How to Improve Your Social Media Calls to Action

How to Improve Your Social Media Calls to Action

Is your audience responding to your social activities?

Have you integrated the right calls to action into your social media strategy?

A call to action is a way for you to entice your social media audience to focus their attention on the next action you want them to take.

Here are seven steps for crafting calls to action to get your social community to do what you’d like them to and transform your social media marketing to get the results you want.

#1: Determine What You Want Prospects to Do

Your call to action should encourage readers to engage with you further.

You’ll want to break the activity into smaller steps that make sense to your audience. You can lose prospects at each step of the process, so you want to make it very easy for them.

Make readers an offer they want. What will get prospects to commit now? Your offer will vary based on your business and where the prospect is in the sales process. You can consider offering white paper downloads, ebooks, ongoing emails, discount coupons and/or free consultations.

#2: Create a Great Hook

You’ll need to answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” This is what your prospects want to know.

And your request must make sense to them. This means not asking prospects to purchase if they’re still in an information-gathering mode.

So you’ll want to assess the tradeoff prospects are willing to make. From a participants’ perspective, going to the next step means they have to consider if it’s worth their effort and social capital. Consider the 90%/9%/1% ratio of social media engagement.

On social media platforms, participants tend to follow a 90% view, 9% share and 1% create.

Skip the promotion. People active on most social media platforms are focused on socializing and aren’t prepared to buy.

Among the exceptions are blogs, Tumblr and Pinterest. These social media venues encourage sales by providing valuable content that persuades, not merely promotes.

For example, below are three sample implied calls to action. King Arthur’s Flour offers recipes with enticing photos and explanations of baked goods with links to their product.

King Arthur’s Flour blog has several calls to action above the fold.

By contrast, Target uses Tumblr to show customers the fashion backstory and how to style their clothes. There’s no “Buy, Buy, Buy” in their content. They use social media sharing and notes to build customer excitement and engagement pre-purchase.

Target Style’s Tumblr for their Spring 2013 Collection featuring Prabal Gurung.

#3: Motivate Prospects to Act

Remember, you want to give your readers a reason to act.

Provide sense of urgency. Remember you’re not just competing against other retailers for the same item or other tradeoffs; your bigger opposition is customer inaction. It’s much easier for prospects to click to the next shiny item. Tests by Marketing Experiments proved that increasing the urgency of the call to action improved response.

Make people an offer they can’t refuse. Give them a one-time offer to encourage a response. Realize, however, they may only buy when you provide coupons going forward.

#4: Optimize Your Call to Action

Like other aspects of your content, formatting matters! Here are some points to consider.

• Use a contextually relevant presentation. Your offer should make sense based on the social media platform where it appears. Use a consistent voice and language to represent your 360° brand.
• Make your call to action stand out visually. Use color, typography and wording to enhance presentation of your call to action.
• Qualify your offer. Make readers feel that opportunities are limited or time-sensitive. For example, “There are only 100 tickets left”.
• Limit selection choices. Don’t give prospects too many options or you’ll suppress response because readers will put off acting because they need time to consider your offer.
• Place calls to action in multiple locations on your pages. Take the “Don’t make me think” approach. Don’t assume using only one call to action will yield optimal results. For example, put social sharing buttons at the top and bottom of articles.
• Keep calls to action above the fold. Make your call to action visible so your offer isn’t dependent on participants scrolling down. Similarly, have a persistent banner or other calls to action below the fold.
• Put call-to-action options in order of importance. While you can present more than one call to action, make the hierarchy of importance clear to participants. The more important option should be bigger, shown first or be given more prominent positioning.
• Include social sharing. Ask participants to share your offer with their social network by using social sharing buttons.
  

  L.L.Bean Million Moment Campaign uses social media calls to action on Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and Foursquare, as well as at live events and on their blog.

#5: Maintain a Consistent Presentation on Landing Pages

This is one of the biggest reasons calls to action don’t work. Send prospects to the appropriate step in the purchase process.

Make sure you use the same wording and graphics. The goal is to show continuity. Don’t let the reader think that you’ve sent them to the wrong place or they’ll leave.

Use of implied call-to-action on King Arthur Flour recipe for Morning Glory Muffins.

King Arthur’s Flour links to Morning Glory Recipe have a consistent look and feel.

Tailor landing pages to increase results. HubSpot research found that using more landing pages yielded better results. This makes sense because it translates to more targeted offers.

HubSpot chart showing the increase in the number of landing pages results in increased leads.

#6: Test to Maximize Results

Every element of your call to action can be tested. When testing, only modify one factor at a time or you won’t know what caused the change. Among the attributes to test are:

• Text. Check the text on buttons as well as information surrounding the call to action.
• Color. Take a holistic view of color. Consider the text and button colors, the background and the use of white space around the call to action.
• Graphics. Test the use of photographs and other images.
• Size. Assess the size of the call to action relative to the rest of the content.
• Placement. Consider where on the page the call to action appears.

#7: Measure Results

How can you measure your results? You want to track the impact of your social media calls to action back to your original objectives. Here are some metrics to track:

• Impressions are the number of people exposed to the call to action.
• Click-throughs are the number of people who take action.
• Click-through rate is the percentage of people who checked out your offer out of the number of people who saw it.
• Completions are the number of people who filled out your form and submitted it.
• Completion rate is the percentage of people who complete your form out of the number of people who clicked through.

Are Your Social Media Calls to Action Working for You?

Social media calls to action are a necessary element of any social media marketing implementation. They nudge prospects, customers and the public to take action that’s trackable.

When a call to action is in alignment with your business goals, it can help you get measurable results that support your key marketing objectives.

Mobile’s role in lead generation grows as conversions blow past 25pc

Mobile’s role in lead generation grows as conversions blow past 25pc

 

By Chantal Tode

April 26, 2013

 

Mobile presents a unique set of challenges for marketers looking to generate online leads, but also a growing opportunity for those who get it right, with sales conversions averaging more than 25 percent in some cases.

Insurance companies, cable television providers and other marketers that heavily use online lead generation campaigns are experiencing an increase in the amount of traffic from mobile devices. However, most are still in the early stages of figuring out how to optimize their efforts for mobile users.

“Mobile is becoming increasingly important for lead generation as consumers turn more and more to their mobile phones to search for services and view a greater share of media,” said John Busby, senior vice president of the Marchex Institute, Seattle, WA. “It’s also changing.

“Consumers are much more likely to make a phone call from their smartphones than fill out a form for a number of reasons – smartphones can be clunky for form-fills,” he said. “And it’s a phone, after all.

“Smartphone consumers also have a greater sense of urgency from their searches. Google has recently presented research that most conversions happen within an hour, and we’ve seen a similar phenomenon in our own data.”

Mobile conversions
Mobile has not solved for some of the challenges in the lead generation or call generation space, such as spam or fraud. In some cases, more than 90 percent of actions are without purchase intent.

There have also been examples of fake phone calls designed to seem like true prospects.

However, for campaigns that can address these issues effectively, the results from mobile are impressive.

“For campaigns that have effective ways to identify and filter out spam, fraud, and other low-intent actions, the mobile consumer is very likely to convert,” Mr. Busby said.

“Our data show that campaigns convert into appointments at a 50 percent rate and average conversions (sales) average more than 25 percent,” he said.

“We’ve seen this with local categories, such as exterminators or plumbers, and national campaigns for categories such as cable & satellite TV providers, travel or storage.”

Shorter is better
ReviMedia, a company focused on generating leads for insurance and automotive companies, reports that its organic mobile traffic grew from 5 percent to almost 30 percent in the past 18 months.

The challenge is how to convert this mobile traffic into a lead because it has to be treated differently than desktop traffic.

One of the challenges is technical in terms of how to make the page look right on all browsers.

Then there is the issue of lead forms, which traditionally can have up to 20 fields.

On a mobile device, which has smaller screens, users are unlikely to hang around to fill out so many different fields.

“A mobile form is completely different than a form on your laptop – it needs to have bigger fields, more pages and less fields,” said Frans Van Hulle, CEO of ReviMedia, New York.

“Anything that you can do to shorten the form to avoid the user having to fill in all that information which they normally would have to will improve the conversion,” he said.

A sense of urgency
ReviMedia uses external databases for telephone numbers, ZIP code match and others to verify if lead information is correct. Using reverse engineering, the company is able to fill in some of the information automatically so the user does not have to.

For example, if a user inputs a ZIP code, ReviMedia can verify the location and then, with the telephone number, it can get the address in 90 percent of the cases.

“When we did that, we increased the conversion by 50 percent because the form is much shorter,” Mr. Van Hulle said.

Another challenge is crafting campaigns that address the different behavior of mobile users compared to desktop users.

In general, mobile users are more impatient and have a greater sense of urgency to their interest.

This is why click-to-call tends to be heavily used in lead generation efforts.

“Instead of filling in a form, users can call right away to talk to an agent,” Mr. Van Hulle said. “That conversion of smartphone traffic is much higher than on any other source.

“Allstate is the most advanced in this area,” he said. “They have been able to monetize their mobile traffic by adding the click-to-call element and capturing those calls right away to their call center.”

The marketer has been actively engaging in mobile to drive leads via a variety of strategies, including its own branded apps, sponsorships of other apps and with mobile elements for its sports sponsorships.

Providing choice
Mobile traffic is also harder to track because cookies are less supported.

Overall, many marketers still have a lot to learn about how to conduct mobile lead generation campaigns, with some big brands still treating mobile leads the same as desktop leads.

“Marketers should provide consumers a choice on how they’d like to interact with a business,” Marchex’ Mr. Busby said.

“Consumers may want to conduct additional research, provide lead information or make a phone call,” he said. “Successful campaigns test these outcomes and adapt accordingly.

“In addition, marketers must match their creativity in campaign management with diligence in measurement. There is a significant amount of variation in quality in mobile publishing – that makes tracking through to conversions critical at this stage.”

Are QR codes losing their magnetism?

Are QR codes losing their magnetism?

 

By Rimma Kats

April 25, 2013

Coca-Cola taps QR codes to drive consumer engagement

Even though QR codes still represent the majority of print-to-mobile activations in print and retail, brands and publishers are not clamoring to use the technology like they once did.

Last year, mobile bar codes ruled the mobile space – they were placed everywhere – from billboards, to clothing tags to magazine pages. However, perhaps in large part to lack of education, it seems the technology has lost some of its glimmer.

“Yes the spark has faded,” said Matthew Szerencse, market development manager of Digimarc, Beaverton, OR. “QR Codes take up valuable real estate and don’t offer brands any creative control.  

“Brands don’t want to place a generic black and white box all over their creative,” he said. “Seventeen Magazine has used over 250 imperceptible digital watermarks in multiple issues. 

“There is no way a publication like Seventeen can place 250 QR codes in their publication without being obnoxious.”

Ralph Lauren QR code

Key technologies
Done right, QR codes are effective.

However, many marketers simply place a QR code on their product and assume that consumers will see it and automatically scan.

“Advertisers just slap a QR code on their creative and pay no attention to the post-scan experience,” Mr. Szerencse said. “This has caused some consumers to not trust QR codes since broken links, boring content and non-mobile optimized sites are second-rate experiences. 

Magazines offer companion apps for scanning QR codes

“We’re also seeing an increase in malicious QR codes that lead to malware and viruses after scanning,” he said. “This year we’ll see even more publishers and retailers using digital watermarking to connect with their mobile audience. 

“Since digital watermarks can be placed in any type of media, brands can use one platform to engage with consumers across multiple touch points throughout their shopper’s journey.”

According to Ritesh Bhavnani, chairman of Snipp Interactive, Washington, the shine on QR codes has dimmed down. However, that is not necessarily a bad thing.

“One of the interesting thing about mobile marketing is the proliferation of choice available to marketers,” Mr. Bhavnani said. “Even as much as two years ago, you pretty much had to choose between text messaging and QR codes.

“Today you have a wider palette with image recognition, NFC, AR and digital watermarks,” he said. “So as a marketer you can now choose the technology that best fits your specific needs.”

For QR codes that means that although the shine is off, the utility of them may well continue to increase.

“Probably the single biggest issue with QR codes remains the need to have an app to scan the codes and the need to launch the app to scan the code,” Mr. Bhavnani said. “It’s time-consuming and not elegant.

“If any of the phones ever does a passive QR scanner that is always on and one has to just point the phone camera in the direction of the QR code to launch the content that would make QRs much more user-friendly,” he said.

According to the executive, mobile bar codes work well in utilitarian contexts – as identifiers, for providing dense amounts of information and for getting access to very specific pieces of content.

When used appropriately QR codes can indeed build engagement and drive interaction.

The problem, however, is that because QR codes are free and easy to generate they are being thrown onto everything – reducing their overall perceived utility for customers.

“We are seeing a lot of great applications of augmented reality this year – and if I had to put my money on one specific application in mobile marketing it will be that,” Mr. Bhavnani said.

“You’re starting to see augmented reality move away from the ‘gee-whiz cool’ towards providing customers with real utility and creating real engagement which is great,” he said.

For many marketers, QR codes are a cost-effective way to bring the digital and physical worlds together. 

And, many industry experts believe that the technology’s decrease in popularity is due in part largely to a lack of innovation and a lack of consumer appreciation for what the technology can do. 

QR codes have been around for years and yet, according to eMarketer statistics, only 19 percent of Americans have activated one. 

Additionally, QR readers are not standard on many devices and require an additional download, making them less convenient in consumers’ eyes. 

“Marketers need to do more than stick QR codes on posters,” said Vanessa Horwell, chief visibility officer of ThinkInk, Miami Beach, FL. “Instead, they need to strive for creativity when trying to break out of the QR code funk. 

“I think image rendering/augmented reality will take center stage,” she said. “For one thing, camera technology and sensitivity continues to advance. 

“Then there’s a host of apps that mix real-world and digital data together. And all of this imaging convergence is coming as the lead-up to wearable products like Google Glass.” 

According to Alex Romanov, CEO of iSign Media, mobile bar code popularity has never really inspired a true fire of consumer demand.

QR codes, which have been around since 1994, but only capable of being read by smartphones since 2010, have not gained wide-spread traction, per the executive. 

“I do see QR codes as an effective companion technology for digital signage and proximity advertising and engagement – all of it in real time,” Mr. Romanov said. “There’s also important technological similarities with digital signage that may help QR codes’ growing popularity: both are opt-in experiences. 

“In that way digital signage and Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity may finally soften the ground for a true QR code success,” he said. “In my eyes, marketers haven’t been creative enough in their QR code usage. 

Marketers and brands appreciate their ability to merge the physical and digital worlds, but in the fast-paced world of mobile technology, image recognition and augmented reality have, in some ways, surpassed the QR code’s initial cool factor.

What’s more, compared to newer technologies, QR can be downright clunky. Consumers must first have a QR reader on their phones; often they must download additional software and then visit a Web site as part of their engagement. 

None of these steps inspire grandiose calls to action. Consumers are an instant gratification lot. And, sometimes QR codes fall short in that area.  

“I remain partial to proximity advertising via mobile devices; that is the wireless transmission of messaging or offers to mobile devices, taking the form of SMS, email, push notification and opt-in deals, discounts and digital coupons,” Mr. Romanov said. “It’s timely, interactive, and relevant – and provides consumers with the information they want, when they are primed and ready to receive it.  

“And Apple’s recent $20 million purchase of WiFiSlam, an indoor GPS tracking technology, suggests proximity advertising’s and location-based marketing’s reach is only going to grow,” he said. “Augmented reality, image recognition and wireless opt-in communications like SMS and push notification will prosper as well. 

“I think that partnerships across marketing channels, like mobile messaging used in combination with digital signage, for example, will really flourish. In my eyes, no one technology can really be dominate today with consumers literally consuming content across a number of screens at one time. Marketers must really find a way to capture their attention – and to do it in a way that is personalized and respectful of consumers’ privacy.” 

Many industry experts believe that mobile bar codes still hold acclaim with marketers.

According to Rick Chavie, vice president of omnicommerce at hybris, QR codes have not faded. 

Instead, marketers are seeing a broader penetration and more use cases being developed. 

“A few examples include luggage tags, physical or digital signs, product information that’s accessible from a shelf label, coupon offers in newspapers, loyalty program emails, and even repair manuals that are accessed by scanning the QR code directly from an appliance,” Mr. Chavie said. “There is continued growth for QR codes in diverse spaces. 

“Much of this growth has been spurred by consumer brands who see QR codes as a way to disseminate a message at a low cost, yet provide a pathway to rich content upon scanning the code,” he said. “Based on the adoption of QR codes by companies ranging from Coca-Cola to Starbucks to UPS, we are seeing the broad reach of this tactic as a marketing tool.  

“Unlike a hot software app that may come and go, QR codes can be updated continuously even if the QR code itself is embedded in a static print advertising vehicle such as a magazine.”

5 Social Media Management Tools You Should Consider

5 Social Media Management Tools You Should Consider

 

Have your social media activities spiraled out of control?

Are you looking for tools to simplify the management of your social media marketing?

Would you like better insight into your audience or the ability to compare your social activities against the competition?

These are some of the capabilities you’ll discover in the five social media management tools listed below.

In this article I reveal five social management tools that just might make your life a bit easier.

Check out what they have to offer and see if they are a good fit for your business needs.

#1: Sprout Social Helps You Engage Followers and Respond in Real Time

One of the best things about Sprout Social is the user interface. Many people find it easier to process and digest data when it’s presented graphically. That’s one of the strengths of this tool—you can quickly check data and figure out how to respond to it.

Sprout Social gives you the information you need in an easy-to-read graphic format.

Another important aspect of Sprout Social is the Smart Inbox. It’s designed to help you respond quickly and easily from different social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), post different message types (mentions, direct messages, wall posts, etc.) and even sort by brand keywords.

Sprout Social offers different tabs for you to respond to messages.

There are a wide variety of ways you can use Sprout Social to manage your campaigns, but one of the best is the Twitter Comparison Tool. It’s a great way to compare your Twitter usage to that of your friends and competitors.

Use Sprout Social’s Twitter Comparison Tool to compare yourself with others.

Sprout Social is ideally suited for people who like to digest and process information visually. It can be used by individuals or teams and has very solid reporting and analytics.

The cost is reasonable and their free 30-day trial is perfect for people who are interested in taking it out for a spin.

#2: MarketMeSuite Provides an Easy-to-Use Dashboard That Works Like Email

If there’s one thing everyone reading this article has in common, it’s that we’re all comfortable using email. A message comes in, you open it and then you respond.

That’s the approach MarketMeSuite uses for its social media management tool. The dashboard is designed to work the same way an email inbox works. You can look at messages in the preview pane, and then open them up to explore more about the person who sent the message.

MarketMeSuite is designed like an email inbox.

If you’re like many people, you’re busy trying to run the day-to-day operations of your business, so sitting down and learning a new tool by trial and error is time-consuming.

One of the strengths of MarketMeSuite is that it has a built-in tutorial to walk you through the basics of using the platform. The tutorial guides you through a simple 9-step process to help you get up and running fast.

Best of all, it takes the guesswork out of trying to figure out all the bells and whistles—just complete the tutorial and you’ll have a great foundation to work from.

MarketMeSuite has a built-in tutorial.

MarketMeSuite has plenty of other strengths, too. Their geo-targeting feature allows you to locate customers using social media who are near your business. It allows you to manage multiple social media profiles. And you can schedule messages across social networks with just one click.

You might be interested in taking advantage of MarketMeSuite’s free service as you make up your mind about which of their fee-based programs suits your needs.

#3: Sendible Provides Brand Monitoring and Sentiment Analysis for Businesses

Here’s a question: If you found out that 70% of your customers described your product as “cheap” while only 30% described it as “a good value,” would that be important to your business? Absolutely. And that explains one of the strengths of the Sendible platform.

With its 360° brand monitoring and sentiment analysis feature, you’re able to read and respond to what people are saying about your brand across the web. Plus, if you want to really be proactive, you can monitor what people are saying about your competitors’ products, too.

That way, when someone posts an update about a negative experience with a competitor, you can gently (and politely) introduce him or her to your brand. (Note: Be cautious with this tactic, because if you’re too aggressive, it can backfire.)

Sendible allows you to monitor both positive and negative sentiment about your brand.

Like other social media management platforms, Sendible provides a wide variety of features at an affordable price. You can engage with new and existing customers across multiple platforms, analyze and track your social media and email campaigns, measure the success of the content you share and a multitude of other things.

Sendible is terrific if you’re a data junkie; there’s a lot of information to plow through with their platform. The user interface isn’t as elegant as some of the other options mentioned here, so if “look and feel” is important to you, it might not be perfect. But if you’re more focused on content, then Sendible has plenty of data that can be put to use for your business.

#4: Socialbakers Provides Large Amounts of Data in a User-Friendly Interface

If you want to combine the data available in Sendible with the user interface available with Sprout Social and MarketMeSuite, then you might want to check out Socialbakers.

It’s the most expensive of the tools reviewed here, but it may be worth the price. (Note: It’s just the most expensive of the batch here. There are more expensive tools aimed at big brands.)

Socialbakers tracks fan growth across multiple platforms so you can determine which content was the most well-received by your audience.

It also allows you to analyze fan growth by days of the week and times of the day. That way, you can track when your audience is most likely to respond to your content.

Socialbakers gives you a lot of data in an easy-to-read format.

Are you interested in tracking how your social media campaigns are performing compared to your competitors? You’ll like some of the tools available with Socialbakers.

You can compare how you stack up on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube and see all of your competitors’ pages, profiles and channels in an easy-to-understand dashboard.

Best of all, you can analyze the content that prospective customers find most engaging, which leads to better content from you.

Socialbakers lets you compare results.

Socialbakers also has a number of reports available on their website, including statistics from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn. It even breaks some of the data out by country, making it perfect for the international crowd.

#5: Crowdbooster Does Much of the Thinking for You

Is the idea of drilling down into vast amounts of data and analyzing what to do with it is a bit daunting? Enter Crowdbooster, a social media management tool for people who want their tools to make recommendations for them.

With Crowdbooster, you can check the number of retweets, replies, impressions, likes and comments by date range or in real time. You can also drill down to see who retweeted you, how many shares were organic and how effective your campaigns have been.

Crowdbooster provides you with the data you need to determine the success of your marketing campaigns.

One of the strengths of Crowdbooster is that it provides email alerts that are dropped into your inbox each day. The alerts give you a summary of the data that Crowdbooster collected and, best of all, provides recommendations on how you should respond.

That way, for example, when someone with a high Klout score follows you, Crowdbooster will recommend that you follow her back and engage with her.

About the only weakness of Crowdbooster is the fact that it currently only supports Twitter and Facebook, so if YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+ or any of the other social media platforms are an important part of your mix, Crowdbooster may not be for you. But if you like the idea of having a tool that provides data and recommendations, then you’ll want to check it out.

Which Social Media Management Tool Is Right for You?

The tools listed above have a lot of great qualities. There are still others out there that you may want to investigate, including SproutLoud, Wildfire, SocialBro, MediaFunnel and others.

No matter which approach you take, if you’re ready for a more robust platform, you can’t go wrong with the tools mentioned here.

How to Use Pinterest to Promote Your Products

How to Use Pinterest to Promote Your Products

Is your business on Pinterest?

Or are you still unsure how to use Pinterest to effectively promote your products or company?

In November, Pinterest launched business pages with their new terms of service. This update lets you use Pinterest commercially.

You can promote your products, generate sales and leads and use it for other commercial purposes without any worries.

But first, you may want to convert your personal profile into a business account (or if you don’t have a personal account, just start fresh with one for business).

Here are some tips on how you can take advantage of this update and use Pinterest commercially to promote your business.

#1: Promote Holiday Products

A great way to drive sales is to create boards where you pin holiday products. This could be Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Mother’s Day or any other day that is of significance to your audience.

You can use Pinterest to show your audience that you’ve got what they need to celebrate.

The first thing you need to do is create a board based on that holiday and label it with a board name, description and category.

After that, you can begin pinning relevant products from your website to this board. You could also upload the images directly to Pinterest, but in this case make sure the image leads to a landing page on your website where people can make a purchase.

Write a good description to let readers know how they can use your product during this holiday. You can also add the price.

Rearrange your holiday-themed boards so that they’re at the top of your profile page during the appropriate season so they stand out (and don’t forget to add a good cover image).

You could also add a board widget to your website to help promote the board.

Like Argos, promote your products for festive occasions.

A good example of a holiday board is Christmas Gifts for Her, which can be found on Argos’ (a UK home and general goods retailer) Pinterest brand page.

On this board, you’ll find pins of products from their website for Christmas, along with detailed descriptions and labels, which all ultimately lead to a landing page to buy the item. This is a great way to market their products on Pinterest.

Check out the board to see how well it’s been done.

#2: Group Products Around a Theme

Another creative way of using your Pinterest brand page is to promote your products using a theme. This could be a theme around colors, designs, materials, ingredients, locations or anything else that’s interesting and can be categorized.

After you choose a theme, create several boards based on that theme.

For example, if you choose the color theme, create several boards where you plan to pin products of different colors. Label them accordingly, with different color names and arrange them side by side, so users know that the boards collectively form a theme.

Once you have set up the boards correctly, start pinning products of that color onto that board and add a good description (make sure you mention the color here too). This is a creative way to market your business, as people can easily find products of their favorite color.

This method is also good for search engine optimization (SEO), especially when you mention the keyword (color) in the board title, board description and pin description.

Displaying your products around a theme can increase engagement and drive sales.

A company that is promoting its products around a theme on Pinterest is Debenhams, a chain of stores in the UK.

On their Pinterest page, they have several boards labeled with names of designers like John Rocha, Betty Jackson and Jenny Packham. They also have each designer’s photo set as their board cover.

On this board they share clothes and accessories created by the designer. Fans can visit that board to check out the creations of that designer instead of visiting the website and browsing through hundreds of clothing items and accessories. This can help generate traffic and increase sales.

You can also promote your products in a similar way. Just make sure you choose a title under which you can group many of your products together. And don’t hesitate to experiment with different methods and themes. If something doesn’t work, you can always delete the boards and pins and create new ones.

#3: Highlight Your Popular Products

People like popular products. When they know that a product is selling well and everyone else is buying it, they want to get a hold of it before they miss out. This is one of the reasons why there’s the Amazon bestseller list and the option to look at the most popular products on online stores.

Once your products reach that list and are easily visible to your website visitors, they are likely to sell even better.

You can take advantage of this same idea on Pinterest too and list your most popular products.

First, create a board with a title and description to tell readers this is where they can find your most popular products. After that, pin some images of your most popular products here and add descriptions. You could also add the rank of the product.

Make sure you write everything about the product—include the price, whether the product is a limited edition and add a call to action asking users to check out the product or buy it.

Also make sure you update the board regularly. Remove products no longer available and replace them with hot new items.

Create a bestsellers or a top-sellers board and pin your most popular products to it.

Top 40 Best Sellers is a board on Gourmet Display’s Pinterest brand page, where they pin 40 of their best-selling products for food and beverage displays. This is a great way to further increase the sales of these products.

The board has a good name and a well-written description, which instantly tell you what the board contains. The pins have both an attractive image and a good description and they lead to a page where the product can be purchased.

#4: Generate Leads

Another way to use your Pinterest page is to generate leads. First, create some quality content (such as ebooks, white papers, reports, case studies, etc.) that is gated with an opt-in form on a landing page.

Then add a short description about the content on the landing page along with an attractive image that is also the cover image of your file. After that, pin this image onto a board where you share your premium content. Write a brief description about it with a call to action that asks people to visit your website to sign up.

This will increase your landing page traffic and will help generate more leads, which can be used to increase website and blog traffic and drive sales later.

Using your brand page to generate leads can be easier than trying to push sales.

An example is the Free Marketing Resources board on Team MarketingProfs’ brand page, where you will find pins of their free marketing resources. Here, instead of directly marketing their services, MarketingProfs asks its followers to download their marketing materials for free. Many of these resources can only be accessed by providing an email address.

This is a great way to generate leads from potential customers who can be marketed to later. It’s a lot easier than trying to get them to buy your products or use your services right away.

#5: Build an Audience and Then Sell

The ultimate goal of your campaign is to generate leads and sales for your services and products. In fact, it would be nice to start generating sales as soon as you set up your brand page, but on Pinterest you want to take your time doing this.

You need to build an audience first. And after you gain followers, you can start promoting your products.

On Facebook and Twitter or other social networks where you share posts every day, you might be able to promote your products more than once daily. But on Pinterest, the best way to promote items is to create a dedicated board where you pin the products you want to sell.

Remember, you want to pin your products only once because if you do it over and over again, you’ll appear to be overpromoting yourself.

When you first pin one of your products, you want to get as many initial likes, repins and comments as possible. This will add social proof to your products, encourage users to check out the product and increase the likelihood of more direct shares in the future.

So focus on building an audience first by sharing content regularly and then pin your products to your page.

Focusing on building an audience first will make it easy for you to drive sales later.

On The Gracious Pantry’s Pinterest brand page, you will find a board called Gracious Pantry Cookbooks where Tiffany McCauley shares pins of her books. Many of these pins have been repinned several times. The number of times the book has been repinned and liked can be found right below the pin.

These numbers add social proof, encourage users to visit the site and repin the cookbook right away. And when she pins something new to this board, she will automatically get repins and likes because she has already built an audience. The board currently has more than 15,000 followers.

So focus on building an audience first and share your products after you have achieved this.

Use Pinterest to Promote Your Business

As you can see, there are several ways you can highlight your products on Pinterest. Have a look to see how other businesses are using their Pinterest accounts and figure out which your audience might like best. Choose the boards that will work best for you.

Is mobile a more important ad medium than TV? Facebook thinks so

Is mobile a more important ad medium than TV? Facebook thinks so

 

By Chantal Tode

April 17, 2013

 

Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, said this week that mobile is as important, if not more important, to marketers than television. While many in the advertising world would agree with Ms. Sandberg, others are not so sure mobile has reached its full potential yet or that it will ever replace TV entirely.

Speaking at an event in London this week, Ms. Sandberg said that the size of the mobile phone audience makes it a mass medium with significant importance for marketers. The statement was made at a time when Facebook is looking to significantly ramp up its mobile advertising business as its user based continues to migrate to smartphones.

“I wholeheartedly agree with Ms. Sandberg’s statement,” said Craig Elimeliah, vice president and director of technology and digital solutions at Rapp, New York.

“Mobile is context, it is the new fabric of our beings and how we navigate the world today,” he said. “TV has been struggling to keep its head above water and even the TV that is working is competing with so many other screens that anything done on that platform is diluted simply because of the distractions that are all around us.

“Mobile advertising is going to be an extremely hard nut to crack and we may need to rethink advertising completely but that is what makes it so exciting.”

The second screen
Smartphone penetration in the United States reached 57 percent earlier this year, according to comScore, meaning there are already a significant number of Americans marketers that can potentially reach consumers via mobile phones. Adoption levels have not stopped growing, either.

While mobile is often called the second screen, in reality users are carrying their mobile phones with them everywhere they go throughout the day, using them to consume snippets of content along the way. As a result, many users are spending more time with a mobile screen than they do on traditional media.

However, it is not just mobile’s always-on nature that is attractive to marketers. There is also the fact that consumers are increasingly using their mobile phones for shopping-related activities and to engage with social media outlets, opening up brand new, still-to-be-explored opportunities for leveraging mobile.

To date, marketers have been slow to respond to the significant growth in mobile, but this is starting to change. The Interactive Advertising Bureau reported yesterday that mobile accounted for nine percent of the overall ad spend on digital advertising last year and expects this number to continue to grow.

Some marketers have caught on to mobile’s potential and are already putting significant emphasis on it.

“The most interesting stuff happening right now is integrating gaming, television and mobile all together,” said Joakim Borgstrom, a director of innovation at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco. 

“’Walking Dead’ is doing a killer job of this,” he said. “The upcoming SYFY-channel show ‘Defiance’ also lets multiplayer gaming affect the show’s plot line.”

A part of life
However, much of mobile’s potential as an advertising medium is still to be realized, with slow-moving marketers only partially responsible for the hold up.

Mobile also presents several challenges that still need to be overcome.

For example, many would argue that the best way to deliver mobile ads has yet to be determined. Mobile is still a relatively young medium and marketers are struggling to figure out how to engage consumers here.

“Mobile can’t be about interrupting people with iAds, we need to give people something they care about, something that makes their day better,” said Niklas Lilja, a director of innovation at Goodby Silverstein & Partners.

“Done right, mobile gives marketers a unique shot at becoming a part of people’s lives – and for a fraction of the cost of a TV campaign,” he said.

Accurate measurements
Another challenge is the relative dearth of methods for accurately measuring the effectiveness of mobile ad campaigns in part because of difficulties associated with tracking the behavior of mobile users.

Many marketers are reluctant to allocate bigger budgets to mobile until the measurement issue has been resolved.

“When clarity and consistency to mobile campaign measurement is set in the near future, I strongly believe that this on-the-go medium will be one of the most important medium to marketers,” said Angelina Chung, group digital media director at G2 Worldwide, New York.

“In the future, mobile medium has potential to surpass TV as mobile/tablet can be ‘TV’ and most importantly, the beauty of mobile is that eventually sales can be measured through the devices which can be factored into the overall ROI,” she said.

If measurement data comes to smartTV sooner than mobile, this could be a game-changer, per Ms. Chung. However, penetration for smartTV is still very low.

In the mean time, some marketers are finding mobile and TV work well together.

“Marketers are seeing that mobile advertising works very well with other medium such as TV as part of more integrated campaign approach,” Ms. Chung said. “Consumers are no longer sitting on their couch watching television, but they are multitasking more than ever, either using their smartphones or tablets.”

Leveraging social media
Marketers also need to learn how to leverage existing social media platforms as well as newer ones to engage with mobile users as social becomes pervasive throughout the mobile experience.

Social media platforms such as Vine, Pinterest and Instagram have seen significant growth in consumer use and marketers are eyeing the opportunities to reach these users.

“I see non-linear platforms like Vine, Pinterest and Instagram as ideal platforms for mobile advertising in a very native and unobtrusive way,” Rapp’s Mr. Elimeliah said. “They embody the core elements of what makes mobile mobile and are uniquely designed to accommodate all kinds of communication from brand advertising to deep story telling.

“We are on the cusp of a completely redefined ad industry, going from three channels to literally hundreds of channels in no time at all shifting the tectonic plates that this industry has sat on for a century,” he said.

However, some would argue that mobile is still an immature advertising medium and will remain an ancillary tactic until many of these issue are addressed.

In the mean time, marketers should not view TV and mobile as in competition with one another.

“No, I don’t think mobile is more important than TV advertising and I don’t see TV advertising as more important than mobile, because I don’t see them as in ‘competition’ with each other but rather different, complementary tools that should be used to achieve different goals – and very often in conjunction with each other,” said Andy Wasef, head of innovation and technology at MEC.

“Our goal for mobile marketing and advertising should be to establish its best application for different goals for communicating with, and engaging, people,” he said. “Until we do that, we’ll remain an immature option for marketers and remain a sidekick to other options.

“Once we refine those mobile tools for brand marketers, including the right forms of mobile advertising, as well as robust audience measurement and ROI measurement, then it’ll rightly be viewed as a crucial part of our tool box – throughout an organization’s value chain and not just marketing.”

Is the iPhone becoming the new BlackBerry?

Is the iPhone becoming the new BlackBerry?

 

By Rimma Kats

April 15, 2013

Mobile devices have drastically changed over the years and the space continues to evolve at an expeditious pace. BlackBerry was once considered at the top of its game and has since lost some of its appeal. With Apple’s major drop in stock value and ongoing PR battle, is the manufacturing giant following in the same footsteps?

For many, Apple is still at the height of its game and is considered a top manufacturer in the mobile space. Then again, BlackBerry was once considered that, too.

“Nowhere is classic Schumpeterian creative destruction more at work than in the mobile space,” said Ritesh Bhavnani, chairman of Snipp Interactive, Washington. “First we had Nokia, then Motorola, then Palm, then BlackBerry, then Apple, then Android – and the mobile space continues to evolve at a faster pace.

“While it’s virtually impossible to predict who will win in the future, it is virtually certain that there will be many more disruptions ahead,” he said. “That being said, I don’t think Apple is becoming the new Blackberry – yet.

“The iPhone 5 was an underwhelming release on the whole and it left a lot of consumers disappointed at the dearth of new features and a lot of media folks trumpeting the death of innovation at the company.”

 

Where it stands
The ghost of Steve Jobs looms large in the minds of everyone, and nowhere more so than at Apple, where the pressure is on to ensure the next iPhone is better than the last.

Currently, Apple produces new iPhones with a little less than a year in between each production.

What predominantly set iPhone 4 apart from 4S was Siri. Now, what sets iPhone 5 from 4S is the screen size.

The BlackBerry is getting an overhaul

What sets Apple apart from its competition, however, is an ecosystem.

“The Apple ecosystem is effectively sticky – once you have your iPhone and your iPad and maybe your Macbook all connected and syncing, it becomes really hard to move to a device that’s not part of the Apple clique, because then your other devices don’t function as smoothly either,” Mr. Bhavnani said.

“Also, iCloud, the connective tissue between all its devices, is still in its relatively early days.

“There is a lot more that can and will be done with iCloud, and that will only serve to create additional stickiness.”
 
Standing out
Many believe that Apple is nearing a period of virtual obsolescence, which BlackBerry has unfortunately achieved.

Still, a majority disagree.

While Apple has no doubt had a rough few months – its year-to-date stock price is down 20 percent and a 2012 survey found waning iPhone loyalty for the first time since the original iPhone’s launch – the two companies are not really comparable, per Vanessa Horwell, chief visibility officer of ThinkInk, Miami Beach, FL.

“Apple is known for a diversity of products: desktops, laptops, mp3 players, smartphones and accessories, as well as for essentially inventing digital entertainment/music via iTunes and later the App Store,” Ms. Horwell said.

“BlackBerry, by comparison, staked its future on a specified niche and purpose: the business professional’s mobile workhorse device.

“If history teaches us anything, cash crop economies aren’t stable. Failure to adapt to new realities is their greatest weakness. Without crop rotation, harvests die. The same logic applies to product innovation.”

Per Ms. Horwell, Android-powered phones – and the others increasingly gaining traction – would not be the rising stars that they are without Apple’s post-BlackBerry pioneering efforts.

“Lifelike resolution, lightning speed and a second-to-none touch screen – even a new type of online entertainment commerce – are all Apple firsts,” Ms. Horwell said. “Those victories can’t be re-won by any challenger.

“Recently Apple has been challenged by a perception of diminished innovation,” she said. “Personally, I believe they’ve been paying interest on that debt ever since Steve Jobs’ death, kind of kicking the can down the road – the good but not great iPhone 5 might speak to that shortfall.

“Some of the first back-to-business stories following Jobs’ passing were about whether or not the company could continue to break new ground, which I also commented on.”

Where it’s heading
Whether it is Apple, Samsung, Windows or anyone else, smartphone manufacturers are beginning to bump up to the limits of what mobile devices can do.

Nowadays, users use their smartphone devices to start their car, pay their bills and interact with brands in an interactive way.

“If there is a battle for Apple to remain on top, preserving its touch, it will likely be in the next iteration of smart technology: wearable devices,” Ms. Horwell said. “Google Glass has generated quite the conversation and to a lesser extent, so has Apple’s smart watch.

“As I’ve said, Apple’s product arsenal is its greatest advantage and will remain the case in the foreseeable future,” she said. “It’s important to appreciate Apple’s incredibly successful branding legacy.

“Apple and Jobs fused form with function to such a degree that computers and eventually mobile phones, moved from the domain of the nerd to the province of cool. Much of that un-cluttered simplicity and attention to detail imbue the company and the products it sells today. Apple might very well be entering its most challenging chapter but that doesn’t mean it’s closing up shop – just like its original nadir didn’t signal its end then either.”

According to Will Kruisbrink, account director at Walker Sands, BlackBerry the mobile device lost because it was obsolete technology. 

BlackBerry the company lost because it did not realize fast enough its technology was obsolete. 

“If Apple misses the boat on a major shift in how consumers use technology, then the iPhone will be the new BlackBerry,” Mr. Kruisbrink said. “Right now, Apple still has the two of the most popular mobile devices in the world, the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 4S. 

“Apple lost its public leader at a time when it had only incremental changes to its technology planned,” he said. “That could be bending public opinion in the direction that the company has lost its cutting edge and has nothing new in the pipeline. 

“We’ll see with its next announcement.”

How to Use Twitter for Business and Marketing

How to Use Twitter for Business and Marketing

 

Is Twitter a part of your social media marketing?

Or have you let your Twitter marketing drop off lately?

In any case, with the latest Twitter updates, trends in multi-screen usage and real-time marketing, you’ll likely want to take a fresh look at what Twitter has to offer.

Here’s a checklist of everything your business needs to do to get on (or back on) Twitter and start seeing great results.

About Twitter

Twitter is a short message communication tool that allows you to send out messages (tweets) up to 140 characters long to people who subscribe to you (followers).

Your tweets can include a link to any web content (blog post, website page, PDF document, etc.) or a photograph or video. If a picture is worth a thousand words, adding an image to a tweet greatly expands what you can share to beyond the 140-character limit for tweets.

People follow (subscribe) to your Twitter account, and you follow other people. This allows you to read, reply to and easily share their tweets with your followers (retweet).

How Twitter Is Unique

In the social media world, Twitter falls into the category of microblogging tools because of the short, disconnected messages it distributes. Other microblogging tools include Tumblr, FriendFeed and Plurk.

Twitter shares some features with the most common social media tools (Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube). However, the differences really define Twitter.

• Facebook: A tweet is like a short Facebook status update. However, with Twitter, every tweet arrives at every follower’s feed, unlike the filter of Facebook’s EdgeRank.
• Pinterest: Twitter allows you to share photographs and provide commentary in your tweet. However, with Twitter, it’s much easier to have conversation around a shared image than with the comment feature on Pinterest.
• LinkedIn: A tweet is like a short LinkedIn status update. While LinkedIn is based on trust relationships (and two-way agreements), Twitter allows you to follow anyone, including strangers. This is helpful when you target potential customers.
• Google+: A tweet is like a short Google+ status update. Twitter also allows you to organize people into lists that organize conversations similar to Google+ groups.
• YouTube: A tweet can contain a link to a video. However, Twitter doesn’t allow you to create a channel or organize your videos for easy location and commentary.

Now let’s dive into how you can use Twitter for your business.

Step #1: Present Your Brand

Your Twitter account and profile are the foundation of your Twitter experience. It’s your chance to tell your business story to the Twitter community.

It is important that your Twitter presence have the same look and feel as your other online tools. This helps people identify your business and builds trust. Choose an account name and images consistent with your other online presences and your brand.

Choose Your Twitter Username

Nothing expresses your brand on Twitter more than your account username. This name appears next to all of your tweets, and is how people identify you on Twitter.

An example of a small business with a Twitter username that matches their website domain.

Choose between your personal name (best for professional individuals) and your business name. Avoid using punctuation to keep your name easy to type on mobile devices.

If your exact business name is not available, choose a similar name for consistency.

Profile Images

Twitter uses two different images to represent your account. It’s important that you take advantage of both of these images to tell your business story. You upload these images under Profile in your account settings.

Your Twitter profile photo is a square photo that appears next to every tweet you send. You can use either your company logo or your headshot for your profile photo.

An example of a Twitter user with a headshot for his profile picture.

Note: Many small businesses use their business name for the account and a personal photo for the profile photo. This adds a personal touch to your Twitter account.

Your Twitter profile header is a large background photo where you can tell a story about your business. Similar to the Facebook cover photo, your header photo appears at the top of your profile page.

An example of a header photograph that tells the brand’s story.

You can also customize the background that people see when they visit your Twitter account. You can create a graphic file so it matches your business branding. You upload this image under Design in your profile settings.

Example of a small business user who has updated his Twitter background with his company branding.

Step #2: Build a Strong Foundation

It’s important that you complete your Twitter account profile completely. Each feature gives more details about your business that contribute to your business story.

Don’t miss these three important features under Profile in your account settings.

The location, website and bio portions of your profile provide important information about your business to other Twitter users.

• Location. Tell people where they can find you. But remember, people may be visiting your profile from another city, state or country and won’t recognize your neighborhood or community name. Give them enough information so they can find you.
• Website. You can share a web address with your community. You can give them your website or blog, but consider using a special Twitter landing page. This is a great way to provide additional information of interest to Twitter users looking into your business.
• Bio. You only get 160 characters to tell people who you are and what you do. Skip the mission statement and talk about the benefits you deliver. And add in a little personality to bring your profile to life.

 Step #3: Start Following People

When you follow another Twitter user, you subscribe to read what they share. So be selective about whom you follow, especially at first.

To follow a user, you find their user profile and click on the Follow button.

One simple way to follow new people is to locate their profile and click the Follow button.

Twitter has strict rules about what they call aggressive following and aggressive following churn, so be careful and take it slow. You don’t want to get your account suspended in your first week because of suspicious activity.

Note: Your Twitter experience is defined by whom you follow, not by who follows you. Pay attention to your follow choices to give yourself a great Twitter experience.

In general, start following people in these categories:

• Your customers
• Your business partners, suppliers, contractors and vendors
• Your competitors or peers
• Trade organizations or professional organizations for your industry
• Businesses in your neighborhood
• Businesses run by people you know (your professional network)

Twitter can help you find people you know by scanning your email address book.

Use the Find Friends menu option on the Discover page to have Twitter scan your email address book for people you know on Twitter.

While you are out following people, you may notice that people are starting to follow you. Don’t worry if you don’t know these people. Stay focused on whom you follow for now.

Step #4: Start Talking

Talking on Twitter is different from every other social media site. It’s a fast-paced smorgasbord of ideas and sentence fragments. It’s hectic, but it’s also fun.

Give yourself a little time to get your feet wet. Listen to others. Jump in when you feel comfortable. Start talking as you get your bearings.

In general, there are five types of Twitter messages:

1. Tweet: a message you send out to everyone who follows you. This is the heart of Twitter communication.
   

   A tweet is a short message sent out to everyone who follows your Twitter account.

2. @Reply: a message you send out as a reply to a message you received. The @reply is a public message that mentions the Twitter username of the person. It shows up in the tweet stream of everyone who follows both of you, and on the @connect (mentions) page of the Twitter user.
   

   An @reply tweet is a message you send in response to a tweet from another person.

3. Mention: a message you send out that mentions another Twitter username.
   

   A mention tweet includes the name of a Twitter user but is not a reply to a previous tweet from that person.

4. Direct message (DM): a message you send privately to another Twitter user. You can only send a DM to someone who follows you.
   

   A DM is a private message sent to someone who follows you on Twitter.

5. Retweet (RT): a message created and sent by someone else that you share with the people who follow you. Twitter makes it easy to share tweets.
   

   A retweet is a message sent by another person that you share with your followers.

Step #5: Talk Smarter

After you master the five types of tweets, you are ready to attack the big question: What should I talk about on Twitter?

For every business, the answer is different. In general, you want to find the sweet spot between what your target audience wants to hear and things that promote your business. For many businesses, the answer is to focus on how your products and services benefit your customers.

Give people useful information and answer their questions, and they will consider you a valuable member of their community. That’s an important first step to winning a new customer.

There’s a real art to writing a headline-style message on Twitter. Experiment with different ways to say the same thing, and see what gets the most response. With only 140 characters, it’s important that every word pull its weight in your messages.

Over time, the quality of what you share will help you grow a strong Twitter following. Now, you are ready to take a step back and come up with a Twitter communication plan. Your plan focuses your Twitter conversation on topics designed to draw in potential customers and publish your tweets at the times you are most likely to engage people.

Step #6: Drive Traffic to Your Website and Blog

Twitter is a great tool for driving traffic to your website and blog. To do this, you create a tweet around a link, writing a message that compels people to click to learn more.

Write a compelling headline-style message to get people to click on the link in your tweet.

Because space is at a premium in a tweet, there isn’t room to post the entire web address. That’s why all of the Twitter tools allow you to shorten your web addresses using a URL shortener.

When you paste a web address into a tweet, Twitter automatically shortens it, giving you more space for your message.

When you use Twitter.com, the Twitter URL shortener uses just 20 characters for your web address, no matter how long the actual web address.

Step #7: Connect Your Online Presence

Now that you have Twitter rolling along, it’s time to integrate it into your overall online business presence.

There are three ways to do this:

1. Add your Twitter account information to the social media account information on your website and blog. Most of the social follow tools used on websites and blogs allow you to add your Twitter account easily and quickly to your list of social media accounts. Note: Twitter offers a Follow button you can add to your website or blog.
   

   Most social follow tools make it easy to add Twitter to your list of social media accounts.

2. Add a timeline of your Twitter messages to your website and blog. Twitter provides widgets that allow you to share a tweet timeline on your website and blog. This can be a great way to share your Twitter conversations with your website visitors, getting double exposure from the same effort.
   

   An example of a Twitter widget using Twitter lists (explained in this article) added to a company website.

   Note: You want to make sure that the tweets you share contribute to your business story, so be selective about which tweets you share on your website.

3. Make it easy for people to share your website and blog content on Twitter. There are several ways you can add a Tweet This button to your blog posts and website pages, including a tweet button from Twitter. This allows your visitors to easily write a tweet about your content and share it with their followers.
   

   The Tweet button at the top of every Social Media Examiner post makes it easy for you to share our articles with your Twitter followers.

Another way you can move the Twitter conversation to your blog or website is by embedding a tweet. This allows you to select any tweet and insert it into a blog post, for example. By embedding the tweet, you allow people who visit your blog post to jump into the Twitter conversation.

Hover over any tweet you want to embed, click on the More link that becomes visible and choose Embed Tweet.

Here’s how an embedded tweet looks:

Step #8: Get Mobile With Twitter

Nearly every cell phone can connect you with your Twitter audience.

• Smartphones (iOS, Android, Windows and Blackberry) allow you to use the Twitter app and Twitter mobile website to easily send and receive tweets.
• Non-smartphones with texting service (SMS) allow you to use Twitter using text messages.

The Twitter app on the iPhone allows you to perform nearly every Twitter activity from your phone that you can do on Twitter.com.

Twitter allows you to set up push notifications to your smartphone so you know when selected activities happen on Twitter:

• People mention you
• Someone retweets or favorites a tweet you sent
• You get a new follower
• Someone sends you a direct message

With Twitter, a speedy response is best, and push notifications make it easy for you to know when things are happening for you on Twitter.

Step #9: Share Photographs in Your Tweets

People love to look at pictures, so include photographs in your tweets whenever possible. You don’t have to be a professional photographer or have a fancy camera. All you need is a smartphone.

You can share your photograph from your desktop on Twitter.com or from the Twitter app on your mobile phone. Get into the habit of taking photos of your business activities that you can share with your Twitter community.

Twitter integrates into your smartphone’s camera roll. This allows you to easily share photos you have taken with your Twitter followers.

You can tweet directly from the photos stored on your smartphone, as shown here on an iPhone.

Twitter adds the photo to your tweet and makes it available for everyone to see.

Click on View photo to see the attached photo with any tweet.

A tweet with a photo allows your followers to view the photo within their tweet timeline.

Twitter adds every photo you share to a photo (and video) gallery. The first six appear on your profile page. Take advantage of this feature to share pictures that tell your business story.

Twitter shares the six most recent photos or videos you share in the gallery on your profile page.

Step #10: Add Video to Your Twitter Timeline

Video is another powerful way to tell people about your business.

You can add videos to your Twitter timeline, but you cannot add them directly from Twitter. You must first upload them to another service like YouTube, and then link to them in your tweet.

Here’s a tweet with a video inserted by linking to YouTube. Click View media to open the video inside Twitter.

When a tweet contains a link to a video, Twitter allows you to play the video within the tweet. Click on View media to open the video player.

Twitter allows you to play videos without leaving the platform.

Recently, Twitter launched a new video service called Vine that allows you to take short, 6-second videos from the Vine app and play them on an endless loop inside Twitter.

Click View media to view an attached Vine video.

Like other videos, simply click View media to start playing the Vine video attached to a tweet.

A tweet with a Vine video. Twitter plays the video on an endless loop.

Twitter also adds your Vine videos to your profile gallery.

If you are not sure how your business can take advantage of this exciting new information-sharing tool, check out these examples of how businesses are using Vine to tell their story.

Step #11: Organize Your Followers Into Conversation Lists

As you follow more people, it can be challenging to focus on the information coming from specific people and groups. That’s where Twitter lists come in.

A Twitter list allows you to separate the Twitter accounts you follow into groups. You might create separate lists for:

• Customers
• Potential customers
• Neighborhood or community businesses
• Trade or professional organizations
• People who inspire you
• People you talk with the most

A list allows you to see the tweets from the list members as a separate Twitter timeline. This distinguishes them from the crowd so you can pay attention to what these people say. You can also share tweets from a list on your website using a widget (explained in this article).

You can organize your lists in any way that helps you. You can create one or many lists. You can also make your lists public or private.

• When you create a public list, list members see when you add or delete them from the list, and anyone can choose to follow your list.
• When you create a private list, people don’t know they appear on it and only you can see the list’s tweet timeline.

To review the public lists created by any Twitter user, display their profile page. Then click Lists in the left menu. Their public lists appear in the right column.

Here’s a Twitter account with many public lists. Click on Lists on the left to see their public lists in the main column.

To view the tweet timeline for the members of a list, click on the list name.

Here’s an example of a Twitter timeline for people contained in a public list called SmallBiz Most Influential created by Twitter user D&B Credibility.

To add someone to a list, display his or her profile. Click the gear icon and choose add or remove from lists. Then check or uncheck them from your list of Twitter lists.

You can add any person to your lists, even if you don’t follow him or her.

Step #12: Expand Your Audience With Hashtags

Most people’s Twitter experience is limited to the people they follow. It’s always a good idea to keep looking for new, fresh voices to follow to keep expanding your online conversations.

There are two great ways to expand your Twitter audience beyond your circle.

Hashtags appear in tweets to identify a common topic or theme. They use the pound (or hash) sign followed by a unique identifier. For example:

• #sxswi is the hashtag for the conference, South by Southwest Interactive
• #NCAA is the hashtag for the US college sports association
• #VZW is the hashtag for Verizon Wireless
• #FF is the hashtag for Follow Friday, a way to promote people on Twitter

Scroll through your timeline to spot tweets with a hashtag.

An example of a tweet with a #GetGlue hashtag.

When you see a tweet with a hashtag, click on the hashtag to see a list of all tweets that include the same hashtag. You will see tweets from people you do not follow.

When you click on a hashtag or do a search on it, you get a list of tweets from all Twitter accounts that use the hashtag.

If you attend a conference, the conference may ask all of the attendees to include the conference hashtag in their tweets. This way, hashtags pull together the conference tweets into one huge conversation, even though you may not be following all of those people.

You can create a hashtag unique for your business and use it in your marketing to help people find your company and the conversations around it. In fact, hashtags are a great way to use Twitter for customer service and support.

Step #13: Pinpoint Potential Local Customers

People often think that social media allows you to connect with people outside of your local geography. And while that is true, one of the great strengths of Twitter is the ability to focus on people in your own backyard.

Most businesses need local customers. You can use Twitter to help you find potential customers who live and work near your business. Use Twitter Advanced Search to find people near your location.

Use the Advanced Search feature to find people by city and zip code.

Use the Places feature to identify your location by city or zip code. Twitter displays a list of people who are tweeting near that location.

An example of a local search for “Tempe, Arizona” and the list of tweets in that area.

Use this tweet timeline to find people who may be potential customers. You can follow them or add them to a potential local customer list. It’s the first step to engaging them in conversation.

Take Your Twitter Use for Business to the Next Level

After you master these Twitter skills, there are still more ways you can use Twitter to meet your business goals. Here are a few of them to inspire you.

• Start measuring your Twitter performance. It’s much easier to get better results when you have solid data about how your Twitter strategies are working.
• Focus on building your Twitter community. There are tools that allow you to analyze who is following you and reach out to your target audience. Together, these can make your Twitter marketing far more effective.
• Learn which tweets are most effective with your audience. Use Twitter tools to test alternative tweets to see which one really gets a better response.
• Expand your Twitter conversation topics. Add more variety to your conversations and pull in more audience engagement.
• Fine-tune your Twitter presence to get better results. When you hit a slump, it’s time to make small adjustments that add up to a stronger Twitter presence.

Social Media Stats: Word of Mouth Economics

Social Media Stats: Word of Mouth Economics

 

Article by: Maximize Social Media LLC

The power of social media marketing depends largely on word-of-mouth marketing. To put it in simplistic terms, social media is word-of-mouth marketing on steroids. It has long been recognized that people are more likely to listen (and believe) friends and family over advertising and marketing campaigns.  Yet despite the growing recognition over the importance of brand advocates…and the excessive cost of detractors…few people fully recognize the actual economics of word-of-mouth marketing. Sadly, that even includes many social media management firms. Today we are going to shed some much needed light on this elusive topic; how much does a brand advocate add to the bottom line? How much business does a detractor remove from the equation? Who becomes a  brand advocate and why do detractors spend time and effort spreading a negative message? Keep reading to discover the answer to these and other important issues surrounding social media word-of-mouth economics.

Service Matters

As a social media management agency, we’ve long advocated the importance of service when promoting any product but now there is even more reason to take a second look at service; it provides a distinct advantage over the competition! According to research conducted by Accenture, customer satisfaction scores are declining across the board. In fact, nearly 2 out of every 3 consumers report switching to another product or service due to poor service. Fewer than 1 out of every 10 report a company has gone above and beyond expectations. Why does this matter? Not only is it more costly to acquire a new client than retain an existing one, but 40% of clients will tell friends about good service (ie, become a brand advocate) while 60% will share a negative experience with others (ie become a brand detractor). Thanks in large part to the use of social media marketing, brand advocates and detractors find it easier than ever to get their message out by sharing online. Contrary to popular opinion, small business owners that attempt to avoid the social media equation simply by not participating often learn a costly lesson…people continue to talk with our without their input. Avoiding the use of social media only means your brand has no ability to respond to criticisms or solve problems creating an even worse word-of-mouth marketing experience.

The High Cost of Bad Brand Detractors

Sooner or later nearly every business will experience an upset client; the key is to transform a negative experience into a positive via superior customer service. Study after study has shown a quick response and positive resolution is able to transform a detractor into a brand advocate. But is it worth all the effort? That is the question increasingly asked by big and small business owners alike. As a social media management agency, it’s one that we can answer! According to a large study conducted by Bain, word-of-mouth economics present clear cost/benefit ratio’s. Let’s use Dell Computers as an example. Dell decided to track and analyze data to determine the value of a brand advocate versus the cost of a detractor…the results were nothing short of stunning!

The Individual Value of Each Brand Advocate

Dell then took this one step farther in order to determine the individual value of each single brand advocate. To do so, Dell determined that each new client is worth $210. Like many business entities, nearly 1 out of every 4 NEW client’s report making the switch due to a direct referral from business associates, family or friends…ie, positive word-of-mouth marketing due to brand advocates. Since every new client is worth an average of $210 to Dell, they did a retrospective analysis to determine that the average brand advocate makes about 8 positive comments per year (valued at about $5.25 per positive comment!) and results in additional sales. In short, the average Brand Advocate is worth nearly $330…over 50% premium from average! Unfortunately, the average Detractor costs the company just under $60. Now remember, this is only measuring the impact of word-of-mouth marketing like that associated with social media marketing.

What’s Your Negative Number?

Dell further found that nearly 15% of all online comments were negative…ie, detractors. What is the impact on the bottom line? With roughly 1.2 million negative detractors with a cost of just under $60 per detractor, it is estimated that Dell lost over $150 million dollars. By transforming just a small percentage of detractors into brand advocates, a company can grow business with less cost and better long term outcomes. Remember, detractors cost a company while advocates build a better business and bottom line. The key is to retain brand advocates and transform detractors into advocates by responding to negative criticism.  The bottom line is that poor service hurts sales both in the short and long term.

Know Your NPS

Do you know your NPS…Net Promoter Score? If not, be sure to review yesterday’s all important article on how to create your own NPS evaluation and interpret scores. Be sure to follow-up within 48 hours and share the results with internal and external resources including your social media manager in order to maximize social media marketing results and decrease time and expense.  Employees and other staff should understand the desired level of word-of-mouth marketing, how to build brand advocates and respond to detractors, analyze the lifetime value between a brand advocate and a detractor as well as initiative to transform detractors into advocates via the prudent use of social media customer support and marketing efforts.

3 Social Media Metrics Your Business Should Track

3 Social Media Metrics Your Business Should Track

How do you measure and manage your social media marketing?

Most marketers and website owners are familiar with the classic Peter Drucker phrase, “What gets measured, gets managed.”

So, how do you know what to measure to get the most out of your social media marketing for your business?

Here’s what you need to measure to know how well your social campaigns are performing.

Metric #1: Share of Voice

You may already be tracking the brand mentions on social media websites, as well as whether those mentions are positive, negative or neutral. And this gives you some useful feedback about your social outreach efforts.

But how would you to know how your company is doing compared to the available market?

You can take things to the next level when you measure the share of voice (SOV).

Your website’s SOV measurement helps you discover what percentage of mentions within your industry goes to your brand—and what percentage goes to your competitors.

Fortunately, there’s Social Mention, a free tool to help you measure and compare your company’s mentions to your competitors’.

This screenshot shows the number of mentions that exist for the phrase “social media examiner.”

Here’s how to see why this measurement is important. Imagine you track only the number of times your brand was mentioned on Twitter. As the result of your social media marketing efforts, you see this number go from 10 mentions per day to 20.

On the surface, this might seem like a win, but what happens if the total number of brand mentions across all of your competitors is closer to 1,000 per day?

Now you realize you’re only receiving a drop in the bucket of brand mentions in your niche. This highlights both the number of potential customers who have yet to be exposed to your brand and how far you have to go in terms of overall market penetration.

To calculate SOV, conduct a search for each of your competitors and then divide your company’s number of mentions by the total number of mentions in your market.

Metric #2: Referral Traffic

It’s one thing to build up a thriving social community on sites like Twitter and Facebook. But it’s another thing entirely to entice these visitors to leave their social spaces and head back to your company’s website.

Good social media marketing campaigns aim to increase on-site website results. So it’s only natural that measuring the amount of referral traffic sent by social sites should have a place in the savvy marketer’s tool chest.

Fortunately, Google Analytics makes this process easy. To view the amount of referral traffic your website receives from social networking sites, log into your account and navigate to the Referrals section found on the Traffic Sources menu.

From there, you’ll be able to view the social sites that send you the most referral traffic, as well as the relative bounce rate, average time on site and pages viewed per visit of each social site’s visitor base.

In this example, LinkedIn provides the most social traffic, compared to Twitter (t.co) and Facebook.

You’ll want to pay special attention to the traffic metrics from your social sites. They may show you significant differences in the performance of one social network versus another.

If, for example, you see that your Twitter visitors have a significantly higher bounce rate than readers who arrive on your site from Facebook, you might decide to allocate more of your marketing time and budget to connecting with followers on Facebook.

Metric #3: Conversion Rate

Finally, here’s the most important social media metric—conversion rates!

This is the metric that tells you what’s working for your business.

And this assumes that you’re utilizing social networking sites in order to generate some type of measurable activity on your company’s website, whether these activities (or conversions) occur as product sales, newsletter signups, lead generation form completions or other action.

If this is the case, it’s important to ensure that you aren’t spending time on social media marketing if the referral traffic you’re able to procure from these sources doesn’t ultimately convert on your home site!

To measure conversions, you’ll need to set up two elements within Google Analytics: Goals and Advanced Traffic Segments.

• Google Analytics Goals enable you to determine when a specific action occurs on your website. There are four default types of Goals made available within Google Analytics, though these can be customized to measure any of the conversion activities described above. For more information on setting up Goals, check out Google’s help documentation on the subject.
  

  This sample Goal measures the number of website visitors who visit at least three pages on the site.

• In addition, Advanced Traffic Segments allow you to break out your analytics data by individual traffic source. As an example, by creating a segment that looks at the on-site activities of your Facebook visitors, you can split up your Goals data to determine which social sites are sending you the most eventual conversions.
  

  The conversion data pictured above has been filtered with an Advanced Traffic Segment that measures the number of conversions that occurred from LinkedIn visitors.

At least once a month, take the time to measure the number of conversions generated on your site by visitors from different social media websites.

You can then use this information to allocate future marketing resources according to the social sites that provide the biggest impact on your website’s bottom line.

By taking these measurements and adjusting your social media campaigns, you’ll ultimately ensure that your social media investment will bring more value to your business.