Social Media Marketing’s Growing Popularity

October 11, 2011

Why use social media marketing?

Many of today’s successful businesses have been around for years, long before the internet was a viable option in marketing a product. Although billboards, TV commercials, and radio and print advertisements have been successful in the past, they will not have the impact they once did in today’s market. Many people no longer check the newspaper for movie times, they reference online venues. Many people no longer hand-write letters, they electronically draft emails. Many shy away from garage sells when they can utilize Craigslist. While some may resist the facts, this country and the rest of the world relies on technology more and more every day. This is not something to dread or dwell upon; it is something to take advantage of!

For anyone born after 1980, it is easy to notice the growing popularity of social networks and it does not take a genius to identify the direction in which our world’s social media market’s popularity will continue to move. People from the age of 20 to 29 use social media more than any other age group, with 41% spending 11+ hours a week on social media sites. Age 30 to 39 is the next most frequent user base of social media, with 37% of them spending 11+ hours a week on social media sites as well. While the younger age groups on these networking sites will be more interested in social status, the older groups will focus on marketing and advertising. Understandably, most people have heard of Facebook, which has become the largest social networking website to date. Facebook has over 500 million users, half of which log-on at least once per day. Among the US internet populace, 72% are members of Facebook, with ages 18-24 seeing the most rapid growth. That is 36% of this country’s internet users visit a single website each day! It would be exceptionally hard to find another channel with that kind of impact. Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogs are just a few of the other popular social networks available today, all providing remarkable accessibility to a large group of people.

Social media is the fastest growing marketing tool, and any business not capitalizing on its numerous capabilities could be at a disadvantage to its competitors. Waiting around and not taking advantage of this vastly growing marketing tool is an opportunity that companies are missing. Business is ever evolving and so must marketing campaigns in order to keep pace with the competition. So then why wouldn’t someone immediately get involved with social marketing? It cannot be money, as most of these networks are free. It cannot be experience, because anyone can outsource their social marketing for dirt cheap. Most people just do not know. They do not know what it is, nor understand its capabilities. But most importantly, they are unaware of the positive economic growth it will potentially have on their company.

Social media marketing is the attempt to broadcast various forms of media over social networking technologies, plain and simple. A few perks of social media include increased exposure, increased lead generation, gaining of new partnerships, increased traffic, and marketing cost reductions. On average, 88% of marketers using social media have reported increased exposure for their business. Almost half of these individuals who employed marketing tactics through social media for 12 months or less reported new partnerships gained. Users who spent 6 hours or less per week saw their lead generation increase, and 58% of small business owners using social media marketing were more likely to see marketing cost reductions.

The internet is providing this world with new products, capabilities, and tools that have never before been possible. Social media marketing provides the ability to potentially influence hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people for a fraction of the cost of outdated marketing methods. It is the responsibility of today’s businessmen to focus on the future of every market and the direction it is heading. Social media is a wise investment for almost any company and will be more beneficial the earlier it becomes integrated within a company’s strategic initiative. Social media networking is only going to grow, and my best advice at this point is to establish your brand as soon as possible through these means.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-industry-report-2011/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6602049

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Using Social Media to Improve Your Business

October 4, 2011

Most of us have used social media at one time or another. Not only is it a good place to find old friends from school, but it can be used for online marketing strategy. You probably have heard of Facebook©, Twitter©, and LinkedIn©, with the latter being geared more towards business people in general. I am going to show you how to use these networks to benefit your business.

Here are some amazing statistics about Facebook© alone.

  • In 2010 a 207% over 2009 in searches.
  • It was the most searched term in 2010.
  • A record-breaking 750 million photos were uploaded over New Years weekend.
  • 71.2% of all U.S. internet users are on Facebook©.
  • Ad revenue for Facebook will top $2.2 billion in 2011.
  • 700 million active users on Facebook©.
  • 175 million users on Twitter©.

 

Using social media can be very advantageous for businesses worldwide. I know myself I use all of the above mentioned social media companies for my business. Your contacts that you acquire by finding someone you know or who might join your network can become a social media tool for you. What I do occasionally on my own Facebook© page is drop a link to one of my websites. I will either have someone give me a comment about the link which opens me up to extend conversation with that person more on a personal basis. Below I have listed what I consider the best free ways to use social media to improve your business.

  • Be your self- What I mean by this is to engage in conversations online like you would in person. Tell the person a little about yourself and what your goals are. Build a relationship and later they could become your customer because you have gained their trust.
  • Place a link to your website on social networks- My placing an occasional link to your website or an offer you may have that would benefit someone you can also receive comments back from people and tell them more about your business. Sites like Facebook© and Twitter© permit links as long as you keep from spamming. Do everything in moderation and you can be rewarded.
  • Create a page for your business- Another free way to gain exposure for your business is to create a page on Facebook©. By creating your own business page you can reach thousands of people.

 

We just covered a few free ways to get your business seen using social media, now let us look at paid advertising on these networks. As I told you currently 700 million people use Facebook© alone and another 175 million use Twitter©. It only makes sense to target your advertising campaigns on these social media networks. Using social media advertising you can target your audience my age, income, and demographics. Pin-pointing your advertising is more cost-effective and will give you a bigger piece of the pie.

My advice to you is not to overlook the power of social media. Indulge frequently with your contacts and reap the rewards of trust.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6578589

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Is Social Media Marketing The New SEO?

September 27, 2011

People who are not familiar with how internet marketing works might think that social media marketing is the new Search Engine Optimization. No, it’s not! Social media marketing is an effective supplement to any standard SEO endeavor that you do, but it can’t be used as a replacement. Implementing this strategy is like employing a PR firm once you’ve released your SEO-optimized website. On-page SEO is obviously not as captivating as social media marketing, but it is still the most significant effort you can implement to your website.

As for your social networking efforts, you should visit your existing social accounts, and focus on how you can bring more visitors to your website. However you have first to determine who your target visitors are, what keywords they use in searching for information in the search engines, and in what way your website can help them. Be sure not to miss any of these as you go through your optimization process. All of the social networking sites and traffic won’t result in anything if your target visitors are not part of your online connection or network.

If you didn’t earn the ROI, don’t fret. Most often, it is based on whom your target visitors are, where they can be find, the kinds of services or products you provide, and if your website genuinely supplies your visitors with what they’re searching for.

Applying basic SEO such as building a crawler-friendly website that is made up of relevant keywords that people often typed in the search engines to find the things you offer, shouldn’t be underestimated. These SEO factors can be considered the foundation of your SEO efforts to achieve results.

SEO & Social Media Marketing Guide is written for companies that don’t have the luxury of a big marketing budget, and don’t have the time or staff to devote to a full-time online marketing project. Get it today!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5573060

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Using Video Marketing for YOUR Business

September 21, 2011

The usage of video on the web offers certain distinct, from SEO advantages right through to increased sales conversion, let’s look at the benefits of video content in detail.

1. Increasing your SEO

If you did not know . . . social media as a marketing tool is growing exponentially. No business can stick to age-old marketing methods. The major search engines now give a lot of value to video content. If your website or business has a video and an article about the same keyword, chances are that your video will rank higher every time.

Visitors are more likely to watch a quick 2 minute video demonstration of your services than they are to read a long wall of text. In addition, you can target several long-tail keywords with videos to scale your rankings even further.

2. Video Distribution

There are several video distribution sites that allow users to upload their videos to many websites at once. Tools such as TubeMogul, VideoWildfire and Hey!Spread allow you to add your videos to a lot of the popular video-sharing sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, and others simultaneously. These websites usually offer optimized videos for their mobile platforms too, thus automatically expanding the reach of the uploader’s brand.

3. The Social Media Effect

Since popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter allow users to share interesting links, having your own video on the major sites drastically increases your chances of exposure. Also, people are more likely to share an interesting video they came across rather than an article.

4. Automatically Increase Traffic to Your Website

If you have been surfing the web long enough, inevitably you have visited a Web 2.0 property which features a video on the homepage. Having this kind of a setup increases the visitor retention on the page. People are more likely to be intrigued by the service and might stay around to find out more if they are presented with an entertaining video explaining the purpose of the website or the service.

5. Increase Sales by Having a Great 1st Impression

For example, assume the case of a website that reviews cameras and includes the webmaster’s affiliate links at the end of each review. Now for a physical product such as a camera, a video review can show things to the visitor that simply cannot be conveyed effectively through text. In these cases, a video is a far more effective tool to increase the chance of conversions, and subsequently helping the webmaster make money online.

6. More Success with Opt-in and Subscriber Lists for Video Based Feeds

People are used to getting walls of text and promotional offers in their inbox all day long. Not many marketers out there offer informational videos to their subscribers. Since most people are already signed up to one or more textual newsletters, a weekly video-based feed can be a nice change. Also, some concepts are better demonstrated over video.

7. Personalized Experience for Your Customers

You can guide your visitors to different sections of your website using videos making the whole experience similar to visiting an actual store. Videos put a face on the merchant and make the users more comfortable doing business with them.

8. Automation of Video Creation

Earlier, video production used to be a lengthy process involving half a dozen people and a lot of equipment. But nowadays, video production is seamless and in a lot of cases, completely automated. All in all, video marketing is highly beneficial for improving brand recognition and customer retention. Online businesses that haven’t jumped onto the video bandwagon already should look at it as a serious option for improving the quality of their websites.

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Social Media Marketing – How To Get Comments On Your Posts

August 31, 2011

This was a great article from Marketing Artfully

Social media marketing is a bear! It can feel like you are posting all day and no one is commenting or even listening. Don’t let a lack of comments get you down, you never know who might be out there watching and not talking.

 

How to get social media comments - social media marketingThe picture that I have on this post was taken out front of my house with an iPhone and the app TruHDR (one of my faves). I noticed when I got inside that I had my thumb in the picture – doh! If I was “smart” I would have cropped it out and had a “good” picture to post (most of our clients want everything to be perfect). What I did was post it to my Facebook with the comment, “they are paving the road! and my thumb…:)”. I got 7 comments and a couple of likes. Social media is about being human and humans are not always scripted and perfect.

This goes for companies too! When Dominos Pizza started losing market share, they did not curl up and die, they said that they would have to change their sauce and the quality of their pizza and sales rose. Many small biz owners are SO concerned that they look perfect that they become bland and boring! Snazzy it up a bit! If you would like to find out about other companies who have admitted to being less than perfect, check out the Washington Post’s, Behind Domino’s mea culpa ad campaign.

Does It Matter How Many Comments You Get?

Getting blog comments and getting social media comments follow the same formula as all regular human interaction. There is research from 2006 that shows this perfectly (and given that the stats haven’t changed in the intervening years, tend to be pretty compelling). According to Jakob Nielsen,

In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.

So think about that, for each commenter you have on one of your posts, there are potentially 90 people who will see it and never comment, BUT they saw it none-the-less! This is why you will go to a party and have someone you have never heard of say, “I am your Facebook friend” or “I see you on Google Plus all the time”. They see YOU and what you are doing, whether they talk to you online or not!

Funniest part of the Participation Inequality post was, “How to Overcome Participation Inequality – You can’t.” You can’t make people comment if they don’t want to, you can only post things that ENCOURAGE commenting and hope that someone jumps in to get the ball rolling.

Additionally, (I promise I will get to ideas of what to post to get comments soon), you need to be aware of WHEN you are posting things and who might be online at the time. If you are a nightbird and posting all your “stuff” at midnight, it may be pushed down everyone’s wall by the time they get up, OR you may have a hoard of people who are all up in the middle of the night with you who jump in to comment because there is not all that much else going on.

Timezones and posting matter too! If you are trying to target overseas customers, working on Eastern time won’t cut it. You are going to have to do some posting and commenting when it is mid morning and early evening THEIR time. Test this and see if it makes a difference in how many comments you get!

Social Media Ideas – What To Post To Get Comments On Your Posts

If you skipped down here, go up and read the rest, we will wait for you..:)

  • Personal items – The people working on the street outside my house are not inherently interesting, BUT it shows that I do not talk about marketing and small business all the time! It makes me more of a person and less of a company. I would say if you use social media for business that you should not talk about your baby, dog, husband, girlfriend or any other super personal thing TOO MUCH but that doesn’t mean that you can never talk about them! One guy who really gets this right is Daniel Webster Johnson. He is a Colorado Realtor who traipses around every morning taking pretty pictures of the Colorado countryside and his dog. It REALLY works for him!
  • Quotations – Now please note, these should only be quotations that have meaning to you. Just popping something up there everyday with no background as to why it is interesting is not that great a practive. I like quotationspage.com for quotes, the search engine is good and they have LOTS! Another good things to do is make up your own quotes – one fellow, Imran Rahman, has Imranisms. It always gives me a chuckle to see what he has posted!
  • Selling With People – You CAN sell if you are giving credit to other people at the same time! Kirsten McKay Smith is especially good at it on her Passion Rockstars pagewhich is a clearinghouse for her to talk to her team (and people who follow it may also want to become a member of her team after seeing how neat she is!)
  • Great Links From Your Industry– I am always looking for new things that could help my clients increase traffic or get more clients. Frequently I find good resources that I share with my online community. I also save these for my newsletter so they do double duty!
  • Post your videos– people like to see interesting things and if you can pop out a quicky video about your industry or a topic that will appeal to everyone, you can get some good interaction. Remember to be QUICK! 2 minutes or less.
  • Things from your past that are interesting– Could be reference to Woodstock from our baby boomer friends or a really great Muppet Movie clip. Just make sure you let us know WHY it is important to you!
  • Open Ended Questions – Ask your friends and circles an INTERESTING question that does not work with a yes or no answer. According to Buddy Media, Posts that END with a question (rather than having it at the beginning or middle) have a 15% higher engagement rate.
  • Trending topics – It is okay to comment on current events, I just make sure to stay out of religion and politics. Just think, if you are PRO REPUBLICAN or PRO DEMOCRAT, you are effectively alienating about half of the rest of your customers. I had a funny thing happen the other day, a fellow who was selling insurance threw out the term “Obamacare” and giggled like it was stupid. I can tell you, he DID NOT KNOW that would be offensive to some people in the room who would then choose someone else to work with. I KNOW, some people like to be very partisan on their social media and that is their choice. As a small business owner, I cannot afford to lose that many potential new clients. Nuff said.

The NUMBER ONE Most Important Social Media Commenting Idea!

Talk back. That is right, if you get one comment, talk back. If you get two, talk back again. People are more apt to interact with your posts if they know that there is a real person on the other side! If someone posts something nice on your wall, thank them. In general, just interact as you would with plain old humans you would come into contact in your day-to-day life.

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