St Louis Web Marketing

Posts Tagged ‘social media campaign’

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.

You’ve done your research and you know that it’s time for you to integrate social media into your marketing campaign. You’ve got your whole team on board and excited for the new changes, except for that one person. That person is probably a little old fashioned, probably one of those that claimed the internet is just a fad. That person is probably very passionate about their job and doesn’t feel comfortable taking a risk like social media without some proof that it will benefit the company. That person may have some questions that you don’t have the answers to. Here are the answers to some common questions and concerns that an anti-social media employee may have.
How are we even going to get followers?
Adding links from your webpage and to your email template, asking your viewers to “Follow us on Twitter”, “Become a Fan on Facebook”, and “Subscribe to our Blog” is an easy way to let the people that you are already in contact with know they can keep in touch on a more casual level by adding you to their social network.  This will not only increase your number of fans, but it will increase the quality of fans. Also, Facebook’s news feed feature allows friends of followers to see that your company has a  fan page. The more friends your followers have, the more people that are being exposed to your fan page.

Being a part social networking communities increases your brand’s exposure through each outlet. Someone may first come across your blog, which directs them to your site, where they can become a friend on Facebook, and they can then receive a coupon to use in store.

What if someone posts something negative about our company?
Negativity can be out there whether or not you take part in social media. However, by supplying the outlet for negative comments, you are providing a secure and manageable space. You are able to respond to a negative remark and turn it to a positive. It has been proven that negative publicity that has not been addressed tends to remain negative and spread like wildfire. Negative comments that are addressed and mended quickly are appreciated and make for great publicity. Here is a great example of a negative comment turned into a positive.

Without social media, this great publicity would have never been seen and maybe the Zappos would have never been able to address this person complaint in the first place.
There are more questions and concerns that “that person” may have. Check back for Part 2 as I discuss how to quantify exposure and how to create your campaign if you have a brick and mortar store rather than online purchases.