Pandora current song: Just a Dream, Nelly
What is social media?
Social media has infiltrated our lives and taken over the way we communicate information. It has become grossly popular with highly accessible techniques and spread virally through multiple channels at once. It’s free, extremely easy to use, and it’s reach is endless. It’s completely revolutionizing the way we do business. Free, easy, endless. You can’t beat that.
We as consumers are starting to genuinely trust third-party content far more than corporate-produced content. This means we look to other consumers for their advice more than going to a corporate website for their highly sculpted, one-sided story. Social media is “people-powered advertising.” Real people transforming real messages to other real people. It “seems” less invasive and more acceptable. The old saying “keep personal out of business” is long gone. We are naturally social butterflies and want people to enjoy and experience what we like and love. But the social interaction comes as a multi-way street with endless means to spread the word whether it’s Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, blogging, Twitter, or any other social sharing. Social media can interlock everything we do, so be careful how you use it.
How can brands and organizations use social media?
Social media is easy if you know how to dive in. For others, it can be an incredibly daunting task to even know where to begin or how to use it well. “We are everywhere, but don't know what we’re doing.” First of all, you need to know your consumers and you need to know them specifically. You could have one set of consumers who are highly social interacting with every social media in the book. For others, not so much. Know who you’re trying to target.
There are a series of platforms.
- Video is the MOST USED content form. Find a way to use video, especially short, content loaded clips in any way you can.
- Blogs and consumer reports are more detailed with their content.
- Microblogging
- Video sharing (YouTube), Social networks (Facebook), Social games (WOW, Farmville), Photo sharing (Flickr)
Let's put it into perspective. Facebook is the most widely known and used so I’ll use it as an example. There are over 500 million ACTIVE users as of October 2010. Facebook’s size doubles every six months, and if Facebook were a country, it would be the third populous country behind China and India. In August, people spent 41.1 million minutes on Facebook, accounting for 9.9 percent of the total number of minutes they spent online for the month (CNET). Facebook gets more hits than Google, and that’s saying something. If you aren’t using Facebook in some way shape or form, you’re missing out.
- For updated stats, go to: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
- PC World’s Facebook Fun Facts 2010 http://www.pcworld.com/article/201650/facebooks_half_billion_users_fun_facts.html?tk=hp_blg
What you need to do is develop a presence and integrate the channels within social media, but also within your marketing mix. If you have a Facebook page, include your other websites on the Info Tab so people can easily maneuver within your brand scope. “Cross pollination” is so important. The pictures, layout, fonts, ideas all need to emulate your brand and all need to have the same resemblance. Make sure you consider updates and content worthy of sharing. If you know your readers won’t care, don’t post it. You’ll also need to determine how to monitor and maintain the content across the channels. Who’s going to post? Who’s going to scan the web? Who’s going to organize the content?
Get a widget. A widget box is something you can create that others can post to their webpage or home page that will automatically update whenever you post something new. The challenge isn’t creating a widget box, but creating content people care enough about they want to know when you have something new to say.
The real success of social media is to create value for users to rally as a community.
- Contests, for example.
- Kohl’s cares
- Susan G Komen for the Cure - Running events
- Ford Fiesta movement
- 100 agents who video blogged about their experience. Ford’s social networks talked about it virally.
- Vote and share
- My Starbucks idea. Weirdly loyal customers.
- Let consumers be active with your product.
- Create a new community
- Create a movement, University recruiters for example
- Video during classes
- Engage. Students engaging with potential students
- Photos. Videos. Blogs.
As a consumer, if we find something even remotely interesting, we are are able to share it. As a business person, that is great news. Now you need to go out and make things quick, easy, conversational and interesting. Create a drive for content distribution where the value and channel are interchangeable. Each channel (i.e. Blogging, Twitter, Flickr) have different values as well.
The nice part about most social networking is that you have the ability to edit or secure what’s being said, especially on your company facebook page or twitter feed.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, social media has reach unlike any other medium, drives the connection with customers, ability to manage reputation and enhances the overall value of your product.
The hard part is socially analyzing other channels, especially those who negatively blog and react to your product. You’ll need to take the time to listen, participate and understand what’s being said about your company and their topics of interest. Find your key influencers and utilize them as brand evangelists. Best example: Kmart! They went out and found five negative bloggers with many followers and reached out to them. Kmart gave them items from their store and asked the bloggers to write about them honestly. The bloggers ended up changing their social voice to positive gaining Kmart a higher positive share of voice in their consumer market.
Is it good to be transparent?
Third party reviews are very powerful. Whether credible or not, they are still very powerful. If you create a forum for people to speak, you’ll be able to have some editing power, but be careful. If you completely wipe someone off the charts, they’ll band together with their posses and throw you under 100 buses. If you can interact with your consumers personally, they will appreciate your time and efforts which could give you a positive rating in your overall consumers’ eyes.
- Guidelines to participate
- Take part in forums as an individual not corporation
- Don't feel the need to defend unless correcting the untruth.
- Its OK to reach out to blogger personally. Use email and specifics.
- Who I am? What's interesting to them?
- Social media analysis tools
- Technorati: Blog search and post search with authority ranking.
- Socialmention.com: Real time social media search and analysis
- Icerocket: Social media snapshot
- Quantcast: Measurement and organization of the world’s audience in real-time
A Quick Response (QR) code is a two-dimensional code that can be scanned by smartphone cameras to automatically pull up text, photos, videos, music and URLs. I first learned about them from Advertising Age Magazine while I was creating a ad campaign for my capstone final project at Washington State University. It has been slow to the market but have become mobile-friendly to point people in the offline space to somewhere on the online space. The interactivity of a product to somewhere online. Not everyone understands the technology yet so don’t waste your whole media budget on QR codes, but it could be somewhere in your media scope.
- Uses for QR Codes
- On business cards: Direct new contacts to your resume, Facebook page, and business website.
- On marketing materials: Place your QR code on all your materials, brochures, programs, handouts, restaurant napkins, coffee sleeves, and countless amounts of other potential materials in your media kit. Direct to how-to videos, follow you on Twitter, add on Facebook, promote a new campaign, or create a new consumer community.
- For freebies: Get people excited about your QR codes with coupons, discounts, and freebies. Reward those who scan it with something good, then redirect them to your website.
Even small town companies can start using QR codes. Many people have smart phones these days. Why not start using them to interact with your company by simply taking a picture.
If you have questions, send them my way!
Socially and boldly challenging status quo!
Pandora current song: Paradise Circus, Massive Attack
If you have questions, send them my way!
Socially and boldly challenging status quo!
Pandora current song: Paradise Circus, Massive Attack
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