Social Marketing

Updated at 2015-10-04 12:16

Social marketing is about using social media in your marketing.

The single most important thing is having conversations. It is social media, if you are not social, you will not get much out of it. Have regular conversations with your audience. You should even be responding to the negative comments. It is not business-to-consumer or business-to-business, it is human-to-human.

Clearly display contact details in all your channels. It will make you more creditable.

Prefer quality over quantity. Do not rush into all social channels right away. Launch one channel at time and prefer having one good channel over having small presence in each of them. The more you have time and people, more channels you can maintain.

Be consistent with updates. Consistency demonstrates commitment. If you are not committed, why should your readers be?

Get your timing right. Publishing your updates on different hours of the day gets you different results. Buffer app has optimal timing suggestions for your social media.

If you publish during high-activity hours: - You gain more visitors. - You get more comments and engagement. - Your update gets buried by other more quickly. - Users have high bounce rate from update to update.

If you publish during low-activity hours: - There is less noise, more visibility. - Easier front page promotion on sharing sites. - You will get fewer visitors. - You will get fewer comments.

Nothing dies in the social media. When you make a statement online, it will be accessible forever. Think before you say, especially if trying to discuss current events in your updates. Never use others misery as a sales trick.

Someone will always disagree with you. Announcing that you are suddenly open on a weekend? Someone will say you are a dictator and should let people go home.

Social media can be casual, but keep it in line. Never use swear words. Check your spelling. Don't publish personal opinions.

Research demographics in the social medias you are going to utilize.

These social networks have clearly more women than men:
    Tumblr, Snapchat, Pinterest, Mumsnet, myspace, meetup, foursquare, vine,
    cafemom, flickr
These social networks have clearly more men than women:
    hi5, Quara, Tagged, Soundcloud, Linkedin, reddit
Pretty good equality:
    Facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, SlideShare, Instagram

Use social marketing tools:

Buffer: timed updates.
Crowdbooster: social marketing metrics.
IFTTT: automate things.
followerwonk: finding influential Twitter people.
Klout: Finding influential people.
Relate.ly/: a tool for keeping touch with people.

Update Topics

In short, the most shared social media updates are positive and about technology, travel, health, sex, movies and sports. But you should always be trying out new ideas and topics.

Most of your updates should be entertaining. Aim for the 20/80 commercial/entertainment ratio.

Announcements: New products and information that users might be interested in.

We are closed on the New Year ’s Eve, sorry about that!

Entertainment: Creating good jokes constantly is hard, but you might as well post when a good joke comes into your mind.

Your desk. Your pens. Your Snapple. All members of The Hands Off Club.

Providing Value: Create valuable mini content that helps people to solve their daily problems. Having your customer service partly on Facebook is really good way to boost your visibility.

Problem Domain Related Share: Posting a link and a comment to an article or online tool. Usually includes posting about new trends in your industry. Must be related to your company.

Contests: The best entry wins something related to your company. Avoid censorship at all costs, especially criticizing entries. For Facebook, require posting on the update.

How do you use your

Giveaway: Change all profile images on the social media to promote the lottery. For Facebook, require a like to join.

Handbag-A-Day! GIVEAWAY Enter to win a handbag from your favorite designer. (The entire month of October!)

Craftsmanship Promotion: Show work your company does.

This week we had more than usual logo experimentation. What do you think of these? [IMAGE]

Content Promotion: Promote your blog post, how-to guide or YouTube video.

Want to reach more visitors on your website? Check out our 10 top tips using site layout design to reach more people! [IMAGE AND LINK]

Support Global Events: When there is a special day, use it to your advantage.

Father's Day -> Offer a giveaway lottery for fathers. Mother's Day -> Post facts about most influential mothers. Cancer Awareness Day -> Change Facebook page cover for the good cause.

Asking Questions: Getting fans involved is a great way to inspire loyalty. Consider asking questions related to your new products or problem domain in general. Asking a question will double the comments you receive, but may sometimes backfire, so make sure you ask the right question.

Posting Quotes: Quotes receive a lot more likes, but not as much comments. Make sure that the quote is relevant to you and it cannot be misunderstood. Avoid posting quotes more than once a month.

Champions keep playing until they get it right. - Billie Jean King

Facebook Marketing

Measure before you cut. Before you start dedicating time for Facebook marketing, look for other similar products or services in your problem domain.

Are they doing Facebook marketing?
Do they have any engagement?
Will it be worth it?
Will you have an hour each day to be involved in the Facebook?

Facebook page cover image is important. Use cover image to capture attention. You can change the image according to campaigns you organize and join. Facebook page cover image should have a smiling person, but not a stock photo. Employee promotion picture is not a bad idea. Optionally the image can show what your company produces or problems you solve.

Facebook shares prime time is between 12:00 and 17:00 local time. Weekends posts get more reads than weekdays, Saturday being the best. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are ok too.

Facebook update lifetime is 24 hours. After that, most people do not expect you to keep track of it.

Facebook update should be under 80 characters. Never go past 250 characters. Using emoticons is allowed.

You should make one point per update. Goal of each update is to drive traffic to your site but that should never be the point of your update. Stay entertaining. Stay on the point.

People like images. Attaching an image to update helps gaining attention. Even if the image is unrelated, as long as it is not a stock photo. Page links can be added a custom thumbnail that you can customize for your brand.

Post an update every other day. Aim for 4 Facebook updates a week. Never post more than 2 posts a day, but commenting is encouraged. Otherwise you will seem too spammy people start ignoring you.

Avoid spamming links. Around 70% of your updates should be plain text and an attached image, no links. And if there is a link, it should not be to your own website. Consider attaching an image to a post, writing a short and personal text why following link would be relevant to the reader and then include the link in the text part of the post.

Tommi Laine (July 12) --------------------- Ahaha, oh wow. This sums up why my designs suck sometimes... http://www.verycool.com/blog/developer-deep-cuts ------------------------------------------------------------ | | | BIG RELATED IMAGE | |__________________________________________________________|

Try out Facebook sponsored stories. Facebook has these social advertisements that you can use to promote your brand, but you cannot include any messages. Try if they work for you.

Twitter Marketing

Twitter is about building connections. You should aim to connect with influencers in your industry. Connecting with the biggest influencers is usually impossible but connect with local influencers. Still, you must at least know the most important influencers. Retweet related tweets from them.

Guy Kawasaki is a big influencer in marketing.

# How to connect with people via Twitter
Retweet them.
Mention them in a tweet e.g. @ruk_si.
Share their blog post and mention them in the tweet so they see it.
Write a blog post about what they said and mention them.

Complete your profile before you start. Make sure you have your web address in your profile Bio and that your profile picture is relevant to your profile name.

Follow a lot of people. When you start following someone, there is a small chance that they will follow you back.

Find users that retweet about your industry. You should be aiming for their retweets. Use online tools e.g. http://topsy.com to find out who share articles. Check what kind of articles do they share, retweet and create similar articles.

Lifetime of a tweet is an hour. After one hour, most people do not expect you to keep track of it.

Tweet on the most optimal times. Measure your retweet and click count per tweet. Try to find the optimal time to tweet.

Tweet on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Tweet at 9:00, 12:00, 15:00 or 18:00.

Tweet questions. People are more likely to respond on questions.

Include an image or a link in tweets. Images and links make people read the tweet a lot more likely. Images with 20 to 40 character text perform the best.

Include hashtags. Engagement seems to rise steadily all the way to 4 hashtags per tweet.

Keep your tweets short. Optimal is anything less than 100 characters.

Ask for retweets. When you ask followers to retweet, they will do it much more likely.

Avoid being self-centred. At least 70% of your tweets should be non-promotional. Still, tweet about your own content tops three times a day.

Finding tweets for promotion. Use Twitter Advanced Search to find tweets that you can respond to. Never respond like machine.

Cross-promote your Twitter profiles. Use profile bio to cross-promote your other personas and related people.

                    Tommi 'Ruksi' Laine
                          @ruk_si
        I'm a software developer and a major geek.
I have founded @CompanyName and @AnotherOne with @CoFounder.

Use tools to find content to share:

Google+

Google+ is only good for search engine optimization. There is a small user base but nothing compared to Facebook and Twitter.

You can publish content on Google+ and Google will see it faster and rank it better.
You can create "anonymous" Google+ Pages and give reviews on companies so those reviews show on Google.

Pinterest can be an option if your target audience is specifically women in US. Pinterest user base is not as big as in other social networks but the users are more likely to spend money.

Show price on pins. Show a call-to-action on pins. Include a few pins with guides. Include a few sales and promotions in pins. Avoid human faces. Use images with multiple dominant colors, focus on red, orange and brown. Try to be relevant to the current trends and events. Constantly repin, like and comment other people's pins. Make sure you thank people for pinning and repinning.

Find your sweet spot time for pinning. Start by trying at 1400 - 1600 and 2000 - 0100 EST.

Converting From Existing Brands

Google your problem domain e.g. "dog breeds". You may also try to find relevant brands. For example, if you sell "life jackets", you might want to search for "sailing club" and "sailing boat equipment".

Check top 10 web sites.

Find their Facebook page.
Check that they have posted on Facebook in the last few months.
Find their Facebook follower count.
Find their Twitter page.
Check that they have posted on Twitter in the last few months.
Find their Twitter follower count.
From these, list 3 of the most active and large social media channels.

Analyse Facebook activity:

Use tool like fanpage karma.
Check which days they post and which days they get the most engagement. Start posting on days that they have engagement but do not post a lot.
Check do they respond to user comments with a like or a comment.
Start following their Facebook page and start answering any ignored questions. Avoid advertising your brand, focus on being truly helpful.

Analyse Twitter activity:

Use tool like Twitonomy.
Check which days they tweet and which days they get the most engagement. Start tweeting on days that they have engagement but do not tweet a lot.
Check which users retweet, are replied to and are mentioned the most.
Start replying insightful comments on their tweets, avoid being aggressive.
Gather all hashtags they are using and start using them.
Check all competitor brands' Twitter accounts for people who are asking questions or being upset. Try to fix their problem.