I love this article about How to Find Your Social Media Stride. From Social Media Today. So many people forget that social media isn’t about posting as many status updates as possible on as many platforms as you can, regardless of who you’re talking to or what you do (or don’t) have to say. It’s about sharing meaningful information with people who care in places that they like to receive that information.
Check it out and tell me how you’re training for this marathon.
Like the idea of #FollowFriday, but confused about how it works? Here’s a great article from Mashable about #FollowFriday and how you can join in on the trend.
Ever get overwhelmed with all of the social media sites available? You’re not alone. This infographic is a great resource. It provides an overview of the main social media sites, their pros and cons, key features, and how to get started with each. Very helpful, indeed.
Just make sure you have a strategy first and that you’re NOT using them all the same way. The biggest mistake I see made in social media land is posting random comments and pushing them out to as many social platforms as possible. Just think about it. If you followed you, would you really want to read the same boring status update on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn? Probably not. Remember that you’re writing for a target reader. Keep it about them, not you, and use each social outlet according to the target that follows you there.
Enjoy the infographic!
“The goal is not to work with people who need what you have. The goal is to work with people who believe what you believe.” – Simon Sinek
This is a really great video for anyone in marketing, sales or business leadership. It’s a good reminder of how we should all be thinking about our products and services.
Those of you who know me, or who may have been following my posts know that I am a Google fan. I have been a supporter of Google+ since its launch and am happy to see that it is gaining success among big brands. That’s why I was so excited to see this article, which explains that Google+ is growing in popularity among top brands.
According to research conducted by BrightEdge Technologies, 77% of the Top 100 global brands had a Google+ page as of December 19. This is a 16% in just one month!
By contrast, 93% of the Top 100 brands now have a Facebook page.
What do you think about Google+? Are you a fan, too?
With the end of the year fast approaching, many marketers are beginning to think about how they will report the results of campaigns and strategies they’ve been working so hard to implement all year. We all know that measurement is critical, but when it comes to new and emerging media, what do you measure and how?
If you’re like a lot of marketers, you may be tempted to measure success in hits to your website, Twitter followers, Facebook “Likes”, click through rates of your banner ads and open rates of your email blasts. All of these metrics are great and help us understand trends and growth in awareness of our brand. However, they probably aren’t enough.
As Ogilvy & Mather’s Senior Vice President of Digital/Social Strategy, Irfan Kamal, put it in an interview with eMarketer, “The metrics that are easy to measure are the ones that end up getting measured, vs. the ones that really would be useful in understanding business impact.”
Kamal says that in addition to these easily measured stats, we should also be taking a step back to understand the value each of our marketing tactics are bringing to the company.
Here is a model created by Industry Analyst Susan Etlinger of Altimeter Group. She calls it the Social Media Measurement Compass. It’s an interesting perspective on how to take a step back from your social media tactics to see how they are impacting the bigger picture of marketing for your organization. I like it as a reminder for what aspects to keep in mind when implementing social media efforts. What do you think?
It is so easy to jump to easily-measured metrics when trying to prove the effectiveness of your social marketing and emerging media efforts. However, your work is most likely to pay off if you take time to look at how it all comes together to benefit the business as a whole.
Says Kamal, “One of the next horizons we see is that with better measurement you can really understand how to create incredibly impactful programs that not only acquire fans and followers and customer advocates, but also engage them in a way that drives value.”
So how are you measuring your new and emerging media efforts? What has worked for you and what hasn’t?
I recently came across a great infographic created by Voltier Digital for ScottMonty.com about the five companies that are leading the way in social media marketing.
I didn’t expect to see the companies that were called out in the article. Did you?
I was most surprised by, well, the winner of the Surprise category, Morton’s. Who knew that a steakhouse would be a social media innovator? As the infographic explains, it all started when a traveler jokingly tweeted that Morton’s should meet him at the airport with a porterhouse steak. Morton’s didn’t think it was funny. They were waiting for the man with a lovely steak upon his arrival. The exceptional service and social media stunt was covered by the Huffington Post, CBSNews, Forbes and more.
And Morton’s chose to serve wisely. The lucky tweeter was social media consultant Peter Shankman. He posted about the experience on his social media blog in an entry entitled “The Greatest Customer Service Story Ever Told, Starring Morton’s Steakhouse” Here’s an exerpt from that post:
“Morton’s Hackensack is 23.5 miles away from EWR, according to Google Maps. That meant that in just under three hours, someone at Morton’s Corporate had to see my tweet, get authorization to do this stunt, get in touch with Morton’s Hackensack, and place the order. Then Morton’s Hackensack had to cook the order, get it boxed up, and get a server to get in his car, and drive to Newark Airport (never an easy task, no matter where you’re coming from) then, (and this is the part the continues to blow me away,) while all this was happening, track down my flight, where I was landing, and be there when I walked out of security!”
That’s service. That’s social. That’s good business. It goes to show that good service really can pay off!
Obviously, we’re all experiencing the increased adoption of various forms of emerging media. More and more companies seem to be engaging customers through social media, blogs, interactive websites, online advertising and webinars. Emerging media is everywhere!
…or is it? Just how much of this new media is your company using?
If you’re like the majority of today’s marketers, you’re seeing the rise in emerging media, but you’re probably not using it yourself, at least not on behalf of your company.
Rcently published research from branding firm Mechanica and Fast Company found that many marketers see the growth of emerging media and it’s impact on the marketing industry as a whole. However, most of us are not actually using a lot of this new media in our professional roles.
As you can see from the chart below, which represents the finding of this research, while 70% of those surveyed said “the rise of social media” has an impact on the marketing world, only 49% of them said it had an impact on their own organization.
An article analyzing the results of this research says that the gap may be do to a perceived lack of results from new and emerging media. There seems to be a sentiment among marketers that there is little to gain from investing time and money into Twitter, Facebook or blogging. Sure, it’s interesting, but will it make people more likely to buy? If so, how do you track it? Says the article’s author, “while most marketers are not ready to say they don’t work at all, the proof that they do is not yet there.”
This is a good point. There is value in emerging media and many companies are already beginning to see the returns on their investments of time and money into emerging media. How do they do it? They know have a strategy, complete with measurable goals and objectives. According to Erik Deckers, of No Bulls**t Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide To Social Media Marketing, a popular marketing blogger at SocialMediaExplorer.com, to be successful with social media, you must know what you are trying to accomplish before you get started. When interviewed recently by Forbes, Deckers said, “If you don’t know where you’re trying to go, you can’t measure how far you’ve gotten. Lots of companies come to the table and have a blog, Facebook page and Twitter account because their competition does, or it’s the hot new thing or they want to be ‘social’ and not get left behind. None of those are reasons anchored in a strategic business goal or purpose. If you’re in it to make money, fine. But have that goal, build your strategies and activities to ladder up to that goal and then track to see if you’re meeting expectations.”
So, are you feeling it? Does your company use various forms of emerging media? Tell me what you’re doing to keep up AND measure your results!
Did you know there is a specific time of day and a specific day of the week that are particularly good for sharing? Yes, it’s true. So when does the magic happen? Peak sharing occurs at 9:30am EST and the most popular day of the week for sharing is Wednesday. See for yourself!
Pretty interesting, right?
Now, why do you think that is? Personally, I think that 9:30am EST is so common because it is also 8:30am CST, 7:30am MST, and 6:30 PST. Most of the country is in the midst of their morning routine. We’re waking up, getting ready for the day, commuting to work, getting settled into the office, etc. Many of us spend some time during our morning rituals checking in with the world. We check our emails, read articles that pop up on our Google Desktops and RSS feeds, click around in Facebook, scan our favorite blogs and see what’s happening for the day. Then, we share.
So, does this mean Americans really are are morning people?
Now, WHERE are we doing our sharing? According to the graphic below, Twitter is the clear leader.
Twitter leads social sharing
According to Unruly Media, from its inception until now, shares via Twitter grew an astounding 35,356%. This was more than six times the 5,809% growth in Facebook Likes.
Leave a comment and let me know when and where you’re most likely to share!
I love, love, love this article I just read about how a local coffee shop owner used social media savvy and a little spunk to compete with Starbucks. In summary, the article tells the story of a small coffee shop that began using Twitter to communicate with customers, meet their needs directly, promote the business and, as a result, chalk-up a big win against the coffee giant Starbucks. I won’t retell the entire story in this post, but I highly suggest you read the article, especially if you have a special place in your heart for small businesses like I do. …or if you just don’t like Starbucks.
The moral of the story is that small businesses, if they are true to themselves and really know who they are and what they do best, CAN compete with the big guys. The advantage small businesses have is the ability to be nimble and personal in their communications with customers. In the article mentioned above, the little-coffee-shop-that-could, Groundz, was able to not only Tweet about promotions and specials. They could also reply directly to customer Tweets and be responsive to their requests. Starbucks couldn’t do that. There’s no possible way Starbucks could respond to even a small percentage of the Tweets to and about them. In fact, in this article, the owner of the Starbucks near Groundz couldn’t even put up a fight against the success Groundz was acheiving because, as the article put it, “He could not tweet back in competition, because Starbucks, being big and branded, controls what is tweeted and those tweets go out of headquarters in Seattle rather than coffee shops in Houston. Starbucks is too big to respond to a local move.”
Small businesses are really beginning to leverage social media, which is great. According to three years of industry surveys conducted by Social Media Examiner, social media has moved from an “uncertain strategy” in 2009 to a “permanent fixture” in 2010 and is finally considered a “primary tool” in 2011. This year’s survey revealed that almost 90% of small business owners and self-employed professionals strongly agreed that no one has benefitted more from social media than small businesses.
As someone who has worked for several small businesses and personally prefers to buy from small businesses, this is what I love to see. How about you?
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