social media Archives

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: Reputation Management on Social Media

June 28, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Reputation management on social media is becoming more and more important, and engaging in the activity properly can add significant Social Equity to your brand.

Reputation management on social media can take many forms. There is not one single network where a brand can monitor and manage its reputation; it is an ongoing process that needs to be heavily intwined with a social media strategy. If, however, it is done properly, then the value of that brand stands to increase significantly.

There are two main areas where Social Equity is generated from reputation management on social media: effective reputation management creates brand loyalty and crises are handled effectively and in some cases staved off.

Though reputation management on social media also benefits brands in a number of other ways, these two aspects add the most value to a brand in both the short and long terms; brand loyalty and crisis management.

Brand Loyalty

Brands survive because of consumer loyalty. Brand evangelists and loyalists are very difficult to cultivate, but when your brand finds them, you have struck oil.

The benefit of brand loyalists is that they will advocate for your company in good times and in bad, but these gems only come about when you are treating your customers properly. And that means before, during and after the purchase has been made.

Properly managing your reputation online through engagement makes it easier to both acquire new brand loyalists and keep them happy over the course of their involvement with your company. Think about it: people might be talking about your company (in either good or bad lights) and if you are not monitoring your online reputation, you will never know about it.

Finding and engaging with your brand loyalists also relates closely to crisis management on social media.

Manage a Crisis

In the world of social media, a second can change the perception of your brand indefinitely. Now imagine if you let that second turn into minutes, then hours, then weeks. Eventually, your brand is known for nothing other than that second, and your reputation is damaged irreparably.

Properly managing your reputation means addressing these issues in real time with an active audience on social media. Before issues spiral out of control, you can get a handle on a situation and potentially resolve a crisis before it is out of your hands.

Crisis management on social media by proper reputation management can do wonders for building Social Equity for your business. The ability to prevent disasters before they happen means maintaining your brand’s sterling reputation, and allows the value of your brand to remain undamaged.

Reputation management is an important area for brands to focus on when it comes to social media. Not only does it help brands better understand their consumers, flaws and catch on to issues, but it also adds a considerable degree of value both in the short- and long-run.

Do you manage your reputation on social networks? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Make Use of the New Features on Pinterest

May 28, 2013/by Corey Padveen

An announcement was made last week about new features on Pinterest, and there are plenty of ways marketers can take advantage of them.

Over the last few months, there have been several new features on Pinterest. The social network recognizes its own potential for business, and is doing what it can to exploit that. First, there were business accounts, then analytics and now we have a few new features on Pinterest that continue to add to the network’s value.

Additional Information

Pins now feature ways of adding more information. Whether it is detailed pricing, product information, ingredients or movies, there is a lot more involved in a pin now than there was before.

It is important to make use of everything you can when sharing content to Pinterest. Essentially, a board can be a catalog for your business’s services and products in visual form, and you want people to get all the information they can. Before these updates, you could simply embed a link to a landing page or your website into a pin, now you can make your pin the landing page, and that is a huge bump from where it was.

Make use of all the information you are allowed to share on your new pins. Showcasing everything you can will mean fewer steps involved in the buying process, and if it is easier for your buyer, your conversion rates will skyrocket.

Mobile Capabilities

9 mobile apps now have a “Pin It” button integrated into the product. This means that mobile users can now pin what they see from their phones. If you are sharing images with these networks, you will want to optimize them for Pinterest.

Mobile is of ever-increasing importance. People are interacting on mobile devices more and more every day, and if you are not using the new features on Pinterest to take advantage of that, then you are missing out – big time.

Essentially, Pinterest is trying to make a real use for the platform. Sure, sharing photos is great, but for a company that has raised several hundred million in capital, they are going to need to start generating a revenue somehow. Optimizing their platform for businesses is a great way to do it, and before they start charging for these excellent features, you should be taking advantage of them for free.

Do you plan on using the new features on Pinterest? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Case Study: Oreo

May 23, 2013/by Corey Padveen

It is tough to say what story was bigger in Super Bowl XLVII: the stadium blackout or Oreo’s real time brilliance.

The most memorable moment of the 2013 Super Bowl was not a last second touchdown, or a heartbreaking finish, but rather a lengthy blackout that broke Twitter records. And what took place on Twitter from the brilliant marketing minds at Oreo was a simple post that blew social media marketers away.

Hundreds of millions of people were watching when the power went out in New Orleans. Twitter began flooding with activity from confused fans and viewers. It wasn’t long before a simple tweet from Oreo became the focus of the entire event, and the focus of marketers, bloggers and news sources for the days that followed.

The tweet was retweeted over 15,000 times, Oreo’s follower count increased by roughly 8,000 and their Facebook post (of the same image) received over 20,000 Likes. Oreo, in the midst of an Instagram campaign, also saw their Instagram follower count increase from about 2,000 to 36,000 after the game – the majority of whom joined in on the campaign after seeing the tweet and/or Facebook post.

The real-time marketing efforts of Oreo were simple, inexpensive, impromptu and the results were outstanding. Below are a few of the key takeaways marketers can learn from this little effort from Oreo that went a long way – very quickly.

Social Media Never Sleeps

Granted, Oreo posted their image during one of the busiest social media events of the year, but the fact remains: if you are running a social media program, you should know that it is not your typical 9-5 gig. A presence on social media needs to be ongoing and engagement with your audience should always be a focal point.

Be Ready When Opportunity Knocks

The marketing team at Oreo was not sitting in a control room waiting for a blackout to occur at the Super Bowl. (Though we are sure there is no shortage of conspiracy theories!) This was a spur of the moment post, and one so topical that it was literally the only thing on anyone’s mind.

Commentary in real-time on ongoing events is always going to receive more recognition than a post that is late to the party. That is not to say that you should have posts waiting and ready to go for any and all events, just don’t miss an opportunity when it comes knowcking, because when it comes to social media, events like this are few and far between, and pass rather quickly.

The Soft Sell is Key

This is a sales ad. Whether or not it looks like one, the goal of this bit of quick-thinking is to get you thinking about Oreo the next time you are in the market. Social media is all about the soft sell. Creating an engaging personality for your brand is what drives sales on social, and that is exactly what this ad does for Oreo. It is quirky, fun, and gets Oreo on the mind.

An ad like this turned thousands of people into brand advocates, and the proof of that is in the shares, likes, comments, retweets and other types of engagement. Remember, when it comes to selling on social media, you want to create content that engages others to share your brand’s message, not just you.

Some quick thinking created a tremendous social media case study for Oreo. A little bit of effort and ingenuity paid off big time, and others took note. Just a short while later when Poland Spring faced a similar situation, they tried a similar response, but were nowhere near as successul as Oreo. They simply weren’t quick enough.

What did you take away from this social media case study? Have you changed your strategy since this took place during the Super Bowl? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

5 Tips to Optimize Landing Pages for Conversion

May 20, 2013/by Corey Padveen

If you properly optimize landing pages for conversion, then you can expect higher clicks, results and engagement!

Social media is a great referral source for landing pages, and with every landing page we are hoping for some form of conversion. Whether that is a sign-up, a download or a purchase, we want visitors to take that next step.

In order for a landing page to work in your favor and lead to that next step, you need to properly optimize landing pages for conversion. There are several ways you can go about doing this – after all, optimizing a site or a page may differ depending on who you are trying to target. But when it comes to surefire ways to effectively optimize landing pages for conversion, there are 5 main items that should always be on your checklist.

Is there a clear Call-to-Action (CTA)?

When I get to your landing page, do I know what to do next? Is it clear how I am supposed to proceed? This is going to be the most important element to any optimized page – you need a clear Call-to-Action.

According to the inbound marketing experts at HubSpot, you’ll want to avoid negative action phrases like “Submit” and focus more on phrases like “Download Now”, “Get Your Free Trial”, “Speak to an Expert” or “Buy Now”. This reduces anxiety and friction for the visitor.

Do You Convey Who You Are?

When I get to your landing page, do I know who you are? Be sure to brand your page. Consistency is everything when it comes to online marketing; you are creating a personality with which people are interacting, and that personality needs to be as apparent on your landing pages as it is on your social networks.

Is It Simple?

Am I going to be turned off by your landing page? Using flash, too many colors and varying fonts is going to turn people off and result in lower conversion rates. You are going to want to keep it simple, to the point and clean. The easier it is for the visitor to find and click on your CTA, the higher those rates are going to be.

(Extra Tip: The only area where there should be a contrasting color on your landing page is in the CTA button.)

Is Your Page Properly Formatted?

Headlines, images, and forms are just a few examples of professionalism when it comes to landing pages. And professionalism is key. If your page is all over the place and I don’t feel like it was put together with professionalism in mind, I am, in all likelihood, going to leave the page without asking for more information, buying now, or downloading your e-book. Proper formatting goes a long way.

Here are some examples of stunning, effective landing pages.

Can Your Content be Shared?

I love what I see. I not only want to get more information for myself, but for my colleagues and friends. Is there a simple way for me to do it?

Make sure your content is shareable. I shouldn’t have to copy your link, go to my Outlook, create an email and do the work for you; the more steps there are, the lower the conversion will be. With the click of a button (using ShareThis, for example) I should be able to share your content to every one of my social networks and my entire email address book.

While you are going to want to configure some landing pages differently based on the audience you are looking to target, these elements should remain consistent across every one of your landing page campaigns.

Have you seen success with landing pages? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Equity: The Viral Effect

May 17, 2013/by Corey Padveen

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.

Virality 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.

Exposure

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!

Social Media Case Study: Comodo

May 16, 2013/by Corey Padveen

It doesn’t take a big brand to do something innovative that warrants a social media case study!

If you’ve ever scrolled through the images of Instagram, you know that food is a pretty popular subject on the photo-sharing network. Comodo, an independently-owned restaurant in New York City, recognized the app’s popularity, and decided to integrate the food photographing hobby into their establishment.

Essentially, the idea was to allow users to share their experience in a very natural way that not only promoted diners’ experiences in the restaurant, but also provided user-generated publicity, virality and some pretty nice images of dishes to a wide audience.

The video below does a great job of outlining the premise of the campaign:

The Lessons

This is a simple, cost-effective concept, but there is a lot that marketers can take away from the study.

Make Social Media a Part of Your Brand

There should not be a distinction between your physical brand and the one you have created on social media. What Comodo did was integrate their social media efforts into the dining experience. Thus, the same friendliness, fun personality they were aiming to establish online was personified in the restaurant itself.

There needs to be fluidity in all of your marketing efforts. Consistency is how you will be identified by markets that are both familiar and unfamiliar with your brand. The marketing team behind Comodo realized that and the proof is in the campaign.

Provide Clear Avenues for Engagement

You’ll notice in the video that Comodo’s menu offered the hashtag for sharing images on the bottom. Direction is something that many brands often forget to provide, and the result is a less than optimal social media campaign.

In order to see the greatest benefits from your efforts in social marketing, you need to let people know how, where and with what type of content they should be engaging. Don’t rely solely on organic engagement, help the conversation get started. Two examples of this are Best Buy’s Twelpforce and Comcast Cares. Both are Twitter channels that provide nothing but support, and that is made perfectly clear everywhere they are mentioned.

Adapt Your Marketing Strategies to Your Audience

It’s hard to believe how unique this case study is. It was simple to execute and the results have been outstanding for Comodo. Yet, we still see more billboards and bench ads than we do hashtags when it comes to restaurant marketing.

Comodo’s success arose from the very simple fact that they adapted their marketing for a new generation of consumers. While not all of their customers will be using Instagram to promote the restaurant and the dishes, imagine how much they would lose out on if there were no social media initiatives in place! The opportunity cost of not engaging in social marketing is far greater than the cost that goes into such a program.

Although Comodo is a small, local restaurant, they managed to do something innovative, creative and successful. Social media marketing provides avenues down which anyone can create a viral sensation out of their business.

Do you know of any other small businesses that have used social media to create a viral effect? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

How Organizations Structure Social Media Teams [INFOGRAPHIC]

May 15, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media teams can be responsible for some of the most crucial marketing decisions when it comes to your business, but how are social media teams structured?

The importance of strong social media teams is right at the top of the list when it comes to modern marketing. Yet, because social media is so new and so fast-paced, many businesses – both large and small – are not sure how they are supposed to go about structuring their social media teams.

One of the most interesting figures in the infographic from Go-Gulf below is right at the top: 65% of organizations assign social media tasks on top of regular job responsibilities. Furthermore, 25% of companies are using interns to manage social media! The many benefits of social media for business are of growing importance to a company’s success. That being the case, assigning an inexperienced staff member to manage your social media will certainly not lead to a revenue-generating program, and the numerous benefits that can be derived from social media will be lost.

The result of this lackluster effort on the part of most organizations? Only 5% of organizations are highly satisfied with the results generated from their programs. It doesn’t take a statistician to see the correlation: if you are not devoting the proper resources to your social media program, you cannot expect to be satisfied with the results!

Have a look at this infographic to see how companies are structuring their social media teams. What data do you think is most interesting/surprising? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Understanding the Facebook EdgeRank Algorithm

May 8, 2013/by Corey Padveen

The Facebook EdgeRank algorithm is something we have all heard about, but what exactly is it and how should it be considered when developing content for the channel?

First and foremost, for those who are unfamiliar with the feature, what is the Facebook EdgeRank algorithm? It is a system used by Facebook to determine what posts appear on each user’s timeline based on certain criteria. The purpose? In theory, it is in place to ensure that each user only sees the most relevant and engaging content based on their history and activity.

What does the Facebook EdgeRank algorithm mean for brands? It can be either a good thing or a bad thing. There is an endless stream of content being shared on Facebook, and if you are not properly implementing a content strategy, yours may never be seen.

There are three main variables that make up the Facebook EdgeRank algorithm: affinity, weight and time decay. These terms sound impressive and technical, but like anything on social media, it all really comes down to engagement.

Recently, Will Cathcart, Facebook’s News Feed Product Manager, broke down the EdgeRank system and clarified exactly how it works and what you should be focused on when it comes to getting your content seen on your fans’ timelines.

The Individual

On an individual level, there are two key points of focus. First, history is a major factor. The more your audience engages with your page over time, the more likely it is that they will see your content appear on their timeline. That’s a given. The second factor, however, is a little more specific.

Individual engagement matters. But as a brand, you need to take note of the types of content your audience is engaging with. If, for example, images receive plenty of interaction but your videos are ignored, your audience may only see images as they are posted and your videos will disappear into the annals of Facebook.

What is important? Study what individual fans are engaging with and encourage engagement both on popular and unpopular types of posts in order to ensure that all of your content is showcased for your audience.

The Network

The second level is the network. There is a secondary effect on Facebook that can help you reach a broader audience. Have you ever noticed that when a post is receiving a lot of attention, your reach sometimes exceeds your fan count? As reactions and interactions from direct users increase on a given piece of content, more people are exposed to that post. Therefore, high engagement on a post might mean bringing back fans that were once lost for lack of engagement.

Second, sentiment plays a major role with network reach. If people are engaging negatively, then you stand to lose a good deal of your reach, and your content might be hidden from users that were once engaged in the future.

What is important? Monitor the popularity of your posts and modify your strategy in order to share only content that is receiving high levels of engagement and reaching broad secondary audiences as a result.

The Facebook EdgeRank algorithm is not a horribly complex phenomenon to understand. Sure, we may not be tech-savvy enough to know how it is coded, or how it does exactly what it does, but we can certainly understand how it produces the end result. Knowing that gives us leverage when putting together a Facebook content strategy, and can certainly give us a competitive advantage when it comes to Facebook.

Did you know about EdgeRank? Did you understand it? Have you done or will you do anything differently with knowledge of how the algorithm works? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

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