Internet Marketing Tips, Tools and Strategies

Did you know that by the end of March your companies Facebook page will be moved over to a new layout? This new layout has several aesthetic changes that allow businesses to highlight their brand and company heritage.

Up until now, most successful business Facebook pages had a content rich Custom Tab and News Feed strategy to engage their audience. The focus was “what is happening right now?”. With the new timeline features it will be about not only what is happening now, but what has your business done / been a part of in the past?

Facebook is currently offering you visual testing, so you can see how your business page will look after the conversion. Be sure to see how your business page is going to look and also make sure you are aware of several new features of the Facebook timeline:

Cover Image. A cover image is a large (850px by 315px) image across the top of your business’ Facebook page. This is one of the big introductions in the new timeline layout and you might have already seen examples of these on personal Facebook pages already converted to the new timeline.

A cover image shouldn’t be approached as just another profile picture, but think of this as an image that gives you the opportunity to create a great first impression. Beyond that, your Facebook cover image should drive home your overall brand image and makes it stick in the users mind.   

Before you create or upload any new cover image, please note that Facebook does have guidelines for what content can and should be there (specifically surrounding call-to-actions). Be sure to brush up on these guidelines before creating any images for this space. You might want to also consider rotating this image as often as you can to keep your fans interested.

Milestones. Considering the new layout is a “Timeline” focus, it only makes sense that major milestones and activities are going to be dated and marked along the way. Users will actually be able to look or filter through your information and the major milestones accomplished based on dates. Milestones also allow you to add a picture, so be sure you are snapping photos and adding them for major events!   

Pins. This new feature allows you to control how important stories or news updates on your business’ Facebook page are seen. When you pin something on your page it will remain at the top of your timeline for 7 days (or until it is unpinned). This means you can have featured content each week and makes promoting weekly specials easy.

While being aware of the new features is obviously important, it is also good to know that there are also several changes that limit previous features or take them away all together.

Profile Pictures. While this isn’t a huge change, the size of the new profile picture has actually shrunk (due to the new cover image) to 180px by 180px. This means you have a very limited space, making businesses’ previous attempts at including call-to-actions in their profile pictures almost impossible. Focus on using a profile picture that promotes your brand while being clean and simple.

Default Tabs. One of things most businesses did when setting up their Facebook page was to create a default tab for non-fans; these tabs were used as a tool to increase fan conversion. Well, Facebook is taking these away in the new timeline layout. That means your business’ Facebook page is going to have to utilize new tools, such as cover image and pins, to convert users into fans.

Just remember, even with the new layout, the goal of your business’ Facebook page should be about engagement and providing useful content for users. Focus on those key elements when converting your page over to the new Facebook timeline and you should have no problem maintaining and increasing your fans.

Before creating your business’ Facebook page or converting it over to the new timeline layout, you need to have a Social Media Strategy - Download our Social Media Strategy Kit to develop your own.

Online influence has been a hot topic on the web lately and it seems everyone wants to know just how influential they are on social media networks. Users are also asking the questions “Who am I influencing?” and “Who am I being influenced by?”

So how do you measure your social media influence and answers to these questions?

There are actually a few tools out there that can give you some insight into your Social Media influence:

Klout – Quickly becoming the big name when it comes to online or social media influence, Klout gives you an overall influence score. This score is based on how many people you influence, how much you influence them, and the influence of your network. They also offer insight into topics or industries you have influence in, users you are currently influencing, etc.

PeerIndex – They also uses a score system that produces an overall influence rating. Here, you are judged based on your authority - how much others rely or trust your recommendations and opinions, audience – the size of yours and your extended network, and your activity – as the name implies, what you share, how often you share, etc.

Crowdbooster – This “intelligent social media dashboard” doesn’t spit out an easily digestible influence number like the previous tools, but they do offer a deep understanding of your social media networks. Gain insight into not only what you have been doing on your social networks, but also receive recommendations to reach important influencers and develop rich relationships.

Don’t forget engagement with those you influence and are influenced by (not to mention fans, customers, etc.) is the most important thing at the end of the day. Your influence number is a great tool to measure yourself by, but don’t forget to engage!

Make sure your Social Media Marketing Strategy is successful, download our strategy kit.

So you already have a great Facebook page, share content regularly and have a pretty healthy “like” count? Great! That is a good start.

To truly take advantage of that Facebook network you need to engage users. How do you do that? Well here are a few ideas to get your engagement started:

Share. Make sure you aren’t only sharing links to your website - post photos, ask questions, reshare useful content, etc.

Have fresh content. Refresh (rewrite) content as often as you can – try once every quarter to start.

Promote special offers. Try running an exclusive pricing deal or promotional offer on Facebook. Or, try a giveaway for customer interaction – example: “Answer our poll question for $5 off your next visit” or “What did you think of our last blog post? Leave a comment and your next order is shipped free!”.

Reward loyal fans. Have a “Fan of the Month” highlight where you reward those who are engaging with you and on behalf of your brand across Facebook.

Having a large network on Facebook is important, but how that network is interacting and engaging with you is equally (if not more so) important. Engage your network and be successful on Facebook.

Want more Social Media tips? Download our Social Media Marketing Strategy Kit.  

Most companies, okay all companies, want to see a return on investment (or ROI) when it comes to their marketing. This allows them to assess if their marketing activities are worth the time and money being spent on them. Measuring the success of Social Media Marketing isn’t always easy to do, but not any less important than any other marketing initiatives.

When it comes to social media marketing success, you have to look at several factors:

Traditional metrics like page views, time spent on site, unique visits, and goal conversions – all of which can be found in Google Analytics.

Engagement metrics like Twitter retweets, or replies; Facebook likes, or comments; blogs comments, or links to posts.

Influence metrics like Twitter followers, Facebook friends or blog/RSS subscribers.

Now looking at the hard numbers is only half the battle when it comes to determining Social Media Marketing success. Unfortunately, when it comes to measuring SMM success, some of the data you are looking at is subjective. Sure you could say having 1,000 followers is better than only having 100, but what if those 100 followers are engaged, consistently re-share your posts across their networks, etc. and on the flip side you never hear a peep out of those 1,000 followers. Now those 100 are starting to look pretty good, aren’t they? So remember to look at the communication level behind the numbers when trying to measure Social Media Marketing success.

Need help making your Social Media Marketing worth the cost and a true success? Download our free Social Media Strategy Kit for insight into utilizing social media the right way.  

 

Social media marketing is something done by countless businesses and celebrities. It is an important way for them to respond to their fan base as well as managing their online brand reputation. A local Chicago band recently used their social media marketing campaign to dispel a negative PR situation.

The Smith Westerns held a concert in Belgium that ended in tragedy. There was a storm and the scaffolding on their set fell down along with the lights and other set items attached to them. It was reported in the Chicago Sun Times that the accident took the lives of 5 people in the audience of the concert.

The Chicago Sun Times said they were all from Belgium and the people who died varied in age from as young as 15 to the age of 59. The severity of the incident was unknown at first. Band members were told to get off the stage and were all safe.

After the incident the front man of the Smith Westerns initially posted a tweet on his Twitter page that, according to the Chicago Sun Times read: "Stage collapsed max (guitarist) almost got crushed by the trees. I hope pukkelpop has insurance bc all our (expletive) is broke."

This is a perfect example of negative PR stemming from a social media post. When social media is used by public figures like the Smith Westerns it is important that they act quickly when something like this happens.

Clearly the scaffolding falling had nothing to do with the band however the initial response of the front man surely upset some fans who had been informed about the incident.

This situation was handled by the front man removing his initial tweet and then publically sharing that he was unaware of the damage caused by the incident when he posted his tweet. Because the band ran off stage to safety they were not there to see the aftermath of the fallen scaffolding.

When negative PR hits a well known business or celebrity it is important that they respond immediately and with tact. In this situation owning up to the insensitive comment was the only thing to do. It is an understandable yet inconsiderate mistake. Taking full ownership of the situation and addressing what happened is the best way to respond through your social media marketing.

Managing a social media marketing campaign can be a lot of work. Preparing posts and sharing ideas across multiple social sites becomes time consuming. Because of this there have been some initiatives to create platforms that allow you to schedule your social media marketing posts in advance.

This gives you the flexibility to work at any time of the day and schedule a bulk of posts ahead of time. This relieves the daily responsibility of checking into each of your social media profiles. A very popular tool for this is called Hootsuite.

Hootsuite links to your social media profiles and RSS feed. You can set it up so that new blog posts are automatically posted to each social profile which saves you a step.

When you are scheduling a social media post you have the option of choosing the date, time of day and social media site or sites where you want the message to post. For example, if you are running a competition on Facebook you can schedule messages to promote it on Twitter and LinkedIn however you are likely to promote it differently on Facebook. Hootsuite would allow you to schedule messages at one time that will post up until the competition ends.

If your post was sharing news of an event or sale you might be able to schedule one message to post to all of your social media sites.
For a busy business person who is trying to manage their own social media marketing campaign Hootsuite can save a lot of time.

Another worthwhile attribute of Hootsuite is that it they have a great reporting system. You can look up click reports and find out what messages were the most successful and what days and times they were posted. Hootsuite gives you the tools to make your social media marketing campaign simple and successful.

Anyone who has a Facebook fan page knows it's not easy to get people to "Like" your page. It's not because they don't like your business but that they don't know you're there or perhaps they don't know about your business at all.

It has been a common trend amount social media marketing experts to host a Facebook competition. These competitions typically center on a giveaway and whoever gets the most referrals wins a prize. So how does this benefit the business owner? Every person that visits the fan page to vote for a photo or comment on the wall has to first "Like" the business. The contest winner may be asking their friends to go comment on a post or photo but the real winner is the business who just increased their fan base.

This method of social media marketing won't work for every business and it's important to do your research before you decide to give away your merchandise.

The first thing you need to determine is what your goal is for this competition. What exactly do you want to accomplish. For example, if you are a new business and you want to spread awareness of your service or product a competition is a great way to get potential customers to become aware of you.

The next thing to consider is your target audience. It is important that this be cohesive. If you're giving away a state of the art lawn mower but your target audience is teenagers and college students, you might not be reaching your target. However if you're giving away and handmade doll and your audience is parents and grandparents, you're probably capturing the perfect potential customers.

Finally, decide where you want to promote your contest. Utilizing Twitter, Facebook and your blog is a great way to generate a lot of interest in your contest. It is important to note that Facebook has a list of guidelines for holding a contest. If you do not follow these Facebook rules you run the risk of losing your Facebook fan page.

Teasing the contest details before it starts can help build interest. Fans will be curious and excited to participate. Social media marketing contests are a great way to raise awareness and draw attention to your business or product.

Once you feel comfortable with using Facebook in your social media marketing you need to make sure you're using it effectively. 

Social media marketing with Facebook is can be rewarding for your business but there are a few mistakes you can make:

1. Using Your Personal Profile to Market Your Business
Facebook is designed for both the individual and the business. The two are differentiated by profile pages for people and fan pages for businesses. It is common to confuse the two and try to use your profile for your business. Fan pages are designed for businesses. Take advantage of them.

2. Posting Too Much/Posting Too Little
Never posting to your fan page won't help you. You need to get posts out to your fans and engage them with your business and services. But don't overdo it. A couple of posts spread through the day is sufficient. More may annoy fans or get lost in their news feed. Never post back to back posts, you run the risk of Fans removing themselves from your Facebook Fan feed.

3. Sell Sell Sell On Your Wall
Some businesses only post sales pitches to their Facebook Fan Page. There is certainly room for sales on Facebook and social media marketing is a great medium for contests and giveaways to increase fan followings. However, you will have the best success if you combine industry news and developments as well. No fan wants to hear a sales pitch from you every day. Keep them interested with a well rounded social media marketing campaign.

4. Avoid Feedback By Turning Off Wall Posts
People are afraid of receiving negative feedback on their Facebook Fan Page. Some believe a solution to this is turning off the ability for fans to post on your wall. Unfortunately, this can be frustrating for fans and counterproductive. Keep in mind that a negative comment means someone is giving you feedback on your services. It's an opportunity for you to reply publically and perhaps change someone's mind about you. Remember that rude or inappropriate posts can and should be deleted from your wall.

Social media marketing can be a great tool when used correctly. If you need help with social media marketing contact a WSI internet marketing consultant today if you need some help.

Social media can be confusing. It's something you do to communicate with customers, but can social media actually increase sales and grow your business? The answer is absolutely, but there are a few things you need to do to get there.

Assuming you have already identified your sales goals and target audience, here are 6 tips to help you grow your sales through SMM (social media marketing).

1. Choose social media outlets
Social media profiles like Facebook and Twitter allow you to share short posts and link to articles and share photos. A blog allows you to write industry articles and share your expertise with an audience. Look at your target audience and consider their needs and habits. Use these factors to determine how to proceed.

2. Blog & converse with customers
Starting a blog gives you a platform to share your collective expertise. Sales experts and business executives can share their insights and knowledge that will interest and inspire their audience. But writing great content is worthless if you aren't getting people to read it. It is imperative that you promote your blog. Encourage commenting and respond back. Share your post through other social networking sites and promote it everywhere you can. Email signatures, business cards, invoices, Twitter & Facebook are all places to share your blog.

3. Create Social Profiles
You need to determine what social profiles you are going to create. You need to consider what profiles your target audience is using. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, SlideShare and YouTube are a must for most businesses and a great place to start.
 
4. Make press releases work harder
Press releases are typically used to spread the word about company news. However you can do more with them. Incorporate your keywords into your press release and add credibility by referencing your sources and quotes. Content should be compelling and well written. Once you have a finished product promote it everywhere. Post it again on your blog and link back to your site. Also share the press release with social media. Encourage others to share it. As long as you've used an interesting topic people are likely to help you spread the word.

5. Incorporate social media everywhere
If you are using social media to increase sales you really need to get it working hard for you. Put Twitter and Facebook share buttons an all of your business articles and web pages. If people are sharing your content and site with others they are really expanding the reach of your message. RSS feed buttons should be in place on your blog and easy to find. The easier it is for people to keep up with you the easier it will be for you to make the sale.

Also, start incorporating your Facebook Fan Page and YouTube URL’s into your offline marketing as well. A lot of Fortune 100 Companies no longer even advertise their direct website in television commercials and focus primarily on Facebook and YouTube to where they want to drive their traffic.

6. Evaluate and adjust
With any marketing strategy there will be things that work well and things that need work. Google Analytics is a good place to start measuring success. Additional tools like bit.ly, Klout, Social Mention, Addictomatic and HowSociable will help you get the big picture.

These tips can help you create a complete social media strategy. There is power in information sharing and your social media marketing plan can help bring great success to your company.

 Social media marketing is something that makes a lot of business owners nervous. There is some concern about the kind of feed back they will receive from their audience and unsure how they should speak to them.

Every social media marketing campaign needs to have a defined voice. The voice used in the social media world should reflect the same feeling your company uses for your website, any written materials, email campaigns, press releases and any other document by your company. It is important for your marketing to have a cohesive feeling throughout and all are intertwined.

In the event that several people participate in your social media marketing campaigns you need to make sure they all understand how best to represent the voice of your company.

For some companies it may make sense to allow all employees or executives within the company to participate in the social media posts. If they will be sharing personal reflections and interests in the business and industry they should sign their name to the posts. This allows for the writing styles to differ but the overall voice of the company should be upheld.

Allowing employees to participate in the social media marketing can help increase the content on your social media profiles. It is very important to create a social media policy document that outlines what can and can’t be said when representing the company online. The best social campaigns we have seen are typically those that have several voices contributing to the conversation – from marketing to sales to upper management and even your IT department.

The point of SMM is to expand your communications with your audience. Simply advertising the benefits of using your business and it's services is not enough. Pushing your company will not get your any followers. When employees point out their recent industry findings, ask for customer feedback/opinions and share industry news it can make for a really interesting and vibrant social media page.

However you handle the social media marketing in your company keep in mind the voice behind your brand and carry that through your SMM efforts.