St Louis Web Marketing

Archive for the ‘social media’ Category

From dipping their toes into the water with a low-investment campaign to diving off the cliff, today many nonprofits are actively exploring social media. But a common problem many non-profits face is that they blindly leap into social media without implementing a strategy. Without a well created strategy, there is no way to measure your online efforts. This leaves the non-profits at a loss to justify their investment of time, money and resources, or reap valuable insights to improve their efforts. Whether you measure social media success based on how many new volunteers you recruit, the number of sponsorships or donations, the dialogue shared among your online community, or the influx in web traffic, fans and followers, it is vital to measure your results against clear marketing objectives, just as you would with any Internet marketing campaign.

When starting a social media campaign for you non-profit, remember: a simple, yet powerful mission and message can take a campaign far. Non-profits on social networking sites should set goals, update consistently, become a part of the conversation, build community and create value. Without a clear vision and well thought out strategy, it is difficult to encourage an audience to participate. If the time and energy are strategically spent to create a social community, others will help spread your message and your desired results will come.

The social media space provides the non-profit sector with the opportunity to connect and collaborate quickly and inexpensively, and without the help of big company sponsorships. Many non-profits are leveraging social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, to connect with their supporters online by crowdsourcing ideas, providing feedback and monitoring conversations regarding their organization.

According to Stacey  Monk, Founder and CEO of Epic Change, “Social media is making change possible. With social media, we’re able to hear totally new voices, who might not have had access to mainstream channels, which represents a real shift in power, and where change can originate.”

Recenlty The Net impact, an online interactive agency, teamed with St. Louis based non-profit, the Karla Smith Foundation to help build online aware for their campaign event with BringChange2Mind, a non-profit superheaded by award-winning actress Glenn Close that works to combat the stigma of mental illness. KSF and BringChange2Mind combined forces to host an unprecedented mental health awareness and anti-stigma event, “Change a Mind, Change a Life”, in St. Louis, Missouri.

The Karla Smith Foundation was in need of a strategy to build online buzz around the event and direct traffic to the event website. To quickly and effectively generate awareness around the campaign, The Net Impact worked closely with the Karla Smith Foundation to create the website, www.changeamind.org, for the highly anticipated event. In order to direct traffic to the website and create online awareness, The Net Impact implemented a social media marketing strategy for the campaign, which included a strong presence on Twitter and Facebook. The KSF social networking sites were updated daily with exciting news regarding the event, such as notices of upcoming media appearances, videos and pictures, and sponsorship information. The KSF Facebook and Twitter continued to see steady growth in fans and followers as well an increase in the level of fan engagement in the weeks leading up to the event.

As a result of the social media marketing campaign, KSF was provided with the opportunity to share valuable information with their existing community, increase interest around their event, catch the attention of local media, build their brand awareness and attract new fans and followers to get involved with their organization. Most importantly, the KSF Facebook page now serves as a platform for their online community to share personal experiences and give valuable feedback in real time.

In conclusion, while many non-profits still have a long way to go, the integration of social media in their marketing efforts can help these organizations meet and exceed many different goals. Social  media is a platform that allows people to participate in a conversation about what they think, feel and care about, making social media and excellent space for the non-profit sector to continue to explore.

How do you grade your social media? Is it by the number of fans or followers you have? A common mistake that many internet marketers are guilty of is believing that a successful social media campaign is based on the quantity of followers you have. Just like your website, driving traffic and increasing visitors to your website is important, but keeping the users there and  improving conversion is key to a successful social media campaign. Within your social media practices you must find a way to keep your fans engaged.

Below are tips to keeping your fans engaged:

1.    Be Transparent
Transparency is how the community feeling is formed. Being transparent in social media is letting others inside of your organization and showing the side of you that makes everyone feel a little more comfortable in their own skin.

2.    Treat your Fans like a Customer
If you are participating in social media, you have taken on the responsibility of putting your business in social media. While you think that facebook and twitter are all fun and games, your customers are using this as a personal medium to discuss real things with you. Treat each and every fan as if they were a customer in the store, on the phone, etc.
3.    Treat your fans every once in awhile
Your fans are your best marketing tool. Make sure you are paying them accordingly. Offer them free stuff or exclusive invitations. Sure, some people enjoy talking because they like the sound of their own voice. But if you want something well thought out that will attract others, offer your fans a prize and they will take off from there.

4.    Be an expert in your industry
If you are only posting coupon codes and sales promotions, fans will become bored and annoyed quickly. Show them that you know everything there is to know about your industry, which includes posting interesting articles and promoting events. Soon your followers will turn to you for your expert opinion and know that you are who they can trust when it comes to what you do.

Talking yourself into participating in social media wasn’t too bad, now you’re trying to talk everyone else into it. You should be prepared with some good responses for objections…there will be objections. I already touched on a few protests, so we will continue in Part 2 to discuss how to respond when someone anti-social media raises doubts.
How do you quantify exposure?
Facebook provides its fans pages with insights that allow you to track page views, fan growth, and quality of posts. It also shows demographics of your fans that help you target your facebook campaign. It really is a neat tool to look at when you are developing your social media campaign. For example, you can look back and see that on a certain date you had a huge increase in fan views. I would recommend looking at what you posted that day or what special you were announcing, etc. This was obviously something that your fans liked and you should continue to execute meaningful posts like that one. The same goes for reversed responses. When you see that your page views fall dramatically or your unsubscribed fan numbers are growing, take a look and see what was happening that day and see to it that does not happen again.
There are also sites that provide Twitter statistics, providing insight into tweet impressions. You can see exactly how many people saw a specific tweet as well as your growth of followers.
Your website’s analytics can track exactly where your viewers are coming from. This means you will know when visitors are being sent from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or your blog. This can provide you with trending and performance information on customers referred by your social sites.
The same analytics that you have set for your website can be set for your blog. This means that you can see how many views it is getting, how often it is referring visitors to your site, as well as how they are finding your blog. Using blog and website analytics in conjunction can provide you with insight into user interaction with your blog posts, as well as the information they are most interested in.

We want people to come to our store, not our site.
Social media sites do drive a ton of traffic to your site, but that does not mean it isn’t doing what any other form of advertising does. With facebook posts and blogs you are still letting your customers know why they should get off the computer and get into your store. There are different ways of executing this. Its a great idea to give employees the opportunity to become administrators of your social media efforts. Let your individual stores or managers post and tweet about the specials they have going on. Let a passionate salesman tell his story in a blog about why he loves the industry he is in. Encourage employees to be in the YouTube videos that show why your products are the best. Provide your fans with exclusive benefits like coupons to be used in your store. As you can see, advertising done through social media allows for a more casual environment and lets customers feel comfortable and part of your community. Done properly, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, blogging, and web pages can be very beneficial to store traffic as well as online sales.

Remember these objections and answers when you are discussing social media with decision makers. Please feel free to post any concerns or questions in our comments section. We would love to hear your feedback about social media.