outside writers from within their industry to post relevant content to their website. There is a reciprocal benefit in that guest bloggers can build up their portfolio and increase links back to their own sites while blog owners can have fresh, insightful content loaded to their blog while having third parties promote their website (and, essentially, their business).

So where is the value added from guest blogging to your business?

Link-Building

Traditional link-building is time consuming and can be quite tedious. There are companies that have been built entirely on offering this service to other businesses that simply do not have the time to do it themselves.

Guest blogging is a great way to go about link-building as your guest bloggers are happy to link to your content on social networks as well as their own websites. This saves time and money while providing you with a great service to promote your company.

Authority Building

It takes a very good blog to attract high quality guest bloggers. And while not every blog is willing to accept outside bloggers, those that are want only the best.

If your business blog has the clout to attract industry and thought leaders to share their insights, it bodes well for your blog and your business. Essentially, a guest post, though in a way self-serving, is an endorsement by that blogger for your company. That builds your business’s authority and, subsequently, your Social Equity.

New Brand Advocates

When a blogger shares content to your website, he or she is not going to keep it a secret. They, in all likelihood, will be going out there and promoting it as if the site was their own!

Garnering brand advocates is among the most difficult things to do in marketing, but when you do, you have struck gold. Guest blogging creates pseudo brand advocates as the aftermath of their post being published is, usually, heavy promotion of your site by third parties.

Guest blogging is an excellent tool and can add significant value to your business. To inquire about guest blogging for t2Social, click here.

Does your blog offer guest blogging? Have you every been a guest blogger? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

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