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3 Easy Ways to Kick Ass Using Social Media

Supposedly there’s some ultra-mega-super-awesome secret to social media marketing. FACT! That’s not really, 100% true. It’s a lot simpler than that. While kicking ass at social media requires an investment of time, effort, and ambition (maybe even passion). I wanted to give you three easy ways to get ahead on social media and make it an effective outlet for your brand and marketing efforts.

Kick Ass Baby

Be valuable

(I give the worst, best advice, ever.)

Your network looks to you for a reason, or vice versa. Whether you are creating content, aggregating from other sources in order to provide a hub for valuable knowledge and thought leadership, or you’re simply driving thought provoking conversation, your network has a certain expectation of you.

If you’re providing value to your audience you know what they want. Whether it’s articles relevant to marketing, entrepreneurship, small biz, or how to create awesome web designs you will know. Nurturing relationships online is one of the most valuable things you can do for yourself and your network online.

Automate some stuff, not everything.

I automate.

The bane of existence on social media. It’s supposed to be personal, and engaging, and stuff……right? Well, it is. There’s no harm in posting an interesting article that you found the night before, or during the day for a later time. Allow people to engage with content you have found on your time & schedule. Or, even better, automate to match your audiences schedule. Use tools like Argyle Social, or Crowdbooster to monitor interaction levels with your tweets an to find the best times to tweet according to your audience.

Embrace competition

You’d be surprised, or not, at how much content is recreated, repurposed, rephrased, reused…the list goes on. Your competition is a source for many things. Amongst others they can be a news source should you not be the leader. I read other blogs and huge content creators every day. As a matter of fact this blog post was an amalgamation of thoughts from multiple blog posts. It happens, but the thoughts and opinions are still mine. I still tell you how I think about them and I choose which ones I believe work best, and recreate them here for you.

There are three easy ways for you to kick ass at social media. If you have any more, please add them in the comments, I’d love to hear from you.

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ROI? Why?

lips, mouth Yes, ROI matters. There’s nothing I can say that will disprove that ROI is a huge aspect of marketing, business, and sales. The reality comes down to: Does ROI matter to YOU?

Find what is important to you and track that.

What matters are your KPIs. Key Performance Indicators. In an older Argyle Social article there were four KPIs addressed. The KPIs that I choose will not be the same that you choose for many, many reasons. Here’s an example: my KPIs have nothing to do with conversions, or leads, or sales. My KPIs should be indicators of: what are people reading on my blog? How long are they reading these articles? Do they opt to learn more about me?

These indicators tell me whether or not my content is applicable to my readers and if what I am doing is providing value to them. Values that you choose can be tangible, monetary value or value can be knowledge. Either way, a value must be given to your readers or visitors.

Stop thinking about ROI and think about the people.

A Harvard Business Review article brought up a good point from a study that was done about 50 years ago by Ernest Dichter. Essentially, what it all comes down to is Word of Mouth. Now, we’re all going to pretend that we’re smart and that we knew this already (which we did, obviously). I may just be naïve, but I believe that we’re trying to track and put a monetary number on something that just doesn’t matter.

Word of mouth is a part of any product, service, business, blah blah blah (insert whatever it is you’re marketing here). I don’t deny that it is an extremely valuable aspect of marketing to track. But! Do we really need to add a dollar value to it? Thik abot the conversations around what you do.

Sentiment, maybe? Are there concerns? Are people trying to understand more about you?

Stop measuring start talking.

The bean-counters want their numbers. Give them the numbers. The key to marketing, PR, and advertising today online, isn’t about whether or not you have an effective campaign. Marketing today is about being a part of the customer’s interaction online. The consumer wants you to answer their questions. Consumers want companies to give feedback, give help, or even just give them a pat on the back sometimes.

The only thing I ask you to do when you become “a part of the conversation”: Don’t sound like a damn robot!

Be yourself. Build relationships. And give back to your customers, leads, and even random people talking about you online. Be a person, it doesn’t hurt.

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