Posted by J-P De Clerck on Thu, Sep 02, 2010
A seemingly minor aspect of the social media marketing plan is drafting a social media policy and training your employees.
First, why do you draft such a policy?
Partially, because you can use it as a public message to share with customers, partners, etc., explaining how you commit yourself to listen to them and be an ‘open’, sharing, 'human' and social company that wants to engage in conversations with its customers.
By communicating it, you are in fact interacting with your customers and other people in the social and online influence sphere of your brand.
But of course social media policies also are drafted as guidelines for your employees. That might include some rules but don’t see them as strict "laws" that suffocate your employees. Don't let your fear for a "negative reputation" get you locked up in a defensive social media policy approach.
Besides, your employees use social media anyway, for personal reasons. My best experiences with brands online were not with the official representatives but with people working for these brands. Actually, I found out where they worked in their Twitter profile, after having connected with them. They were, without ever knowing it, the best ambassadors for their brand because they were real, interesting and fun. This reflected on the brand they worked for.
People define your brand
This is important because in the end your company and your brand are not what you want them to be: they are what the people within your company, in the ecosystem around your business, including obviously your customers, make it.
This is why having some kind of social media policy is important: your employees are the first "faces" of an online and social brand. And a brand can not be open, social and participating if it doesn't have that culture internally.
If you draft such a policy, you shouldn’t focus too much on what employees cannot do. On the contrary: focus on how you can help and train them. Engage them like you engage your customers because they are your customers as well!
Look at it as an incentive, a reward even. Value your employees by inviting them to participate in building your online brand, together, as a group of real people, all firmly trying to achieve a common goal.
You might think "you can't just have employees sharing information over social media about your company". At least, that’s what you want in an ideal world.
But your employees will do it anyway. So motivate them to do it better by providing guidelines and including them in the training programs, another way of making them feel valued. And, yes, of course there can be some 'rules'.
Dynamic markets, new technologies and emerging trends
Adapt your guidelines (and your training programs) as you are learning about social media marketing by doing it. You will try out new things, find things that don’t work, even make mistakes.
You will discover effects you hadn’t thought about or see flaws in the way you support your staff and train your employees or even in your policy. That’s OK, learn, adapt, improve and evolve.
Even if your social marketing strategy is perfect, your employees are trained perfectly, everybody in the company is using social media as you hope and your social media policy is water-proof, you still will have to evolve, as will your employees.
Customers change, the needs of communities change, technology changes, social media changes, everything changes and is dynamic. And there is always the next new thing.
Keep providing guidance and resources to your employees.
Since there will always be new features in social media and new tools and technologies, you might want to have someone inside or outside your company following emerging trends.
Social media training as a reward for motivated employees?
A social media policy should include a social media training program, even if you don't actively use social media yet. After all, your customers do so listening to what they and others say or ask is not an option anymore.
The level and degree of training should depend from the public role of the persons in question. However, if you have employees that have experience in social media, are not in daily contacts with customers, etc. but want to play a bigger role in the social media marketing strategy of your company: why not give them a full training like your official spokespeople?
It’s a win-win because you don’t only want to value external customers but also internal customers: employees, and certainly those that show motivation and initiative. On top of that your employees acquire new skills.
Of course this might also mean that once they’re trained to join another business but isn’t that always a risk? Let’s be honest: there are many employees that learn through experience and training in a company and, once they have become experts in certain areas, decide to join a better paying company or start their own business.
But that’s not a social media training issue, it’s a HR issue every company has to deal with.
So why not?
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Posted by J-P De Clerck on Tue, Aug 31, 2010
A recent article on MarketingProfs, entitled “Marketing and sales Alignment Pays Off in Recession” summarized several details from the 2010 edition of the “Sales Best Practices Study” by Miller Heiman, a company that specializes in ‘sales performance’.
If you ask me, the alignment of sales and marketing always pays off, even if there is no recession. More to the point: the walls between sales and marketing (and other departments) still too often form an obstacle to improve the customer satisfaction and the bottom-line in a fragmented cross-channel world where the client is increasingly in charge. And it certainly is an obstacle for a social CRM approach.
The study, conducted in cooperation with the Northern Illinois University, established that companies with a strong alignment between the sales and marketing department where much better off during the economic recession. They had more new clients, better revenue, a higher customer retention, a better average order value per client etc.
11% of the companies with a high alignment between sales and marketing had a growth of more than 5% in the area of customer retention compared to last year. The probability that these businesses recorded a revenue growth was 19% higher. And finally, they scored 5% better in the area of customer acquisition.
The alignment of sales and marketing is common business sense
And the figures carry on. But is this just related with the recession? What exactly does Miller Heiman claim?
That the sales performance metrics with the best companies are in line with the business objectives. That the same companies consistently centralize their clients in the commercial process, know why their clients buy from them, have participation from the management in the sales process, are quick in adjusting to changing customer needs etc.
All of this is common business sense, just as the alignment of sales and marketing is. Customer-centric and data-driven thinking and acting, everyone striving for the same goals, focusing on procedures whereby the client, the retention and the satisfaction are the most important parameters: it’s basic business.
And companies where marketers, sales people, managers and other divisions can see that this is what it is all about, simply score better.
The most important conclusion from the study was not the fact that the alignment between sales and marketing leads to better results. The most important conclusion in my opinion was that only 4,6% of the companies received the classification “world-Class Sales Organization” and therefore comply with all these sales and marketing best practices. In 2009 that was 7%.
Or in other words: there is still much to do to get companies to actually think and operate customer-centric, cross-channel and holistic.
Mentality changes and change management
So, in an integrated and cross-channel marketing reality it’s essential to work and look across the various departments and to drop the traditional silos.
Especially the gap between sales and marketing must be removed, partially because of the shift of the buying process to online channels, but also due to the need of a more integrated approach of the ROI of all commercial activities as well as the increasing focus on the client.
In reality, this isn’t an easy task to accomplish, especially regarding the relationship between sales and marketing. Ultimately, both departments are about the customer. Therefore, it’s logical that the focus in the sales and marketing relationship is often on the management and coordinated identification and nurturing of leads.
However, those who truly want sales and marketing to work together, will have to look beyond challenges regarding leads and how those are managed by the various departments. An integral approach is necessary.
Often, this requires a change of mentality, as well as changes within the company’s culture. Therefore, quite some change management is needed.
The gap between sales and marketing is gradually getting smaller and borders are disappearing. Still, most companies aren’t ready yet to change their entire organization. And so the question is how to optimally integrate the targets of marketing and sales, in order to have them create strategic synergies.
Some tips that you can implement now:
Communicate
Marketers have to interact with sales, now more so than ever. If there is no clear understanding within sales on just what marketing wants to achieve and how they want to do it – and vice versa – then the existing gap will remain. Furthermore, both departments should come to an agreement on, for example, the type of moments of contact, the number of interactions, and the priorities of sales and those of marketing. By the way: the ultimate goal of both departments is the same: generate business and make sure that the client is satisfied. Marketing feeds sales, but sales feeds marketing as well. Keep communicating during and after actions as well.
Work data-centric
In many companies, the data from various departments and even different divisions or activities within those departments, is stored in a wide range of databases. This often leads to, for example, product marketing working with the same target groups as other marketing divisions, without any mutual coordination. Also, there are more and more tools for sales that previously typically “belonged” to the marketing division. If those tools provide an immediate advantage, then they’ll certainly be used. Still, everything starts and ends with a centralized and coordinated approach and mutual data-feeding on the clients, prospects, and interactions.
Is sales marketing, or is marketing sales?
Some feel that sales should be a part of marketing. The line between them is gradually disappearing and marketers are nowadays more than ever involved in the pipelines and funnels. Yet, there are also people who say that marketing can only offer support to sales, since marketing must provide the right content, tools, and channels which help sales with the increasingly digital interaction with the customer. This debate actually isn’t relevant at all, and misses certain aspects that are typical to the marketing process (think: “branding”) as well as the buying and selling process. It’s clear, however, that both departments must put down a mutual go-to-marketing strategy, and that both have to agree on the following and ‘nurturing’ of leads as well.
The end of all silos?
In a customer-centric and cross-channel reality, there’s really no place for silos. Yet on the other hand, sales and marketing are very broad terms that encompass quite a lot of fields and activities.
There will always be specializations, and not every wall can be taken down. And that’s not necessary either. The most important thing is that there’s an integrated strategy present, in which processes, strategies, and tools are aligned with each other.
Above all things, coordination between all of the departments is of an utmost importance.
And that’s a task of the management: putting the right people in the right functions and roles where they can work and think customer-centric and integrated above and beyond the silos.
More about the Miller Heiman study.
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Posted by J-P De Clerck on Mon, Aug 30, 2010
Quiz: who says “brands should be publishers”? If the name Joe Pulizzi, content marketing specialist and founder of Junta42 comes to mind, you have won. Congratulations.
This morning, while driving, I was thinking about an event where I have to speak about the importance of content in marketing. I remembered Joe’s saying and remembered a discussion I had years ago where I said the exact same thing: “brands should be publishers”. It was before social media existed.
Suddenly it occurred to me that brands should not be publishers. Come again? Do I neglect the crucial role of relevant content? No. And nor do I neglect the importance of the context wherein content resides or the channels we use to exchange content with prospects and customers. Channels that have to be customer-centric, combined, integrated and bi-directional.
Then why the title of this post? Well, I have a problem with the word “publishers”. Why? Because I have been in publishing myself for way too long and I still know a lot of publishers. And I know how most of them – certainly in the marketing trade publication business – think and work. I’m not talking “traditional” publishers, I’m also talking online publishers and even some of the largest social media group blogs, who are in fact publishers as well, including all the negative aspects of it.
So here are 3 reasons why brands should NOT be publishers if you ask me. Or at least, not publishers as most that I know. Reading the three reasons will at the same time give you three content marketing tips – I hope.
Don’t focus on eyeballsMost online publishers I know still have a business model that is based on eyeballs. Lots of traffic. Lots of pages per visitor. Why? Because it makes them more interesting for advertisers.
They often see online channels, ranging from email to social media, as merely content distribution enablers with that one goal: traffic. Do you need traffic? Sure you do. But you need relevant traffic that leads to relevant interactions for your business and the people you interact with.
You need people that like what you do and one day might become a customer. Content is about lead nurturing, dialogue, interaction and offering value. You don’t need a lot of page views per visit. As a matter of fact, it could even mean that people who discover your site might have to look too long before they find what THEY need.
Don’t see content as a commodity – or worse: a freebiePoor online publishers. It’s so though for them. People are not willing to pay for content unless it’s exceptionally valuable because they find a lot for free. And advertisers increasingly put their advertising budgets in other forms of online marketing.
Display advertising still grows but it becomes less relevant because it is often all but conversational. Of course you need some branding and of course there are great banner ads. But, still, many publishers suffer because it’s harder to sell display ads, especially on a CPM basis (cost per thousand impressions).
The result often is that online publishers increasingly limit themselves to rewriting press releases or working with “experts” that write for free in exchange for visibility (and thus self-promotional and often poorly written).
Publishers have lowered investments in good content and serve mediocre content that the Internet user can find everywhere. Those that write, especially for group blogs, often do it to get a personal brand, freebies, access to events etc. But what they get paid is ridiculous. I will not share the examples of some very famous online publications, you could get depressed. Online publishers should have reviewed their business models and continued to invest in decent content.
But here is the key for you, as a brand: do not look at content the way many publishers do. Cherish it, invest in it, invest in a strategy and a plan and create unique and worthwhile content. Does that mean you have to invest money and time in good content? Sure it does. It’s marketing. Yes, I know, you can do interviews or invite guest bloggers and you should. But invest time in it as well: make it compelling!
Don’t focus on what everyone does or on scoopsI just talked about the mediocre content part. Let me elaborate a bit. Yes, it’s true: many people like the “10 ways to do this or that” kind of content. That’s OK.
But then at least make it more valuable than the eternally repeated tips that anyone can find anytime anywhere. Have your own style. Be unique. Dare to be different. And, please, whatever you do, don’t try to focus on hot news and scoops, unless you’re in a really vertical business where there are no valuable media. Leave the marketing scoops to Mashable, TechCrunch or the others. Brands have deals with them anyway: you will rarely have a scoop.
And it’s not your business: your business is to make sure that people, that are relevant for what you do as a brand, find you and that you serve them relevant content – the content they want – as an enabler to get interactions, connections and eventually relationships going.
While writing this post, more tips come to mind and more reasons to not think like a publisher. I might add them in a follow-up post.
That’s it for now, I already make my posts much too long according to the golden blogging rules. But who cares about rules, right?
Let me know what you think. I will listen and respond. Again something, few publishers do well.
PS: of course I agree with lots of the things Joe writes and says and he knows it. And I know what Joe means when he says to think like a publisher. The difference is in the wording. Again, because I know how many publishers think and you don’t want to be like that. With my sincere apologies to the “good” ones.
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Posted by J-P De Clerck on Sun, Aug 29, 2010
For some people social media marketing is a new kind of Holy Grail that will overrule all other forms of marketing. For others it is merely a trend, a hype that is not as important as many media, experts and bloggers claim.
Naturally both have it wrong. The truth is not black or white and the impact of the increased use of social and other digital channels is more profound than many companies realize.
In daily practice - definitely outside the US - many businesses are still in a social media adoption stage where they mainly want to know what "is being said about themr". It is a beginning, but definitely not the essence. The defensive approach of many companies in a communication reality that is increasingly controlled by people instead of the businesses themselves, is a stubborn remnant of the communication tradition to shout a lot and barely listen.
Those that have passed this stage and realize that there are fundamental changes in the manner in which people interact together and with businesses, the purchase behavior of the client, the efficiency of certain forms of marketing etc., focus their social media marketing efforts on optimizing communication, conversion, brand, customer service and overall marketing strategy.
Social media marketing is marketing and it requires efforts and a pro-active approach that is neither defensive or offensive. It is participative and based on communication where participants are equal.
It forms a part of the cross-channel communication and information world that we live in. And it also requires change, time and resources. But do companies still have a choice? The answer is clearly no.
Is social media marketing worthwhile? The ROI debate
The main question however, is if these efforts and investments are worth it? That is probably the question that most companies and marketers today struggle with. In the end a company is not afraid of a negative reputation on social media. It's afraid of the financial consequences thereof.
The social media marketing metrics and ROI topic is a hot one and it has been since months, despite dozens of great processes, books, tools, tactics and what not.
What really matters? The bottom-line and satisfied customers. Nowadays, these satisfied customers ensure new clients.
The bottom-line - and ROI - is clearly a challenge for many in the area of social media marketing. It is so difficult to determine the correct metrics, find the exact measuring tools, find a proper strategy etc.
But is it really such a challenge or more an excuse? Everyday I see businesses engage in social media marketing without any strategy. Often in such a manner that it's even hard to speak about marketing.
Social media marketing metrics and measurement: is it really about social media marketing?
Is it because social media marketing is so new, so though and so time-consuming? Is it because it's so hard to measure? Is defining social media marketing metrics rocket science?
Or is it rather because many of these businesses are seeking excuses in order to hide their strategic inability, their lack of processes, data and measuring capabilities or simply their stubborn unwillingness to accept times are changing?
I guess it's a bit of all that. And the question often arises whether these companies also operate strategically on other levels of marketing and communication.
Let's be frank: the number of businesses capable of defining metrics and coherent cross-channel data-driven strategies or calculating the ROI and bottom-line in other areas of interactive marketing, is not exactly high.
An example? One of the great challenges and issues in email marketing these days is the correct connection with web analytics and customer data systems in order to improve CRM, customer insights and a more segmented, targeted and thus relevant email marketing strategy?
A second example? How many businesses have a 360 degrees holistic view on the interactions with their customers across all divisions and channels whereby all back-office systems and communication means are integrated?
The ability to measure is not only an issue in social media marketing. It is an important issue that requires ongoing study, testing and efforts, that's clear.
But isn't it at the same time a symptom of an underlying disease whereby companies still stick to old patterns and hide their lack of customer-centricity and focus on clear data, strategies and processes?
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Posted by J-P De Clerck on Fri, Aug 27, 2010
Of course Jim Sterne has written the reference book on social media metrics,
as you can read here, but that does not mean we don't have to cover how other people think social media should be measured and what social media metrics, key performance indicators (KPI) etc. are needed to analyze conversion, brand perception, customer satisfaction, ROI and the bottom-line.
This post is based on a video that is not really new but it’s still very relevant and explains well how to measure social media.
Amy Martin of Digital Royalty offers an effective way to measure the impact of social media on a brand’s popularity. She shares a propriety method and formula for measuring a brand’s online "Return on Influence" (not to be confused with return on investment or ROI of course).
Conversion of social media is reduced to three key metrics.
According to Martin, there are two key aspects when you intend to measure your social media efforts, which are quite obvious. First, establish your KPIs (key performance indicators) and second, ensure consistent efforts to measure these social media metrics and KPIs.
There are three key parameters when one talks about social media measurement, according to her company: volume, engagement and conversion.
Conversion in social media: click-through, leads generated and sales
The KPIs in the “Volume” category are number of fans and followers, tweets per minute, trending topics or anything that reflects your brand’s reach online.
In the “engagement” category, you may include all that reflects your brand’s popularity or engagement with online users. It will include retweets, subscribers, sentiment, time spent by people with your brand, comments posted by them on Facebook, your blog etc.
The metrics in the “conversion” category includes everything that depicts the actual activity or action of your customers online. So, the KPIs in this case will be click through rates, leads generated, sales etc.
Choose your KPIs in each of these categories and track them on a regular basis, Amy says.
Return on Influence: cold and warm social media metrics
She next moves to sharing the formula, called the return on influence (ROI, but again, let's not start confusing here, please). It comprises two specific metrics- cold and warm.
In cold social media metrics, the formula is Reach multiplied by Frequency, Divided by Time Spent. This is indicative of the online buyers’ engagement with your brand.
The warm metrics and KPIs include all those intangible metrics which are hard to measure. It includes sentiment, size and ecosystem. Social media sentiment metrics here means the affinity towards a brand: the emotional connections people have with a brand.
You can watch the video below (again, it's not new).
What social media marketing metrics do you use?
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Posted by J-P De Clerck on Fri, Aug 27, 2010
Content is king. I know, you heard it before. In this post, I’ll 'talk' a bit more about email marketing and content.
We know that content is crucial in email marketing. And we now that in the social media age, where email marketing looks more at the needs of recipients, the dialogue and the importance of sharing, creating valuable and share-worthy content is even more important (social sharing for instance).
However, in this post I would like to talk to (and with) you about email marketing and content from a completely different viewpoint: trust.
You already know that your email content should be clear, relevant and compelling. At least, I hope you know. Often we are still so used to see email marketing as pure direct marketing that we sometimes have a tendency to engage in sending pushy and irrelevant content from the recipient viewpoint.
The effect? Unsubscribes, a negative brand image, etc. Whether it’s mass distributed or one-to-one, every email has an objective to achieve for both your business and the people that trusted you their email address. And every email is a reflection of your company, brand and identity. Now, let me talk about trust.
People that subscribe to your emails put a lot of trust in your business. Sure, they give you permission and trust that you will not abuse their email address.
However, it’s much more than that. They trust that you will provide them valuable content that serves them. They trust that they will get emails that live up to the promises you made when inviting people to subscribe and capturing their data.
You lose trust if you betray your email subscribers
Sure, they know that you will send promotions and updates about your business or products (and, anyway, you should mention it) and, yes, some people will subscribe to newsletters that are only about promotions and rebates if that’s what they want to receive. It’s about what they value, remember.
People subscribe to mails when the content of the mails is relevant for them, no matter what that content is.
Again, as long as you stick to what you’ve promised. If you don’t do that, you will lose their trust. If you promised you would send great tips and tricks and the tips you send suck and only make up 20% of your email content, with the rest being promotion talk, you betray your subscribers.
What is valuable content? It depends from what people want. It could be information about a new whitepaper you have, articles that relate to the recipients' core business or main interest, free stuff, gadgets, coupons, samples, tips and tricks, industry news, you name it.
Valuable and relevant content help you establish or strengthen a solid relationship via email. You have to earn that.
Just like you have to earn trust and keep on earning it in every single email you send.
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Posted by J-P De Clerck on Fri, Aug 27, 2010
Customer-centric thinking and working is the main driver in all marketing changes, we are going through, including social media marketing, email marketing, etc. Customer-centricity is not some kind of slogan. It's a necessity for business and is achieved through relevance and dialogue, direct or indirect.
What matters in times of economic recession, shifting communication paradigms and all the other marketing, communication, media, sales and buying trends we see happening around us?
That we try to have a holistic view on our customers (including the internal customers like employees) and our business ecosystem, and that we strive to be truly customer-centric.
It’s looking at things from a broader perspective (where do we fit in, what do we stand for, who are we having interactions with) and at the same time having more personal relationships.
However, customer-centricity is much more than a mindset or a way of looking at things. It is also a management issue that requires cultural changes within our businesses, strategy and management support.
It is obvious that the way we can achieve all this will depend on the type of industry we are in (B2B versus B2C), etc.
And we also know this isn’t new.
Customer Relationship Management vendors were promising a holistic view on the customer life cycle before the internet became widespread. They couldn’t fulfil their promises though. Now they can, the technological barriers are gone.
Customer-centricity is about management, processes and people
Aren’t we all customer-centric? The answer: no, definitely no. Being customer-centric isn’t about shouting that we are, implementing systems and hoping the rest will follow. Then what is it about?
- Management, implementing processes and changing the corporate culture
- Getting the right people and customers around the table to create multidisciplinary teams to take crucial decisions
- A complete and radical change in the way we work, communicate and do business
- Getting rid of the artificial walls between marketing, sales, after-sales and what not
It’s about building stories, marketing campaigns, sales strategies, stores, websites and so on that are structured around the customer's buying cycle and his behavior and needs, instead of around our business and products.
But most of all it’s about truly listening to and speaking to the customer in his and her voice.
The customer is a fiction. Only people exist. People buy things. Your customers are people. Your company in the end is a bunch of people.
Change is not a threat, it’s an opportunity
Change doesn’t come rapidly. It requires time and much effort. If you don’t start by changing the corporate culture towards a customer- and data-driven model, you better forget all the rest.
We all like to say our companies are customer-centric (“look at how we integrated all our systems”). It’s not true. How customer-centric are your finance people or the guys and girls that work in your warehouse? Do you use common metrics to analyze your business and your communication efforts? Do you really listen to your customers in every contact your company has with them? When the products they purchased are not doing what they should? Think about it.
In the end it’s all about doing the best you can to change (how you think and work), about being more humble (and dropping the corporate talk), about realizing and accepting the rules have changed (and they have changed), about dialogues (talk the talk people talk and most of all, listen), about seeing change as an opportunity instead of a threat and about looking at your business from a much broader perspective.
Let me end with a quote: "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change (Charles Darwin)".
Why should you respond to change? Anticipate! Plan, act and measure.
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Posted by J-P De Clerck on Thu, Aug 26, 2010
I’m a consultant. And I blog and write a lot. Because I like to learn, share, teach and…write. But obviously also because I need people to find me and say “hey, I like the way this guy thinks, let me get in touch with him”. Most of my customers come via word of mouth but a man has to earn a living, right? So, a few more customers won’t harm me and my partner (and all the freelancers we feed).
One of my “problems” is that I write and blog a bit everywhere. You would be surprised to see the list. A few weeks ago I was so surprised myself that I thought it was maybe time to slow down a bit.
Challenges of a bloggerAs a blogger I have many challenges. First of all, I’m not a native English speaker. Next, I need to write about stuff that the people I try to connect with, like.
And of course I need to reach them. SEO, social media, other blogs, a community, you name it. If you don’t know that I exist, it’s heard to connect. So I reach out but most of all hope you find my content and like it.
However, what matters most to me, besides hopefully offering relevant content, connecting with nice people and earning a buck or two, is that I can interact with you the way you choose.
You use RSS feeds, subscribe to newsletters, are on Twitter, do things on Facebook, read a magazine, download a paper etc. You call the shots.
It takes some work to be where you are but if you do it right it pays: for you and me. Not the blogging itself: that pays peanuts unless you’re Chris Brogan, for instance (I presume).
Challenges of a blog “reader”Besides being a blogger and having all these challenges I’m also a student, like you. I read a lot, online and offline, I try out things etc.
So, when some of the people who are responsible for the popular marketing portal
B2B Marketing Zone (who were kind enough to name me an “Official Rockstar Blogger” - no, there are no groupies) told me they planned to launch something similar but at the same time different for social media marketing blogs, I was immediately sold.
And so were others if I take a look at today’s officially launched
www.socialmediainformer.com and see for instance Chris Brogan (that’s why I picked your name, Chris).
As a reader this initiative offers me several advantages. As the site aggregates social media posts from people I like reading anyway (and often know), I have some kind of a “social media marketing start page” so I don’t have to sift through an overabundance of information. Sure, there is RSS and so much more. But still: this is different.
As a blogger it offers me benefits as well of course. I know the portal will ultimately help me a bit with being found online but it also offers me the possibility to provide you with posts I like from other people out there via my social media presences. And it forces me even more to focus on relevant content in a way.
The model and technology used for Social Media Informer are not rocket science. But the advantages are tremendous.
Won’t they “steal” traffic away? Won’t they earn revenues I could have earned? Hey, it’s some kind of new publishing model but one where everyone benefits.
I hope they have revenues and lot of loyal visitors. I have been a publisher and have never believed in one medium or channel “stealing” traffic from another and I strongly believe in collaboration.
So, that’s my viewpoint. I welcome and applaud Social Media Informer and am grateful they asked me to join. I hope you will welcome the portal as well.
Check it out here.
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Posted by J-P De Clerck on Thu, Aug 26, 2010
End of last year, the ‘The Social Media and Online PR Report’ by Econsultancy and Bigmouthmedia found that "businesses are struggling to define the value of engagement and reputation in social spaces".
Econsultancy's Michelle Goodall had this advice for businesses back then: "Before they think about their strategy and the best tactics, companies need to go back to basics and think in detail about how online PR and social media can help them deliver against their business objectives".
Strategy, a plan, it goes with marketing, right? Last month I wrote a post for a new multilingual blog we are setting up but I decided to put it here as well since it really shows how much work there still is to get businesses adopt social media in a simple, down-to-earth, calculated and intelligent way but most of all how the strict silo-way of thinking, that is so typical in most businesses, is ruining it both for businesses and social media users.
A survey by US-based Digital Brand Expressions shows that a lot of companies integrate social media into their strategy unprepared and without a clear plan.
This is not the first time that a lack of goals, planning, cross-divisional cooperation, and even strategy regarding social media marketing shows up in a survey.
However, there is no reason to exclude social media marketing from a broader framework, and to approach it as an ‘island’ stripped of any form of strategy.
The fact that it does happen so often can be destructive for the company’s actions and reputation and it gives social media marketing in general a bad image as well.
Even more important: it often doesn’t provide any value whatsoever for the people using social media (and therefore, neither for the company).
Digital Brand Expression found that 78% of all participating companies practice social media marketing.
Yet a mere 41% of those actually have a strategic plan for their use of social media, in which is put down just what the goals are, which division is doing what, how the company involves its employers, etc.
Still, 88% of the companies without a social media plan finds it important to actually have one.
The conclusion is simple: a lot of companies aren’t ready for social media marketing because they don’t succeed in developing a coherent strategy as well as a clear plan that goes beyond the borders between different departments.
This silo-way of thinking, the walls between the various company divisions, a lack of coordination, and a bad insight into the possibilities of social media undoubtedly play a role in this.
Recent studies that fruitlessly debated on just who within the company is responsible for social media (PR, marketing, etc…) pointed this out already.
Several key players are left out of the social media plan and strategy
The survey also looked at who is responsible for creating, carrying out, and maintaining a strategic social media communications plan (so not the actions themselves, but the plan) in the everyday working environment.
The marketing divisions takes the lead in this with 71%. The ‘corporate communications’ scored 29%, while sales and IT are both good for 10%. The management team only scored 16%, which is a shame, since drawing a social media marketing strategic plan demands the executive team’s cooperation, in the very least.
At the companies that do have a social media marketing plan, it turns out that quite a lot of divisions are barely included, if at all.
With an impressive 94%, marketing is almost always involved. Public relations follows with 71%, while sales ended third with 55%.
Yet customer service is only included in 26% of all cases, and HR only in 16%. Management is barely included at all.
The fact that customer service is included so little, means that many companies don’t yet realize that the role of customer service is getting more and more important in these times in which customer satisfaction is so crucial.
The overwhelming presence of marketing and PR shows that a lot of companies overlook a large part of the essence of social media marketing.
And the fact that HR (and therefore also the company’s employees) is included so sporadically, emphasizes this conclusion even more.
Read the original post here.
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Posted by J-P De Clerck on Thu, Aug 26, 2010
Alterian has launched a series of white papers earlier this year under the name ‘social Media ROI’. I downloaded them and thought they provide useful insights and tips, so I decided to tackle some of them.
The first one is called “Four ways to take your Search Marketing to a new level with Social Media Monitoring”.
Social media monitoring (SMM) can drastically improve your website rank and visibility. Maximizing effectiveness for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be quite costly and rather time consuming.
The basic idea behind social media monitoring is that it can provide a cost efficient means to find out, just what exactly are the consumers' needs and wants.
Social media monitoring: the keyword viewpoint
The most important element to having your website found is using the proper keywords.
For example, are you sure that the keywords you are using are the most commonly searched keywords that pertain to your industry?
There are tools available that allow for you to find out the most commonly used keywords when people search for products that you sell down to the brand and even when people search for your competitors. The process for using SEO keywords through social media monitoring is simple.
- Conduct searches for terms that correlate with your industry; search your competitors and the brands that you offer.
- Create clouds of theme words, which will help you identify the most commonly used words.
- Author Tag clouds will show you a general overview of what keywords other people have selected. These words are their content tag words. These were selected to draw from the search engines. They are true indicators of your search topic.
The word clouds is essential here and has three purposes, according to the paper. Clouds are connected with industry used terms. This gives you the data for what people are searching for in relation to your industry.
With this information, you can describe your products using keywords to attract that audience.
Return on investment (ROI) is quite simple.
The more effective your SEO is, the more people will see your content or rather find it. The more valuable hits your online properties get, the more revenue you will create.
Link building strategies
Social media monitoring tools can assist you in meeting two objectives of link building.
Major search engines want to see a wide array of link topics in your websites yet people want to see links that are relevant for them.
Social media monitoring can help you link to the most popular sites and blogs that have the highest amount of influence. SMM tools assist in linking the most suitable content pages along with their influence level taken into consideration. This link building strategy is much more effective than going about the paid linking strategy.
Pay per click
An effective way to lower your pay per click costs is to create landing pages. An effective SMM tool will help you select cheaper keywords to bid on and use landing pages to lower your pay per click costs.
Search engines such as Google, use a landing page analysis to determine your pay per click cost. Another effective feature of SMM is geo-targeting. This allows you not only to find out how many people are targeting your keywords; it also allows you to find their physical locations.
This can greatly improve your marketing strategies as you can cater to opportunities in new markets. It also helps you locate your competitors.
Organic SEO
Social media monitoring helps build organic search engine optimization. By this, incorporating an interactive media into your website where consumers can contribute does wonders.
This improves the pathways for inbound as well as outbound links. The opportunity for social interaction improves content and adds value. Not to mention, it also builds trust within your consumer base.
Inbound links are what you are looking for. The optimization of your organic SEO should be geared towards your content. The content should be arranged to influence other people, blogs and sites to link to your particular website. An SMM tool can help tremendously with building the most effective organic SEO.
Social media monitoring tools help you to ensure the most efficiency within your SEO efforts.
You have to listen to your customers. The keywords and information they are primarily using are there, are you marketing to that need?
Social media monitoring and using tools to feed off of that information is the key element to successful search engine optimization.
You can download the white paper here.
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