Get Over Social - it’s just marketing stupid
There’s no doubting it Social Media is hot right now. What’s interesting though is in the rush to go social, many brands are forgetting the marketing basics. Before you jump into Social Media get the marketing strategy right. Think about how you want to use it and understand which social media channel is the right fit. This will depend on your business, product and market. It’s not simply a case of Twitting this or Facebooking that.
Where to start.Define your target market then get your positioning and proposition right. With Social Media it’s critical to have something strong to say, something interesting. Having a strong proposition is good but it’s better to rally around a cause, be an advocate and grow a tribe. This can be done by being informative, solving problems, being interesting and entertaining or helping people achieve their goals. Having an objective that’s larger than unit sales but related to your product will be infinitely more successful than talking about the product.
Do the basics.Tell a good story. Get everyone involved with the brand to become a fan and invite their friends. Advertise the site. Have a great offer. Ensure you cross promote the site on everything you’re doing. Offer lots of information and use all the tools that Facebook offers - notes, events, discussion etc. You can also take things to the next level by designing a custom facebook page and use fbml to integrate forms and databases to create greater integration.
How to engage.Don’t talk about the product. Talk about things that are related to it. We typically recommend you engage on a regular pattern but this differs according to the social media channel being used. Three posts a week on Facebook would be fine, but too much for LinkedIn and not enough for Twitter. However like everything there are variations to this rule.
Most of all remember it’s just a conversation. Like most things though it’s good to think about the objective of the conversation before you engage.
Foot Note - Case Study: How SPCA gathered 25,000 fans in 3 weeks.A recent project that we’ve been involved with has been the Launch of SPCA Premium Petfood. On the face of sales should be easy but it’s a fiercely competitive category where purchases have a high degree of inertia so the client needed to do something. In the space of less than three weeks the page gathered over 25,000 fans which isn’t bad for a Petfood brand. But it’s a brand that’s doing something good - raising money for a well deserved charity. The page featured a custom designed landing page with an integrated form to capture qualified buyers who were willing to trial a new brand. For the full case study http://blog.youngshand.com/spca-petfood-social-media-case-study/
Five Online Marketing Trends
1. Social Media Matures - it’s not going away. Don’t ignore it and don’t think it’s a silver bullet either. It’s just another media option that you have to consider now.
2. Mobile Web Goes Nuts - driven by the iPhone but now Andriod and other handsets are catching up. New applications are making use of GPS chips to introduce new location aware services that add real value.
3. Augmented Reality - Another new application where secondary information is added to live real world environment. Once the domain of heads up displays in flighter jets now augmented reality is fast adding useful information to everyday issues such as where the closest train station is - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2uH-jrsSxs
4. Online all the time - Applications are fast moving online to the point where the browser is becoming the OS. Applications such as Google Docs, Drop Box, Sales Force and Xero are moving people to a connected all the time model. Upsides are in pay as you go, outsourceing maintenance, constant updates. Downsides - hmm any outages recently anyone…
5. In between gadgets will take off. The iPad will force a redesign in netbook computers the same way the iPhone changed how we think about mobile phones.
Duncan ShandCommercial Director Young&Shandwww.youngshand.com
Welcome to the Direct Marketing Network (DMN) a newly formed Special Interest Group from the New Zealand Marketing Association, aiming to inspire business success through best practice in the disciplines of direct marketing.