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Social Media Strategy in 8 Steps

When working in an industry like social media you can’t create strategies for the present. By the time you complete your marketing strategy, all the tools and networks you rely on will have changed. In order to be strategic and be ahead of your competitors, you have to look into the future. What trends are on the horizon for social media? What’s coming next that we need to prepare for? Here’s what we think:

Step 1: Build an Ark

Nobody should “own” social media strategy in your organization. Social impacts all corners of the company, and should be more like air (everywhere) than like water (you have to go get it). Thus, the first step in the process is to create a cross-functional team to help conceive and operate the rest of the strategy.

 

Step 2: Listen and Compare

It’s an old social media strategy chestnut by now, but “listen” is still good advice that’s often ignored. The reality is that your customers (and competitors) will give you a good guide to where and how you should be active in social media, if you broaden your social listening beyond your brand name.

 

Step 3: What’s the Point?

Yes, you can use social media to help accomplish several business objectives. Butthe best social media strategies are those that focus (at least initially) on a more narrow rationale for social. What do you primarily want to use social for? Awareness? Sales? Loyalty and retention? Pick one.

 

Step 4: Select Success Metrics

How are you going to determine whether this is actually making a difference in your business? What key measures will you use to evaluate social media strategy effectiveness? How will you transcend (hopefully) likes and engagement? Will you measure ROI?

 

Step 5: Analyze Your Audiences

With whom will you be interacting in social media? What are the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your current or prospective customers? How does that impact what you can and should attempt in social media?

 

Step 6: What’s Your One Thing?

Passion is the fuel of social media.

It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you sell, your product features and benefits aren’t enough to create a passion-worthy stir. How will your organization appeal to the heart of your audience, rather than the head? Disney isn’t about movies, it’s about magic. Apple isn’t about technology, it’s about innovation. What are you about?

 

Step 7: How Will You Be Human?

Social media is about people, not logos. 

The mechanics of social force companies to compete for attention versus your customers’ friends and family members. Thus, your company has to (at least to some degree) act like a person, not an entity. How will you do that?

 

Step 8: Create a Channel Plan

Only after you know why you’re active in social at all, and how you’ll measure social media strategy success should you turn your attention to the “how” of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and the rest. This channel plan should be distinct, in that you have a specific, defensible reason for participating in each.

 

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Promoting Yourself Through Social Media

Sharing your posts via social media should be one of the first things you do when you are looking to showcase new content on your blog. It is important to share these updates on social media sites because it builds brand awareness, helps to increase traffic on your website, and is great for reader engagement.

 

Here are a few tips to help you make the most of your blog posts to successfully promote yourself.

  •  Select what social media platforms you want to use to help promote your blog. Base your choices on what works best for you and what you feel comfortable with, but try to choose more than one type of social media platform, this will allow you to reach a variety of readers. Facebook is wonderful for promoting new content with text and image, Twitter is great for short and sweet bursts of information and links, and Pinterest is mainly used for eye-catching images and graphics.
  • Write as if you are sharing information with a close friend; blogs should be informal, simple, and friendly. Writing like this makes it a little more fun and you don’t feel so pressured to come up with super structured dialect.
  • Ask questions you genuinely want answered and don’t be afraid to interact with your readers. A lot of people are probably visiting your blog because they have interest in your posts and what you have to say, so conversation should flow pretty naturally.
  • Update your blog regularly! Keep people interested in your website by providing new content as often as possible.

 

In the end, if you feel good about what you are posting on your blog, share it! Once you develop your own little online community, people will be watching for your updates. It may feel a bit forced or uncomfortable at first, but practice does help.

 

 

Source: http://www.hollymariedesigns.com/promotion-social-media/

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Where and Why to Publish Short-Form Content

Smart content marketers know that constantly producing content can feel like trying to feed a beast with a nearly insatiable appetite. If long-form content like ebooks and whitepapers is a meal, then short-form content is like a snack, providing bite-sized information that’s easily digestible.

Both long- and short-form content should be part of your marketing menu, but the beauty of short-form content is that it lends itself to a variety of formats and can be repurposed into longer pieces. On top of that, short-form content can often be produced and distributed more quickly than longer pieces that require extensive planning and research.

Here are some examples of short-form content and tips on how to use them:

  • Blog posts and articles: Blog posts and articles can take a variety of forms including round-ups, reviews, or Q & As. For instance, Eloqua posted a round-up post of marketing tips from the Content2Conversion Conference in New York City earlier this year. Publish content on your own blog or provide it as a guest post with a link back to your blog or website. When posting on your own blog, make sure there’s an easy way for readers to subscribe via RSS or email so they’ll stay engaged with your content. Blog posts and articles published on your own site or elsewhere can be easily shared on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and email newsletters.
  • Curated content: Finding and sharing outside content that’s relevant for your readers helps position your brand as an industry thought leader. You could share links on social media or link to other sources on your blog with added commentary explaining why the topic is relevant to your readers. Companies in virtually every industry find curation useful. The Oregon Wine Board curates news on the state’s wine industry, including tasting events, legislation that’s applicable to growers, and more. And in its news section, Lawyers.com shares infographics, quirky news items, and other links of interest to the legal profession. Our Content Curation Look Book contains several other real world examples of companies large and small that use content curation effectively.
  • Podcasts: Not everyone wants to consume content through reading, so offering content in an audio format like a downloadable podcast lets them listen in as they’re driving, cleaning, working out, or otherwise going about their daily lives. Marketing expert Heidi Cohen lists the benefits of podcasting for content marketers, among them extending your content’s reach beyond your blog. One format that works well for podcasts is having a conversation or question and answer session with an expert guest. With the right host, a solo podcast works as well. Podcasts can be posted on your blog and made available as a free subscription through iTunes such as theContent Marketing Podcast by Rachel Parker.
  • Videos: A growing number of internet users now watch videos on their smartphones or tablets, making this a great format for relaying information to users on the go. Post videos on YouTube or Vimeo and include relevant tags and keywords so users can easily find them. Videos can also be embedded on your blog, pinned to Pinterest, posted on Facebook, and shared in a variety of other ways. KnowledgeVision posted a video of a skype interview and also weaved highlights of the video into a blog post.
  • Webinars: Webinars are a great way to drive email signups and demonstrate your value to current and prospective customers. Content for a webinar can be repurposed from other formats such as a blog post or ebook and polls or surveys completed during the webinar can provide fodder for new content pieces. Create a hashtag for your webinar and encourage attendees to tweet tidbits from the webinar to help build buzz. We hosted a content marketing webinar with Eloqua last year and wrote a blog post as a follow up to the webinar.
  • Infographics: Thanks to popularity of big data and visual platforms like Pinterest and Visual.ly, infographics are all the rage. You could create an infographic based on data your company has collected or synthesize data and other information from a variety of sources to tell a compelling story. Include your company’s logo in the infographic so that the original source is clear when it gets shared. Post your completed infographics on Pinterest and Facebook and encourage other bloggers in your niche to share the graphic with their readers.

Tell us! How have you used short-form content to build brand awareness and engage readers? Any other formats you’d add to the list above?

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Marketing Your Business On LinkedIn

 

 

 

 

 

 

LinkedIn is a very prominent social media platform for B2B and B2C marketing. Here are some unique features to utilize on LinkedIn in order to successfully market your business.

1. Company Pages

LinkedIn is a very intelligent network in that it monitors other social sites and uses features from them that will benefit its users. Company Pages for example, let LinkedIn members follow a company, then share and recommend their products and services and directly connect with business employees in their network.

A Company Page lets you use hot links to highlight products and services that link back to landing pages. You can also add in pictures and videos within the product and services section of the page. The page acts like an online brochure, and you can even offer special discounts to followers.

In order to grow your marketing reach, you should promote your Company Page by adding a button on your website and email. Company Pages are easy to set up and maintain, so take advantage of them.

2. SME Groups

LinkedIn now has over 1 million groups. These groups are becoming the most used feature on the site. However, smaller companies that are not well known may not be able to get many users to join a group they’ve created on LinkedIn.

So, the best way to market by using Groups is to begin a Subject Matter Expert (SME) group. In a group like this, you can post discussions about the latest and upcoming trends in your industry, and invite other experts to join and post their comments. Try not to post news releases from your own company in these types of groups.

Position your company to be subject matter experts and your brand will grow in the industry it represents.

3. Group Discussions

Many marketers on LinkedIn will join a group of fellow business partners and end up posting only to that group. While it is important to interact with your peers, it is important in marketing to interact with potential consumers.

Try joining groups that your customers belong to. Join the groups that you feel could be the most relevant to your company. Don’t immediately begin posting about your company’s products and services, but rather offer insight and become a group member who people can go to if they’re interested in the services you offer.

4. The Status Bar

The LinkedIn Status Bar feature is helpful in notifying the network about company news, events and blog posts. In 140 characters, the update on your Status Bar can be updated to Twitter at the same time. Any person in your network can view your posts on the Status Bar and share, like or comment on them.

5. Answers

With the LinkedIn Answers feature, you can ask a question and promote that question within your network. You can even email a link to that question. Pose questions that let you market your business in a subtle way and it will help increase your network reach.

This feature lets you respond and comment to your own question, and interact and communicate with those who answer privately.

It is very valuable to learn the features of LinkedIn, as the site can be a great marketing tool for almost any business. Utilize these features on your LinkedIn account today and boost your social media success.

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Marketing Your Business On LinkedIn

morethanmarketing

 

 

 

 

 

LinkedIn is a very prominent social media platform for B2B and B2C marketing. Here are some unique features to utilize on LinkedIn in order to successfully market your business.

1. Company Pages

LinkedIn is a very intelligent network in that it monitors other social sites and uses features from them that will benefit its users. Company Pages for example, let LinkedIn members follow a company, then share and recommend their products and services and directly connect with business employees in their network.

A Company Page lets you use hot links to highlight products and services that link back to landing pages. You can also add in pictures and videos within the product and services section of the page. The page acts like an online brochure, and you can even offer special discounts to followers.

In order to grow your marketing reach, you should promote your Company Page by adding a button on your website and email. Company Pages are easy to set up and maintain, so take advantage of them.

2. SME Groups

LinkedIn now has over 1 million groups. These groups are becoming the most used feature on the site. However, smaller companies that are not well known may not be able to get many users to join a group they’ve created on LinkedIn.

So, the best way to market by using Groups is to begin a Subject Matter Expert (SME) group. In a group like this, you can post discussions about the latest and upcoming trends in your industry, and invite other experts to join and post their comments. Try not to post news releases from your own company in these types of groups.

Position your company to be subject matter experts and your brand will grow in the industry it represents.

3. Group Discussions

Many marketers on LinkedIn will join a group of fellow business partners and end up posting only to that group. While it is important to interact with your peers, it is important in marketing to interact with potential consumers.

Try joining groups that your customers belong to. Join the groups that you feel could be the most relevant to your company. Don’t immediately begin posting about your company’s products and services, but rather offer insight and become a group member who people can go to if they’re interested in the services you offer.

4. The Status Bar

The LinkedIn Status Bar feature is helpful in notifying the network about company news, events and blog posts. In 140 characters, the update on your Status Bar can be updated to Twitter at the same time. Any person in your network can view your posts on the Status Bar and share, like or comment on them.

5. Answers

With the LinkedIn Answers feature, you can ask a question and promote that question within your network. You can even email a link to that question. Pose questions that let you market your business in a subtle way and it will help increase your network reach.

This feature lets you respond and comment to your own question, and interact and communicate with those who answer privately.

It is very valuable to learn the features of LinkedIn, as the site can be a great marketing tool for almost any business. Utilize these features on your LinkedIn account today and boost your social media success.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Twitter Marketing Strategies That Work

 

 

 

 

 

Twitter is one of the most important sites to use in any Internet marketing campaign. To strengthen your Internet marketing, it is crucial to understand the latest and greatest strategies to use in your marketing campaigns, especially those that work for Twitter. To stay ahead of the Internet marketing game, use these tips on your Twitter account regularly.

1. Focus On What’s Important

A major problem social media marketers might run into is not being focused and precise. You must keep in mind that your followers like your brand and want to read your updates because they are in your target market and are interested in the topics you tweet about.

Don’t tweet mindlessly; tweet about the things you know your consumers are interested in and the things that complement what your brand represents. Having targeted, precise tweets will keep your brand focused on reaching those who are most interested in what you have to offer.

2. Be A Professional

On Twitter, being able to write snappy headlines is key. You only get 140 characters to tweet, so it better be meaningful and interesting in order to excite followers. Your content should be quality and attention grabbing, so that traffic to your site will continue to grow.

Don’t worry about how many followers you have. It’s better to have a fewer number of followers that are followers who are clearly in your target market. Your tweets should address those real customers who enjoy visiting your site and are likely to retweet your posts, which will then lead to new consumers who also share the same interests.

3. Communicate With Your Followers

Remember, Twitter is a SOCIAL media; therefore you must be social for it to work for your company. Twitter is about connecting, sharing and communicating. If you interact with your followers, you will get to know them better and as a result, you will be able to create tweets that you know your followers will be interested in and appreciate.

Start commenting and asking questions to your followers about things that are relevant to your brand, and that you know they’re interested in. Then take it a step further and try interacting with your followers’ followers as well, so you give your brand more exposure to others who could become potential customers.

These tips are easy ways to help make the most out of your Twitter account. They must be part of your Internet marketing campaign in order to see results. Twitter is hugely important in increasing traffic, so use it efficiently and your campaign will be successful!

 

 

 

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Marketing With Pinterest

 

 

The social media site Pinterest has over 11.7 million visitors a month now, and about 17.8 million registered users! It has become one of the most popular social media sites for a few main reasons.

The visually appealing aspect of the site draws in viewers and keeps their attention. The fact that users sign into the site using their Facebook or Twitter account allows them to be automatically integrated into their existing social network sites. So, sharing across social media sites is already built into Pinterest. The site has a clean and simple interface, so people are able to use it easily, with little confusion.

However, compared to other leading social media sites, Pinterest does not offer as many discovery methods. It can take a little effort to trace a pin to the user who initially pinned it, making it somewhat harder to directly engage with fellow users. Pinterest also does not yet have a way of recommending or directing pinners to other pinners or boards based on activity. This can be a little inconvenient for brands trying to build and grow an audience.

Another key aspect of Pinterest is that its demographics are quite unique compared to those of Twitter or Facebook. Half of all Pinterest users are parents, and 68.2% are women. Facebook and Twitter have a more evenly split gendered audience. This means that for brands with a predominately female target market, Pinterest might be the best sight to utilize to engage with fans.

For companies who have passionate followers across several platforms, like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, you can bet that those followers will also engage with your brand on Pinterest. Pinterest can be a great site to engage on a personal level with followers because you share your own, personal interests with your users. While the site clearly helps build relationships, it is not so efficient in “selling” products to followers. But, remember that engaging, not selling, is the ultimate goal of social media!

Pinterest is also a great platform in terms of sharing. You can easily post pictures from your own site, or pin images from other sites. A “Pin It” button can be installed on the Safari browser, making sharing images and information across the web easier than ever. You can also place a Pinterest button that links to your Pinterest account on your website or blog. Facebook even allows you to add a Pinterest tab onto your timeline.

The fact that fans can pin your images onto their own boards is another way that fans engage directly with your brand. You can use the “Pin It” button next to images on websites that you would like to share with your fans. This provides a chance to make viral connections, as followers of your fans will see their pins.

Additionally, there are a few apps available to help you to build a community on Pinterest. The app, Shareasimage, converts text found on the web into an image that can be shared on Pinterest. The app also works for Facebook and Twitter. Another app, Url2pin.it, lets users “screenshot” a picture of a website then share it on Pinterest. This could be a great way to share interesting sites with your fans, or it could be used as a promotional tool for your own site.

Pinterest is a site that truly models the purpose of social media: to be social! The site does not sell; it shares. Sharing with your consumers is how you must market with social media in order to gain brand loyalty and expand your fan base!

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Marketing With Pinterest

 

 

The social media site Pinterest has over 11.7 million visitors a month now, and about 17.8 million registered users! It has become one of the most popular social media sites for a few main reasons.

The visually appealing aspect of the site draws in viewers and keeps their attention. The fact that users sign into the site using their Facebook or Twitter account allows them to be automatically integrated into their existing social network sites. So, sharing across social media sites is already built into Pinterest. The site has a clean and simple interface, so people are able to use it easily, with little confusion.

However, compared to other leading social media sites, Pinterest does not offer as many discovery methods. It can take a little effort to trace a pin to the user who initially pinned it, making it somewhat harder to directly engage with fellow users. Pinterest also does not yet have a way of recommending or directing pinners to other pinners or boards based on activity. This can be a little inconvenient for brands trying to build and grow an audience.

Another key aspect of Pinterest is that its demographics are quite unique compared to those of Twitter or Facebook. Half of all Pinterest users are parents, and 68.2% are women. Facebook and Twitter have a more evenly split gendered audience. This means that for brands with a predominately female target market, Pinterest might be the best sight to utilize to engage with fans.

For companies who have passionate followers across several platforms, like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, you can bet that those followers will also engage with your brand on Pinterest. Pinterest can be a great site to engage on a personal level with followers because you share your own, personal interests with your users. While the site clearly helps build relationships, it is not so efficient in “selling” products to followers. But, remember that engaging, not selling, is the ultimate goal of social media!

Pinterest is also a great platform in terms of sharing. You can easily post pictures from your own site, or pin images from other sites. A “Pin It” button can be installed on the Safari browser, making sharing images and information across the web easier than ever. You can also place a Pinterest button that links to your Pinterest account on your website or blog. Facebook even allows you to add a Pinterest tab onto your timeline.

The fact that fans can pin your images onto their own boards is another way that fans engage directly with your brand. You can use the “Pin It” button next to images on websites that you would like to share with your fans. This provides a chance to make viral connections, as followers of your fans will see their pins.

Additionally, there are a few apps available to help you to build a community on Pinterest. The app, Shareasimage, converts text found on the web into an image that can be shared on Pinterest. The app also works for Facebook and Twitter. Another app, Url2pin.it, lets users “screenshot” a picture of a website then share it on Pinterest. This could be a great way to share interesting sites with your fans, or it could be used as a promotional tool for your own site.

Pinterest is a site that truly models the purpose of social media: to be social! The site does not sell; it shares. Sharing with your consumers is how you must market with social media in order to gain brand loyalty and expand your fan base!

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Using Hubspot to Measure Your Social Media Marketing

How to Use Your Values to Create Exceptional Content for Your Business

 

 

 

 

 

Hubspot, an inbound marketing company based in Boston, has developed a comprehensive suite of marketing automation software tools to assist companies in managing their online marketing efforts efficiently.

Hubspot provides an all-in-one solution to connect your business to prospective consumers who may be interested in your product or service, helps drive leads, and ultimately increases sales. By creating multiple tools to integrate your online marketing with your social media, Hubspot is making company’s online experience easier than ever.

The helpful analytic tools that Hubspot provides users with lets companies measure the results of their online marketing AND social media marketing-one of the unique benefits to Hubspot.

Many businesses are new to social media and are just starting to realize the importance of the tool in online marketing. And because social media is a digital medium, it is very easily measurable.

There are several major marketing analytic tools to use on your social media accounts. Important analytics include measuring your social media reach, how your audience views your brand, how much traffic your social media is driving, as well as the number of sales and leads your traffic is generating.

You can use Hubspot to measure these important metrics so you can effectively measure your social media marketing efforts.

1. Social Media Reach

The larger your social media audience, the greater your social media reach. That is why it’s critical to track the number of people on your social media channels who are engaging with your brand. If your company has a broad social reach, you will be able to pump up your brand’s content and messaging.

You can measure all the various interactions among all your social media channels with Hubspot’s software, from your YouTube video views, to you’re your Facebook “Likes” and blog comments. Then, this data is integrated into real-time graphs that you can download into Excel.

You will find how to modify your content in order to reach your target audience by analyzing your social media reach.

2. Social Media Traffic

One of the main reasons companies use social media marketing is to drive traffic to their website. This leads to generating more visitors, leads and sales.

You can track the percentage of visitors to your sites that come from your social media channels with Hubspot’s software, which records the referring sources within your web analytics platform.

3. Social Media Conversions

Conversion is the ultimate goal of social media. Hubspot’s platform lets you analyze the percentage of visitors from your social media sites that convert to leads and sales. This tool is completely necessary when measuring your social media’s overall value.

Track visitor-to-customer, visitor-to-lead, and lead-to-customer conversion rates across all of your social media platforms then compare it to your conversion metrics from your other marketing channels. This allows you to accurately measure your social media ROI. Give Hubspot’s software a try and if its analytic program is right for your business!

 

 

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Successful Mobile Marketing With The Right Software

 

 

 

 

In today’s fast-paced lifestyle, mobile marketing is becoming more valuable. Mobile marketing is a great tool for businesses to get in to, however lots of businesses are not using mobile marketing in the most efficient way, just yet. You must go into mobile marketing with strong mobile marketing software so you can see what how it works, and what is working.

Here are some key tasks your mobile marketing software should do.

1. Segment Your Subscriber Base

A very useful way to segment your subscribers is by interests and location. This is especially useful if your company has lots of locations or offers a wide range of products and services.

To effectively segment your lists, use a short code service and make different keywords for each promotion type or location. This engages your customers with the promotion or location they’re interested in, and they will end up automatically segmenting themselves. Then, you can use this information to share location based offers, events and promotions with those consumers.

Additionally, the segmentation of your Facebook opt-ins from your site opt-ins will become more crucial as mobile signups are becoming more relevant and mobile forms are starting to include more marketing platforms. You will be able to give out the same offers to each group so you can then look for differences in conversions, response rates, and long-term customer value based on origin. Over time, your marketing campaigns will become more targeted and you will have greater ROI.

2. Integrate Your Social Media

Social media marketing is a great way to inform leads about your mobile offers/list and carry them further into your business’s growth and success.

Different social media platforms bring in leads with different and unique qualities to them. To figure out which are best, you need mobile marketing software that uses list segmentation along with the proper analytics and tracking tools. Within any business, cross channel integration is becoming increasingly essential. And with digital marking software becoming increasingly intelligent, its performance will improve in near real time. But you must get involved ASAP so you’re business can grow with this technology.

3. Tracking

To help you understand how to create an overall more profitable marketing campaign, use mobile marketing software that will track your data across every marketing channel, including email marketing, social media marketing, blogging platforms, SMS, applications, mobile and others.

It is vital that you are able to see how your mobile marketing efforts are working together with your cross channel marketing efforts. Use the Internet to drive people to your SMS lists. And be sure that you’re not only tracking your results, but are also interpreting those results!

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