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Alright Jim/Jane, you have five minutes. Don’t waste my time…
”*GULP* If put on the spot, could you impress someone with your social media campaign idea? While they may sympathize with the benefits of creative flair and imaginative campaigns, CMOs still have a board to satisfy who are demanding record-breaking results… and they were demanding them yesterday. You need to speak their language and present a campaign idea that will tick all the boxes.
The precise way you go about pitching an idea to your CMO, or other higher-up, will depend on both the company and your position within it. Keeping these key points in your head will give you a fighting chance of getting the green light for your golden idea....
What if you got paid to tweet?
No, we’re not talking about handling a company’s social media. We’re talking big bucks, hundreds of thousands of dollars, just for typing a few characters, adding a link, and clicking “send.”
That’s the business 23-year-old Kris Sanchez, who tweets under the account@UberFacts, a Twitter account that tweets — you guessed it — facts, to 7.2 million followers.
Last year, he made $US500,000 for tweeting sponsored links, according to Fast Company. The links, when clicked by his followers, earn him between $US.01-.03/click. Multiply that by a few sponsored links a day, a couple of hundred thousand eager followers, and 365 days in the year, and you’re rolling in money....
...According to Maximize Social Media, sales are directly linked to social media efforts in the following ways and for the following reasons: - Each month there are 10.3 billion Google searches. - 78% of shoppers research products online before making a purchase. - 57% of customers are acquired through company blogs (linked to social networks).
It’s clear that without a solid social media strategy, brands will fail to reach a large percentage of potential customers....
Every business interaction with a prospective buyer or customer is a potential story. That’s right, stories about your business are already being shared. Isn’t it time to take a more proactive approach to contribute to the conversation?
Stories are media, and media is media, regardless of the source. This is why every business must become a media company to better manage its story within the communities it serves.
What I’m going to share with you today is that your business can actually use storytelling as a means for accomplishing goals beyond marketing to shape future events that become signature stories....
With the rise of the Information Age and humans’ reliance on technology, the field of marketing has transformed and expanded vastly. The internet has doubled the channels through which brands can market to customers. Companies that used to exclusively use outbound marketing like newspapers, magazines, television and radio to market their brands now use new and modern inbound marketing avenues like search engines, social networks, mobile and social media.
What does this mean for marketing? This means that companies should look to start transitioning, using more inbound marketing to capitalize on changing consumer patterns. Shoppers believe they are more informed than sales associates because people use technology while shopping to research brands....
2013 was a year of exploration for brands on social media. From testing Vines to launching Instagram ads, many companies were dabbling in social media efforts across the Web just to see how customers would react. Now, in 2014, brands are geting serious. They’re using the wealth of data as well as the human connection that social media can provide to develop deeper relationships with customers.
Here are seven ways brands are using social media to increase customer loyalty this year....
What to do when social media is not working. Reevaluate your social media tactics with these tips to find and engage with your audience on social media.
Need help optimizing your landing pages? Don't forget to check out these helpful resources.
Regardless, you should know that you don't always have to take on huge campaigns to move the needle -- sometimes little changes can make a big difference, especially on your landing pages. That's the closest point to conversion, after all.
But even focusing on landing pages alone to increase lead gen can feel daunting. Do you start by testing the headline? The button copy? Or just completely overhaul the page design?
Wherever you decide to start all depends on your team and company goals -- but having landing page optimization resources in your back pocket never hurt. To arm you with the information, data, and examples you need to make better decisions, we pulled together our eight best landing page optimization resouces in one post....
...Guess what? It didn’t matter at all if your business used Vine or not. And if Vine had turned out to be the next Pinterest, you would have had plenty of time to catch up — there wasn’t much advantage in being early...
Americans own an average of four digital devices (including high-definition TVs) and spend 60 hours a week consuming media across them collectively.
“The number of digital devices and platforms available to today’s consumers has exploded in recent years. As a result, today’s consumer is more connected than ever, with more access to and deeper engagement with content and brands,” stated a Nielsen blog post today on its Digital Consumer report....
...A social business is more than an organization that invests in a positive global footprint to overcome the world's biggest problems, such as inequality and poverty. The term has developed to now also represent companies that are more open, transparent, and participatory in conversations and activity that defines markets. But the challenge is that social media strategists may actually be hampering its potential by not helping executives see the bigger picture beyond the technology.
Last month, Charlene Li and I published our latest Altimeter Group report, "The State of Social Business 2013." In our research, we were surprised that businesses were still unsure of the role social media played enterprise-wide, beyond marketing and communications. Many, we found, were limited in scope and not universal in engagement with customers, employees, suppliers, partners, community, et al...
Do you find the creation of valuable content that both activates and inspires a thriving community elusive?
The ideas below are designed with you in mind! Peg Fitzpatrick, social media strategist and myself set out on a mission. To help you create social media magic within your business!
How can you do it? Believe it or not, you don’t have to spend hours per day formulating your perfect post. You need a roadmap, a basic understanding of who your target market is and these first 26 tips! (part one of our two-part series)...
With a mix of print, online, social media, and in-store content, the apparel chain is giving its biggest fans everything they want.
Take one of my favorite brands, Anthropologie. This eclectic and increasingly popular store is a self-proclaimed “destination for women wanting a curated mix of clothing, accessories, gifts, and home décor that reflects their personal style and fuels their lives’ passions, from fashion to art to entertaining.”
That says it all. Anthropologie has mastered the art of balancing curated and created goods in its stores, as well as in its marketing presence.
From its beautiful catalogs to its bubbly blog to its upscale yet estate-sale-styled stores, Anthropologie has homespun a lacy web of content confection that dazzles us at home, online, and in person.
Here are some reasons Anthropologie is a storytelling superstar, examples from which all brands can learn...
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Many studies show that when people answer surveys asking "How did you hear about us?" somewhere between 25 and 50 percent of the time they will just guess. "I saw your ad on a billboard," someone might say, even though the business doing the asking doesn't advertise that way. Or, "I heard about your product on the radio or in the newspaper," when the business has never placed a radio or newspaper ad. People who answer incorrectly don't want to be misleading. They give an answer because they want to be helpful.
The point is that social media isn't only about ROI. And it isn't only about sales. Social media is about branding, opening channels of communication with customers, building loyalty, being transparent and establishing good will.
And if you cover all of those bases, then guess what? If your product or service is worthy, you will most definitely see a return on your investment. Here are four things to know about investing in social media....
...I don’t know if the guy owned stock in Second Life, or was shacking up with the founder’s daughter, or if his Second Life avatar owned the biggest fake ad agency in that big fake world and he planned to corner the Second Life fake ad market.
All I know is that he made it clear. Laid it bare. If we weren’t building campaigns to include a serious presence on Second Life, we were doomed. DOOMED!And so today, whenever I hear someone declare that the future of digital advertising is native ads, all I hear is Second Life. And all I smell is poo....
This infographic from exacttarget has 20 tips and tricks to succeed at social media engagement.
Good social conversations solidify relationships and help people establish a direct connection with your company, but how do you know that you’re doing it right?
Take a look at this infographic from exacttarget proposing 20 ways to succeed at social media engagement....
Not so long ago, agile methodology practitioners were all developers, and they would swear that there was no way UX design could fit into the mix. Agile was for development-centric projects. The methodology empowers developers to build and create, “fundamentally incorporat[ing] iteration and the continuous feedback that it provides to successively refine and deliver a software system.” (VersionOne) In a system like that, it was long thought, there was no room for UX design or content.
Today, ”agile” is like a new sort of ice cream, with a wide variety of flavors. There are UX design teams working in “agile for UX,” and others branching out to Lean UX, both putting an emphasis on prototypes over wireframes, and collaboration over documentation. But agile is as prone to the game of telephone as anything else, and so as the word of agile spreads, it morphs, or evolves. Which brings me to look at what happens when content strategy is integrated into agile, and how agile can be whispered to so many people it no longer remotely resembles the original word....
This story isn’t about someone like you, it’s about you. Your unique habits, preferences and expectations.
...You are now a “Market of One” (breaking free from the “Market of Many”). Technology has given you free agent status to the brands that want your business and more importantly, your loyalty.
Why does this matter? Because a remarkable, nearly-invisible technology rests at the intersection of billions of people around the world and their every waking moment… Flash technology....
Successful content marketing requires a fundamental shift in thinking about how you communicate with consumers—and how your brand serves them.
...Now, we have entered the age of transparency, brought on almost singlehandedly by social media. The message is no longer controlled by brands; consumers now share the conversation. When the brand message is inconsistent with the consumer experience, the disparity is quickly and publicly exposed.
Some brands choose to expend their energy trying to guard the doors and maintain control of the conversation. (Your PR firms and lawyers thank you for your patronage.) However, it is a losing battle; the control has already shifted....
Sometimes the hype of social media outstrips common sense. This is one of those times.
There seems to be a growing amount of buzz and attention about creating a “social enterprise.” This is a good thing. Complicated, but good.
But somehow in this same conversation there is this expectation that the CEO, CMO, and other executives should blog and tweet. This was the topic of a lively debate with some friends at SXSW recently and it was heated enough that I thought that perhaps this is an issue for some readers too....
As opportunities for dynamic dialogue between business and consumer have multiplied exponentially, organizations are pushing to find ways to engage and elevate their associative value. Brands that get it right go beyond appealing to material needs; they transcend the superficial back-and-forth to engage with audiences not just around what people seek in a material sense, but on a deeper and more personal level....
With the rise of Social Media and the increasing pressure on companies to produce engaging and regular content for social networks, it is key to use the available social tools effectively. By increasing their online presence and through engaging their target audience through a variety of portals, companies can create a loyal customer following, as well as forge new links and obtain new leads.
CXO’s 2010 survey has found that 70 percent of consumers want access to company experts and support via social media channels. It follows that the businesses which fail to use social media to interact with their customers do so at their own peril. This article is designed to help businesses to navigate the wealth of online social networks and websites and help them optimise their business’s presence online....
2013 has been a fruitful year as social media has continued its ‘conquest’ of the Internet realm. From the massive surge in viral videos on YouTube to the introduction of Vine and the ever growing popularity of Instagram, Line and Whatsapp; the industry’s veterans Facebook and Twitter are still staying on track, notably with Twitter’s IPO in November.
You might wonder how all of this will affect social media marketing next year. As 2014 will see new social networks, ever more creative marketing concepts and innovative formats popping up everyday, we asked some social media experts about their views of the top trends in social media marketing next year.See what they have to say so you can prepare ahead!...
Excellent case study on how a Napa Valley winery hit on a winning social media formula that pays dividends in both increased sales and brand loyalty.How can wineries use social media to increase sales when the law prohibits them from giving away product samples?Whitehall Lane, a 20-year-old Napa Valley winery run by the Leonardini family, has hit on a winning social media formula that pays dividends in both increased sales and brand loyalty....
Once you’ve selected the right social media channels for your company’s online communication strategy, it’s time to think about the type of content you want to share. Keeping your channels regularly updated with fresh and interesting content will be important going forward, as those channels will serve as the hub for your content marketing activity.
Let me preface that content creation is a major undertaking that requires a lot of time, energy and thoughtful input—especially when you have several social media accounts to manage. If you want to be at the top of your social media game, I suggest creating a social media editorial calendar for each channel you operate. This simple, yet effective tool will serve as the playbook for your social media success...
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Social marketing basics: Spending weeks crafting a genius, groundbreaking social media strategy to pitch to your CMO can be a tough process, so why ruin it at the final hurdle?