How can social media marketing help your brand?

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As part of an integrated marketing plan, social media is the online marketing element that can best be described as the new word-of-mouth marketing. In the past consumers didn’t have any control over marketing messages but new technology gives consumers power by allowing them to decide which brands they want to engage with. This shift in power makes it vitally important for brands to entice consumers to want to engage with them. Social media present brands with the opportunity to engage with consumers and get them to spread the brand message. When this is done correctly, social media can turn brand ambassadors into brand evangelists. With so many platforms available anyone with Internet access can become a publisher through networks like Facebook, Twitter and so many others. Consumers can publish their opinions, experiences and thoughts whilst choosing who they want to interact with. Thus, social media gives consumers the power to have their voice heard. Social media ties in with other online marketing elements like search engine optimisation (SEO) and online reputation management (ORM) as part of an online marketing strategy. It’s a mistake to think that social media and search are mutually exclusive. Twitter or Facebook profiles and blogs are showing up more frequently on the first page of search engine results, whether the group, fan page or blog is owned by the brand or not. In terms of your “Google CV” it looks good if the group or blog post is of a positive nature, praising the service of a brand, but it is a completely different story when it is negative. For instance on the first page of Google’s search results for “SAA” the blog “SAA Sucks” is listed. This of course is where Online Reputation Management (ORM) is all too important to include as part of your social media campaign strategy. Unfortunately, social media is not as easy as setting up a Twitter account, creating a Facebook fan page and ticking social media off on your marketing to-do list. Social media requires continuous activity and engagement. Amongst other things, social media platforms can be utilised to execute ORM. For instance, by using search.twitter.com brands can see what is being said about them in the Twittersphere. Vida e Caffé is one of the South African brands using Twitter to their benefit. Others include Virgin Active South Africa, First National Bank and iBurst. These brands use Twitter to respond to questions, complaints, compliments and offer advice. You don’t have to be everywhere, but it is important to have a presence on the more mainstream social networks like Twitter and Facebook. When a brand decides to engage with its consumers through social media there are a few generally accepted conventions to which one should adhere, for instance: – Do not spam your readers and followers with marketing messages and promotional offers – Encourage dialogue and be interactive, remember it is a conversation! – Always respond to questions, queries and comments, whether it is good, bad or ugly When a brand offers valuable content it is sure to see ROI from social media. Social media marketing can be complicated to execute, especially when it comes to closing the loop, maintaining consistency and starting a viral effect. If you would like to know how social media can enhance awareness for your brand as part of an online marketing strategy, contact AlterSage for a consultation.

Tags: Altersage, Emarketing, online marketing, pay per click advertising, search engine optimization, social media, South Africa

Time to Get Organized With Your Social Media Marketing

Should is a hard word to stomach. Often we’ll tell ourselves “I should do that… ” or “That should be on my to do list.” When it comes to Social Media Marketing, the shoulds are overwhelming. You should be on Facebook. If you’re on Facebook, you should be on Twitter. If you’re on Twitter, you should be posting on Twitter. What, you haven’t set up a Digg.com account? Well, you should…
Most of us get so overwhelmed, that we choose to do nothing. Seems like a bad solution. Let’s take a different approach to Social Media Marketing. I promise there’s not a should in the bunch.
Use the 80/20 Rule to Cut Through the Crap
The 80/20 rule teaches us that 80% of results stem from 20% of our actions. Whenever we talk about Social Media Marketing, the 80/20 rule always comes up. Why? Because so many of the options for in social media are a waste of time.
The 20% (Business Builders)
?Finding great forums to post work
?Writing quality articles about your subject
?Researching great tools to automate your submissions (hint, we discuss them a lot in this blog)
?Guest blogging on great sites
The 80% (Time Wasters)
?Following people on twitter to boost your numbers
?Collecting endless Facebook friends
?Getting caught up in angry battles with forum trolls
?Spending hours looking at Digg.com articles and responding to silly comments
Getting Things Done
GTD is an amazing book by David Allen. If you haven’t read it yet, you’re losing ground to people who have. If you haven’t read it in a while, consider picking it up. There’s always a gem or two that you’ve missed.
The heart of GTD is:
1. Get all of the stuff out of your head and into a list.
2. Decide what the next action is on each item
3. Batch items to make them more efficient (i.e. Make all your phone calls at once, set a time to respond to email, etc.)
4. Once a week, reevaluate your list to make decisions about what’s important and what can be dropped.
Let’s point this thinking towards Social Media Marketing
1. Make a list of everything you’d like to do. Get it out of your head and onto paper.
2. Go through the list and decide if the task is an 80 or a 20. Take a big black marker and cross through the 80’s until you’re down to a handful of tasks that will really make an impact.
3. Now batch these tasks.
Batching Social Media Tasks
A great way to batch social media tasks is with Firefox. Open all of the tabs for a given task and use Firefox to save the set of tabs into a single bookmark (Bookmarks -> Bookmark all Tabs). We use this for a couple of sets:
? Forums: Save all of the common forums you’ve found into a single tab. Then go through and systematically post your article as a new topic in each forum
? Responses: Open all of your social pages and respond to comments in a single sitting.
? Idea Generation: Save your favorite idea generating blogs. Now, when it’s time to write articles, you can scan the headlines and gather ideas all at once.
We batch lots of things to save time and energy. One you’ve learned the idea of batching, you’ll find all sorts of ways to make it work for you.
If it’s worth doing, it’s Worth Re-Evaluating
Just because you’ve been doing something for months, doesn’t mean it’s the best use of your time. Quickly you’ll realize that some things you do generate more buzz, leads, and business than others. It’s useful to schedule a formal time each month to think through all of the things you’ve done and decide what’s working and what’s not. We try to block out time at the end of every month to make sure what we’re doing works.
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Tags: 80/20, Digg.com, Getting Things Done, internet marketing, online marketing, Social Media Marketing

Return on Investment (roi) for Search Engine Optimization & Social Media Marketing

ROI for networking – a perspective

If you’ve ever placed an ad in any magazine or newspaper, what do the magazine or newspapers promise? Do they promise “x” leads and “y” calls leading to “z” number of clients? Or do they talk about “a 2 million circulation” which means that the ad will be viewed by many but there are no guarantees of new business?

Also, when you answer the phone, respond to emails, make cold calls, and attend networking events, how do you measure your ROI?

Or how many events have you attended where you’ve passed out 50 business cards, come back to the office with 100 business cards, sent out 10 follow-up emails and heard back from ZERO?

So you spent $25 to attend the event, $5 in gas money, 3 hours of your time that is worth say $150, and in the end what did you get? A bunch of business cards and a few people writing or calling to sell their services to you! So did you sit down and measure the ROI for that? I think not.

And how many events can you attend in a given day? What reach can you have, meaning how many people can you reach out to at any given event? And how do you build a relationship with someone in brief encounters where everyone is hurrying to meet one more person before the event is over?
You get my point?

The SMM ROIBy participating in Social Media Marketing (SMM), what we are doing is leveraging conversations and discussions to begin building relationships. Building relationships and networking online takes time and therefore it requires time and investment. Since you have a business to run, you can do this by retaining professionals like us (had to get a plug in).

And so to summarize, I leave you with this thought.

The evolution of online marketing and especially social media marketing requires a paradigm shift in how businesses view ROI. Social Media Marketing allows us to form relationships. These relationships may eventually lead to business.

But ROI for Social Media Marketing doesn’t apply nor does it make sense because how can we measuring ROI of human interactions?

Tags: online marketing, SEO, SMM, social marketing, Social Media Marketing

Answer For Search And Social Media Marketing For Tough Times By Rajiv Parikh

I was excited by the large turn-out at the Q&A session I hosted in Santa Clara at SMX West—the popular conference for online and search engine marketing experts.

Leading up to the SMX conference what weighed on my mind was the obvious—our collective anxiety about the recession and the ubiquitous pressure to do more with less. Focusing the Q&A on strategies and spending choices across PPC, SEO and Social Media Marketing must have struck a chord because we covered more questions in greater depth than I anticipated.

The savvy search marketers at SMX zeroed in on questions like “PPC advertising–Technology or Human Driven?” and “Social Media Marketing for brand reputation monitoring and brand healing?”. Folks wanted to hear about Ford’s Scott Monty smartly using social media to nip a PR nightmare in the bud. I went on to explain how a major travel firm used the social media group at Position2 to turn around negative sentiment from a promotion gone wrong.

In these tough times, every search/online marketing manager and CMO is ready to listen to innovative approaches. I’m glad the Q&A lifted attention from each company’s specific business challenges and the sometimes arcane technical aspects of a conference for experts.

About Position2

Position2 is a full service search engine marketing agency, combining the performance goals of clients with a comprehensive and fully integrated methodology to increase traffic, leads, sales and brand identity. With delivery centers in the US and Asia, Position2 provides pay per click advertising (PPC) management, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing (SMM) and web analytics services. A personalized yet systematic approach allows Position2 to provide reliable services for clients ranging from startups to Fortune 500 worldwide. With a client management center in the US and a full service delivery center in India, Position2 provides a comprehensive range of SEM services that allow clients of all sizes to reach their customer acquisition goals with client friendly performance-based fees.

Tags: Agency, Brand Management, Digital, Interactive Marketing, online marketing, Pay Per Click, PPC Advertising, search engine optimization, Social Media Marketing, Technical, Tough Times

Return on Investment (roi) for Search Engine Optimization & Social Media Marketing

ROI for networking – a perspective

If you’ve ever placed an ad in any magazine or newspaper, what do the magazine or newspapers promise? Do they promise “x” leads and “y” calls leading to “z” number of clients? Or do they talk about “a 2 million circulation” which means that the ad will be viewed by many but there are no guarantees of new business?

Also, when you answer the phone, respond to emails, make cold calls, and attend networking events, how do you measure your ROI?

Or how many events have you attended where you’ve passed out 50 business cards, come back to the office with 100 business cards, sent out 10 follow-up emails and heard back from ZERO?

So you spent $25 to attend the event, $5 in gas money, 3 hours of your time that is worth say $150, and in the end what did you get? A bunch of business cards and a few people writing or calling to sell their services to you! So did you sit down and measure the ROI for that? I think not.

And how many events can you attend in a given day? What reach can you have, meaning how many people can you reach out to at any given event? And how do you build a relationship with someone in brief encounters where everyone is hurrying to meet one more person before the event is over?
You get my point?

The SMM ROIBy participating in Social Media Marketing (SMM), what we are doing is leveraging conversations and discussions to begin building relationships. Building relationships and networking online takes time and therefore it requires time and investment. Since you have a business to run, you can do this by retaining professionals like us (had to get a plug in).

And so to summarize, I leave you with this thought.

The evolution of online marketing and especially social media marketing requires a paradigm shift in how businesses view ROI. Social Media Marketing allows us to form relationships. These relationships may eventually lead to business.

But ROI for Social Media Marketing doesn’t apply nor does it make sense because how can we measuring ROI of human interactions?

Tags: online marketing, SEO, SMM, social marketing, Social Media Marketing

Tips On Social Media Marketing

Do you understand Social Marketing? This wave of marketing is made up of many different facets. Learning some of the basic principles of social marketing and how it works will go a long way in aiding you while you are trying to earn money working online. This new technique will take time and effort to build your online marketing business but it is well worth the efforts. However, keep in mind using social marketing is a part of the tool of many tools that you will need to help your business grow. Marketing social networking service provides you a new path of doing business it will work to perfection if done the right way.

Listed are a few of the basic principles.

Just one of your tools, blogging

You may be using a tool presently that is a great Social Marketing tool, your blog. Keep in mind that you already have people being aware of you and your product, service or opportunity. Keep using this tool along with tweaking your blogs use bookmarks, comments, set up widgets, feeds, rss, and optimization. Along with your other traffic building tools, you should have no problem succeeding.

Make Friends, you do not have to sell

How would it feel not to have to “sell” but just make friends, give off trust, and drive the traffic to you? Social Media Marketing will allow you to get feedback via blogs, forums and return opinions. These strategies will drive traffic to your site and with the different avenues of feedback, you will have repeat visitors. With “linking”, you will be noticed more and this will create the search engines’ attention. Can you see the chain of action here? We are talking about being able to link to different networks all coming back to you. It is all about conversation and the word of mouth.

Make use of Social Sites Correctly

The social sites are referred to as communities. Using these sites will enable you meet new friends and see how they feel about your product, service or opportunity. Creating an influential profile is the most important step here. Many visitors will see your profile and you must set it up the correct way, it is bound to attract many visitors and eventually this can help in your business. This is the time depends upon you and when and how you start to brand yourself and put a good image of yours in front of the visitors.

You want to have others (potential clients) respond and take part and survey on your product. As in everything of value, there are rules and regulations on each site. You do not want to be banned because of some small incident. “Tagging” is very important on your social marketing site/s. Tracking and or measuring is also very valuable. Why market when you do not know how your marketing is going. Keep in mind that one should build reputation along with building relations.

In closing, you must have a solid system for Social Media Marketing. Gather as much information as you can from communities that are using the great marketing tool. The Internet offers many sites, blogs and forums with valuable information. Have fun, focus, work smart not hard, and succeed.

Glenn Mosser is an expert Online Marketer, known as “The Meetings Millionaire”. He and his team have produced in the excess of $10,000,000 in revenue in the home-business industry combined. Glenn is a very sought after speaker and trainer to some of the biggest earners in the Home Business and Online Industry. To see what Glenn is up to visit

http://www.ActualSuccess.biz

The above article may be re-published as long as the following paragraph is included at the end of the article and as long as you link to the URL mentioned.

Tags: Home Business, online marketing, Tips On Social Media Marketing

Beware: Marketing Online Take A Big Turn Thanks To FTC

***Disclaimer: The following blog post is not a legal advice nor treated as one. If in doubt, do your research or call up the respective agency for more information.***

Now, this applies to those who are using internet to market their business. Recently, FTC had made some changes as how advertising online is being made across the board.

This basically impact all kind of marketing area, ranging from, presell, affiliate, own product, testimonials and review website.

Now how does this affect you and your business.

Traditionally, what we do is to put up disclaimer on our site and promote our product as affiliate or as a business owner. Or, we may put in small fine print stating, result may vary, or earning may varies etc kind of disclaimer. But not now anymore. It had changed.

In short, this means,

• Everything had to be stated clearly as what consumer is likely to benefit from using the said product.
• If you are an affiliate, you must state the relationship between you and your merchant.
• Any testimonial posted or advertise will need to verify how an average consumer will benefit.

So the bottom line is to give factual, accurate and try avoiding testimonial on your page. If your testimonial is genuine, then by all means go use it.

This is not the end of everything. But instead look on the bright side that, it may become a better place for us to live in, considering that many sites are nothing but maybe a bunch of fake comments, fake post, hype up selling.

If we were to provide real value to our customer, naturally, they will buy from you as being up front, honest and direct.

Isn’t a real long term business to be run that way?

Tags: affiliate marketing, condiut marketing, FTC, internet marketing, local business marketing, niche marketing, online marketing, singapore business owners