The Web Uncovered

Many small business owners that come to us already understand the importance of social media. They get that there are hundreds of thousands of potential customers on Twitter, Facebook and other online communities, but they aren’t quite sure how to get started.

Instead of just jumping in and creating accounts on a number of social networking sites, we recommend to our clients to take a step back and create a plan, just like you would for any other part of the business.

Here are some basic steps to build out a social media plan:

1. Define your purpose/goals – What do you want to get out of the time and energy put into social media? Do you want to build brand awareness? Generate new leads? Become a leading source of news and information regarding a specific topic?  By defining your purpose and goals, you create a overarching guideline for every tweet, post or message you deliver via social networking sites. If a particular message does help reach those goals, you are wasting your time sending it.
2. Determine your target audience – There are millions of users are social networking sites and you certainly can’t reach them all. So define your primary, secondary and tertiary target audiences based on your main purposes and goals. Be specific. Beyond your basic customer, what other audiences are important to your business? Think about related associations, societies and organizations. Don’t forget about editors and reports from target publications that can potentially help spread your message.
3. Understand the social media environment – There is much more to the social media environment than just Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. Hundreds of niche social networking sites exist, each with specific target markets. Take the time to research these networks to determine the most relevant online communities and outlets for your target audience. Where are you more likely to be able to engage in conversations most effectively? Be sure to track your clients, competition and industry leaders to find which platforms they use most.
4. Develop valuable content you expect to deliver – Now it’s time to develop a list of key messages and topics relevant to both your purpose and target audiences defined in first two steps. As mentioned in our previous blog post, “Connecting the Dots Between Traditional and Digital Marketing,” be sure that your online and offline messaging is consistent. Also, keep in mind that social networking sites provide opportunities for two way conversations so the content you develop should attempt to engage conversation with your audiences.
5. Identify a spokesperson – A business/brand needs one, single voice. Whether the spokesperson is the small business owner, a marketing person or even an intern, be sure the messaging and voice is professional, well-crafted and consistent.
6. Develop specific strategies and tactics for each social network – In order to reach as many of the ‘right’ customers as possible, you are more than likely going to need to use multiple social media outlets. Web sites, blogs, share tools, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other online communities each has its own benefits, and each requires its own strategy and set of specific tactics to maximize those benefits. Research best practices for each social media outlet and use the tools offered to your advantage. Also, be sure to use the “Multi-Touch” approach by cross-referencing your social media efforts. If you post pictures on Flickr or a video on YouTube, be sure to tweet a link to your Twitter followers. Blog posts on your corporate web site should be shared across all your other networks.
7. Measure your results – Finally, be sure to measure your results. Has your online traffic increased? Were you successful in creating customer interactions and conversations? Did you generate new sales leads? Did your brand awareness increase? Using online tracking tools, you can quantify your impact and answer all of these questions and more.

Written by Twitter Handle @jabraha7

The evolution of digital marketing has forever changed the way marketers have to think about how to build and manage a brand. No longer a “behind the scenes” function, marketers are now one of the most critical and visible functions of a successful organization. With responsibility for both traditional and digital marketing channels, an effective marketer must be a strategist, writer, online guru, relationship builder, executer and more.

But many communicators are struggling to find the most efficient and effective way to connect traditional marketing tactics and digital marketing tactics.

When connected effectively, traditional and digital marketing tactics offer immense opportunities to build market recognition, increase brand awareness and provide the foundation for strong and sustainable growth. To do so, successful marketers must turn to the “Multi-Touch” approach.

The “Multi-Touch” approach combines traditional marketing (advertising, public relations, events, etc.), which offers opportunities to reach the masses, with digital marketing (social networking, SEO, etc), which offers a more personalized, one-on-one communication opportunity. This integration allows marketers to offer consistent messaging that resonates to as many of the ‘right’ customers as possible, through all the proper channels.

The integrated marketing campaign that is created through the “Multi-Touch” approach provides marketers to use existing assets from traditional marketing for search and social media marketing efforts, and vice versa. Utilized by smart marketers, the “Multi-Touch” approach and integrated marketing campaigns can generate the measurable results needed to build your business quickly and effectively.

Written by Twitter Handle @jabraha7

Part of working on the world of online marketing is  that you are straddling two very different worlds.  One on hand you have the seasoned Chief Marketing Officers, whose education and understanding of marketing predates the internet.  They often are confused by the technologies, and attempt to apply their knowledge to the new media, not realizing that a new medium requires a new strategy.  On the other side you have tech-heads, who are absolutely necessary as they hold the key to using these technologies, but often have no basis of understanding marketing principles, or best practices.  Your basic need is to be their middle man, and your endgoal should be to understand both worlds well enough that you can take over both their jobs.

When it comes to online marketing, the most elemental part of traditional marketing that I believe is missed is marketing research.  Once you have your target segment, you MUST answer these questions:

1.  What websites is my target segment patronizing

2.  How are they using the website

3.  What is important to them, and how can I reveal our value added?

If you don’t have a marketing background, think of it like fishing.  If you grab random bait and go to a random body of water, if you catch fish, it was dumb luck.  Most fishermen find out what fish they are targeting, then put together a tackle box of what they need.  The most important part is your bait or lure; without the bite, there is no fish.  Your fishing pole, bait, etc is all dependent on marketing research.

Now let’s just avoid a fishing story.  :)

Creating fake websites is a means towards several ends.  While some implementations are funny or catchy, some can be unethical and even illegal.   A Fake website is a website whole sole purpose is something other than what would seem to be the obvious.  One such example is the ever famous petsORfood.com, a website that pretends to sell unwanted pets for food, including species on the endangered species list.  It’s totally believable with its extensive online content, complete with order forms and checkout.

Why create fake websites?  There are two main reasons why you might consider this.  Firstly, by creating content that has virality potential, you could set up PPC ads and then just sit on the ad revenue.  While it may not turn into a cash cow, it could give you a nice side income.  Another reason why some people create fake websites is to create a reputable link to their site.  Not only could it bolster traffic, but it has positive SEO effects as well.   Find a list of such websites here.

The Takeaway:  

While creating a funny or unbelievable fake website may advantageous, make sure you are complying with FTC regulations regarding misrepresenting yourself.  Furthermore, avoid lawsuits from refraining from lying about medical matters.  Finally, consider the use of these fake websites as jokes, if yours isn’t in good humor or obviously a hoax once scrutinized, you may need to reconsider your own ethical limits.

So for those of you who have a content-based website that you are marketing, you know that search technologies are important.  Not only are these technologies important to understand, but media consumers are increasingly looking at keyword searches and trends to determine legitimacy.  Showcasing your own searches, or searches for keywords related to your product or service, has been impossible.

Until Now.  Google has released Google Trends Gadget, which is available for free.  Still not sure how cool this is?  Imagine you are selling an over-the-counter flu remedy from your website.  When people visit your website, they can see how the search results have increased for the word “flu” at the beginning of the flu season.  Also, it allows for comparables.  The customizable aspect of the tool makes it easy to implement and use.  

The Takeaway:   In the new epoch of microblogging, the term “now” means less “this year” and more “the next fifteen minutes.”  Harness developing technologies to exploit this trend, especially those involved in search technology.

For those of you who are managing one or more online marketing campaigns, you may want to consider using multiple identities for your work.  One reason is simply to separate your work social networking from you personal life.  On most sites, my family and friends find me by my real name, Frankie Fredericks.  However, I do most of my online marketing work with  psydonyms.  This allows me to both keep my private life private, and save my friends from seeing how obnoxiously frequent my use of Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, and Twitter is.  

Just make sure that when you are using multiple identities, that you are keeping within the limits of laws regarding spamming (everyone hates spam, don’t be part of the problem!), and also be sure to play by the terms of use for the sites that you use.  This is speaking practically, as if you use an account for much activity, breaking one rule that leads to the deletion of your account could cost you hours and hours of lost work.

For more reasons and ideas about using multiple identities, check out this post on the blog SEO Smarty.