We’ve all heard the objections:
And those objections all have merit. But here’s the undeniable truth about Facebook: a good chunk of the world visits the site on a daily basis. That’s probably reason enough for your company to have its own Facebook fan page. For a few more reasons, check out this quick BusinessVoice Marketing Minute video.
Access to coupons and discounts is the main reason as many as 37% follow a brand via social media, according to two recent surveys. This piece from the
June 9th AdWeek breaks down the findings:
The brands that have enjoyed the most success using social media to drive consumers toward purchases follow one of two paths: Either they offer coupons or discounts, or they position themselves in front of consumers during sales or other special events, according to eMarketer.
One-quarter of respondents to a survey conducted by Chadwick Martin Bailey said that coupons and discounts were the primary reason they became fans of a brand on Facebook.
An additional 21 percent said it was because they were already customers. Another survey, by Morpace, found that 37 percent of Facebook users joined fan pages because they wanted to get coupons and discounts.
“Coupons remain a leading driver of brand interactions in social networks,” said eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson. “At the same time, they can be one of the trickiest social media tactics to pull off. The discount offer must print or download easily and must work as promised. And the retail store or distribution channel must be prepared for demand.”
The TV show Modern Family is fun and witty, and occasionally there are moments that leave me thinking about life in a new light. In the episode, Truth Be Told husband and wife Phil and Claire, and Phil’s old girlfriend Denise, learn that vague communication can lead to disaster.
Claire tells Phil that Denise is trying to seduce him. In Denise’s defense, Phil lets his wife read the innocent comments his old fling left on his Facebook page. In an exaggeratedly sexy voice, Claire reads aloud: “Hey, Phil, how’s it goin’,” and “So glad to hear your neck’s better…” To disprove his wife, Phil invites Denise to the house, introduces her to the family, and Claire is soon convinced she was wrong. But when Claire leaves the room, Denise is all over Phil.
“Why are you wussing out?” she asks, chasing him.
“I never wussed IN!” Phil whispers, frantically fighting her off.
“What about all those things you left on Facebook?” and in her over-the-top sexy voice, “How was your day? My neck is soooo sore…”
Then, Phil asks the pivotal question: “Why do people keep adding voices to these things? I didn’t mean anything by it!” He’s stumbled into a pitfall of modern communication.
Updates, tweets, texts and emails are sent for people to read and interpret without any way to monitor whether your message came across as you intended. Depending on your reader’s mood – and what they WANT to hear – you could be talking about apples while they’re hearing oranges.
In fact, a study conducted by Associate Professor of Marketing Justin Kruger and psychologist Nicholas Epley showed that only 50% of emails are interpreted correctly.
So, the three points to take away: 1) When marketing with the written word – especially in “casual” environments such as Twitter and Facebook – take extra care to be clear with your information, offers, and promises. 2) Since you can’t be there to add a wink, nod or shrug, ask yourself “how could this be read differently?” And 3) Don’t invite any old flames home to meet your “modern” family.
Think simply having a website is enough to qualify you as a web marketer in this day and age? His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI doesn’t.
In a recent statement released by the Vatican, the Pope is encouraging his priests to use blogging as another way to preach the Gospel and reach those within and outside their congregations. In the Associated Press Article written about the Pope’s embracement of blogging as a way to spread the word, Benedict XVI was quoted as saying:
“The spread of multimedia communications and its rich ‘menu of options’ might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web,” but priests are “challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resource.”
Take a page out of the Pope’s book – no, I don’t mean the Bible – and encourage your employees, associates, and friends to develop a learning, trusting, and sharing relationship with your web visitors. Pose theories, ask questions, and post suggestions about hot topics in your industry through a blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and your website, and see what kind of feedback you receive.
In addition to generating some good conversation and maybe even sales, blogging is good for your website from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) standpoint. Current information and activity on your site mean more attention from search engine spiders that help to determine your search engine ranking. Blogging is also a great way to reinforce your expertise, experience and original thought, and build top-of-mind awareness among your customers and prospects.
In 2010, networking and social media will remain the unchallenged rulers of the business and personal communication kingdoms, but what can we learn about ourselves and our communication capabilities from these activities?
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of their ARPANet platform – a precursor to today’s Internet – they hosted the DARPA Network Challenge to explore the roles of mobilization, collaboration, and trust in diverse social networking constructs, and to learn how these tools could fuel innovation across a wide spectrum of applications.
The Setup: In one day, DARPA distributed 10 red weather balloons across the U.S.
The Mission: DARPA asked people to find the exact coordinates of each of the 10 balloons. The team with the quickest correct response would win $40,000.
The Challenge: Since no one individual could plot the location of all 10 balloons given their various locations, participants had to work with others using Internet and social media tools to solve the puzzle.
So, how long did it take to find all 10 balloons floating above the vast U.S.? The five-member MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team found them within nine hours.
The Strategy: The team built a website designed to attract followers from across the country who might know the location of any given weather balloon or know someone who did. Group leader Riley Crane discussed the project in an interview with Lance Whitney on cnet News.
“I think the key factor as to why our team ended up able to pull this off… is that we really designed a system that allowed people to [see it] as sort of a recursive incentive.
One of the interesting things is that in trying to understand what we actually did, a lot of people might think of viral marketing. But again, this is the wrong point because it’s not that our approach was to get a message out. It was more that we wanted people to send information back to us. You could really see a fun way of engaging people that they can see how influential and how resourceful they could be at getting people to join this challenge and recruiting them for the greater good.”
The Marketing Connection: This is a shining example of how our connections can pay off. The success of the MIT Team was based upon the interest and feedback of their Internet followers, so keep this in mind as you’re adding content to your website and updating your social media profiles. The questions you ask, answers you provide and comments you make can spur the spread of information and boomerang business back to you.
Learn more about the DARPA Network Challenge and how the MIT Team used the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media and networking tools to win the prize at networkchallenge.darpa.mil.
Happy New Year!
Last year was horrible, but the great thing about making it through such a trying time is that we have nothing left to fear. So, in 2010, the fearless will lead the way. Here are 5 ways they’ll do it.
1. Social Media – Whether you’re currently using it or thinking about how to get started, the best way to leverage social media will depend on your business, who your customers are, and how you plan to communicate with them in this space. Just remember, content is king. No one will listen to you if you aren’t saying something of value to them, and that doesn’t mean talking about how great your business is.
2. The Intern Effect – The old rules don’t apply and old standards aren’t generating the results they used to. We have to come up with new, innovative ideas, and what better way to do that than to involve your intern or fresh-out-of-college employees in the conversation. Pick their young, nubile brains. You may be surprised at their insight, and their familiarity with the digital world will be an asset to your business or organization. And as the newest members of your team, they can provide an “unbiased” view of your product or services.
3. Non-Traditional Marketing – Find new ways to share your message with your customers, aside from television, radio and print advertising. On Hold Marketing and LobbyVision are a couple of ways to do it. And even though it has a place in many marketing budgets, lots of businesses are still not using email to communicate with their customers. If you’re not using it yet, ask yourself why. Is it because the task of building a list seems too daunting? Rome wasn’t built in a day. Start by gathering email addresses at your point of sale and build your list slowly. It’s the best way to ensure you’re communicating with people who want to hear from you. Whatever you do, DON’T BUY A LIST. You’ll violate CAN-SPAM rules and business ethics which can get you and your domain in a heap of trouble.
4. CRM – This typically stands for Customer Relationship Management, but I like to think of it as Customer Romance Maintenance. Effective CRM breeds brand evangelists. Exceed your customers’ expectations. When they’re over the moon about your business, they tell people about it. Good CRM = good WOM (word of mouth) = good business. Interact with your customers in social media. Implement a software program that allows you to track customer interactions and keep tabs on birthdays, email addresses, etc. Communicate with them more than once or twice a year, and not just when it’s time for them to make another purchase. I like the idea of sending a card, flowers, or gift of some sort on the anniversary of the day they began doing business with you. The gift should be commensurate with the length of time they’ve been a customer and the amount of money they spend with your company. Business is like dating. Enough said.
5. Education – Be a sponge. Subscribe to blogs, follow experts on Twitter, join Facebook and LinkedIn groups, read books, attend online conferences and learn everything you can. See if your Chamber of Commerce offers business development courses in marketing, sales, management, etc. Encourage your employees to become voracious learners too. You’ll all be smarter and savvier, and your business will be better for it.
Do you have plans to be a fearless marketer this year? Share them with us!
Web Marketing will be a constantly changing and unstoppable force in 2010. Companies are jumping onboard and increasing allocations in their marketing budgets for online activities.
Take advantage of web marketing in 2010 with these top five upcoming web technology trends:
1. Short, catchy URLs – Shakespeare asks, “What’s in a name?” Well, everything. Short and snappy is catching on, and the shorter the domain name, the easier it is to remember. Most importantly, a short name is easier to type. So, make your domain name easy to remember, recognize, and spell.
2. Search – By search, I don’t just mean Google. Customers want the ability to search within a website as well. Easy to find content can save you money by saving time. How many calls a day do you get from people asking your business hours? Customers using a search feature on your website can spare you and your employees countless hours answering questions over the phone, and best of all, your clients will benefit from this tool, too.
3. SEO – Search Engine Optimization is driving customers to your website through unpaid or “organic” search results. The higher a website appears in search results, the more customers will visit. Finding SEO strategies that work – because there are a lot out there that don’t – can make the difference between ranking first and ranking two-hundred-and-first.
4. Location, Location, Location – The past few years have been booming with social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Fueled by GPS in smartphones, location sharing services are the “in” thing for 2010. This year the platform on the rise is Foursquare. Foursquare is a form of social media that members use to update their location, similar to updating a status on Twitter. More importantly, “Foursquare for Businesses” is up and coming, where retailers can offer special deals to Foursquare users that visit their stores. Competitors are entering the market with platforms like Google Latitude that members can use to update their location using mobile browsers. To read more about location sharing services click here.
5. Google Wave – Along the social media lines, Google has introduced a new open source media for communication and collaboration called Google Wave. Introduced in May 2009, Google Wave is set to come crashing over the shores of the 2010 web trends. But it’s still in its early stages, so Google has to invite you to use the program, or you can request an invitation here. Create a wave and invite friends, co-workers and even businesses to communicate with you. To learn more about Google Wave, watch this fun video or check out this short article.
It’s been a long time coming, but the old stand-by tricks and techniques used by the marketing industry are fast fading away in the face of new media opportunities and technologies.
Gone are the days of global one-note branding. No longer can we create one message and expect it will be heard in the same way by all the members of our audience. Today’s most successful companies are working towards brand transparency and communicating directly with their customers about benefits, services and products specific to their individual needs.
Noted marketing blogger Jonathan Salem Baskin had this to say in a piece in AdvertisingAge:
If I’m right, you can throw all of those surveys and studies on the imaginary value of your brands into the garbage. Your challenge is far greater than adopting new media; the real experiments — offering the potential of real returns — require that you revisit, and risk revising, your very conception of your brands. Consumers are already doing it for you in every market you’re trying to reach.
And he’s right.
But there’s little to go on in terms of best practices for developing strategy in this new age of communication. So jump in with both feet and learn as you go. Experiment with new platforms, reach out to your customers in places they’re already active. You might just surprise yourself and redefine your brand in the process.
Read the whole article here and let me know what new things you’re trying.
How many times have you said, “I’d like to start a blog,” or, “I should get with this Twitter thing,” only to be intimidated by the fear of not being able to do it well enough?
True story: I’ve owned my own domain name for years but never used it to create a web presence. It’s the perfectionist in me; the voice inside my head that says, “It has to be the best.” I guess I’m not alone, because blogger Mark Ivey had the same problem. His advice? Try The Seven Habits Of The “Just Good Enough” Marketer.
Ivey’s list is based on a simple premise — the explosion of social media has changed the rules about how we should craft our communications with customers and prospects. He says:
Every day I see companies that make these mistakes: they want to launch the perfect blog, create the polished video, craft the right message.
They often find out the hard way that this is not what blogging and social media is about. It’s more about conveying compelling ideas and connecting with audiences in authentic ways, not just writing beautiful prose or top-down marketing approaches.
Speed is more critical too. There’s not enough time to go through two rounds of approvals on every blog. Slick videos are meanwhile seen as advertising — they don’t ring true.
The new style — conversational, open, engaging, and fluid — just doesn’t mix with traditional marketing and communications.
Ivey admits that these are hard habits to break, but doing this can get you off the sidelines and into social media faster, and that’s the whole idea. By the way, that web domain of mine that gathered dust for years? It’s now hosting a personal blog that I created and launched in just a few days last week. It’s far from perfect and I still struggle with the urge to do too many re-writes, but I’m learning that “Just Good Enough” is better than “Nothing.’ In fact, it might be the best way to enter the new world of social media.
The Facebook phenomenon is taking the world by storm, as millions are making friends and sharing their lives online through the social networking site. “That’s great for young adults swapping Top 5 lists and weekend party pics,” you might say, “but what good is it for my business?” In fact, Facebook can be an excellent marketing tool for you.
In her article, blogger Tiffany Davis lists a number of ways that your business can use Facebook:
There are business-related Facebook applications that can help you create a professional profile, find new clients and work more efficiently. Because Facebook is more popular than business-related sites like LinkedIn, you have the potential to reach many more people. And best of all, it’s free.
