Social media is a relatively new internet marketing tool, it is very different from traditional methods like email marketing. Lots of businesses have shied away from social media, afraid of change or not sure how to use it. Some businesses that are involved don’t know how to implement a functional social media strategy, let alone gauge their social networking success. Luckily, our internet marketing company is here to take care of all of that for you, and our blog is here to share marketing strategies and tips!

Source: Perfect Customer Experience

What does success look like in social media?

Thought leadership? Better SEO? Increased sales? Better customer service? Better customer experience? All of the above?

Nearly every marketing manager, director or VP who is attending my MBA class in International Marketing tells me that increasingly larger percentages of their budgets go to digital over traditional marketing. The primary driver is social media and the urgency to stay on top of what is going on with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the relentless need for content to fuel their corporate blogs. The students in my class are divided on the value of corporate blogs however; some see it as critical for defining thought leadership and others use them purely for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). While they are split on this issue, the class is unanimous that the era of digital marketing driven by social media is here and moving very fast.

What does Success Look Like in Social Media?

Just based on my class alone, only one in ten social media programs today is delivering on the goals they were designed for. That’s just 10% of social media programs attaining the goals they were originally funded to achieve. We’ve spent a good two to three hours debating this in class, looking at success stories of BestBuy, Comcast, Southwest Airlines and many others. What I really like about teaching at the MBA level is that you can have these debates in class and everyone gets very engaged, even passionate about their beliefs. It is a great learning experience for everyone to just hear the varying opinions. Based on these discussions and analysis of our own companies, the following ten ideas for improving social media strategy effectiveness emerged.

1. Be original and define key performance indicators that closely capture progress to your awareness, selling and service goals. The most successful social media programs the students had run and we studied were bold and defined their own key performance indicators and metrics of performance. Those managing these programs were not afraid to define their own unique metrics, creating an entirely different approach to defining success.

2. Realize that defining success of social media strategies on popularity and clicks alone, followers and fans is like watching mile markers disappear in your rear view mirror as you speed down a freeway. They are both comforting as they show velocity and distance – they are great measures of progress – but what’s more important is the direction and time to the goal.

3. Give each social media channel you explore a good year of effort to understand prospects’ and customer’ expectations with regard to how and what information is delivered. Personas emerge from each social media application or platform over time; watch for the nuances of differences as they will show how prospects and customers vary in how they choose to get information. Behavior varies widely across social media channels as does participation. Take a good year to track that and understand it, with no expectation of payback. Once insights are gained by personas, making strategies work is much easier.

4. The best content is compelling and evokes strong emotions through stories. This is a major point and a secret that emerges from the analysis our class did of successful social media strategies. The companies charging out of the recession right now appear to have found a way to use stories to change the frame of reference and priorities of potential customers.

5. The best social media marketing campaigns tend to be run by people more on a mission of service than salary. You can definitely see this in the case studies and the inspiring stories from the marketing directors and VPs in my class. Better to hire for passion and find someone who wants to excel at this, and who has social networking innate skills including communicating, collaborating and conflict resolution.

6. Planning for customer complaints by giving front-line social media strategies control over escalation paths and budget to solve customer problems is a win. The companies we reviewed in our case studies that range from BestBuy to JetBlue, Southwest Airlines to Comcast all defined escalation paths for dealing with customer problems. Customers choose which social media channel to learn from, they also choose which to complain through. Anticipating and planning for that, and creating escalation paths as part of a social media plan pays off in responsiveness and customer satisfaction.

For the full article by Louis Columbus, click here.

Social media is quickly changing the way that companies do business and interact with potential customers. Even though social media is a relatively new medium, lots of companies have developed very effective social media strategies to harness the power of the social web. For a company just implementing internet marketing knowing where to start can be daunting task. Start with the larget social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter, before going to smaller niche sites. Below are some helpful pointers to help you hit the ground running.

Source: HubSpot

The 7 steps below work for internet marketing, ecommerce, B2B and even publishers. I’m also going to share some examples from each as well. However before we get to each of the steps, I’d like to make sure you can manage and impact your Facebook Fan conversion rate. I urge you add Google analytics to your Facebook page so that you can get better insights into who is visiting the page and how they are getting there.

1. Offer a Custom Welcome Page

Many of the most highly engaged Facebook fan pages have leveraged the ability to take non-fans to a custom welcome page instead of taking them directly to their wall. If you don’t know how to do that my friend Mari Smith can walk you through adding this custom landing tab to your Facebook fan page.

2. Remind Them Why

I am hoping you have built a customer experience that is truly remarkable much the way Zappos has. People really do love Zappos. Notice how they not only remind them of that on their welcome tab but how they also remind them that by Liking them on Facebook they get access to exclusive content. If you are truly a fan then you’ll really want access to something exclusive. Zappos also does another brilliant tactic by highlighting their Fan of the Week in their banner. People might kill for money but they’ll more likely die for recognition. So don’t forget to recognize your top fans.

3. Offer Them an Incentive

People may need a little more to get them to click the Like button than just being reminded how awesome you are. So once they see your custom landing tab, you’ll want to offer them a powerful reason to Like you. What I love about the way HubSpot does this is that the offer regularly changes and that they promote it through their various channels as a seamless experience. Who doesn’t like getting something of value just for clicking a button?

4. You Don’t Get What You Don’t Ask For

If you don’t ask them to take an action with a good call-to-action then your visitors won’t take that action. Notice how L’Occitane combines an offer to win a free trip to Provence on their custom landing tab with an arrow pointing to the Like button and asking you to Like them.

5. Make it Interactive

The biggest advantage a Facebook Fan page offers is the ability to interact with your customers – the opportunity to dialogue. Make sure to highlight this interactivity on the welcome tab. Notice how BMW shows a video that features two of their fans. I also like the design of their call-to-action. Another way you can make your page interactive is by adding a bit of personalization to your Facebook Fan page and adding your visitors name to the page.

6. Tease Them

Depending on your brand and on what you are offering on your Facebook fan page you may not want to open your kimono all at once. I have seen many pages like Red Bull use a graphic that teases their visitors to like them first before they engage with your content. A note of caution here: A. people must have some really strong reasons to like your brand in the first place B. the content you offer after the tease better not disappoint them.

7. Give Them All the Info

Ultimately, people like to connect to people and Smashing magazine does a great job highlighting the staff behind their fabulous publication. I highly suggest you have an additional tab to talk about the people behind your company and don’t forget to fill out all the information on your info tab (including several links) and on your about us section.

Source: HubSpot

This Internet marketing company understands the importance of incorporating social media marketing and search engine optimization.  By creating social media sites and incorporating keywords on social sites, it can help a company’s ranking with SEO. Learn more on how to properly use social media and SEO with the article below.

Source: Sitepronews

Social Media and SEO

There are numerous benefits to engaging in social media marketing. Some are tangible (number of Likes, Fans and followers) and some are not (enhanced customer service, brand recognition and developing lasting relationships). You may not fully “get” social media, but you can’t deny that it is important and should be included in your overall marketing campaign. Social media is here to stay, and it is up to you to make sure your company uses it to their best advantage.

SEO is another field of online marketing that has earned itself a permanent spot in the marketing campaigns of many companies. With millions of searches being conducted every day, a company that can’t be found in the search engines is practically invisible. SEO isn’t just about ranking well; it’s about building your online brand. There are many factors that affect how a site ranks in the search engines and SEO is about optimizing your site as best as possible to help it succeed.

However, SEO and social media marketing shouldn’t exist in separate silos. In truth, there should be an element of SEO in all of your online activities, as well as finding a way to leverage your offline marketing methods online. As social media marketing matures, it is becoming clearer and clearer that it has an impact on a site’s SEO.

Here are a few ways you can use your social media marketing activities to aid your SEO:

Create Social Networking Profiles

Aside from the big three of social media (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) there are literally hundreds of smaller social networking sites for every kind of audience. Each of these profiles has the potential to rank in the search engines, increasing your brand presence online. Keep in mind that you should only create profiles on sites that you actually intend to be involved with. While creating a profile to just get the link is okay, an active profile is going to be worth much more in the long run. Social networking sites are a great place to establish relationships with consumers and build a strong community.

Incorporate Keywords into Tweets and Posts

Twitter only gives you 140 characters, so space is limited. It is a great way to share a link to your blog, an article, video or any other form of content. Incorporating keywords into the Tweet (perhaps as a hash tag, stylized as #keyword) helps that Tweet get pulled into a results page by the search engines. On Facebook, you have more room to target keywords in your posts. The title of your post is a great place to incorporate keywords. You can also write a short description about the content of each post, another good spot to target keywords.

For the full article, click here.

This Internet Marketing Company values the importance of social media and the impact it has for sales.  Posting content that is valuable for readers is just the first step with social media.  It can then result into potential sales leads for the company and generate more business.  This article by Sbpost, discusses the importance of social networking as a part of Internet Marketing and sales.

Source: Sbpost

The explosion of social media cannot be ignored by companies seeking sales success, according to Frank Hattann of LinkedIn.

‘‘As a company, if your strategy is to stay away from social media, you are missing the boat because in the end you can’t do that,” the company’s EMEA regional sales manager told the National Sales Forum 2011 in Croke Park last week.

‘‘People will comment on your products, people will comment on your sales packets and people will send Twitter messages about who just came to their office and tried to sell them something.

‘‘Do get on a plane, do go out and talk to your customers but in the end you can’t escape the new Web 2.0, or what we call social media. It knows whatever is happening in our world now. It’s somewhere noted, commented on, clicked on, photos [taken] of it.”

Hattann said that networking used to be about walking into your local pub and talking to two or three people. Now, social media means ‘‘your message is heard potentially by people in a pub in Australia, in South Africa, in Brazil’’.

While this ‘network effect’ projects a message further afield than ever, Hattann said that this brought its own dangers as people could create content about a company and its product. ‘‘To manage that content in a social media world, that is the challenge.

How do you manage people saying something about you that you have no connection with? You have no control of that message,” he said. Hattann said that social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn each had its own role to play in sales.

‘‘If you want to just broadcast information and get people to hear a message about you, Twitter may actually be the appropriate forum to use.

If the product you’re selling, and if the public you’re selling the product to, is social and people want to communicate about a fun thing to do, then maybe Facebook is the right tool,” he said.

For the full article, click here.

As we all know, the Internet rapidly changes everyday, and the importance of an Internet Marketing Company is to consistently change with it.  What may be important for SEO on month, may be different for the next month.  One thing that  is certain is how social media has helped change and reshape Internet marketing.  Without social media, a brand lacks that genuine communication to its clients; however, with Single Throw your brand readily adapts with an ever-changing industry.

Source: The Next Web

Marketing is an ever-changing landscape, which we’ve seen with the rise and fall of SEO and the revolution of Inbound Marketing led by the guys over at HubSpot. Social Media has also become one of the big influencers in marketing, becoming an integral part in any successful business marketing strategy.

Here are some ways that Social Media has helped to reshape marketing.

Facebook and Twitter’s new influence on Search

With how ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ plus ‘retweets’ are becoming more and more important in getting the word out, the big search engines have started to realize that those public announcements are like a vote of confidence from the sharer. Permanent links were what all SEOs had dreamed about. Now, SEOs are hoping to get their links shared by influential tweeters, which are proving to influence search ranking factors. Here’s an unexpected case study on a tweet’s effect on rankings by SEOmoz Of course, there is more value than just the boost in search rankings from ‘likes’ and tweets. There is brand exposure and clicks, which also are valuable things in marketing. But there is no doubt that with the search industry continuing to grow, that Social Media should be an important part of any SEO strategy, what with the growing influence Social Media has on search rankings.

Companies Focus on Engagement versus Selling

Think about how back in the day we used to have our local dry cleaner who everyone in the family knew and who knew everyone in the family, the convenience store clerk who you talked to about your problems at work while he made your favorite cup of coffee, and the homely waitress at the local diner who knew how to get your eggs just right. Those were the days that were less about profit and transactions and were more about creating genuine, personal relationships. Businesses now, through Social Media, are working to reverse the effects time has had on the personal customer experience by engaging users to create more loyalty. It’s not unusual to get an @reply from a company saying thanks for sharing a neat tweet or even engaging in an intellectual or simply fun exchange with you.

Blogging to Build Influence and Authority

I was recently approached by the awesome Noah Kagan who asked about leveraging blogging to build influence and authority after seeing my name pop up in some of the bigger outlets in the startup space. An authority in the marketing realm himself, I was more than happy to oblige because I had much respect for the former Director of Marketing at Mint.com and current Chief Sumo at App Sumo. Wise professionals and marketers like him are continuing to understand the value in blogging. Both in the networking value because you become part of the writing community where other writers treat you as a peer, and in the authority you build, becoming an expert and influencer in the space you write about. I also had a recent chat with Scott Gerber, expert on young entrepreneurship, who is syndicated in outlets like Entrepreneur, WSJ, FoxNews and more. By blogging, he became one of the leading sources in everything about young entrepreneurship, and is constantly receiving inbound inquiries (perhaps more than he can handle) about what’s new in youth entrepreneurship.

Social Media as a New Distribution Channel

By using channels like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, you leverage your network, your second- and third-degree networks and heavily trafficked platforms for mass distribution because of the viral potential these channels have. Here’s an interesting study by ChompOn showing the  value of social action in online commerce. These days, it’s less about the stale press release, which is arguably dead, and more about empowering customer evangelists, who are more trusted referral sources in spreading the word. In fact, some businesses leverage Social Media to create hype or make announcements about exciting things they’re doing. The popular Robert Scoble played an integral role in helping to launch the awesome Flipboard app, which couldn’t support all the great hype it got during launch, but was able to rebound.

For the full article, click here.