Mediastreet
Tag

Social Marketing

Browsing
In News

Does Social Marketing Really Make Dollars and Cents?

No Comments

By Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey

Digital marketing is an investment. It takes time to mature before it can pay you back.

This is a question that has plagued us for years and we have spoken to many “experts,” but they seemed to be speaking in another language. We are not the professional online marketers they usually have as students. We are regular small business owners looking for advice we can understand and apply. We decided to ask Claudia Sheridan, a social marketing practitioner who specializes in small and medium-sized businesses like ours. After our initial meeting with Claudia, she was able to explain the various facets involved in digital marketing and how they work together to produce results — in terms we could understand!

1. The Big Picture

Michael & Bonnie: We’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years on social marketers. We found that generally speaking, they understood one or two parts of the puzzle but didn’t have a comprehensive picture and certainly couldn’t deliver all the details necessary to make it happen. Typically, they would create and charge us for a funnel and put a lot of emphasis on landing pages but could not get many people into the funnel. Can you outline for us the various different aspects of social marketing that have to be in place to make it work?

Claudia: Social marketing is a part of a much larger concept, that isn’t really talked about. We think about social media and lead generation but rarely do marketers talk about all of the different aspects involved with Digital marketing, which is what businesses, in my opinion, really need to focus on.  It’s not one aspect of the available websites and tools, but rather how to make the different components work together in an effective and efficient manner that produces the desired results.

When looking to work with a marketer, look for one that understands the digital marketing landscape and can identify how the elements can best work for the goals you’re trying to accomplish.  For example, a company may want to utilize a social media channel, such as Facebook, to generate awareness and build their brand. They may decide to place an ad and make an offer but they rarely consider the stages at which the prospect is within the buying journey.

This reminds me of a stranger on a street corner who offers to sell you a fake watch from the lining of his coat.  It may capture your attention, or you may walk away. There is no friendship here, no relationship, no trust. What there is, however, is doubt. And, who wants to build a business relationship based on doubt? So then, what does this process look like?  And, the answer is that it varies on the strategy that is being used.

2. Metrics vs. Results

Michael & Bonnie: When we’ve dealt with social marketers in the past, they have tried to tell us that the likes, clicks, and shares, somehow resulted in increased business. But we found that it actually increased our overhead to maintain a current and interactive online presence. Further we’ve seen no substantial increase in business as a result of our investments in social marketing. What would you say to a client who has had that unfortunate experience before coming to you?

Claudia: I think that entrepreneurs are always on the lookout for that one thing, that silver bullet, that will generate a large amount of business for them.  In 2011-2012, commenting, liking and sharing would have done the trick, but today, that is no longer the case. Today, to be successful on Facebook, it means that you need to play within Facebook’s rules and adapt accordingly. More importantly, it means that you need to have a clear marketing strategy that can be executed, tested, measured, optimized and is able to adapt to Facebook’s changes. This isn’t a linear strategy, but an iterative one that is constantly evolving.

3. Changing Rules

Michael & Bonnie: It seems like every six months the rules change on social marketing. Just when you get set up, it seems like the rules change and you have to go back and reorganize. How can you anticipate and mitigate these changes?

Claudia:  The rules do change, and although the changes seem to be significant, they’re really not.  If a business has actively been participating in Facebook marketing, executing their strategy and making adjustments along the way, then as we learn of a new Facebook change, it just becomes a slight adjustment in the strategy.  Facebook’s changes, however, can appear colossal to companies who are not actively monitoring their Facebook marketing or do not have a solid strategy in place that they’re following.

It’s kind of like joining the gym every January.  If we had just stuck with the workouts that the fitness trainer laid out for us on day one, and we committed to working out a few times a week and eating right, then going to the gym after the holidays would be just another day.  But if we joined in January, stopped going in February, only to join back up 11 months later, the goal of getting into shape is much more daunting.  We don’t expect to walk into a gym on day one and walk out two hours later with six-pack abs, do we?  Yet with Facebook, we expect immediate return with very little effort and get frustrated when the work-out has changed.

 4. Overload

Michael & Bonnie: Don’t you think people are getting too many emails from social marketers? I know that I now have a setting on my Outlook that can take all those emails and put them on a lower priority profile. How do you get your clients prospects to open the emails in the campaigns you organize for them?

Claudia: If marketing was a pie, then email marketing should make up another piece of that pie. There are some companies who are amazing at email marketing and others who could use a little refinement. To get a prospect to open emails, you need to send them the right message at the right time. The question then becomes, how do you know when that is?  Well, with a good email system, you can segment your audience to deliver messages that best resonate with their needs.  Often with email marketing, businesses will craft a single message and broadcast it to their entire list, without consideration to where each person is within the customer journey.  But, if the email message aligned with the stage the customer was in, then the email is more likely to be opened and valued.

 

Expense or Investment?

Michael & Bonnie: What advice can you give to our readers so they will have a better understanding of what to expect from social marketing?

Claudia: I think the most important thing to remember is that social media marketing should never be the only method of marketing a company engages in. Work with someone who understands the digital marketing landscape and how the different elements fit together to accomplish the goals you’re trying to accomplish. Digital marketing should be viewed as an investment, not an expense. And as with any investment, it often takes time to mature before it can pay you back. Finally, make sure that there’s a strategy and work that strategy.

Feature Image credit: Westend61 | Getty Images 

By Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

 

Read More
By
In News

Why writing style matters for social and content marketing

No Comments

By 

When it comes to effective marketing, writing style matters — but many marketers ignore it. Columnist Mark Traphagen discusses how to cultivate a sense of style for your marketing.

I entered marketing as a career relatively late in life. While I rue not having discovered this wonderful world earlier, one of the things I don’t regret is how useful almost all my previous work experiences were to molding my success as a marketer. And of all those experiences, the most valuable has proven to be my years teaching English literature and composition to middle and high schoolers.

Why? Because at its most fundamental level, marketing is communication. Marketing is successful when a message is transmitted from a business to a consumer — and that message not only resonates with the consumer but moves her or him to action.

Many skills from the study of written composition contribute to effective message communication for marketing, but I think one of the most overlooked is writing style.

Keep up with all the developments in interactive marketing!

Why style?

If I just said the word “style” to you out of the context of this site or article, chances are the first association you would make is with “fashion.” Curiously enough, when I looked up the meaning of style on several fashion sites, one of the most common definitions was “a way of communicating.”

The clothes you wear and the way you wear something send a message to others, whether or not you are conscious of it. So I suppose that a person with style is one who consciously and intentionally cultivates a message about themselves through their clothing and accessories.

And so it is with written (or audio or video) communication. The style you use for your message is very much a part of the communication. It’s at least as important, and in some situations more so, than the content or ideas themselves.

For writing, stylistic choices affect several areas:

  • Choice of vocabulary
  • Reading level
  • The author’s “voice”
  • Level of formality
  • The look of the text (for example, short vs. long paragraphs, inclusion of images)

The goal of using style effectively for marketing communications is to match your style to your intended audience, while at the same time avoiding inauthenticity.

Style and emotional impact

Experienced marketers have always understood intuitively that effective marketing appeals to more than the rational mind. Modern psychology and brain research have confirmed that emotions are much more responsible for most of our decisions than logical determinations.

While not a direct appeal to the emotional side of the brain, writing style does help make the subtle, subconscious connection that opens prospects up to the message. Sometimes, it’s just a matter of avoiding initial rejection. A speaker in a business suit is going to experience far less resistance from a corporate boardroom than someone in a clown suit.

Of course, clown-suit guy might be more successful communicating with a group of children (if he doesn’t scare them all away first!).

Marketing with style

My favorite guide to cultivating an effective writing style in the 21st century is “The Sense of Style” by cognitive scientist and author Steven Pinker. Pinker applies the latest research on linguistics, neuroscience and more to cut through the restrictive, pedantic, and too-often unjustified rules of past style guides to concentrate on what actually works.

But his approach is far from utilitarian. He believes that effective writing is enjoyable and inspiring.

Mere rules and usage restrictions ignore the fluidity of language. Humans and their cultures are constantly evolving, and their languages and idioms evolve concurrently. Pinker is more concerned about prose making a genuine connection with the reader rather than it being “correct.”

Why does writing style matter to marketing?

The right style earns trust. While few readers or listeners would articulate it, sloppy or inappropriate language is a primary reason for rejecting a message. Having the right style for your intended audience shows you respect and “get” them. It lowers their natural resistance barriers to marketing.

The right style crosses the writer-receiver divide. One of the fundamentals of communication theory is that there is always a transmitter and a receiver, but no communication takes place unless, in the end, the receiver has a similar conception in mind to what the transmitter intended to send. The wrong style introduces static into the transmission that can cause the message to be decoded incorrectly, or rejected altogether.

The right style adds beauty to the world. That seems like an odd goal for a marketing message. But think about why art has such appeal. A great piece of art cuts through the ordinariness of life and makes us take notice. Even better, it causes us to think differently about the world. In a very real sense, the goal of a marketer is to “change the world” of the prospects, to open them to considering an approach, solution, convenience or tool that would make their life different and to envision the better world that will result.

Style is where marketing science meets marketing as an art, and it creates the magic that leads to sales.

Cultivating a sense of style for your marketing

Pinker’s book helps the reader cultivate effective style. Here’s how some of his points apply to our marketing writing:

• Start by being a good reader. Pinker believes that the best writers are not only avid readers — they are engaged readers. That is, they’ve learned to pay attention to what works in the writing of others they admire. While reading and enjoying their writing, they have one eye peering behind the curtain to observe how they do what they’re doing.

Marketers should be constantly analyzing the marketing messages that most appeal to them, noting how the use of language, tone, humor and so on make the message click.

• Envision the world you want to create. Keep in mind what I said above: Effective communication happens when the message receiver enters to some extent into the world of the message transmitter, or at least the world he or she wants to conjure up.

The unending fascination of millions of readers and viewers with “The Lord of the Rings” or “Game of Thrones” has much to do with J.R.R. Tolkien’s and George R.R. Martin’s ability to draw them into a world that previously only existed in the author’s mind. As a marketer, seek in your writing to create a world that your prospects will want to inhabit and see themselves living in.

• Beware of the curse of knowledge. The “curse of knowledge” is the failure to understand what it is like for someone to not know what you know. In other words, when you know something deeply and passionately (your products or services, for example, and how they meet needs and solve problems), it’s easy to assume that everyone else already feels the way you do and will automatically see their need for what you’re selling. They don’t, and they won’t.

You have to cultivate the ability to see things from the perspective of someone who (so far) couldn’t care less about what you’re offering, and shape your messages to bridge that gap, to help your prospects walk along the same path that brought you to your present passions.

• Build arcs of coherence. Don’t get so bogged down in the individual details of your message that you fail to connect the dots for your readers. Always remember that no one has to read your marketing message.

Outline the details you want to get across, and then plan how they connect together to draw the reader on and keep her or him engaged. Think in terms of a drama, and make sure all your players and their action work together toward the goal of where you want your prospect to end up.

One of the primary challenges of our profession is also one of its deepest joys and most tangible rewards. That challenge is getting past the natural resistance and short attention span of your marketing prospects so that they are drawn into the world you want them to inhabit, the world in which they see their lives as better, fun or more productive because they have whatever you’re trying to sell.

I say that challenge is also the greatest joy and reward for a marketing writer because unlike other writers, we get very quick feedback on the effectiveness of our messages. A novelist may spend years writing, then more years waiting for edits, publication and promotion. We marketers know very quickly what works and what doesn’t for our target markets, and we can adjust on the fly to be more effective.

Think about the style you incorporate into your marketing writing and what you can do better to build that bridge to your readers that turns them into customers.

By 

Mark Traphagen is Senior Director of Brand Evangelism for Stone Temple Consulting. His primary responsibility is building the online reputation of Stone Temple while testing strategies and tactics that will benefit STC clients. Mark writes for numerous top industry publications, and is a regular speaker at various SMX events and other national marketing conferences.

Sourced from Marketing Land

Read More
By
In News

The Rules of Social Marketing Success: Relationships and Trust

No Comments

By .

Image: As with all relationships, social media relationships must be earned PHOTO: John Loo

When Facebook and Twitter arrived on the scene in the mid-2000s, people soon started using them to share opinions, complaints and ideas — sometimes aimed at the companies they did business with.

Brands have been playing catch up ever since.

Some best practices have emerged in the years since to ensure marketers make the most of these direct lines to potential customers, while at the same time listening and supporting their customers.

The first of this four-part series covered the first steps to social media marketing success: listen and plan. In this, we’ll dive into the foundational elements of relationship building and trust.

3. Develop Relationships

A true relationship has to be earned. It’s about respect and trust. And a balanced relationship is reciprocal. You do something for somebody else, and they do something for you. You exchange ideas. You use each other as a sounding board. For a relationship to last, it has to be a two-way street.

Followers on Twitter and friends on Facebook are not equivalent to relationships. Just as in the real world, a true relationship on social media has to go deeper than just a surface connection. Having 5,000 followers or 10,000 friends is meaningless if you don’t truly connect.

Not convinced? Go ask one of your Twitter followers for an opinion on that white paper you’re writing. If nothing happens, you’ve got your answer.

One of the keys to nurturing real relationships on social media can be found in the manner of your engagement. People want to be valued. And once they feel you value them, they will most likely feel a connection with you — and some degree of loyalty.

They will also expect an ongoing dialogue to reinforce those feelings, so you’d better deliver if you expect the relationship to grow and strengthen over time.

Successful relationships are also about helping to support others. It’s not all about you, your company, or your agenda. Social media is a community, and as a member of that community, you should not only contribute to it in various ways, but you also should recognize the contributions of others. For example, promoting other people’s accomplishments by “liking” their videos, retweeting their tweets or sharing their latest blog posts will go a long way toward building connections and real relationships.

And don’t let those relationships stop at the keyboard. Get to know your social media connections in the real world whenever possible.

4. Establish Trust

The success of virtually every brand relies largely on the bond of trust generated between customer and company. That same bond can obviously be created between individuals as well. But as is the case when building relationships, trust also has to be earned.

To begin with, your social media messaging must be authentic. Whether you’re speaking for your organization or yourself, always be you — plain old honest you. Pretending to be someone you’re not is a shortcut to a credibility gap, and that spells trouble in the trust-building business.

Being the real you — and growing the trust factor — needs to come with a good dose of personality as well. However, don’t exhibit the steamroller mentality: a pushy, get out of the way, I’m on a mission-type attitude. On social media, it’s too easy to distance yourself from people like that just by unfollowing or unfriending them. So instead, strive to be known as a thoughtful, considerate, supportive member of the social media community.

Exhibiting an inquisitive nature and a funny bone can keep you in good standing, too. A great sense of humor is always an effective ice breaker and door opener.

In addition, strive to be as transparent as is reasonable. The more open and honest you’re willing to be — and the more information you’re willing to share — the more credible you’ll appear. And always do what you say you’re going to do. Nothing will impact trust in a positive way more than living up to your commitments.

As a marketer, you must realize that responsiveness also plays a major role in building trust. Especially when you’re dealing with a complaint or other negative issue, be prepared to address it head-on, and do so quickly.

Check back next week as we continue this series with a look at the impact leadership and community building has on social media marketing success.

By

About the Author

Kent Huffman is a fractional/on-demand CMO at DigiMark Partners, which offers strategic and tactical marketing services to CEOs and owners of small and mid-sized businesses. He is a growth-oriented B2B and B2C marketing and branding executive, C-suite advisor, change agent, and published author with expertise in virtually all aspects of the marketing discipline.

Sourced from CMS Wire

Read More
By