4 Ways to Use Social Media to Generate Leads

Do you use social media to generate inbound leads for your business?

Are you unsure about where and how to focus your efforts to meet your lead generation goals?

According to HubSpot’s Inbound Marketing Annual Report, social media produces almost double the marketing leads of trade shows, telemarketing, direct mail or PPC.

If you’re starting a lead generation campaign, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ are all excellent places to begin, but knowing how to pull leads from the conversations that happen on these platforms takes some knowledge and practice.

In this article, I’ll share 4 ways you can use social media to generate inbound marketing leads for your business.

#1: Twitter Chats

Twitter chats are frequently scheduled discussions hosted by a Twitter account. Each chat uses a particular hashtag so that other Twitter users can follow the conversation even though topics change with each discussion.

Because of the focused audience communities that participate in Twitter chats, they are a great place to generate leads for your business.

The #SmallBizChat is an example of a Twitter chat that successfully engages its community every week.

How do you start? You can participate in Twitter chats in two ways: Join existing Twitter chats that are related to your industry or create and host your own Twitter chat. Whichever route you choose, join in on relevant chats that potential customers would be participating in to make sure you gain visibility with the right people.

You can find industry- and subject-specific chats that relate to your business in this extensive library of existing Twitter chats.

#Likeablechat is a weekly chat that offers social media tips and an opportunity to network with other marketers.

When participating in a Twitter chat, it’s important to be a good participant. This will help you to attract the leads you want for your business.

Use the hashtag set by the host. Ask and answer questions with contributions that are insightful and illustrate your understanding of the industry and your business offerings. Stay on topic and remember—this is not the forum for pitching your services.

Twitter chats are a place to establish thought leadership and credibility.

Join conversations in chat with valuable tips and insights to establish yourself as a credible source.

Here’s how to get the leads you’re looking for.

Once you’re taking part in a chat, research other participants who have tweeted you as part of the discussion or have participated in the chat overall.

Friendly conversation with other chat members can help strengthen your ties and build long-lasting relationships on Twitter.

Follow individuals who could be potential customers down the line and keep tabs on any of their conversations that relate to your services.

Tweet with these connections outside of the chat and, when the time is right, direct message them to share additional links to content or marketing materials you have that will further establish your expertise and what your business could offer them.

Be sensitive and strategic in your pitch. Don’t oversell, spam, over-tweet or be vague with these relationships.

Wait for the right time in conversation to message someone about your business offerings. When you focus on building the right relationships through your Twitter chats, you’re sure to gather leads.

#2: LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn Groups are made up of a variety of subject areas, bringing together professionals of similar interests to discuss topics that relate to business. Again, you can find potential leads by either creating your own LinkedIn Group or by joining an existing group that focuses on your area of expertise.

While it’s possible to join up to 50 groups, I suggest you focus your efforts on a few of the right groups for your business.

Join LinkedIn Groups where potential customers or clients may be active, then engage in relevant conversations.

Browse the directory of groups to find the right match, join the discussions and connect with existing members. Begin by consistently posting your own content or others’ content that’s on topic. Participate in existing conversations by answering questions and providing resources.

People ask questions in almost every LinkedIn Group, answer them to bring value and help establish relationships.

Here’s how to get the leads you’re looking for.

Identify group members who continually ask questions about your line of business or members who are generally looking for help. Publicly answer their questions from within the group, providing value and using brevity, then follow up with a more in-depth message by using the Reply Privately feature. This way you have both a public and a private point of contact with them.

The Reply Privately feature is an often-overlooked tactic for generating quality leads from a one-on-one conversation where you’re able to provide value and build trust. This feature is found below a group member’s question under the More tab or by hovering over one of their comments in the discussion.

In your private message, answer their question in full and let them know you’re available to chat more extensively on the topic by phone, if need be. Phone calls within the right context, like a LinkedIn intro, are more likely than a cold call to turn this conversation into a potential lead-builder for your business.

When you focus on establishing credibility with the information you share and then take the relationships you make in LinkedIn Groups to the next step and one-on-one conversations, you’ll gather leads.

#3: Facebook Advertising

Running ads on Facebook can fulfill many different goals, one of which is generating leads from the right audience. Promoted Posts—an engaging form of Facebook advertising—highlight your content in the newsfeed of that audience.

Promoted Posts generate more views of your content than it would organically receive on its own on Facebook, giving it that extra boost.

While Facebook isn’t often conducive to direct sales, you can build trust with Facebook users when you consistently distribute quality content and engage in one-to-one communication through long-term interactions.

Use Promoted Posts to highlight quality content from your Facebook Page or your website. Share a link to your latest contest, ebook, instructional video, blog post, lookbook or other content that doesn’t send Facebook users directly to a product or services landing page.

Signup forms like this one from Offerpop require Facebook users to enter information about themselves in order to enter a contest or see original content.

Here’s how to get the leads you’re looking for.

To help you capitalize on the click-through of a Facebook user, use a signup form that reveals the content on your website or Facebook tab only after the user fills out any required information that you define. This could be an email address, demographic data or geographic location information.

The more information your business has about a Facebook user, the better you can personalize your future messaging to match their interests, making it more likely that they will convert from lead to customer in the future.

With a content strategy adapted to your audience on Facebook and the consistent visibility offered by Promoted Posts, you’ll likely gather leads from your community on Facebook.

#4: Google+ Hangouts

Google+ Hangouts on Air give you the ability to communicate directly with your audience online, in real time.

Consider hosting a hangout focused on your offerings as a business to show the audience your unique value and, most importantly, to show a human face behind your business.

The types of hangouts that are beneficial for lead generation are:

• Customer service sessions
• Interviews with experts and leaders
• Giveaways and contests
• Free product demos

Sephora hosted a Google+ Hangout on Air to discuss what’s happening behind the scenes and to talk with beauty bloggers and experts about the latest trends in beauty.

There are many ways to host a Hangout on Air with your audience. You can allow anyone to join in the conversation or limit the discussion to a few individuals. Choose the approach best suited to your the goals.

From the beginning, define what you’re looking to achieve from your hangout and how you plan to connect with your audience before, during and after the event.

Here’s how to get the leads you’re looking for.

Offer value above all, and use strong calls to action throughout your Hangout on Air. Encourage participants and viewers to interact with your business, learn more about your offerings and give people the tools and information they need to make an informed decision about their purchases.

Record your Google+ hangout and save it to YouTube so you can use the video in a blog post, share it across social media and add it to relevant YouTube playlists.

To further drive leads for your business, add links to the products and services discussed on the hangout in the description of the YouTube video for easy reference.

In the YouTube video from their hangout, Sephora included links to the products they discussed to make it as easy as possible for people to become customers.

Google+ Hangouts on Air offer businesses a great opportunity to create content and connect with potential clients.

Over to You

Social media offers many untapped opportunities to connect with potential leads for your business. These are just a few suggestions on how you can activate your social audiences and generate leads that can affect your bottom line.

What do you think? How are you using social media to drive leads for your business? What social media channels have you found most successful for generating leads? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Tags: brian honigman, call to action, facebook ad, facebook advertising, google+ hangout, hangouts on air, inbound marketing lead, lead generation, linkedin group, promoted post, signup form, social media, social media marketing, twitter chat


author: Brian Honigman
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-to-generate-leads/

How to Find Great Content to Share on Twitter

What content are you sharing on Twitter?

Do you struggle to find interesting, relevant things to tweet about every day?

In this post, I’ll show you how to curate content your followers will love so you can build a loyal community on Twitter.

Why Curate?

Today most marketers understand the need to create informative and relevant content. But it’s equally important to curate informative and relevant content.

In addition to creating great content for your site, the links to the other people’s content that you share on Twitter also matter.

When you share good content on Twitter, the kind your audience loves, it’s easier to build a strong community. And sharing great content will also increase your credibility in your industry.

retweet
When you create and curate relevant content, people are more likely to retweet and share your stuff. Image: iStockPhoto

#1: Know Your Audience

So what content should you share on Twitter? Before you can determine what is the best content to share in your social updates, you need to dig deep and go inside your followers’ heads.

You’ll want to know your social media audience. What keeps your ideal follower up at night? What are his favorite blogs? What’s the first thing that pops into his head when he thinks of you?

If you’ve ever created a buyer persona for a marketing campaign, this is the same exercise.

You want to find the intersection of what interests you and what interests your audience.

You can also ask your followers to find out what they want. You may find general open-ended questions—such as “What would you like me to tweet about?”—too broad to give you the information you need.

Instead, ask your followers a multiple-choice question such as, “Would you like me to tweet about a) social media marketing, b) mobile, c) productivity hacks, d) all of the above?”

You can use their answers as a starting point to plan the content you share and identify what your followers want from you.

Once you identify the content your audience is interested in, commit to this topic. Don’t dilute it.

For example, Social Media Examiner focuses on social media. So you’ll find articles about generating email leads using social media. But you won’t find content devoted to increasing email open rates or the perfect auto-responder series or other topics with no connection to social media.

Find out what topics interest your audience most and share content related to these topics on your social profiles.

#2: Tools to Help You Curate Content

Once you know your audience well, you’ll want to set up a good aggregation tool to find content worth tweeting about.

Here some of the popular news aggregators in the market today. Use the ones you like for your business to find the content you need to provide a valuable stream of daily tweets for your followers.

Feedly – Your News Delivered

Feedly is a tool to help you curate content. Feedly makes it easy for you to look for the articles most relevant for you to share.

One of the best aspects of Feedly is the variety of viewing interfaces available. You can format it to show articles in an email-type layout with headlines or arrange them as image cards or also choose a more traditional magazine layout.

Feedly is a great alternative to Google Reader and offers a variety of layouts to make RSS more enjoyable.

Regardless of the layout you choose, Feedly shows you new content from the blogs and news sources you subscribe to. And it offers a consistent presentation across devices, so you can tweet from your laptop, your tablet or your smartphone.

One of my favorite features is Feedly’s integration with multiple online tools such as Google+, Evernote, Buffer, Instapaper and more. This makes your content curation easier.

You can share and save your favorite articles to multiple social networks and web tools.

Fever – Find Out What’s Hot

Do you want to know how hot the story is that you shared? Fever is a content feed reader that ranks the stories in your feed with a temperature gauge. This allows you to measure how many links and shares a story has within your network.

Fever is a paid service that reads your feeds and picks out the most frequently talked about articles from a customizable time period.

This is a visual way to see how the content you share on Twitter resonates with your audience. It’s an easy way to be sure the content you share matters to your followers.

It is important to note that Fever comes with a one-time price of $30 and you need to host the files on your own server.

The setup is a bit technical, so you may want to ask your IT department to help you get started.

Prismatic – Discover New Content to Share

While RSS readers are great for keeping up with your favorite blogs, Prismatic helps you find new and interesting blogs.

Prismatic delivers socially curated content based on your interests to help you discover new blogs and content sources.

If you like to keep your content curation fresh and interesting, Prismatic does a great job of introducing new blogs and content sources you may never have come across otherwise .

Here’s how to get the most out of Prismatic.

Step 1: Sign up

Sign up for Prismatic using your Facebook, Google+ or Twitter login, or create a stand-alone account on Prismatic.

Sign up at GetPrismatic.com.

Step 2: Choose Your Interests

After you sign up, you can pick the different topics that you and your audience relate to. As you use the service, Prismatic will suggest new topics based on what you share and click.

Find new content by choosing topics your community is interested in.

Step 3: Pick Your Favorite Publishers

You can also use Prismatic as an RSS reader. Under the Favorite Authors section, add your favorite blogs and publishers to Prismatic.

Add your favorite blogs so you won’t miss a thing.

Step 4: Share Your Curated Content

After you’re all set up, share the articles your audience is interested in reading.

It’s easy to share the content you like from Prismatic.

When you share content, remember to include the author’s Twitter handle, so you can introduce your followers to new and interesting people.

And be sure to include relevant hashtags, but don’t overdo it. Buddy Media reports that tweets with one or two hashtags receive higher engagement than those with three or more hashtags.

Prismatic has good sharing features and can help you share great content with your audience.

#3: Analyze and Repeat

One of the most important steps to curating amazing content is to measure the results.

Are there certain articles that get more clicks, retweets and favorites than others? Is a certain topic or interest driving more engagement with your followers?

You can use Buffer to analyze shares, but management tools like HootSuite, SproutSocial and TweetDeck can all provide good analytics on your tweets.

These tools help you analyze metrics such as the number of clicks, retweets, favorites and potential reach each individual tweet receives.

Track who retweets your content and the reach they have.

Use this data to see what really resonates with your audience and A/B test different headlines for your content. Here’s an example of results from two different tweets promoting the same content.

The example above shows how a simple product mention can help spread your content to a greater audience.

Be sure to measure the response to different headlines to see which one interests your audience most and learn from your results.

Share the Content Your Audience Loves

With the wealth of information that exists on the web, marketers have a harder time finding great content to share.

Use these tools and tips and you’ll not only discover content that you enjoy consuming, you’ll also find content that drives greater engagement with your Twitter following.

What do you think? Did I miss any great tools? What are your favorite tips to curate content? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Images from iStockPhoto.


author: Steve Young
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-find-great-content-to-share-on-twitter/

Twitter Handles Dos and Don'ts

We believe the first step in optimizing Twitter for business starts at the very beginning: setting up your account. Joining Twitter is fun and exciting, but take the time to fully complete your account before you start using it. By ensuring everything is well set up, you will ultimately get the best results.

What’s in a Name?

Your Twitter handle is incredibly important. It’s true; you can change it later if you need to. But why not start best-foot-forward and be truly thoughtful when selecting the Twitter handle that will represent you or your business?

Good Twitter Handles:

1) Your full name or a variation of your full name (JamesDean or JDean) 
Making your Twitter handle as close to your name as possible will make it easier for people to recognize you at a conference or event. It also treats your name like a brand. every time you tweet, you promote brand awareness for your name.

2) A combination of your name and your company (CompanyJane) 
If you will be the only person representing your company on Twitter —and you do not plan to make a company Twitter account—this is a great way to represent you and your company at the same time.

3) A combination of your name and your industry (MarketingJane) 
Use this type of handle if you would like people to remember the industry in which you work. This way people will always associate you with your specialty, and it's a good baseline to develop thought leadership.

Bad Twitter Handles:

1) Something completely random (TigerMan) 
This is a lost branding opportunity for you and your company and could spark confusion. It's also unprofessional and looks like you're hiding your identity.

2) A name followed by random numbers (Joanne123) 
Unless there is a reason for the specific numbers, this type of handle looks juvenile by conjuring the old AOL chat room days. Many people do it because the name they want to use is already taken. However, it gives the appearance that you aren’t putting enough thought into your username to think of something unique.

3) A handle that uses an underscore (PR_Max) Using an underscore won’t hurt you, but be aware that it generally is never done. Use at risk of seeming unaware of the “social norms.”

author:Rebecca Corliss

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4495/Twitter-Handles-Dos-and-Don-ts-and-eBook.aspx

How to Generate Leads With Video Marketing

Do you want to attract high-quality leads with social media?

Many business owners see a drop-off in new leads because they stop thinking strategically about conversions.

One way to enhance your social media marketing is to create a short, shareable social video—and implement a strategic “mini-campaign” around it to drive opt-ins.

In this article I’ll show 3 ways to supercharge your social media marketing with video.

#1: Create a Short Social Video

Converting social media fans into actual customers starts with getting fans off your social platforms and onto your email list.

First, you must move your fans from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest onto your landing page.

Use a short social video. Videos are quick, they’re visual, they’re personal, they work like gangbusters across multiple platforms and they’re very share-worthy!

To get the most out of your lead generation video, stick to a short script—2 minutes or less. Try this simple formula:

·         Get real. Start with a greeting that’s true to your personality and your brand. Be brief, but be real. And engage viewers quickly with a fun question or a thought-provoking statement.

·         Get their attention with your content giveaway. Think premium—ebooks, cheat sheets, book chapters, etc. Use storytelling techniques like sharing a personal anecdote or client story to KEEP their attention.

·         Get specific. What are 3-5 reasons that your fan simply cannot miss out on this giveaway? Lay them out, step by step. Always ask: “What’s in it for them?”

·         End on a clear call to action. Just one! And take care not to make your CTA platform-specific. You’ll use this on multiple social media channels.

Hint: Outline your script in advance so you’re comfortable ad-libbing on production day.

#2: Plan a Social Media “Mini-Campaign”

A mini-campaign on social media is exactly what it sounds like: a planned marketing effort across several different social media channels for a short period of time.

A few pointers on laying out yours for the best, most consistent results:

o   Use a theme to unite ALL of your content. For example, HGTV focuses oneye-catching photos and valuable blog posts showing off architectural touches to support their “Dream Home” giveaway.

o   Create a theme around your promotion by using blog posts, images and videos as value-added content.

o   Prepare your irresistible offer (ebook, 3-part video series, teleclass, etc.) that solves one of your fans’ biggest pain points.

o   Create a professional landing page outlining benefits—the same benefits you highlighted in your video. Here’s an example of one I used:

 

For each of my webinars, I always spotlight the benefits so my followers know what’s in it for them.

Next, you’ll want to plan an editorial calendar with two types of supporting content:

1. Indirect Content (a.k.a. value-added, “barrier-free” content)

Indirect content is all about building trust, so that when you do ask for a name and an email on your opt-in page, fans have already had a good experience with your free content—and eagerly want more!

Examples: This is the kind of content you’re already creating weekly: blog posts, short teaching videos, images for Facebook and Pinterest, etc. During your mini-campaign,craft content that keeps your theme top of mind.

For example, HGTV uses this strategy by posting helpful content that easily ties to their “Dream Home” giveaway:

 

HGTV uses valuable “how-to” posts on their social media sites that do not directly highlight their “Dream Home” contest (to avoid over-promotion), but the posts always complement the “Dream Home” promotional posts.

2. Premium or Direct Content

Here’s where your lead generating video comes into play. Regularly post direct opportunities for your fans to sign up for your offer, using your video as the teaser.

Examples: Images, status updates and tweets work best when thematically tied together and implemented over a short time period. Fourteen days works great!

#3: Leverage Your Video Across Multiple Social Channels

With your video—and plan—in hand, it’s time to identify how you’re going to maximize its shareability and drive traffic to your landing page.

Here are a few specific ways to promote your video on the big four platforms:

YouTube

First things first: upload your video to YouTube and optimize it with a URL (in the description), a great title and a clear call to action. Also, consider adding a video overlay that links to your landing page for extra traction. These are basically clickable banner ads.

 

Make sure to include a call to action and link in the description box.

Facebook

Share your video in a status update with a clear call to action. Then you can push additional traffic to it using Promoted Posts (set these up right on your post) and Page Post Ads (which also appear in the right-hand column and can be targeted to non-fans too).

Hint: With 60% of Facebook users now accessing Facebook from a mobile device, learn how to set up mobile-only ads in the Power Editor as well.

Twitter

Twitter is a platform we don’t associate strongly with video yet. So tweet your YouTube link (along with a link to your opt-in page) and stand out from the crowd!

Bonus: YouTube videos display right on Twitter.com; no click-through is needed.

 

To stand out from all of the noise, take advantage of the video capabilities on Twitter.

Pinterest

Adding YouTube videos to Pinterest is a great way to spark shares. Whenever someone comes across your pinned video, the PLAY button is featured over the image, so it stands apart from all of the static images around it.

Remember: Fill in your pin’s description with a URL and call to action.

 

Many people don’t know that you can pin your videos and that they play inside the Pinterest platform. Yet another place to spread the word!

Making Your Mini-Campaign a Success

Armed with a quarterly strategic plan and premium content (your video, your giveaway, plus all the indirect content that supports both), you can convert fans into quality leads and eventually, loyal customers.

And you can continue to do so all year by focusing on new campaigns, themes and content, giving structure (and measurability) to your editorial calendar.

Now it’s your turn. What’s one list-building tip that should be part of every “mini-campaign”? Share your experience in the comment box below.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-generate-leads-with-video-marketing/

Author:Amy Porterfield

26 Tips for Getting Started With Social Media Marketing

Are you looking to get started with social media marketing?

Do you want to reexamine how you’ve been using social networks?

In this post, I’ll cover 26 tips, an A-Z guide, to help you understand the backbone of successful social media strategies.

#1: Assess and Reassess

One way to assess whether to use one of the “big four” social networking sites as Samson Lov refers to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+, is by looking at the statistics—number of users on each network.

Statistical data is an interesting factor to look at while you decide where to build presences. However, keep in mind it’s one of many perspectives. Some social networking sites may make more sense for your business than others. We’ll discuss this further in Tip #19, Start Somewhere and Start Small.

#2: Build a Group of Followers

Austin Considine reveals the “worst-kept secret in the Twittersphere.” He writes:

“That friend who brags about having 1,000, even 100,000, Twitter followers may not have earned them through hard work and social networking; he may have simply bought them on the black market.”

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither are social media followers. Companies should think of followers as something they’ve earned—the virtual pat on the back.

Where you lead, they will follow... Image source: iStockphoto.


#3: Curate Content

The question about original content vs. curated content can be a little confusing at times for businesses starting out on social media. Bottom line, you need to do both. A good rule of thumb is the 80-20 rule—use 80% others’ content and 20% your own.

Eric Savitz explains,

“As content marketing becomes increasingly central to the overall strategy, marketers look to content curation as a way to help cut through the clutter and provide their prospects with the valuable information for which they are looking.”

#4: Dedication for the Long Haul

The problem that many businesses run into is that they start using social media with lots of good intentions, like someone who has made a New Year’s resolution to exercise every day.  They have great attendance at the gym in January, and by February are missing in action.

Develop a reasonable, doable plan and stick to it year-round.


Map out a social media plan and stick to it. Image source: iStockphoto.

#5: Elicit Responses

No one likes to be talked at without being given an opportunity to respond. If you have a blog, let your users communicate and respond to your posts via comments. Ask thought-provoking questions on your other social networking sites that people will genuinely want to respond to.

Ask questions on social networking sites.

#6: Follow Twitter Lists

There are many benefits when you create and follow Twitter lists. Crystal Vogt suggests:

“Twitter lists also allow you to find like-minded followers by perusing others’ lists.The Twitter list function can be an important tool for businesses.”


Twitter lists can provide a great resource for finding other profiles you may want to follow.

#7: Goals Shouldn’t be Hidden

David Meerman Scott writes in his book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR:

“When content effectively drives action, the next step of the sales process—an e-commerce company’s Products button, the B2B corporation’s White Paper Download form or a nonprofit’s Donate link—are easy to find.”

Make your products and services easy to find so users know how to take the next step.


Make calls to action visible and a key part of your social media goals. Image source: iStockphoto.

#8: Hometown Perspective

Sometimes it can be confusing to understand the difference between social networking sites.  I love Jeffrey Hayzlett’s hometown analogy:

“Think of LinkedIn as a sign that you post on Main Street; Twitter, the view from your front porch as you wave when people go by; and Facebook as the den you use to invite special people to get to know you.”

#9: Industry Contacts + Clients = Users to Follow

Georgina Laidlaw offers a list of mistakes that might be strangling your success with social media and includes one major oversight that I’ve seen made repeatedly by businesses: Not following or friending industry contacts (and clients, too).

When you follow your contacts and clients, you’ll have an opportunity to read their news; see first-hand what content is important to their business; and comment, respond and further your dialogue.

#10: Join the Conversation

By now, the phrase “join the conversation” has been added to the ranks of social media clichés. If your company is able to assign a few people who can regularly represent and speak on behalf of the company via social media, you will find many rewards.

Speaking of conversation, businesses who claim a presence on social networking sites need to have a unique and recognizable voice. We’ll talk more about voice in Tip #24, Voice Lessons.

#11: Keyword Research

Caroline and Steve Melberg point out that keyword research is one of the most important parts of the SEO process, “yet few small business owners actually conduct a full and complete keyword research exercise before engaging on their first SEO campaign.”

Caroline and Steve consider keyword research to be essential to help businesses:

• Identify the best and most profitable keywords for their campaigns
• Find missed opportunities that may be profitable for their niche, and conversely, ones that should be scratched from their list
• Identify the focus and direction of their SEO campaign, and ultimately, the core of their online marketing strategy

Look for the best and most profitable keywords for your campaign. Image source: iStockphoto.

#12: Location, Location, Location

In one of our earlier 26 Tips articles on the topic of location-based marketing, we referenced Neil Patel’s 8 strategies for local search that provide excellent guidelines to launch local campaigns and are worth repeating here (followed by Tip #13, Market Your Business Locally, with additional thoughts about local listings).

• Keyword research to focus on industry-specific terms and geo-specific terms.
• Optimize your website for local search by adding locally optimized title tags and meta descriptions.
• Create a geo sitemap.
• Have the best Google Places listing possible.
• Build profiles on other sites to build citations for local SEO.
• Get local reviews when you add buttons to your website and encourage reviews.
• Build links from related local businesses and local bloggers.
• Optimize your social pages (Facebook Page, Twitter profile, LinkedIn page, Google+, etc.) for local.

#13: Market Your Business Locally

With the rise of smartphones, tablets and mobile devices, local marketing has become increasingly important for businesses. Sian Simon suggests factors that help to get good local listings:

• Create a profile within the search engines themselves.
• Get listed in local directories (e.g., Superpages, Citysearch), which give you a chance to be displayed more than once in the search engine’s results.
• Claim your business listing and create your profile—you can get started with Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

#14: Netiquette and Response Time

Tom Cull offers advice regarding business response time on social media:

“It could be a blog comment, a message through a form on your website or an email straight into your inbox; all potentially as good leads as each other. What the customer wants in each case is a prompt response, which addresses their inquiry and provides a next course of action. If it’s a personal blog, email or even social media, then people generally expect a response in 1-2 days.”

Are you responding within 1-2 days to inquiries that you receive via your social networking sites, blog or email? If not, how can you ramp up your response time?

Prompt response time is an essential part of social netiquette. Image source: iStockphoto.

#15: Objectives for Social Media Success

Forrester Research has analyzed hundreds of companies that have successful social media strategies. From their research, they’ve identified five primary objectives for success:

• Listening—Use social media tools to research and better understand your customers.
• Talking—Use social media to spread your brand and company goals.
• Energizing—Find your “unofficial” leaders and brand enthusiasts and use social media to supercharge the power of their ideas and word of mouth.
• Supporting—Set up social media tools to help your customers support each other.
• Embracing—Integrate your customers into the way you do business and give them an avenue to share product ideas and cost-saving tips. This is the most complex strategy; and one, when implemented well, can demonstrate the greatest ROI.

#16: Patience Is a Virtue for Social Media Marketers

Ilias Chelidonis reminds us,

“Anything that is worthwhile takes time to build, and growing tribes and followers on social networks and creating community takes time. One way to think of it is like building a house ‘one brick at a time.’ In the case of social media, it is one piece of content at a time.”



In Tip #14, we discussed the importance of responding to users’ inquiries within 1-2 days. But social media can also be unpredictable. A negative comment can set off a chain reaction, so you need to be quick on your feet to diffuse things before they get any worse.

Nicholas D’Angelo offers the following advice:

“As a brand, or especially as the social media manager of a brand, having negative comments or a ‘brand assassin,’ can have a drastic effect on the way your firm is perceived by others. As a brand you have to:

• Be the bigger person
• Seek resolution
• Try to help
• Do everything in your power to turn this ‘brand assassin’ to a ‘brand ambassador’ and take the higher road.”

#18: Round Robin Your Team’s Thoughts

Sometimes, even with all the best intentions, a company doesn’t instinctively understand the value that a social network can provide to their business.

Heather Clifford suggests looking to your internal teams for ideas.

“Why not host a social get-together with your team and discuss all the valuable aspects of your company? Do a round robin and allow each person on your team to give their thoughts… Harness the value that is right beneath your own roof. Possibility thinking along with group input is extremely valuable today.”

Confer with members of your team about company messages on social media and see what insights you gain.

Look to internal teams for product and service information that will strengthen brand awareness and customer loyalty. Image source: iStockphoto.

#19:  Start Somewhere and Start Small
In Tip #1, Assess and Reassess, we discussed social platform decision-making in terms of the size of networks.

Mark Parker offers this piece of sound advice:

“The best place to start is to look at who you want to communicate with, define your typical customer and look at their familiarity with technology and where you are likely to find them.”

He also cautions to not “over-think the interaction… start somewhere, and start small.”

Whether it’s one of the “big four” or YouTube, Pinterest, Yelp or one of the other many sites, choose what’s most relevant for your business.


Start small. Image source: iStockphoto.

#20:  Time Allocation
In the fall of 2012, VerticalResponse surveyed 462 businesses with fewer than 100 employees and found that 43% of small businesses are spending at least 6 hours per week on social media.

Finding social media content was reported as taking the most time, followed by learning and education, analyzing efforts, scoping out the competition and responding to questions.

How much time is your business spending on social media? What are the most time-consuming steps?

#21: Update Overload Can Be a Problem

eMarketer reported on a study conducted by SocialVibe that found “one-third of US Internet users who had ended a social connection with a brand did so because the company simply posted too many updates.” Communicate and educate. Don’t inundate.

#22: Voice Lessons

What does your business sound like on social media? Are you professional? Friendly? Friendly professional? Serious? Too serious?

Brad Smith recommends that businesses should have a unique voice and personality.

Does your business sound like someone people will want to talk to? Another way of looking at it—would you want to talk to you?

#23: Ways to Capture Different Kinds of Visitors

Darren Rowse suggests catering to two different kinds of blog readers: 1) the hard-won, single visitor and 2) the generic, viral visitor.

For hard-won, single visitors, Darren recommends capturing their attention with things such as:

• Link to further readings on the same topic
• Include signup forms/newsletter subscriptions
• Provide a contact form for questions they might want to ask
• Provide free download targeting their need
• Have active community of commenters or forum members
• Link to social media/RSS subscriptions

For generic, viral visitors, Darren recommends:

• Make comments on posts prominent
• Offer a free download or subscription related to the same content on the same page
• Follow up with the linking site to see if they’ll accept a guest post, so you can further build your profile with the site’s readers
• Offer the linking site an exclusive piece of quality content (e.g., a white paper or report that links back to your blog)

Hook your visitors. Image source: iStockphoto.

#24: (E)xplore the Social Media Ecosystem

Danielle Brigida compares the exploration of social media to finding your niche in the natural world—hiking a new trail, observing a stream or other surroundings.

Danielle suggests you use the same tactics for social media exploration:

• Listen
• Ask/document questions
• Experiment
• Create
• Assess and analyze

#25: Yield Deeper Customer Relationships Via Social Networks

Chris Brogan writes:

“If you think of social networks as places where things other than your business happen, then you’re starting to get how this all works. People aren’t there to find you. They’re there for their own purposes. Your job is to have an outpost there and to listen, so that when someone expresses a need you can address, you’ll have the ability to start a relationship.”

Are you deepening your customer relationships with social media? What do you need to do differently to make it happen?

#26: Zero Cost of Entry, but Is Social Media Really Free?

Tom Johansmeyer points out that many of the costs associated with social media marketing are not immediately evident. Many of the platforms are free to join and set up a profile, but there are other things to consider:

• The primary issue is content: you need to be able to publish blog posts, tweets and status updates.
• You need to think about content promotion— i.e., getting people know about and read your content.
• There can be public-relations efforts, search engine optimization and community development and management required. This involves more people, more time and more expense.
• As with any marketing activity, measurement is necessary… Google Analytics, Facebook Insights and time with the likes of bit.ly and Topsy, though free, require someone to look at them, crunch the numbers and draw conclusions. Tom asks, “So, is social media marketing really free?” As he says, “Anyone who’s made a serious effort to do it knows that there are expenses all over the place. Don’t take this as a reason not to hit the social media world to market your company…”

Social media may have zero, or little, cost of entry, but there are definite costs. And as many businesses have discovered, it's well worth the investment! Image source: iStockphoto.

What resonates for you? If your business is getting started or refreshing your social media marketing efforts, what aspects do you need to focus on more intently? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Images from iStockPhoto.
author:Debbie Hemley
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-tips-for-getting-started-with-social-media-marketing/

The 7 Biggest Mistakes in Social Media Marketing (and How to Avoid Them)

Social media has been around for a while now, and we know that 88 percent of all businesses are now on social media sites in some capacity. That being said, if we look at businesses actually getting value from social media, the number would be much smaller.

I've had the pleasure of working with thousands of businesses on their social media marketing strategies for over six years, and interestingly, the mistakes and barriers to success are the same today as they were when I got started.

Here are the biggest mistakes (and how to avoid them of course).

1-Not having a plan.
Many businesses today still don't have an actual plan or strategic objectives for their social media marketing. They simply "get on Facebook" and assume that posting stuff and having people like them will lead to business value. This isn't necessarily true. To be successful at achieving business goals you need a clear plan for what you want to achieve.

2-Not optimizing content.
One of the most popular questions I get asked is how to connect Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ accounts so that the same post will spread simultaneously to all accounts. There are tools that let you do this, but why bother? You'll end up with content that isn't right for the medium, and people will start to ignore you. Take a few extra minutes to customize your post for each medium.

3-Posting whatever comes to mind.
Most people decide what to write and then bang away at the keyboard to create a Twitter or Facebook post. Stop, take five minutes, and think about how you can improve it. Can it be more interesting? Can you make it funny? Can you add a relevant stat? Stop vomiting boring crap on your social networks and spend some actual time thinking about what you are going to post!

4-Telling instead of showing.
Stop telling people what you want them to believe about your business and start showing them. I don't have to tell people that I am knowledgeable about social media because I show people with reports, videos, and blog posts. Think about your key value proposition and point of difference vs. your competition, and figure out how to show people via social media.

5-Forgetting relationships. 

Relationships still count, and since the dawn of social media people have been preaching the value of conversations and engagement. Remember, you are talking to actual people. They want to be treated with care and respect. Don't just post stuff, but participate and build relationships.

6-Being boring.
Many of the social media accounts that I look at are just plain boring. I'm not sure that there is a formula for interestingness, but (this links back to No. 3) think about how to make your message interesting to your audience: compare it to something else; use a picture or video; find a more relevant way to share your angle. Just stop being boring.

7-Losing focus. 
If you try to talk to everyone you'll end up talking to no one. Be focused in your content and your audience. We know that niche content does better online. Be focused and disciplined and you'll be rewarded with loyal followers. Try to please everyone and most people will ignore you.

What mistakes are you seeing in social media? What challenges do you face?

source: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2224663/the-7-biggest-mistakes-in-social-media-marketing-and-how-to-avoid-them
author:Krista Neher
images:http://socialmediainbusiness.com/tag/social-media-applications

Sorry, Marketers, You’re Doing Twitter Wrong [REPORT]

Most marketers are tweeting too much on the wrong days, not using hashtags enough and almost never do the one thing that will dramatically boost their retweets — ask for them — according to a new study looking at how marketers use Twitter from Buddy Media.


The social media marketing firm, which was recently acquired by Salesforce, looked at 320 Twitter handles from the world’s biggest brands from Dec. 11, 2011 to Feb. 23, 2012. Among the findings: Twitter engagement rates for brands are 17% higher on Saturday and Sunday compared to weekdays. However, most brands aren’t taking advantage of this phenomenon and, on average, only 19% of the brands’ tweets were published on the weekend. If a brand spaced its tweets out evenly throughout the week, then 28.6% should occur on the weekends. A full copy of the report can be found here.

Depending on the industry, the difference between weekday and weekend engagement is even more stark. The weekend produces 30% higher engagement for fashion brands, for instance. Publishers also enjoy a 29% higher engagement on Saturdays, when consumers are presumably catching up on the news of the week. Yet only 7% of tweets from publishers actually occur on Saturdays.

In general, as the chart below shows, according to Buddy Media, the brands are tweeting way too much in the middle of the week and not nearly enough on the weekend:



Despite the strong showing for Saturday and Sunday tweets, the study also found, paradoxically, that tweets published during “busy hours” performed best. Tweets during such hours, defined as between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. in the study, got 30% higher engagement rates than those those that occurred after-hours. Twitter’s performance in this respect is the mirror image of Facebook, where posts on “non-busy hours” get 17% higher engagement. As a result, Buddy Media recommends using both Facebook and Twitter for your outgoing communication, but using them at different times, which are outlined on the chart below:


Meanwhile, the “tweet spot” for the number of tweets per day appears to be four. After that, the law of diminishing returns sets in.



As for the tweets themselves, Buddy Media suggests keeping them to fewer than 100 characters. Tweets of that length got a 17% higher engagement rate than other, comparatively windy tweets. While you’re tweeting, it’s also a good idea to include a link, since such linked tweets have an 86% higher retweet rate than their linkless counterparts. Of course, the link should work. They often don’t and in 92% of cases, Buddy Media determined that was because they didn’t insert a space before the link.

Other findings in the report:

• Tweets with hashtags get twice the engagement of those without, yet only 24% of tweets during the time of the study used them.
• Using one or even two hashtags in a tweet is fine, but if you add a third, you’ll begin to see an average 17% dropoff in engagement.
• Posts with images have double the engagement of those without even though users can’t see them until they click on them.
• If you ask followers to “RT,” you’ll get a 12X higher retweet rate than if you don’t. But if you spell out the word “retweet,” that figure jumps to 23X.
• Though 77% of brands in a recent poll said that Twitter was a top priority, Tami Dalley, VP-insights and analytics at Buddy Media, argues that there’s room for improvement. “It’s great that brands are active on Twitter,” she says, “but it’s crucial they know best practices for publishing engaging content. Reach and engament can vary drastically with minor tweaks.”

What do you think? Is your business using Twitter right? Does Buddy Media’s report jibe with your experience? Let us know in the comments.

Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, sodafish
Author:Todd Wasserman
Source:http://mashable.com/2012/06/26/marketers-failing-twitter-study/