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Sorry For the Delay…Need a Little More Time

May 20, 2011 By

In our brief post the other day, I mentioned how we would be delving into a pretty extensive topic – social media.

Specifically, we were going to provide a brief review of a webinar from HubSpot on turning prospects into brand ‘evangelists’ through social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others.

I’m afraid to say the hour glass has run out on me for this week. While I have taken a look at the webinar, I still need to complete and provide you, our loyal readers, a summary of the important points.

I sincerely hope to have this completed by the middle of next week.

In the mean time, check out some of our prior post on social media below. Much of the information is quite relevant to what the webinar discusses. If you’re new to social media, it will help to have some of these fundamentals down as well.

Enjoy, and have a nice weekend!

Related Posts

Harnessing LinkedIn to Market your Business Online

Social Media Architect Provides Valuable Twitter Advice

4 Components of the Marketing Funnel and How They Relate to Social Media

Large Numbers of Followers Doesn’t Always Mean More Benefits

In-Person Interview with Leading Industry Expert

Which Social Media Channel is Right for My Business?

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Social Media Architect Provides Valuable Twitter Advice

December 13, 2010 By

The idea of Twitter and its micro-blogging platform has been gaining more and more popularity lately…100 million new users alone this year have joined.

No doubt you’ve seen the use of this versatile utility on reality shows, sporting events and other venues people look to for up to the minute information. Many newsmakers use them as well as both large and small companies.

Your favorite celebrity or industry figure likely has a Twitter account and “tweets” about current events, new blog content or other noteworthy events.

In light of all you’ve heard about Twitter, you’re probably a bit confused as to how to make it work for you. It can seem intimidating to those not too familiar with social networking.

But don’t fear…micro-blogging and social networking are meant to be fun!

And that brings us to our first point…don’t make your Twitter profile and ‘tweets’ all about your business.

“Include interesting content that’s helpful and entertaining,” says our in-house Social Media Architect Matt Binnie. “People certainly lose interest fast if all you talk about is your products and yourself,” says Matt.

Content includes any new posts to your blog, company news, new products and so on.

Attitude and personality are important as well Matt explains. In order to gain a dedicated following, it’s important you become the personality of your company. If you’re boring on Twitter, people will think your company is boring.

As far as followers, only follow people who make sense for you and your company. Follow people who can benefit from your ‘tweets’…they will probably follow you back. And always remember, it’s not how many followers you have that matters but the quality of your followers. Having lots of followers who never engage with you is not beneficial in the least bit.

“Success should be measured in the quality of relationships you have with your followers, not the number of users,” explains Matt.

In addition to Matt’s insights, read a breakdown from Nick Usborne on how this really makes a difference.

Aside from these great ideas, Twitter has other uses besides a venue to spread content and engage in discussions about your industry.

“Twitter is also being successfully used as a technical support or customer service center. Many companies are using Twitter to interact with customers after the sale as well,” says Matt.

Well that certainly is an innovative way to engage a following on Twitter. Of course, you have to see what works for your particular business.

No matter how you employ Twitter though, be sure you give people a reason to follow you by providing engaging and insightful content.

And to get a steady diet of engaging, insightful content about search engine optimization, social media marketing, content development, graphic design and more, join us on Twitter @seo_advantage today.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

4 Components of the Marketing Funnel and how they relate to Social Media Channels

November 16, 2010 By

Anyone with a cursory knowledge of marketing is aware of the AIDA funnel – Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action.

Even in the age of SEO and social media tools like Facebook, this marketing funnel is still extremely relevant although some slight modifications are required. Each section of the AIDA funnel represents an important component of your marketing process. They help you set expectations and even determine metrics to measure your goals against.

Continue reading for a breakdown of this marketing funnel along with some additions in the new age of social media.

Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action

Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action

Awareness

Awareness is the bread and butter of any social media channel – whether it is Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or any of the minor networks. Rather than being your point of sale, they’re more like your communications and outreach tools…think of them as the spokes of a wheel that lead back to the hub. The hub in this case is your blog, landing page(s), shopping cart and other places designed to convert visitors into customers.

Conversation frequency, increased mentions and sentiment are a few of the metrics to consider with awareness. Remember, you have to let people know you’re out there and that you can solve a problem they have.

Interest

Once you have their attention, you have to pique their interest. You can do this by offering something special like buy one, get one free, free shipping or some other offer. Provide compelling reasons as to why you’re better than the competition and how you can solve the visitor’s problem. If you’re talking about a specific product or service, link to a specific landing page rather than a homepage.

Click-thru rates (CTR), retweets/Facebook status updates and conversations about your products are a few of the metrics to consider.

Desire

Social media can also help build desire for your products and services. However, your corresponding site needs to be easy to use in order to carry that desire all the way to the end. If your site is hard to understand or navigate, then you’re likely going to kill any desire your visitors may have. Move your customer from interest to desire by having a clean, navigable site with lots of information.

Bounce rate, time on site, pages viewed and incoming links are some of the metrics you can use to determine the effectiveness of your efforts.

Action

At this point, your site is the primary tool. You’ve built the desire so all that’s needed from here is for you to close the deal…social media isn’t going to have much influence here. Therefore, like desire, you’re going to have to be sure you have a usable site that’s easily navigable.

Metrics like conversion rate and ROI will give you a full picture of how well your efforts are working…and the ones your boss will be most interested in.

Two More Levels to the Marketing Funnel – Loyalty and Advocacy

Loyalty and advocacy are two components that should be added to the AIDA funnel to better reflect the realities of social media and marketing online. Maintain loyalty by thanking customers through Facebook and Twitter and let them know you’re always available to answer questions or address concerns.

Advocacy is another important component of social media marketing, and the most desired. Customers who are happy with your products/services will let their friends know. But to make this happen, you need to make it easy for them to share your brand. “Like” and “Retweet” buttons in convenient locations are a great way to help this along.

The AIDA funnel certainly isn’t perfect and not all of the steps are required. You don’t need to live and die by this funnel…people can skip a level or go through multiple levels at once.

But it’s important to factor the AIDA funnel into your online marketing strategy. It should help you focus and prioritize your efforts for success.

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Online Marketing, Social Media, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Large Numbers of Followers Doesn’t Always Mean More Benefits

October 8, 2010 By

It’s easy to think a large number of followers is what you need on Facebook or Twitter for those efforts to be successful…you see a competitor who has 5 times the number of followers you do on Facebook and start thinking if you just double what they have, leads and revenue from Facebook will start rolling in.

But when you start thinking this way, social media can devolve into a giant spam-fest…the “more=better” line of thinking generally doesn’t work for very long…this “social media spam” stems from a long held belief that a bigger network of customers is always better.

In all likelihood though, the more people you add who are not really interested in what you offer will actually reduce the value of every other member on your network. See the chart below:

Courtesy of Conversation Marketing

So the question remains – how does someone with only a third of the followers get twice as many or more clicks?

The answer lies in what’s known as the multiplier effect, which can be defined according to Conversation Marketing blogger Ian Lurie as “each additional quality friend or follower in your network increases the value of all other people on your network.”

Consider this when adding followers to your network instead of just thinking about how many you’ve got.

When you approach social media marketing this way, the people you add to your followers can serve as potential amplifiers for your message. They do this because all of these followers will talk to one another and more importantly, to their friends who likely haven’t heard of you. When they’re all interacting and talking to each other, they reinforce the value of your online community.

This chart gives a visual representation of the multiplier effect – while quantity is still good, quality is more important.

Courtesy of Conversation Marketing

Courtesy of Conversation Marketing

So to ensure you draw in quality followers who will benefit your social media marketing, keep in touch with all of your followers and answer all of their questions. Reward loyalty through discounts or some preferred customer program and never waste their time with spammy messages.

Manage a social media rolodex like you do for emails and phone numbers and only contribute to places online you are comfortable with and think benefits from will circle back around to you. And garner more interest by posting comments on other people’s blogs. Don’t just say “great post” but offer constructive criticism or ask questions.

Don’t fret too much if you don’t have a high number of followers. Keep in mind that quality is better quantity so focus on drawing in high-quality, engaging followers who will be more likely to spread your name around.

Filed Under: Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , ,

In-Person Interview with Leading Industry Expert

September 28, 2010 By

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting with and interviewing Kipp Bodnar, Inbound Marketing Manager at HubSpot. On a recent trip to the Boston area, I visited the company’s headquarters in Cambridge near the MIT campus where the company’s founders met and charted their course.

Their space is very nice and the place is teeming with lots of activity.

During my visit there, I interviewed Kipp about content development, blogs and social media. I asked him a few questions about developing trust in a site’s content, how often you should post something on your blog and ways to share your site’s unique content through social media channels.

Below are the questions I asked during our 15-minute discussion along with a quick synopsis of Kipp’s answers…watch the videos below for the actual interview.

1.       What are ways you can recommend for site owners to build trust in their content?

One way is to give people answers to their most pressing questions and concerns. You can also ask the questions to different industry experts…diverse opinions make information really credible.

2.       What is the proper frequency of blog posts and does that amount have any bearing on what industry you’re in?

Kipp says once a week at minimum but as often as you have relevant, useful things to share. There’s no rule set in stone but publishing something that wastes people’s time is worse than publishing nothing at all.

3.       What kind of differences in content are there or should there be for B2B and B2C companies?

Not much really…B2B companies have an advantage here because their audiences are much more targeted but as far as the content itself, there isn’t a whole lot of difference. Any good business blog should strive to be the best trade magazine in its industry according to Kipp.

4.       In terms of impacts of keywords on search engine rankings, are there any differences between blogs and websites?

If your blog is hosted on your own server (http://blog.yourcompany.com/), then no. As long as you keep the blog in-house, the impacts of keywords are the same. If you keep the blog on the WordPress or Blogger server, they will get all the credit in terms of keywords.

5.       What types of content do you think warrant further publication through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter? Only original content the author develops themselves? Or content they developed through others’ ideas/writings?

Basically, any relevant information that makes you appear credible no matter if it’s your original thoughts or whether you’re expanding on someone else’s ideas.

6.       With the advent of social media channels like Twitter and Facebook, how important do you think blog directories will be going forward?

How they exist now, blog directories will become less relevant over time. With its metrics of fans and followers, it’s easier to gauge the credibility of content with Facebook, Twitter and other social media channels.

7.       At what point should marketers consider adding a Facebook “like” button to their blog?

With Facebook’s new one-step process of linking up with a business, you want to give people every opportunity to share informative content. But do some research and find out the main social network(s) your prospects hang out. Only include 2-4 to avoid overwhelming yourself and your readers.

We’d like to once again thank Kipp for his time. I really enjoyed visiting the team at HubSpot and found their operations to be dynamic and very active. The 2-hour journey from my brother’s house to the company’s headquarters was well worth it.

Enjoy the interview.

(And BTW, I want to thank my brother for getting me to and picking me up from the train station…thanks for being there for me man)

Part I

Part II

Filed Under: Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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