2 Signs Your Social Media Will Fail
Everywhere you look, you’re told to get on social media because “it’s a great way to market your business”. This is true, however most don’t understand why they’re doing it or what to expect from it. The truth is, success in social media is challenging. Most businesses don’t succeed due to failure to plan and execute. Here are our top 2 signs that you’re on a fast track to social media failure, with tips on how to avoid it: Warning Sign #1: You have unrealistic expectations One of the most widely held assumptions is all social media is viral. Companies launch into social media expecting to be met with likes, followers and comments en masse. When this doesn’t happen, most businesses give up. However, social media is no overnight miracle worker. if your company is just starting out with no online presence, you have to commit to long-term participation before you start seeing a return on your time investment. You need to be realistic in terms of...
4 Ways to Generate B2B Leads Through Social Media
B2B social media is on the rise, connecting businesses to prospective clients and providing value to current clients. However, despite its relationship-building benefits, many businesses have trouble converting social media interactions to leads and sales, and proving their social media programs are contributing to business revenues. According to a White Horse marketing survey, 86% of B2B firms are using social media, compared to 82% of B2C firms. However, B2B firms aren't as active in their social media activity - only 32% engage on a daily basis, compared with 52% of B2C firms. In addition, a BtoB Magazine survey found that 59% view lead generation as their greatest online marketing channel. But, it doesn’t have to be difficult. So, how do you make social media an efficient, cost-effective channel for finding new customers and clients online? Step 1: Consider Your Staff, Channels and Customers To ensure your business or brand is maximising social media for lead generation, you need a dedicated social media team or group who can plan, create, monitor and measure on a daily basis to ensure your social media presence is timely and relevant to the ta...
Marketers Guide to Facebook Timeline for Brands
Within the next month, everything you know about Facebook Fan Pages will change. Facebook Timeline for Brands is now being rolled out, and will be the default by March 30. It’s different to what you’re used to, with the demise of popular features including the famed default landing tab, but with all new layout, marketing and administration features to take advantage of. Read on to discover the new changes, and best marketing practises for brands transitioning to the new fan page format. LAYOUT: COVER PHOTO AND CHRONOLOGICAL TIMELINE Facebook Timeline for Brands is similar to Timeline for personal profiles, focusing on the past as much as the present. This feature presents an opportunity for brands to emphasize chapters in their history that are relevant and interesting to fans. Did you know American Express began as a courier service in the late 19th century? Or that Coca Cola was invented as a treatment for headaches? Sharing a brand’s back story - right back to it’s humble beginnings - stimulates conversation, and helps humanise a faceless business. Go through your company’s history and mark milestones (business founded, product launched, store openings, new staff) to construct a narrative for your audience. Accompany your milestones with images for full effect. For example, Ben & Jerry marked the introduction of "More Fantastic Flavours" as a milestone in 1999. When users navigate via the timeline sidebar, they can view key events throughout t...
Google Social Search: Time to Rethink Your Strategy
If you thought Google Plus was going to fail, think again. Google has made a big move into the social space with Google Search Plus Your World, which transforms Google “into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships”. This is the Googleverse, after all. But what does this change mean for your social and SEO strategy? Read on to find out. What is Search Plus Your World? Google Search Plus Your World is the integration of Google Plus with Google Search. When you’re logged into Google Plus, the new social search algorithm returns “more relevant” results by aggregating data from your network - such as people in your circles and the pages they have recommended - and bumping these personalised results to the top of the search results page. Google calls this access “your web”, because “you should be able to f...
News Feed Optimization, Be Noticed on Facebook
Facebook, the best known and most widely adopted social network, is a crowded place. So crowded, that the average fan page status update only reaches 7.5% of it’s fan base. 70-90% of your fans will never see your status updates because Facebook categorises content with an algorithm to hide content that it assumes users won’t want to see. If a user has never visited your fan page or interacted with you, he or she won’t see any new content you publish. If a fan has commented once or twice, they might see one third of your new status updates. However, to get the most out of Facebook, you want all, or at least most of your status updates to be visible in your fan’s streams. In this blog, we’ll break down Facebook’s EdgeRank Algorithm to show you how to beat it. Let’s start with some definitions The EdgeRank Algorithm is relatively straight foward. A status update is called an Object. When a user interacts with an Object, they create an Edge (i.e. like, comment, share). To find an object&rsqu...
Social SEO, Integrating Social Media and Search
To stay relevant in 2012, we’re moving toward a more focused and cohesive approach to social media; one that intersects social media marketing and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to create Social SEO. In a nutshell, it involves optimizing your social presence for search engines, effectively killing two birds with one stone. But how are they related? The social web and search engines are becoming increasingly linked, as Bing and Google’s search algorithms advance with how we use the Web. Social networks, in particular, produce an immense amount of data. In this way, linking to and from social networks is influencing a URL’s ranking in search results. Therefore, any digital content shared on social networks is an opportunity for optimizing your visibility in search engines. Take Blendtec for example. The brand’s “Will It Blend” YouTube series has attracted thousands of links on Facebook and Twitter, resulting in a top ten ranking on Google for the word ‘blender’. ...
F-commerce, the future of online shopping
Forget e-commerce, F-commerce (a.k.a Facebook commerce) is the next frontier in social shopping. A recent report found that on average, 50.8% of traffic was logged into a Facebook plugin while shopping online. Other studies have found that 56% of Facebook users have clicked through to a retailer’s website because of a status update, and 35% of shoppers say they would be likely to buy a product directly from Facebook. These findings hint at the potential for e-retailers to integrate with Facebook to create even more personal and participatory shopping experiences. And with more than 800 million active users on Facebook, it makes perfect sense. At present, Facebook is being utilised to inform and influence purchase behaviour by keeping fans in the know about product offerings, promotions, exclusive offers and sales. But, what if the user didn’t have to leave Facebook to browse a store and make a purchase? This is f-commerce, and it might be closer than you think Facebook has subtly hinted at their pl...
SMM vs. SMO, What's the Difference?
Social networks are growing exponentially, carrying millions of conversations and social interactions and presenting a huge opportunity to increase your brand or business’ exposure. But, this growth means that the online realm is becoming more saturated with media messages and more complex to navigate. Newfangled approaches like gamification, QR Codes and NFC technology are springing up to capture user interest, but often the best approach is to pare your strategy back to the basics - findability and content (which have never been more important). These two concepts are reflected in Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Social Media Optimisation (SMO), two terms used interchangeably to describe marketing through social media. However, SMM and SMO do not mean the same thing, ...
Movember: Using Social Media for Social Good
November (or should we say Movember) has crept up on us again, heralding the month-long charity event of ‘mo growing - where men donate their upper lip to raise money for men’s health issues, including prostrate cancer and depression. Registered “Mo Bros” start out on November 1 with a clean-shaven face and spend the month growing, flowing and showing a ‘stache for the benefit of charity. Movember has now grown to a worldwide movement, experiencing unprecedented growth in levels of support year by year. In 2010, registrations doubled to 447,486 and $61,806,647.00 was raised - an outstanding result for a charity group that originated in Melbourne, Australia. But how? In the good old days (before 2003, remember then?) nonprofits would raise money by door knocking, selling baked goods and soliciting monetary support from our neighbours. However, the advent of Face...
Qantas Grounding: Managing A Social Media Crisis
Social media erupted over the weekend after Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce grounded the entire Qantas fleet in response to the dramatic escalation of industrial action, stranding 68,000 passengers across the globe. The decision sparked a deluge of criticism and confusion on social media, as parody Twitter accounts including @AlanJoyceCEO sprung up, #qantasfail went viral, and the official Facebook page was overrun with users seeking information and venting their frustration. Admist the Twitter mayhem, frustrated Qantas customers even mistakenly tweeted @alanjoyce - an unsuspecting American university student. Now that Qantas is back in the air, it’s copping criticism for the way in which it handled its social media response, which is being branded “mechanical” and “impersonal”. One professional even went so far as to say Qantas will “never be the same again”. The issue is that while passengers weighed in on the debacle in the social media arena, Qantas went against the grain of it’s customer service strategy by adopting a one-way communication approach and leaving complaints and questions u...
