Social Media Marketing: From Conversations to Conversions
There’s Media. Then there’s Social Media.
Remember the good-'ol' days, when PR meant writing press releases and schmoozing with reporters? How about when the media mix consisted of radio, print, direct mail, and TV and your biggest challenge was figuring out how much money to spend on each?
Today, social media is fast becoming the first place we go to connect with friends, network for business, find a house, find a date, swap recipes, tell stories, share information, get information, ask questions, provide answers, share videos, share photos, plan events, and so much more! The role of mainstream media has definitely changed.
Consider these Social Media Statistics:
- AdWeek recently reported that social networking has overtaken e-mail as the most popular Internet activity.
- The time spent on social networking and blogging venues is growing at twice the rate of other Internet venues such as portals, e-mail and search, according to the same AdWeek article.
- The number of people in the U.S. who use social media will increase 44% to 115 million in 2013, up from 79 million in 2008, according to a recent MediaPost article.
What is Social Media, Really?
According to Wikipedia, “social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words and pictures.”
Mike Volpe of HubSpot defines it this way: “it’s media (content that is published) with a social (anyone can add to it) component.”
Social + Media = Conversations.
Social media is made up of conversations or communications between multiple people that allow people with different views on a topic to learn from each other (see Wikipedia’s definition of conversation). For this reason, social media expert Paul Gillin in his book, The New Influencers refers to social media as “conversation marketing” where influencers are the people who participate in these social media conversations.
"How Should My Company Use Social Media for Marketing?"
First, keep these ideas in mind:
1. Forget the Technology, Focus on the Desired Results. Once and for all, social media is not about being on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg or whatever else you think you “should” be on. It’s time to stop thinking of social media as, “We need to be on Twitter” and start thinking of it as, “How can we build better relationships with our customers?” or whatever your objective is. If the answer is Twitter (or whatever your social media technology of choice is), do it. If not, move on.
2. Know Your Social Technographics. Knowing how your company can use social media starts with knowing how your prospects and customers use social media. Furthermore, understanding what your customers are ready for helps you determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them through social media marketing. Forrester Research refers to a person’s social media participation (how they use it and what they’re ready for) as their “social technographics.” Understanding social technographics can help you prioritize and plan your social media efforts, as opposed to just jumping in for the sake of it.
3. Understand the Role of Social Media in Inbound Marketing. Just as social media has taken on a greater role in the lives and buying processes of your customers, social media plays an important role in inbound marketing as it relates to attracting, engaging, and nurturing leads and customers. HubSpot defines 3 primary ways that companies can use social media for inbound marketing and these are the primary ways we help our clients leverage social media:
- To share information, ideas, and experiences (Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and others)
- To network and interact with people (LinkedIn, Facebook, and others)
- To publish content that is relevant to a particular audience (Twitter, You Tube, Squidoo, Yelp, and others)
(Notice we don’t say: “to promote,” “to advertise,” or “to interrupt.”)
4. Results Matter. In an economy where every dollar counts, it's imparative that we bring more to the table when it comes to tying our marketing efforts to sales results. Social media is no different. It isn't like old school PR where it was expected and acceptable that our impact on sales could not be measured. In fact, social media has been touted as an effective inbound marketing tool because of it's impact on the sales funnel and the ability to -- with the right tools and techniques -- measure and track the resulting leads and ultimately, sales.
Our Social Media Marketing Services:
We help our clients plan and implement social media strategies that are first and foremost in line with the social technographics of your audience, and second, that stem from a clear understanding of what you are trying to achieve.
Our social media marketing services can help you:
- Communicate the role and importance of social media to others in your organization
- Select the social media technologies and actions that make the most sense for your audience and your objectives
- Create relevant content (information) that can be shared and published through social media
- Publish and promote your content through relevant social media channels
- Understand how to use social media as a networking tool
- Create guidelines for social media participation within your organization
- Build search engine visibility through social media
- Identify and interact with online influencers (see digital PR)
- Select and set up tools and metrics to measure your social media results
- Attract the right people to your website where you can convert leads to loyal customers.
