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The Social Media Marriage
A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune to witness an awesome panel discussion on Social Media held by NAMA (The Nashville Chapter of the American Marketing Association). One of the panelists, Erick Goss (Managing Partner at Creative Trust Media), made an excellent statement about the commitment necessary for social media to work effectively.
I’ve slightly sanitized Erick’s description to make it more palatable to a “PG audience”, but essentially, it goes like this: Social Media in comparison to Traditional Media (like TV ads, Newspapers, Magazines, etc.), is like the difference between going on a blind date (traditional media) versus a marriage (social media). Traditional Media is typically a one-shot deal, where you’re spending a lot of time and money (usually the latter) hoping that it will pay off, kind of like you do with a blind date. Yes, you’ve known people that have gone on wonderful blind dates, but there are also plenty of horror stories. The point here is that it’s a one-time gamble that you hope will pay off big, it could work, or it could not. You could have a great time, or you could end up in tears.
Whereas with social media, just by its very nature of planning and the time commitment it takes, it is more so like a marriage. It’s time put in, for hopefully the right reasons, that will have both long and short-term results, and while it won’t be all roses, you can’t just ditch it the minute something goes wrong. Or as Erick said “If my wife gets mad at me, she can’t just get rid of me”.
So, it seems to me that Social Media is like “the new hot girl on the block”. Everybody wants to date it, but no one’s putting a ring on it, because they just don’t quite trust her yet! It makes sense, but if you look around, you’ll see the people that are doing the best things with social media today, have made a long-term strategic commitment to fitting it into their brand’s message.
I think having this “Blind Date vs. Marriage” imagery is a great way to encapsulate just what it takes to make social media work.
So, with that in mind: Are you ready for a long-term commitment?
Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist
The Social Media Planning Process (Part 2)
As stated in “The Social Media Planning Process (Part 1)”, I typically like to map out a Social Media Marketing Plan that shows how social media will be utilized to build a brand online. The first part of the process is creating and updating social networks profiles, and the second part measures the effectiveness of your Social Media Marketing Campaign by monitoring your Social Media Marketing Analytics by some specific metrics. Namely:
- The number of web hits to your company website and/or blog.
- The number of emails collected on your company website and/or blog for your email marketing campaign.
- The number of Facebook Fans, Twitter Followers, LinkedIn Connections, and YouTube Subscribers acquired.
- The number of people that attend special events advertised through your social media networks.
- The number of referrals from social media fans, followers, connections, and subscribers.
- The number of new units sold/leads generated.
- The number of units sold/new leads generated from existing customers.
The final component of the Social Media Marketing Plan is monitoring the long-term effectiveness of your company’s social media marketing strategy, as it is key for identifying new customer markets, gaining additional customer feedback, as well as assessing what social media marketing avenues are working best. In this stage, assessing marketing effectiveness occurs by utilizing a collection of online market surveys and/or customer feedback questionnaires, and thoroughly monitoring the analytics of your company’s website, blog, and social media networks, and periodically analyzing the information received for emerging trends and industry shifts.
Social media initiatives can be time consuming, but if done right there can be a great payoff.
So, with that in mind: Where are you in your social media planning process?
Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist
The Social Media Planning Process (Part 1)
Typically, what I like to do at SSS for Success is map out a Social Media Marketing Plan that fits squarely within the overall marketing plan of a company. Specifically, the Social Media Marketing Plan highlights how social media outlets will be utilized to:
1) Drive traffic to your company’s website or blog,
2) Generate interest in the site’s content,
3) Generate sales or leads for new customers, and
4) Provide ways of keeping existing customers actively engaged in the company’s brand through its website, blog, or other social media outlets.
In order to accomplish the goals set forth in this Social Media Marketing Strategy, I usually take a company through the process of creating and updating their profiles on various social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Youtube. Then I delve into more specific strategies intent on acquiring more Twitter Followers, Facebook Fans, LinkedIn Connections, and YouTube Subscriptions through a series of mindful updates that are relevant to each of these communities and ultimately help your company build that brand recognition among the users who frequent these communities.
For those that have already created many of these accounts, I step back and analyze the medium in question in relation to the overall marketing goals of the company. Everyone doesn’t need a Twitter account. Now, it is always a good idea to register your brand name just in case you need it for future use, but just having a Twitter account and sending out random, sporadic, or spammy messages every now and again only promoting your brand, doesn’t do you any good. So part of the Social Media Planning Process is accessing which avenues are going to work best for your brand message to reach your core customers. What that means is if you’re using these outlets now, but not using them well, then you may need to discontinue them, or perhaps change the direction so that it fits better into your online marketing strategy.
With this in mind, can you firmly state Why You Need Social Media in your small business?
Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist
Ask Me Anything About Social Media
Are you confused about which way to go with Social Media in your small business? Well, I thought I’d add an “Ask Me Anything About Social Media” page to serve as an outlet for any questions you might have about social media. Got Questions?
Post to the comment section of this post, or fill out the Ask Me Anything form by clicking on the page above.
Kindra Cotton, Small Business Survival Specialist