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Does Social Marketing Really Make Dollars and Cents?

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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

 

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7 Ways to Promote your E-commerce Product without Being Salesy

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By Lucy Benton

Have you spent thousands of dollars on an online campaign but haven’t seen the results you have expected once the campaign is over? If the campaign was all about letting everybody know how amazing your product is and what excellent features it holds, then the reason for the lack of success is obvious. People probably did not respond well to your ads because they were focused on the brand or product. Modern market asks for a different type of approach when it comes to building up customer awareness for your business.

No matter how powerful and compelling your marketing content is, clients need more to become confident about your brand. There are new e-commerce businesses popping out almost every day so why should anyone trust the word of brand A instead of brand B? To capture the audience and create a bond between you and your client base, there must be some sort of personal relation among the two sides. The customers want to see you caring, not just thinking about how to get them into buying your product.

The best way to communicate with your audience is through social networks, as they offer the most ways to interact. This, however, doesn’t mean flooding everyone’s feed with status updates and promotional content. Your social network activities should be versatile and offer everyone a chance to speak their mind as well as bring your product closer, through creative non-sales related content. It’s less about pushing the sale and more about showing the effort and devotion put into your product.

Simply put, the audience is interested in what you have to say about your business, but what really makes the difference is what everybody else has to say about your brand. There are several ways to promote your business in a manner that doesn’t seem generic and won’t bounce people back but inspire them into wanting to know more about you. Marketing experts at College Paper went to work and created an easy to understand infographics depicting some of the best online marketing strategies. We encourage you to take a look and see how easy it is to bring your business to a whole new level by simply putting an extra effort into your social network marketing activities.

By Lucy Benton

Lucy Benton is a marketing specialist, business consultant and helps people to turn their dreams into the profitable business.  Now she is writing for marketing and business resources. Also Lucy has her own blog Prowritingpartner.com where you can check her last publications. If you’re interested in working with Lucy, you can find her on  Twitter.

Sourced from Irish Tech News – Alison McGuire

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How to Use Social Media For Business

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Knowing How to Use Social Media For Business is a necessary marketing tool in the industry today.  Thankfully new technology related to online marketing has provided software and tools to help you have success with an online home business in regards to social media marketing.

Affiliate Disclaimer: I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

Learning How to Use Social Media For Business, in my opinion, it is learning how to plant your business in the heart of, I mean smack in the middle of, online marketing.

After all, that’s where everybody online is at, right? People associate themselves with like-minded people.  Your job as a marketer is to find like-minded people that are interested in your niche. In other words, finding your target audience.

How to Use Social Media For Business

 

If your concentration is on wanting more traffic to your business or website, that’s what this article is here to help you with.  Also if you haven’t already your business plan and strategy need to be in place.  I also suggest having a mission statement.

Your (SMMS) Social Media Marketing Strategy should have defined objectives and tools necessary to achieve them. Now, the process and to finding your target audience involves factors that must be addressed.  You need to know;

Who are you marketing to?  What is your TA (target audience) demographic.  

Where. Meaning, which social network are you likely to find your TA.  Also knowing what groups, forums, communities or chat rooms your TA likes to hang out are necessary factors as well.

Because social media networks cater to different audiences, it is understandable that there should be a different promoting strategy for each social network.  Your approach to promoting on LinkedIn would be different than promoting on Snapchat.

What does your TA expect from your product or service?

When is the best time to promote your product or service?

Why meaning you need to show, and inform why your TA should use or purchase your goods.

How will you convince your TA you have the solution to their needs.

How to Use Social Media/social media banners

Marketing online, be it marketing for other companies, a brick and mortar business or working to have success with a home business you need to apply content marketing to your strategy.  This involves writing quality content and strategic placement of keywords within the article, all of which must be relevant to the title and topic of your article.

Do not be overwhelmed by the six-word questions you will ha e to confront in the social media marketing game, in fact, be happy for social media.  Later in the article, I will show you exactly how to tackle those six-word questions.

Before social media, do you remember how marketing used to be? Marketers relied first on outbound marketing strategies.  Then as the Internet was introduced to the masses, consumers became more savvy and smarter online shoppers. Along with the Internet came inbound marketing and marketers put the consumer first in their promotions.

Today, you can attract a huge audience thanks to new technology. Technology that allows one to not only track an individual as an individual consumer. Moreover, you also have the ability to interact with prospects in ways that weren’t possible in the past.

Technology And Marketing

This new era of marketing could not come at a better time because it is a perfect match for social media marketing.  Your target audience is out there; you just need to analyse and diagnose the data you retrieve to find potential customers, and prospects.  And then be able to attract them to your website.

Unfortunately, it’s not a simple task. How to Use Social Media /social media marketing statsMany marketers are on social media sites and get little to no response to their efforts.  

It is not because they haven’t learned the game, more times than not it is because they are the sole proprietor and can only do so much in any space of time.  Or the marketer has no business strategy in place.

Even the successful online marketer and anyone in a successful position will gladly tell you about the failures they faced.  A successful social media marketing strategy takes a lot of planning, testing, and commitment.  Below are eight tools you can start using in your social media marketing campaign.

Available Software

1. Commun. It is an easy way to grow followers. Don’t think that Commun is one of those online services that sell you Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook followers. Commun. It;  is a Twitter/Facebook communities manager that helps you discover who your targeted followers are.

This tool lets you see who supports your content by sharing, retweeting, and mentioning.  As you engage those fans, your trust on social media will grow.  So interact on all fronts, the strategy will result in success.

2. Onalytica helps you find the influential leaders in your niche.  If the influentials like your page and share your work, you will get tons of engagement on your website.

This software will analyze your content, and show you the top influential bloggers who have similar interests and activities related to your theme. Once you have that information, follow those people on social media and interact. Make comments on their posts, but make sure not to spam.

3. Edocr  How about sharing some of that knowledge you have obtained in the form of an ebook. When you give something meaningful to users, they will reciprocate.  An eBook reflects sound characteristics and will attract social media prospects to your site.  When you create an Edocr is the tool to use.

4. Viralheat  Viralheat analyzes the ranking of your posts and monitors the conversations that include your post or brand on Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and many other platforms. You can also communicate with the audience.

Improve Your Social Media For Business

5. Feedly When you start using social media, you have to offer something more than promotion. You do need to promote quality content as part of your marketing. However, focus on something else instead of your business from time to time.

Feedly can find top-notch online publications related to your niche. When you discover a useful and informative publication share it on your social media profiles.

6. Post Planner  Facebook updates are important.  You cannot log into page or profile as planned all the time. You can use Post Planner to schedule your posts when they peak.  Post Planner helps you analyze the trends in your niche and plan your content about your target audience needs. You can also set the tool to automatically re-post.

7. Canva , The tool edit images, add text and speech bubbles to visual content, design grids, and add stickers, icons, and frames to your designs. However, you can also use Canva to create a flyer, presentation, photo collage, Facebook cover, Google+ header, infographic, and other forms of visually-intriguing content.

8. Bit.ly Don’t you get frustrated when you want to share a link via Twitter, but it’s too long for those 140 characters? You don’t have to be! Bit.ly is the tool all social media users need: it turns every URL into a much shorter version that still leads to the right destination.

Thanks for stopping by.  I wish you all the best with learning How to Use Social Media for Business. Furthermore, may you have blessings and prosperity. Please, let’s communicate, share a comment or question and I will get back in touch with you. 

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Hello, my name is Maurice Jackson I live and, started my business in Detroit. My intentions are, to help any and every one with affiliate marketing as a home business, become a successful professional. My first career was working for the city of Detroit as an inspector, where I thought I would retire. But life bring change and surprises. I sustained an injury that led to an earlier retirement than I had planed. With that said I reinvented myself in April of 2014 and, became part of an affiliate program. Within the time of my reinvention leading up to the present, I am generating lots of traffic to my website and it grows everyday.ROI has been minimal but then again I invested nothing to start. I am at the point of letting my site mature, as I keep writing quality content about it. In this business you have to pay your dues. And, I and the rest of our family (become a member and you will see the family side of it) of 109000, including the founders of the program (yes they participate), will see to it that we all will be making a substantial amount of revenue in the near future.

Sourced from Success with a Home Business

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Klout, the $200 million website that measured how important you are on social media with one number, is shutting down

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  • Klout, a startup that measured how important you are on social media, is shutting down by the end of the month. 
  • It was bought for $200 million in 2014.

It’s the end of an era for social media influencers and wannabe-influencers.

Klout, one of the buzziest tech startups circa 2011, announced on Twitter on Thursday that it was shutting the eponymous service down.

Klout was founded in 2009 by Joe Fernandez, partially as a way to get a job at Twitter, according to Business Insider. But ranking people by importance or influence turned out to be a strong enough idea to raise four rounds of venture funding from top-tier firms totaling $40 million.

Eventually, it was sold in 2014 for $200 million to Lithium Technologies, which is the company that is shutting down the service later this month. Lithium is a private company that makes digital marketing tools.

Klout enabled users to share their Facebook and Twitter data, and parsed that data through a vague algorithm to give users a simple popularity metric between 1 and 100, called the “Klout score.”

Here’s a screenshot of the software, taken on Thursday:

Klout ScreenshotBusiness Insider

Lithium CEO Pete Hess discussed the shutdown in an email to customers on Thursday. “The Klout acquisition provided Lithium with valuable artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities but Klout as a standalone service is not aligned with our long-term strategy,” he wrote.

To be fair, Klout scores are probably not aligned with anyone’s long-term strategy, unless that involves becoming a huge Twitter star. Over the years, Klout scores became a punchline for techies and the Twitter-obsessed. “Klout has been one of my go-to punchlines for some time now,” TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington wrote in August 2012.

Klout also arguably inspired one of the most disturbing “Black Mirror” episodes.

Here are some of our favorite Klout stories from over the years:

Here’s the entire farewell announcement:

Hi,

I’m writing to let you know that Lithium has made the decision to sunset the Klout service, effective May 25, 2018.

Lithium is committed to providing you with the technology and services that will enable you to differentiate your customer experience. Our recent launch of Lithium Messaging is evidence of our focus on this mission. The Klout acquisition provided Lithium with valuable artificial intelligence (AI) and machinelearning capabilities but Klout as a standalone service is not aligned with our long-term strategy.

Our goal with these AI and machine learning investments is to improve our customer care capabilities across the board, whether that’s self-service, peer-to-peer, or direct-to-brand. In the near-term, for example, we will be looking to improve agent productivity within SMM and improve the overall user experience in Community through the application of AI, while we are also planning the launch of a new social impact scoring methodology based on Twitter.

Should you have any questions or concerns about this announcement, please feel free to reach out to KloutQuestions@lithium.com. We are honored to be your partner in delivering digital customer care experiences that delight your customers and we look forward to sharing news of ongoing innovations that support you in this journey.

Thank you for your business.

Pete Hess

CEO

By 

Sourced from Business Insider UK

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The 5 Biggest Social Media Blunders to Avoid for Success

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Social media can be a great digital marketing tool for your business when you use it correctly.

​However, there are several ways that social marketing blunders can negatively impact your business.

Most companies have a team dedicated to marketing on social media channels, so if you are a massage therapist who runs your whole social media marketing channels solo, these expert tips can help you find a more efficient way to manage your massage marketing plan online.

Here are some common massage therapy social marketing mistakes you’ll want to avoid—and ways to correct them if you find yourself in a challenging situation.

1. Not Responding to Negative Comments or Reviews

Responding to negative feedback and reviews is very important on social media. Your followers want to know that you are truly engaged in what they are saying and that their opinion matters to you.

The positive result gained by responding to a negative situation on social media is you can rectify an issue and please a dissatisfied customer by providing a good solution to the problem publicly.

For example, if you have a client who comes in for bodywork therapy and is not happy with your services and then gives your Facebook page a one-star review or leaves a not-so-nice comment on your timeline, you can offer them a free massage on their next visit.

Remember, most followers expect a response within one to two hours of their initial contact.

By monitoring all comments and reviews in a timely manner and responding accordingly, you create online loyalty for your business. ​

On the other hand, if you constantly ignore comments and reviews, you will most likely lose those followers and, in turn, lose potential customers.

2. Posting Too Many Times Per Day

You may wonder, “Is over-posting on social media really a problem?” The answer to that question is most definitely.

Ideally, you want to find a balance between being informative and overbearing with your audience.

According to a report from Buffer, a recent study from Social Bakers analyzed three months’ worth of Facebook content from major brands and found that top brands average only one post per day.1

So, how many posts per day is the right amount? With Facebook’s recent algorithm changes you may have noticed your engagement has dropped. One of the things you can do to combat this challenge is to test scheduling your posts at different times of the day (morning, afternoon and evening) and certain days of the week and determine when your audience is the most engaged. ​

With trial and error, you can find what works for you and use that information to plan your posts for the week at the right time of the day, with the right frequency.

This information varies between platforms, so the right number of Facebook posts per day will be different from the number of posts you make to Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. ​

Pay attention to your data and change your strategy accordingly when you find that something may not be working for you.

3. Not Understanding How to ​Gain New Clients on Social

Social media is a great gateway to engagement, but we know that it has a different type of sales path than direct one-to-one marketing.

If you have not established a presence on multiple social media channels, it is less likely that someone will want to purchase a retail product or trust in your massage therapy business enough to book an appointment.

Are you running contests, promotions and exclusive offers for your followers? Utilizing social platforms to offer discounts to your audience is something that will keep them coming back.

It is also important to build awareness and loyalty among those who currently follow you.

If you are feeling ambitious, developing a monthly strategy with paid advertisements can help you reach users who may not know about your massage business. This can also provide you with an opportunity to gain leads and email addresses so that you can follow up with those clients and entice them with a new client special discount.

A great way to do this would be to create a post and tell your social audience to “Call to book an appointment and get 20 percent off TODAY ONLY when you say the secret code, MASSAGE.”

This creates urgency with your audience and ultimately entices them to book a session with you.

4. Neglecting to Use Videos on Social

Some say that video marketing on social is everything. If you have not incorporated video into your social media marketing yet, you may be missing out on growth clients for your business.

Did you know that video’s get more shares and interaction on social media than any other posts?

There are many ways you should be using video. You can answer a question or solve a problem by recording yourself, show your business behind the scenes by doing a live video, or promote a new service by demonstrating on a client.

Videos are extremely popular on the Internet. The good news is, the shorter the video the better the engagement you will have.

With the new auto-play options for video, it is easier to draw the viewer’s attention to your post, rather than images, statuses or articles on your feeds will. Using video also provides stronger personal connections to your audience.

There is an emotional/human aspect to video that you simply cannot feel from reading content. Making this connection is an important element in your massage therapy marketing plans.

Video allows you to see someone’s personality, passions and facial expressions. Try sharing clients’ personal testimonies and see how much your engagement increases.

5. You Don’t Have a Social Media Strategy to Execute

If you have been aimlessly using social media and don’t really know what to do , it is time to gather up some data and insights and develop a monthly plan.

What successes are most valuable to your business?

Are you new to social and trying to just get your massage therapy business out in the universe? Then it may be best for you to continue to create content that explains who you are as a business, and your passion for healing through massage therapy.

Once you see your fan base grow , it may be time to invest in paid advertisements to gather leads and hopefully gain more appointments.

First, start mapping out the days of the week you want to post and how many times a week you will post, and put this information on a calendar. At the end of the month you should review the performance of your posts and determine if you want to make any changes to the strategy for the next month.

It is best to have a healthy mix of posts. Try to not oversell products, be readily available for your audience, interact as much as possible, and track any new appointments that are directly from your posts. ​

To increase brand awareness the “old fashioned” way, tell all your clients about your social media channels. Add your social media links or handles to your business cards and brochures so that people can learn more about you and your services, and share your business with others.

The more visibility you have to your clients in between sessions, the more you can expect friends of your followers to check out your page. To take this one step further, tell your loyal clients that they are welcome to leave you a review on Facebook or Yelp.

The higher your rating, the more credibility this creates for your business.  Word of mouth is a great strategy for gaining new clients, even when it is on-line.

The last thing to consider when putting your massage therapy marketing strategy together, most people who are looking for a place to get a therapeutic massage want the business to have at least four out of five stars. Remember, if you see a review that is not good, be sure to respond to it ASAP and turn that negative feedback into a positive recommendation.

Don’t be afraid to get started.  Use the information and links above to get the tools you need to be on your way to social success!

​These tips are brought to you by Massage Magazine Insurance Plus, the leading national insurance provider for massage therapists and bodyworkers—offering much more than just complete liability coverage at competitive rates. We offer practice support and peace of mind to our members, who know their careers and assets are covered should the unfortunate occur.

By 

Sourced from Massage Magazine

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Millennials, Here’s How You Can Use Social Media In Times Of Crisis

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By Andrew Arnold

Millennials are often criticized for their over-reliance on social media. They often prefer online health advice to doctor’s visits; plan their vacation based on the destination’s “instagram-worthiness” and cite social media as their main news source.

However, when it comes to disaster management, judging millennials for their “obsession” is tediously wrong-headed, it can do a real disservice. In fact, there may not be a better tool than social media when it comes to responding to a disaster, organizing resources, and mitigating damage.

Not only are millennials in a good position to act as leaders in these situations, they can serve as educators as well. Here are for some practical uses of social media during a disaster as well as some best practices organizations can implement.

Disaster preparation: create smart social media policies

Unfortunately, too many companies create reactionary policies when it comes to social media. These policies tend to focus on mitigating the behaviors of a small percentage of abusers rather than taking a positive approach and maximizing social media’s potential as a business tool.

When disaster strikes, these policies can be very dangerous. When employees or customers are unable to access social media they are limited to other forms of communication. Considering that other pathways to getting information out could be limited that could be problematic, policies that involve blocking access to social media could be a bad idea.

Community forums can be used to share information and resources

Neighborhoods and other community groups are already using social media to connect with one another and share information. Location based groups on Facebook and other social media platforms are being used to share information about community events, offer items for sale or trade, and even as a source for help and advice.

In 2017, FEMA announced that it would be leveraging the Nextdoor app to send location relevant messages during disasters. Using messenger apps in this way is ideal for keeping residents up to date on information and resources that is as useful to them as possible.

Even without the participation of government agencies, these community forums can still be an extremely useful resource. Imagine residents impacted by flooding being able to inform each other which local roads were passable and which pharmacies or grocery stores remained open.

Brands can use social media to provide practical help and information

Disasters can disrupt supply chains and negatively impact business operations. That can negatively impact a business’ ability to provide needed supplies to customers during disasters. Not only can this leave already suffering communities reeling, it can be a PR disaster for brands as well. Worse, during these times brands’ responses on social media often ranges between tone deaf and wildly insensitive.

This is a shame because businesses have the ability to utilize their social media presence to broadcast important information to a wide audience during and after a disaster. They can provide updates on availability of supplies as well as informing the public of resources they do have to offer. Millennials who are connected with these brands can help to spread that information to their own followers.

Picture and video sharing can help agencies gauge impact

People who use Instagram and other sharing sites can provide extraordinarily valuable resources to public and private agencies tasked with rendering aid. By posting geotagged pictures to agencies’ Instagram pages, or by tagging various agencies, citizens can help officials gauge what is happening and where. This can help them to determine where to send responders and route supplies.

When agencies are slow to respond, geotagging can also get the attention of news outlets and other news agencies. This can serve the dual purpose of getting information out as well as leveraging media pressure and attention to get help where people need it.

Bloggers can share vital information that can be used after a disaster

While a blog certainly isn’t the most efficient way to spread information during a disaster, it can be a valuable resource during the post-mortem period. When kept up to date during a disaster, a blog serves as a time-stamped written recording of events and experiences. This can be much more useful, for example, in identifying successes and failures in established procedures and protocols than relying on people to properly recall things.

Community agencies can build confidence with regular updates

Not much causes more dread in a disaster than radio silence from the powers that be. Community and government agencies can work to establish a solid social media presence, and cultivate a following prior to disasters. Then, they can use those same social media accounts to keep citizens updated.

When disaster strikes, both citizens and entities can use social media as a powerful tool. It can be used to organize resources, spread information, and provide education.

By Andrew Arnold

Sourced from Forbes

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How to Survive the Social Media Midlife Crisis

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By Joshua Nite

Time moves faster on the internet. Last month’s memes are about as relevant as a 1920s vaudeville show. Even a bona fide viral phenomenon from just a few years ago seems quaint and dated.

Twitter and Facebook are only 12 and 14 years old, respectively. But they’re aging at internet speed. And right now they’re having a midlife crisis. Instead of buying a sports car and taking up craft brewing, though, that crisis is manifesting as existential dread and intense soul-searching.

The people who run the platforms are publicly examining their purpose and societal impact. More importantly, the people who use the platforms are asking tough questions:

What am I getting out of my time spent here?

Who is this platform structured to benefit?

Should I be trusting my data with this platform?

Is this a positive or negative thing I have let into my life?

As marketers, we have to ask ourselves the same questions. And we should add one more: Is our social media marketing valuable to our audience?

If we’re not adding value, we’re adding to the problem.

Social media is in crisis right now. But that doesn’t mean marketers should abandon ship. It means we have to do our own soul-searching. We need to take our social media accounts off of autopilot and approach them mindfully. Here’s what marketers should consider as we weather the social media midlife crisis.

How Does Your Social Media Marketing Make People Feel?

A recent Hill Holliday report found that a majority of 18-24 year olds were at least considering abandoning social media. Over a quarter said that social media hurts their self-esteem or makes them feel insecure. Thirty-five percent said there was too much negativity, and 17% said they were considering quitting because social media makes them feel bad about themselves.

Connecting with your brand on social media should make a person feel better. They should feel that your brand shares values with them, is paying attention to them, can help meet needs and solve problems.

It’s worth evaluating what your brand is posting on social to make sure it’s helping spread positivity. The old days of scaring or shaming people into buying a product are more than over. The overarching message of any brand on social media should be some variant of: “This is what we’re like. If you’re like that too, you’re awesome. Here’s some help you didn’t even know you needed. Here’s something to make your day a little brighter.”

Connecting with your brand on #socialmedia should make a person feel better. They should feel that your brand shares values with them, is paying attention to them, can help meet needs & solve problems. – @NiteWrites Click To Tweet

Is Your Brand Using Social Media to Be…Well…Social?

Let’s be honest with ourselves, shall we? No one opens their Facebook app saying: “Gosh, I hope I have some satisfactory brand interactions today.” People use social media to connect with other people — you want to see if your high school best friend had her baby, check out your uncle’s kitchen remodel, or see pictures of your parents’ second honeymoon.

Most brands on social media have been pretty lousy at giving people that type of person-to-person interaction. Which explains why people are moving their conversations out of the public eye, into private groups in apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

How can brands be more social on social media? It starts with transparency and honesty. I love Wendy’s’ sassy Twitter account as much as the next jaded Gen X’er, but snark only takes you so far. Use your social media posts to introduce the people behind your brand and the values they stand for. Then aim for meaningful interaction: When someone reaches out to the brand, make sure the reply is prompt, personal, and useful.

How can brands be more social on #socialmedia? It starts with transparency & honesty. – @NiteWrites Click To Tweet

Is Your Brand Connecting with People Your Audience Trusts?

At the heart of it, there’s a limit to how well your brand can connect with individual people. Even when you’re honest, transparent, and engaging, a brand is still not a human being.

The relationship dynamic will always be a little strained.

That’s one of the many reasons why influencer marketing works so well. Influencers can co-create content with you and amplify it to their audience on a much more personal basis than your brand could manage on its own. Find the people your audience already follows — in other words, the ones they want to interact with. Then work with these influencers to bring their audience great content that only your brand could have helped create.

Working with influencers helps put the personal, social touch back into social media marketing. It puts the emphasis of your brand interaction where it belongs: person to person.

Working with influencers helps put the personal, social touch back into #SocialMediaMarketing. – @NiteWrites Click To Tweet

Getting Beyond the Crisis

When social media platforms first launched, most of us jumped right in. We found our high school classmates. We connected with friends from college. We added co-workers and family members and friends of friends, and we shared everything. Over time, we developed routines. Now, people are finally starting to analyze just what social media means to them. Most will keep their accounts open — but the majority will change the way they interact with the platforms.

Sound familiar? Most brands jumped headfirst into social media, developed routines, and then many of us went on autopilot. Now it’s time to question what we hope to get out of social media, and whether our tactics are getting us closer to those goals. And most importantly, making sure our goals match what our audience wants from us.

By Joshua Nite

Sourced from Top Rank Marketing

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Company Uses Blockchain and Social Media to Create ‘Word-of-Mouth’ Marketing Campaigns

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By Bala Murali Krishna

An Italian-born startup has used Blockchain to build a peer-to-peer digital platform that taps the power of word-of-mouth marketing on social media.

Friendz, with offices in Milan, Rome and Madrid, allows companies to engage armies of social media users to promote their brands. Users get rewarded for creating and sharing content on brands with their friends. The startup was co-founded in 2015 by the trio of Alessandro Cadoni, Daniele Scaglia and Cecilia Nostro.

Early backing

With €500,000 in financing, Friendz has built a strong technology platform and assembled a roster of clients including Jeep, Disney and Reebok. According to Friendz, the three-year-old company has run marketing campaigns for over 200 brands, creating and promoting branded content with the help of 200,000 users with a combined reach of 1.5 bln. In 2017, the company reported €1.2 mln in revenues.

Friendz opened an ICO on March 1 and has already carried out more than 20,000 transactions from around 14,000 micro contributors. It has sold 22 mln ETH.

One of the few marketing companies leveraging the power of Blockchain, Friendz is betting on lower-cost, decentralized marketing on social media, as digital advertising spend steadily grows.

Digital ad spending to be worth $378 mln in 2021

Global ad spending is projected to rise to $757 bln in 2021, up nearly 30 percent from $584 bln in 2017, according to eMarketer.

In 2017, digital ad spending overtook television advertising for the first time, as it reached $209 bln worldwide, according to Magna, the research arm of media buying firm IPG Mediabrands. In 2020, Magna expects digital ad spend to account for 50 percent of all ads, up from 41 percent in 2017. The digital ad market could be worth an estimated $378 mln in 2021 if one extrapolates Magna’s estimate with that of eMarketer.

If the two sets of data back Friendz’s business prospects, Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising lends even greater support to its “word-of-mouth” model. According to its seminal 2015 survey, in which the leading New York media firm surveyed over 30,000 people, 83 percent of people base their purchase decisions on advice from friends and family or “people we know and trust.” Also, 66 percent trust consumer opinions posted online, the third-most-trusted advertising format.

Friendz eyes B2B business too

Currently, Friendz targets B2C companies to build its business, but it has its eyes on B2B companies too. The company believes its adoption of Blockchain not only makes its platform safer and stronger but, notably, improves its business model and long-term prospects.

The technology would enable its platform to be used by every kind of business in need of creative content, or even “every online activity-as-a-service,” Friendz has said. Examples of potentially new services that can be enabled on the company’s platform include app reviews, bug testing, market research and lead generation.

Currently, Friendz is active in Italy and Spain and proposes to expand its business to other parts of the world, starting with the rest of the European countries, America and Asia.

FDZ coins to be listed on top international exchanges

The FDZ coins are based on ERC20 and are being offered at about $0.067. The ICO has a soft cap of 50 mln FDZ and a hard cap of 750 mln FDZ. It will be possible to trade the coin on the most famous international exchanges anytime after the conclusion of the ICO, the company said.

Tokens bought during the so-called Power Hour received a 40 percent bonus and are locked for one year. The coins will be unlocked proportionally over 12 months. The stipulation, Friendz said, would curb speculation such as ‘pump-and-dump’ methods, and keep the value of the FDZ cryptocurrency stable.

Friendz plans to use the ICO proceeds to expand its business abroad, create a larger global community and for further technology development.

By Bala Murali Krishna

Sourced from COINTELEGRAPH

Disclaimer. Cointelegraph does not endorse any content or product on this page. While we aim at providing you all important information that we could obtain, readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to the company and carry full responsibility for their decisions, nor this article can be considered as an investment advice.

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Why You Must Read Sales and Marketing Books

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By Tim Hughes

This blog previously appeared on the DLA blog here

The other day I spotted a message from a social media guru where he said that people shouldn’t read sales and marketing books.

Maybe it’s because he hasn’t written one, and I have (so maybe I’m biased), but even before I had written a book, I completely disagreed and still do disagree with this.

There are three reasons for this:

  1. At my previous company we did some research on the “A-Players” in the business. What was it that made these people continually over achieve their number year in and year out? One of the factors was the continual investment in personal training. “B-Players” always said they didn’t have time. “A-Players” realised they had to continually learn new techniques and for that reason alone, books will teach you new things.
  2. I’m continually reading sales and marketing books and there is always something new. A technique or a new way of working I haven’t thought about before. Yes, in many of the traditional sales books I’ve heard (and read it) all before. How many books on prospecting can you read and expect something new. But I’m always finding nuggets about staying ahead of your competition.
  3. The feedback from people who have read my book. I have to admit that Matt and I wrote it in a way to be a “how”, rather than a “why”. So while the first few chapters are about why you need to social sell, we get straight into techniques on how you can change what you do now to meet the way that the modern buyer works. It is, after all, a buyers’ market. There are currently (as I write) 38 x 5-star reviews.

This blog is continued here

By Tim Hughes

Sourced from Medium

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7 Ways to Segment Your Social Media Audiences

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By Larry Alton.

Audience segmentation is one of the greatest tools in a marketer’s arsenal.

In traditional marketing settings like direct mail or radio spot placement, narrowing your message to only the most relevant audience can instantly double the effectiveness of your ad (and therefore increase the ROI of your campaign).

Even some digital marketing strategies, like email marketing, offer convenient ways to isolate segments of your audience and increase the targeting of your outbound messaging.

But what about social media marketing, where social platforms aren’t intended primarily as marketing tools and audiences are national or international? Fortunately, there are still a handful of tools and tactics you can use to segment your audiences properly.

1. Proper platform selection

First, it’s worth mentioning that your choice of social media platforms instantly serves as a form of audience segmentation by itself. For example, Pinterest’s demographics tend to lean toward women, so if you have specific marketing messages for women, posting on Pinterest could help isolate that group.

Similarly, Snapchat users tend to be younger than users of other, more popular platforms, and older professionals seem to prefer LinkedIn over anything else. If you’re on multiple platforms, you can use these distinguishing characteristics to decide where to post your material.

2. Targeted messaging (and advertising)

One of the most obvious ways to segment your demographics is through paid advertising on various social platforms. Almost every social media platform offers some level of audience filtering when you opt to pay for an advertising campaign, though these options range from simple geographic targeting, to advanced filters narrowing down audiences to highly specific segments.

Of course, the downside is that you have to pay for the advertising to get access to these features. As you’ll see below, there are other ways to manually segment your audience, but paid advertising does offer one of the best and most thorough means of ensuring your messages get to the right people.

3. Facebook filtering

Facebook doesn’t explicitly allow businesses to create custom lists on its platform, though there is a way to filter the audience you’re messaging without worrying about paying for advertising. For example, you can use post filtering to narrow your audience for a given message down to only local residents—which is perfect for internationally active brands looking to invite people to a local event.

Unfortunately, the Facebook filtering for business pages doesn’t get more advanced than this—if you want more demographic controls on Facebook, you’ll have to pay for them with advertising.

4. LinkedIn groups

LinkedIn groups don’t offer a specific way to filter how your messages are released, but they do offer a nice way to connect with pre-defined segments of different audiences. For example, if you’re selling something specifically to marketers, you can join a national marketing group and use that as a platform for engagement.

There, you’ll be able to post messages, respond to questions, and even engage with people, and you’ll be nearly guaranteed that everyone there is a marketer. Unfortunately, the groups on LinkedIn are mostly limited to the professional realm, so you won’t be able to filter down with age ranges, genders, or other factors.

5. Twitter Lists

Twitter lists offer one of the best ways to organize your followers on social media, but unfortunately, they can’t do much for your outgoing messaging. On Twitter, you can create dozens of different lists, manually separating your followers into different categories such as “top buyers,” “competitors,” or “decision makers.”

You can make these lists public or private, and access them whenever you want. They’re extremely handy for finding out what certain segmented demographics are talking about and are interested in, but they’re not as handy for segmenting your outgoing messaging. It’s not possible to send a tweet or direct message to only the followers within a given list.

6. Separate profiles

If none of the above strategies are working for you, or if your audience segmentation strategy has different demands, consider splitting your company into separate profiles across different social media platforms. For example, you could create a local business page for different geographic segments, or create sub-pages for niche interests of your followers.

This will allow you to build specific audiences and refine your outgoing messaging, but will also present more challenges in your ongoing management.

7. Personal brands

As another alternative to separate profiles, you can consider using various personal brands to complement and enhance your core brand efforts. For example, you could have several different personal brands, each specializing in a different area of your business, working on building up audience segments that can then be used as recipients for targeted messaging.

Make good use of these tools and strategies to segment your audience to more specific, narrower niches. Choose your messages for each niche carefully, and don’t be afraid to go too narrow. The more demographic qualities you filter out, the smaller your audience will become, but that decrease in volume is also associated with an increase in relevance.

By Larry Alton

Larry is an independent business consultant specializing in social media trends, business, and entrepreneurship. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Sourced from Social Media Week

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