TAG | Twitter
As Facebook continues to grow, businesses, both small and large, are also learning how to best use the site in terms of business growth. Despite public dissatisfaction regarding Facebook’s privacy controls and shared information, most users can ultimately find satisfaction with the site, because it is an essential addition to any web working toolbox. The Facebook social networking experience is customizable, so it can be exactly what you need it to be. For a college student, this might mean that Facebook becomes the easiest way to meet people in the dorm, but for a company like Gap or Starbucks, Facebook offers an inexpensive way to attract new customers and interact with old ones.
The first step to Facebook success, in terms of business usage, is to understand the difference between a Facebook Page and a Facebook Group.
Facebook Fan Pages, unlike groups, are visible to unregistered people and are thus indexed. Groups, however, allow the user to send out “bulk” invites, inviting all of your friends to join the group in one time-saving swoop. While many users have figured out ways to get around this feature by using a simple, google-able code to send mass invites on pages, this feature (or lack thereof) on pages often leads to complaints.
Both pages and groups lend themselves well to hosting discussions, messaging to all members, and video and photo exchange. In terms of social media, however, pages seem to be more useful. On a page, users can promote their business using social, targeted ads, and a page administrator also has access to “page insights,” which chart visitor statistics and prove useful to anyone looking to grow a larger Facebook following.
Read more on the difference between Facebook pages and groups.
Facebook users can promote a Facebook page in a variety of ways. Below, we suggest five tactics:
- Have Good Content: This should go unsaid, but it is surprising how many businesses try to promote Facebook Pages that are…lacking. No matter how many ads you buy, or how often you tweet special deals on your FB page and mention it on your LinkedIn account, if the content on your page is stale, no one will be interested. Look at it this way: You can find basic information about Starbucks on their main website, right? If you’re interested in the drinks they serve and how much they cost, or if you’re looking for a drive-thru location, look no further than the main site. The Starbucks Facebook Page, however, which is “Liked” by almost 19 million people, allows fans to virtually “check in” to Starbucks. It features photos of Starbucks fans from around the world, it allows fans of the coffee company to suggest their ideas, and it features oft-updated deals and specials. In other words, it has become a community that isn’t frequented by only die-hard fans. It’s a place that someone who may not even like coffee visits because of the fun material.
- Cross Promote: Once you have exciting material on your Page, don’t be afraid to cross promote. Whether you want to link to your Twitter account or your LinkedIn page, or you want to link to your YouTube account, take advantage of the multiple social networks you have access to. Some businesses will Tweet about special deals they have available only on their Facebook Page, leading Twitter followers to check out the page. In order to have access to the special deal, these users must then “Like” the page and viola, another follower is gained. Post YouTube videos on your Facebook as well, and you’ll be surprised at the new followers you’ll gain.
- Update Frequently: Say you start out with great content and cross promote, and you end up being “liked” by 20,000 people. That’s a great start, and although there isn’t a maximum number of pages a person can “like,” most businesses are surprised to find that Facebook users are fickle. They “unlike” pages (oh yes, they can do that) just as quickly as they like them, and while it is more difficult to gain followers than to lose them, disengaged users are the kiss of death. By updating frequently, you give people a reason not just to visit your site, but to look forward to new content, new images, maybe even new deals.
- Incentivize Your Page: You’ll be facing competition from mega-companies like Fusion Beauty, who can afford to offer the first 10,000 “likes” on their page a free tube of lip gloss. Not every incentive has to be a free product, however. Whether you’re offering ten percent off of a cup of coffee or access to a behind-the-scenes video, your followers want to feel like they are getting something exclusive.
- Personalize It: Facebook Fan Pages in the beauty sector, such as the page for MAC Cosmetics , often feature a section dedicated solely to user photo uploads. Now, this personalizes the MAC page in many ways; most effectively, it allows users to feel personally connected to the giant cosmetic company through the simple act of uploading their own photo. The page for Eat Pray Love doesn’t feature that perk, but it asks users, “What is one thing in life your friends said you could/would never do, but you did it anyway?” It starts conversations, and that is what makes it special to the people who “like” it.
Also check out 12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally and 7 Reasons Why You NEED A Facebook Fan Page.
And once you’re really comfortable using the Facebook Fan Page, post on other user’s walls AS the page, not as yourself.
This weekend, Black Friday shoppers spent an average of $365.34, up from last year’s average of $343.31 per customer. Total spending for Black Friday 2010: An estimated $45 billion. http://bit.ly/f5OWYe
In this age of the internet, however, retailers are expecting even more financial success on Cyber Monday, a more recent phenomenon. Since 2005, the Monday after Black Friday has been called the “Biggest Online Shopping Day of the Year,” with many consumers making their purchases from home or (more likely) from office computers.
The most trending topic on the web on Thanksgiving Day was “Black Friday Ads.” Not surprisingly, this year, retailers are taking advantage of social media to increase their sales. If you “like” certain retailers’ Facebook pages, you’ll have access to special deals.
If you like the Sears’ Facebook page, for example, you’ll also “have the power to unlock great deals.”
When you check into Sports Authority using Foursquare, you can win a $500 gift certificate.
Many small retailers have also been using Cyber Monday as a chance to connect with consumers using personalized tweets, moving past the assumption in earlier years that this online shopping day is for big businesses only.
In fact, this Cyber Monday is looking to be the perfect time for many under-the-radar businesses to launch themselves into a bigger market by using their social media savvy. Here, some tips for businesses on how to incorporate social media into their Black Monday advertising: http://www.fruitzoom.com/2010/11/cyber-monday-37-tips-to-leverage-social-media-zoom-monday-sales/ By leveraging social media and internet marketing for both online and offline traffic, businesses can up profits and internet presence.
This week, Best Buy has used Twitter to inform shoppers of bargains, but in a more resourceful use of social media, they are also using Twitter as an instant customer service solution. The company has their Twitter accounts staffed and ready to answer questions about problem purchases … all in 140 characters or less.
Check out the best deals, from electronics to sporting goods and apparel to gardening supplies, on http://www.cybermonday.com/
This new era of marketing renders Mad Men-style agencies obsolete and pushes social media to the forefront. As social media continues to evolve, however, most strategists wonder one thing: How is social media ROI measured? According to Social Media Examiner, this is the number one question asked by experts in the field.
Over the years, those involved in social media have continued to attempt to redefine ROI, wondering if it was even necessary in this field. The lack of tools for analyzing made quantifying results near impossible, and this lack of standards for ROI also made it difficult to “sell” social media campaigns and tactics to executives and companies.
This year, however, social media has grown immensely in terms of ROI. While case studies are nothing new, they prove invaluable for social media ROI, extending to B2C and B2B, small and large businesses, for-profit and non-companies. Case studies can prove ROI as determined by sales, shorter sales cycles, new leads, improved company operations, and better business innovations.
Take the example of Burberry, a high-end fashion chain that initially seems impervious to social media’s “of the people” approach to building fan bases and ultimately, business. The company’s “Art of the Trench” campaign, however, capitalized on the recent trend in blogs that feature street-style photography.
While many designers and retailers had already taken their businesses to Twitter, Burberry was the first major fashion company to create a social media empire of its own. Burberry’s facebook page received 7.5 million views and with over 1 million fans, the company’s same store sales increased by ten percent after the campaign.
For a company that has been selling the same thing and marketing the same “look” for years, this was surely a coup. They had no new product to sell and were advertising the same trench coat that made them famous decades ago. Through the use of a social networking fashion blog via facebook, Burberry drew in a new demographic and a new generations of shoppers, simply by making use of what made facebook cool: They allowed their fans to “like” items, leave comments, and “share” photos, ultimately making their consumers feel powerful and drawing them in.
ROI in this case is undeniable, as shown by the company’s growth over the last year.
Not only has Twitter become the place to record one’s every move and thought, it has also become a place that can extend the reach of a company’s marketing efforts — and not just in the traditional sense of a business tweeting about its in-store promotions to followers. Nowadays, Twitter is often the centerpiece of a company’s entire marketing plan, one that all of its other efforts revolve around.
For instance, in Los Angeles (where Media Needle is headquartered), we have a mobile food truck craze well underway, with various trucks serving various delicacies to an on-the-go crowd. The craze began last year with the Kogi BBQ truck, whose food fuses Korean barbecue with Mexican tacos to create a taste that busy LA denizens don’t mind waiting hours in line to try. The traveling truck used Twitter to tweet about the locations where it would be stationed, sometimes only hours before its arrival. Other trucks quickly followed suit, making Twitter the cornerstone of their marketing plans in a way that rendered all other traditional modes of advertising irrelevant. Brick-and-mortar stores also joined the movement, offering such promotions as Twitter Tuesdays that give customers who mention Twitter 10% off their purchases. In addition, stores have begun giving their followers early access to new products and special promotions, an advantage that increases sales as much as it does subscribers.
So why does it work? With its 140 character count, Twitter is the perfect vehicle to publicize promotions quickly to a distracted crowd, as Web-savvy audiences have already learned how to tune out Flash graphics and banner promotions on a website. Twitter subscribers, on the other hand, make the active choice to follow a brand and read the tweets, creating a captive audience interested in hearing what a company has to say — and sell. Twitter campaigns are also far cheaper to execute, as they don’t incur the costs of printing mailers or hiring graphic designers. With this in mind, we expect Twitter and other social media outlets to continue their slow but steady take over of marketing campaigns until traditional advertising becomes as obsolete as the VCR.
* Image courtesy of http://www.allposters.com
Social media has become part of our life. Today, pretty much everyone is using some form of it. Every local store, cafe, club and event has a Facebook page. Every brand has a Twitter account and every white paper ever written has been turned into a SlideShare presentation, for some self-proclaimed thought leader in a Linkedin group to share.
In this completely connected, totally viral, absolutely transparent, geo-targeted, digital world we live and work in… you have to be social. But how do you justify the time and expense it takes to maintain that presence?
Now that social media has passed the point of “why do I need it” to “what do I do with it” the quest to determine the ROI of social media has become more complex.
Since you are asking people to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are difficult to quantify, trying to determine the exact return on your investment is not easy and in the long run, may not a good idea. To really understand the impact of social media and social technology on an event, promotion, brand awareness or even product sales, people need to measure the “ROE” … return on engagement.
At Medial Needle, we have been finding valuable “returns” manifesting themselves in ways not always anticipated at the onset as a result of our marketing efforts. More and more, we’ve come to see these unexpected fruits and proverbial rewards only appear because social media was strategically integrated into a marketing agenda.
For example, Media Needle recently executed a food campaign outreach program. While servicing a very small, archaic and insular cooking listserv, we uncovered a hive of influential webmasters; each with robust email lists and social media profiles. So what at first appeared initially to be a seemingly insignificant target community mushroomed into one of the campaigns top case studies. Clearly social media bears the markings of what we once more readily called “viral marketing”. Another campaign had us establish a quality dialog with a key target community. Despite a lull in activity on the client’s end, we maintained the relationship. Six months later, the two partnered successfully for a robust promotion. Anticipating these in conventional ROI terms, especially at the onset of the campaigns would have been impossible.
Thinking about social media in terms of a simple bottom line number puts the whole thing on an old school path of problems and risks, missing great opportunities. Essentially, you have to stop relying solely on the numbers. With social media the trick is to focus on what your numbers end up leading to. ROI is an effect of quality ROE.
If your goal is to participate in the conversation, to enhance your relationship with your audience and become a trusted member of the community that surrounds your brand; then your ROE has been set into motion. Once you’ve paved this foundation, the more conventional ROI models of sales, registrations, new followers and fans etc. will begin to kick-in, proving the benefits of a well-engaged social media agenda versus a dry and uninspired one.
Finally, ROE like everything else social media related, has a variety of definitions. Here are two good ones: We wish to cite Jason Falls’ here http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/2008/10/28/what-is-the-roi-for-social-media/
Sarah Evans’ different but complimentary tome here: http://prsarahevans.com/2009/05/15-ways-to-measure-return-on-engagement-roe-of-social-media/ as a valuable point of reference.
Every seven seconds someone in America turns 50
77 million people were born between 1946 and 1964. By 2015, the AARP predicts that people aged 50 and older will represent 45% of the U.S. population.
These consumers matter and advertisers should pay attention.
The largest age group in the United States
According to the U.S. Census, in 2010, 49 will be the single largest age group in the United States. In 2010, adults 45 and older are predicted to out-spend younger adults by $1 trillion.
Where do casinos, health-care organizations and political campaigns — examples of advertisers whose models depend a lot on the 55-plus demographic — advertise if most broadcast outlets are programming toward younger demographics?
The answer is social networks
Internet monitoring site comScore, estimates 16.5 million adults age 55 and older currently engage in social networking.
Baby boomers, are finding social networking sites appealing for the same reasons younger people do – to stay connected. Of course the older you are, the more likely you are to be interested in reconnecting with long lost friends and classmates you haven’t talked to in more than 30 years.
Boomers like to Blog
Most people believe that all of the blogging, Twittering and Facebooking is being done by twenty and thirty-somethings. However the facts tell a different story.
The fastest growing users of social networking sites
According to a Consumer Electronics Usage Survey from Accenture, Baby Boomers (those born 1946-1964) are the fastest growing users of social networking sites and are increasingly reading blogs. Meanwhile Gen Y interest in these services has started to plateau.
Baby boomers are social
- Increased reading blogs and listening to podcasts by 67 percent year over year; nearly 80 times faster than Gen Y (1 percent)
- Posted a 59 percent increase in using social networking sites—more than 30 times faster than Gen Y (2 percent)
- Increased watching/posting videos on the Internet by 35 percent—while Gen Y usage decreased slightly (-2 percent)
- Accelerated playing video games on the go via mobile devices by 52 percent— 20 times faster than Gen Y (2 percent)
- Increased listening to music on an iPod or other portable music player by 49 percent—more than four times faster than Gen Y (12 percent)
Gen Y is falling behind
- Participation slipped in virtual worlds from 23 percent to 19 percent
- Consumed no more video online than they did last year
- Blogged and contributed to wikis less ( down from 35 to 33 percent)
Grandma loves Facebook
According to Facebook, their fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older. According to iStrategyLabs, Facebook has a user base of 18.1 million users, and the number of users age 55 and over has grown from a negligible 950,000 to 5.9 million in a mere six months, which equates to a 513.7% increase.
Look who’s on MySpace
Even MySpace, with 130 million users, is enjoying a surge among the 55-plus set, who total 6.9 million users and spend an average 204 minutes a month on the site.
The AARP gets social
In just one year, over 350,000 users created 1,700 groups celebrating everything from gardening to social activism on the AARP.org social networking platform. This 55-plus online Community encourages users to meet new adult friends and socialize with one another by sharing photos and videos, playing online games, asking advice, writing in a journal, and chatting with their connections. As social networking evolves, older consumers are becoming more and more involved with social networking sites. According to a study conducted by the AARP, 58% of members over 50 access their online community several times a day.
Boomers like to share
These sites are where Boomers share their opinions, and brands are starting to realize social networking is a great way to connect with this increasingly large group and wealthy group of consumers. In a world where few people live close to family or old friends, social media sites are making it easier for everyone to reconnect.
Everybody’s doing it
Whether it’s congressmen Twittering during presidential speeches, parents connecting with high school flames on Facebook or empty-nesters planning group outings on grown-up sites such as Eons.com, Baby Boomers are a growing part of social media’s evolution, becoming more connected and more engaged than ever before.
How Mobile GPS and Location Based Information In Social Media Is Changing The Way Business Connects With Customers
Posted by ezamos on January 26, 2010
GPS-aware mobile devices have become commonplace, making connecting the dots between what you’re doing and where you’re doing it easy. Now that businesses are actively exploring the opportunities that location-aware services provide, location will matter more than ever.
Everyone is Sharing Location Based Information
This year, Twitter, Foursquare, Loopt, Gowalla, Google and Facebook will all make it easier for people to share real-time, location based information and post location-aware updates.
This past December, on Christmas day Facebook was the most trafficked web site in the United States. Now it wants all of it’s users to become more open. Altering the default settings on millions of people’s status updates, in the hopes of making more Facebook updates public and searchable.
Get Ready for Location-Aware Status Updates
Sometime later this year Facebook will start to implement opt-in location-aware status updates. Knowing where your Facebook friends are having lunch or going for a run is a just as important, if not more so, than knowing that they’re doing it. So in much the same way that Foursquare shows you check-ins from friends and people checked in at events, Facebook will provide context around status updates in the wild, but on a much broader scale.
The social element of this voluntary disclosure allows marketers to tap into an engaged network of users and offer special promotions based on reported location. We expect FourSquare and other apps with a hybrid location/social-networking component to grow significantly in 2010.
Geo-Targeted Marketing
As the number of GPS-enabled devices continues to rise, expect to see a variety of innovative marketing solutions created to facilitate geo-targeting (i.e. in-aisle, in-store or in-proximity) and automated direct-marketing campaigns that are pushed to consumers with GPS-enabled mobile devices.
Business Will Capitalize on Location-Based Services
With the growth of location-based services and mobile apps, business now has the chance to minutely target consumers.
Of course this explosion of location based information will no doubt lead to main stream media stories of location-sharing gone wrong and will be used as cautionary tales for those who live their lives too openly. But once people begin to understand the value of connecting through location, more and more local business will capitalize on location-based services on social networks and mobile devices.
kaChing.com Unites the Investment Community, One Stock at a Time
Posted by mdorman on January 13, 2010
In another sign that social networking is wiggling its way into every industry, stock traders were given their own community playground in the form of kaChing.com, which launched in October 2009 and last month announced another injection of venture capital to the tune of $7.5 million from DAG Ventures.
Conceived by veteran investors, kaChing allows users to create and manage a virtual stock portfolio with virtual money to see how it would perform in the actual stock market. Based on the portfolio’s earnings, risk-to-reward ratio, turnover and other factors, investors are assigned an investing IQ that measures their prowess, with the highest performers given Genius status. For a small fee, these Geniuses can have their stock trades automatically “mirrored” in real-time by other kaChing investors who can invest their own money into the portfolio.
The Good
•Transparency: Who wouldn’t be interested in knowing the secrets of successful investors? kaChing takes it a step further by disclosing how much of their own net worth the Geniuses have invested in the portfolios they’re managing — a thoughtful way to foster trust in both the Genius and the company.
•Engagement: All investors have message boards where they can answer questions, discuss stocks and wax poetic on market trends with other investors, further connecting the community.
•Innovation: kaChing is really the first website of its kind to marry social networking with finance in a way that’s potentially profitable for both the users and the company, a rare combination.
The Could Be Better
•Centralization: kaChing could use a community message board, an area devoted to stock research, a live news feed of Genius trades and a feed of the day’s top business stories. Hopefully a few of these will be added in the coming year.
•Product Placement: Admittedly, kaChing is not a place to sell products, unless that product is one’s own investment expertise, but the financial world extends well beyond individual stocks and kaChing would do well to explore these parts.
•Social Media: Where are the Twitter followers? As of this review, kaChing’s last tweet was in December 2009. And what about a Facebook fan page? There is a group page, though no one from kaChing seems to be monitoring it. For a site that’s built on the principles of social media marketing, kaChing could be maximizing its reach more.
With nearly $5 million invested in its portfolios — after less than a year in existence — kaChing is proving that peer reviews, even for something like stocks, can drive purchasing decisions. And in this climate of financial meltdowns, bank takeovers and shady accounting practices, kaChing’s allows investors the freedom to abandon the professional firms and put their money where their mouse is.
When someone else talks about your stuff, it's earned media
What exactly is earned media? I’m glad you asked. But first, let’s define paid media (sorry, it’s the best that Wikipedia had to offer). Paid media is just that. Exposure that you pay for whether it be television, print, radio, outdoor or online. If you paid someone to put your message there, it’s paid media. Don’t get me wrong, paid media is absolutely necessary and crucial to an integrated marketing mix. And, with the controls available today, you can reach a very targeted audience exactly where you want them for smaller investments than ever before. But, nevertheless, it’s still paid.
Earned media is the result of coverage, comments and conversation produced by press releases, chat threads, Facebook posts, Twitter tweets, blogging, commenting, reviewing, rating, social bookmarking like Digging, StumblingUponing (I made that verb up so don’t hate), Deliciousing (see previous parenthetical note), and video posting (I still love “Will It Blend?” and applaud Blendtec for doing it the right way) among other user-generated and brand-owner content development. Earned media is not completely free. You will most likely pay an agency like ours or an employee of your company to create, craft, post and manage earned media. If you are bootstrapping and doing it yourself, it still costs in terms of time and effort that could have been spent elsewhere. But let’s face it, you’d be paying to create the ads or media for your paid media on top of the actual media costs anyway. So, earned media still costs less.
Even better than costing less, earned media is more valid, engaging and connecting than paid media in a myriad of ways. It can come via a trusted third party – a friend, a media source, a blogger or a community you respect. It, by its very nature, sparks a dialogue that can open the doors for deeper connection. And, it engenders credibility (when done right, mind you) by offering information and conversation versus a come-on or enticement.
Word-of-mouth can be sparked by great paid media, but it’s the following earned media that makes it viral. Keep that in mind when you are planning and the word “viral” pops up.
1.Business Becomes Social
With widespread adoption of social media for marketing, advertising and customer engagement, 2010 will be “the year social media goes corporate.” This means all types of agencies (advertising, digital and PR) will continue to look for ways to help clients participate in social media. But the real trend is the increasing number of Small Business owners who are using social media to attract and retain customers.
2.More Places To Share Video
Video is exploding across all communication platforms and will continue to play an important role in social media. As more and more blogs include links to video content and as mobile devices expand the use of video, we will see even more video content in all aspects of digital, mobile and social media.
3.Mobile Becomes The Viewing Choice For Social Media.
With approximately 70 percent of organizations banning social networks and, sales of smartphones on the rise, more and more people are turning to their mobile phone to connect with social media. As a result, we will see more mobile versions of social media sites.
4.Smartphones Make Websites Smarter
With more consumers using smartphones, websites will start to recognize when a user is viewing content on a phone and be able to deliver more specific, personalized, local content to mobile users.
5.Status Updates Fill Jobs
In 2010 more and more jobs will be posted through social networks. With the increased use of social networks, companies are realizing that announcing a job on an employee’s social networking site is easier and more cost effective than paying $400 for a 30 day job posting and getting 95% bad candidates or paying a recruiter 30-35%.
6.News Feeds Influence Investors
An increasing number of retail and institutional investors are using financial blogs and social networks to communicate and drive investment ideas. Although companies have been slow to adopt, 2010 will be the year that companies understand the opportunity and importance of embracing these channels and engaging with their investors and stakeholders.
7. Customers Speak Up On Fan Pages
Social media is being used to improve customer service. In 2010 more companies will start leveraging social media platforms to gauge the
customer mood, gain insights about specific groups, test products and improve customer relationships. Sites like Facebook will be used to run tailored marketing campaigns to change consumers attitudes, address problems and give customers a chance to share true feeling on a fan page.
8. Social Networks Spend More Time On The Phone
Mobile social networks and communities continue to grow at a staggering rate. Social networking and consumer generated media are no longer limited to a wired computer. Separate reports from M:Metrics and ABI Research show a surge of social media activity via mobile handsets. According to mobile research firm M:Metrics, mobile social networking is projected to grow to over 800 million users worldwide by 2012.
9. Everyone plays Together
More and more platforms are becoming complimentary of each other (ie. Twitter open API model) increasing integration of social media platforms.
As more companies adopt some type of integration with major social platforms, niche social platforms will need to work on mobile, Facebook and Twitter to gain major traction. In particular, the market is just begging for an app where a user can manage all social platforms in one place, for both aggregating and disseminating content.
10. Social Networks Work For The Government
Many government agencies are already using Twitter and Facebook for crisis communications. However more and more federal, state and local government agencies will start using to social media. G-Commerce will evolve. New applications will be developed to directly deliver services and benefits to citizens via smartphones.