Social Media has infiltrated all aspects of our lives. It cannot be avoided even if you try. Social Media is affecting every industry and company. As individuals we can try to avoid and not engage in Social Media; however business owners and entrepreneurs do not have that option. In this new era of marketing products and companies, engaging in and using Social Media is required. This incredible resource can drive results and ultimately sales. Most companies have utilized many forms of traditional marketing techniques such as advertising, mailers, newspaper ads or possibly even commercials. The economic climate is challenging companies more than ever to employ alternative marketing techniques that will actually drive results – by results I mean sales, revenue, brand recognition/awareness and community building. The challenge is utilizing Social Media to actually move the needle. With the right strategy and implementation of that strategy companies are creating sales, revenue, brand recognition/awareness and community building more effectively than ever. Not only are they seeing results they aren’t breaking the bank/budget to do it! So, what is this book going to do for YOU? This book will teach you what Social Media really is and why focusing your energy on Social Media will positively impact all other aspects of your internet marketing efforts and results. This book will also explain how search engines view Social Media… and this information alone should be compelling enough to get you engaged. Chances are your company is wasting money either in Social Media with a flawed strategy or you are wasting money by not engaging in Social Media all together…either scenario will leads to a missed opportunity.
I have been working in the Internet Marketing industry for the last 5 years learning, testing, failing, succeeding and refining different strategies. I have been involved in all aspects of Internet Marketing including Link Building, PPC (Pay Per Click Advertising), SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Affiliate Marketing, Social Media and Content Marketing. I have worked with companies with budgets in the tens of thousands of dollars and companies with virtually no budget. I have spent tens of thousands of dollars and more importantly countless hours testing ideas, tools, applications tactics and strategies. With this experience I began to see trends of who was successful and who was falling short. The most compelling fact that I discovered was that it wasn’t a matter of budget levels; it was purely a matter of strategy and execution.
Now I won’t discount well-funded companies finding success by simply
outbidding competitors for their main keywords in an Adwords campaign. However, most companies or entrepreneurs cannot even come close to competing in this realm. However, can they compete by engaging in alternative marketing efforts such as Social Media?
I will admit, sometimes I wish companies had to pay for their Social Media accounts. With such a low barrier to entry many businesses feel that it is as simple to join as it is to execute. Since the barrier to enter is so low most believe it should be an intern’s job, right? Now, I do not discount managing your social media account on your own. In fact, the entire premise in my book, The Conversion Formula and goal is to educate you so you know how to efficiently and effectively create and implement a successful Social Media campaign…on your own. The challenge is that if you do not have a specific strategy to implement and execute you will easily “turn off” thousands of potential clients. Do you really trust an intern to be the face of messaging for your brand to thousands if not millions of clients and prospects? Just because someone is young does not mean that they understand Social Media! I cringe every time I speak to a business owner and they tell me, “I am just going to hire an intern and they will handle my Facebook and
Twittering.� This is the same type of thought process that has led to many businesses thinking that Social Media is not for them or their industry. I hope to change that. For those of you who do understand that this needs to be an area of concentration, the challenges quickly become a lack of understanding on how to create and execute a strategy.
Many start, but aren’t
consistent. Many become overwhelmed with all of the hundreds of Social Media options. I cannot count how many times I have seen someone begin a Social Media effort, not see results and decide to quit because it must not work if they could not move the needle. Social Media is an en vogue thing for companies to do, but so many companies are hesitant to invest real time and resources in Social Media if they do not experience instant gratification. It takes time to establish value with your consumer community. When you are finished with this eBook you will understand the importance of investing time and money (yes, you need to put some skin in the game) to create a fluid campaign and move that needle! If you have the desire to hire an intern to handle your Social Media, this book will give you the understanding to begin to create a strategy for an intern to implement‌this will give them and you the best opportunity for success.
Statistics are overwhelming in the favor of Social Media Marketing. According to recent studies by Socialnomics only 14% of consumers trust a brands marketing message whereas, conversely, 78% of consumers trust the recommendation of other consumers and peers. In addition, they also found that:
Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the internet There are over 200,000,000 blogs and 54% of bloggers post content or tweet daily 25% of search results for World’s Top 20 brands are user generated content 34% of bloggers post opinions about products/services/brands Most compelling – it took Radio 38 years to reach 50 million users, 13 years for television, 4 years for the Internet, 3 years for the iPod and Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months.
Most of the time you have no relationship with the consumer giving the recommendation, but we still trust it because it’s an experience with your company. We don’t have the option of being marketed to as consumers, but we do have the option of engaging as consumers. What does this mean? Think about how many commercials you are “forced” to watch these days. How many pop up advertisements or banner advertisements at the top of websites have you clicked on in the last year? These types of advertisements or interruption based marketing techniques have lost their effectiveness. Consumers have evolved to an invitation based marketing model and now choose what products and services they want to interact with. Invitation or attraction based marketing strategies are evolved and advanced marketing methods. Essentially it is putting the theory of attraction to work – create and provide valuable content/information and the customers will come. As your company dives into the different Social Media venues (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) you may discover some overlap; your target market may not reside in just one single Social Media arena. Be diverse and be insatiable when it comes to attracting your target market into your marketing funnel. Being unique and appealing to different types of consumers in all Social Media sites gives you the broadest reach.
Content is the key to success in social media as location is the key to success in retail. Content essentially invites our prospects to engage with our brand by providing value through the content we create and distributing via Social Media. If you do not create engaging content your Social Media community will let you know it…by ignoring you. Your content is boring. It is that simple, valuable content entices people and compels them to share it with their friends. There is an important balance in providing content… your goal is to stay relevant but not to intrude. And, certainly not to bore. Dan Kennedy says the number one sin in marketing is being boring. If you do not have anything relevant, unique or you are not providing value it is better not to provide it at all.
There is a common misconception surrounding Social Media – that it is separate from organic rankings. The two do not intersect and should be considered completely different strategies. This could not be further from the truth. A recent interview with Duane Forrester, a Sr. Product Manager with Bing’s webmaster program shed some light onto this fact. The stunning piece was: “The ranking of the priorities in Duane’s eyes. #1 Content #2 Social Media #3 Links. Links were rated as the third most important area. Third.” This is significant for many reasons and bucks the trend of what traditional thought process was to achieve higher rankings. So, not only are you dealing with the appeal to Social Media of the masses, but now the search engines are absolutely taking user interactions into account—and rewarding those who can tap into and increase the amount of user interaction on their site. How can the search engines gauge the quality of your content? Initially, keywords were only analyzed to confirm they were properly optimized in content and had solid linking structure—essentially proper SEO. Unfortunately the web was flooded with poorly written, uninteresting, but well optimized content which in turn initiated Google’s call to action. This change invoked Google putting more emphasis on the social nature of content. Bottom line is if your content is not evoking social activity, it will not have the same effectiveness as it used to. Google forces you to ask yourself, if your content is not being commented on
or shared via Social Media how relevant is your information? By utilizing Social Media you are accelerating the interactive nature and the social process is set in motion. Otherwise, you will simply be relying on organic traffic to get the word out. By utilizing Social Media you are also accelerating the organic ranking process which can have a profound result for your business in terms of traffic and conversions to your website.
Broadcasting your message and valuable content out to your target market is essential but it must be paired with engaging and building your community and brand awareness.
Social Media provides
companies a huge opportunity to build stronger relationships with their community by listening to their customers and prospects vs. always talking at their customers and prospects. By listening to your community you are gaining valuable insight into what products you should create next or what challenges you may have with a current offering. Consider Social Media as the largest focus group you could possibly imagine. How much would pay to listen in to every conversation about your company or brand? As you build your community on the different Social Media sites you have the ability to ask questions, to answer questions and to handle customer service issues that normally you may not have ever known about. Companies can turn a negative into a positive simply by listening and paying attention to their audience, then handling the challenge in a public forum. It pays huge dividends. As I’ve mentioned before, the conversations about your brand in Social Media are happening whether you are aware of it or not. Isn’t it best to find out, good or bad, what the market feels about your product or service? With this priceless insight you have the ability to adjust as needed. Where else do you have access to this type of market research?
There is a good chance many in your industry have not even begun the process of creating an effective social media strategy and there is a huge advantage to those that get in early and build a foundation. When you begin the process of creating content…and continue that process…you are building a foundation that will be rewarded with higher search engine results and traffic. This is not say that if you are not the first in an industry to enter Social Media that you will not have success. It does give another an advantage, but this can easily be overcome with an effective long term strategy and focus.
It all starts with your blog. Your blog is the center of your Social Media universe. If you do not have a blog you most likely have a static site…in other words it looks the same to Google every time they happen to visit your site. Not only does having a blog make your increasingly site dynamic and fresh, it gives Google, your customers and your potential customers a reason to come back to your site on a consistent basis. Companies who have a blog receive 43% more traffic and have on average 434% more indexed pages (indexed pages are the amount of pages in Google’s index of your website, the more the better and more relevant you seem). A simple analogy is to think of your website and blog as your house and your yard. Just like your friendly neighbors, Google wants to see a clean, manicured lawn. Think of a static website, or one without a blog, as a site that is overgrown with weeds and hasn’t been cleaned up in a long time. If Google drives by your house and sees the outside of the home in complete disarray, why would they reward you with high search engine rankings? You wouldn’t be a very popular neighbor. To stay relevant you must create new, relevant content on a consistent basis. Keep up with your yard work! Google is looking for a large number of ranking factors when they visit your website and blog. One of the most important ranking factors is whether your site is optimized properly. This means that Google understands exactly what your site is about and how they should categorize it by keywords. They are also looking at the links and the relevancy of those links – I won’t bore you with details on links, however, a brief explanation by example my help clarify: Think of the internet as a huge popularity contest and inbound links are votes for your website or blog. If Google sees a site with a lot of “votes” or links they feel much more confident that your site or blog is relevant and valuable to the end user. Another major factor Google is looking for is activity on your site. If your website or blog is not updated with new content—on a consistent basis—you simply do not appear relevant anymore and it will eventually affect your search engine rankings. Remember Google’s quest is to provide the most valid search results for the end user. So, they are looking for these types of activities taking place and reward accordingly with higher rankings.
Not only does a blog give you a simple way to add content and show activity to Google in terms of fresh, relevant content, but it also allows for the Social aspect of the activity equation (Hence, why it is the center of your Social Media Universe). You may not hear this too often, but this is absolutely a factor in search engine rankings and another reason why Social Media moves to the forefront of your marketing efforts. If your blog is not receiving comments (social activity) Google may interpret that as your post not being extremely relevant. How many times have you read a great blog post and reposted it to your Facebook page or re-tweeted it. Maybe you commented on the post because you loved the blog—or even completely disagreed with the premise of the post. The point is the content engaged you to do something social and in Google’s eyes this makes you extremely relevant. Blogs also have another major benefit. They literally stick around forever. The life of some of the other Social Media avenues is extremely short, whereas, your blog and specific posts can be found years from now with a relevant search. Clearly, the blog presents you an ideal way to create new content that Google favors. However, your blog also allows you a unique center to craft your message to your prospects. You can be extremely flexible and versatile with your messaging or content strategy. You can keep up with current events as well as giving how-to advice. You can give opinions or product evaluations/comparisons—the options are limitless. An effective content strategy will utilize the blog to message to your target audience. To get that message out to the masses requires incorporating the other areas of Social Media. This is where a Facebook Fan Page, You Tube Channel, Twitter and a LinkedIn profile come in to play. These become your content distribution facets…your community centers…your extremely large focus groups…this is where you create brand awareness. Your blog begins this process for you and serves as the main hub to house your content for all other distribution points of Social Media.
Facebook is downright enormous…it is fascinating to think about the effect Google and Facebook have on our daily lives. Facebook has quickly become the most used social networking platform on the web. How much time people spend on the site is increasing as they come up with clever ways to keep you within their grasp. Facebook is also brilliant for doing this. You have two options…fight it with everything ounce of grit you can muster or you can harness the power of this massive force. I hope you choose the latter. Incredible Statistics on Facebook:
Over 845 million active users 100 billion connections 57% Female vs. 43% Male 250 million photos uploaded everyday 2.7 billion “Likes” everyday Average user has 140 friends and logs in at least once a day for 20 minutes 74% of users are over 18 People watch over 46 years of video on Facebook each day.
These numbers are simply staggering and even if they plateau sometime soon, it is still a massive opportunity. The Facebook platform presents many opportunities for businesses:
Building awareness and community Driving traffic to your blog or website Providing customer service Offering advice and sharing knowledge Generating leads and ultimately sales
This may be the most confusing of the Social Media Venues. Many businesses and individuals simply just don’t “get” it. Twitter is considered a broadcasting platform as well as a micro-blogging platform. It also provides the simplest form of Social Media to build relationships. Why is this? Let’s be honest, we have become a lazy society and we love immediate gratification. There is far less effort that goes into typing 140 characters versus creating an informative well thought out blog post. It also provides the immediacy and instant gratification we all so desire. There is something to be said for instant news…look at how Twitter has influenced the rise in the Middle East. Many found out about the killing of Osama bin Laden via twitter even before the President stood before the country to announce this incredible story! Twitter grants society the ability to share information instantaneously! Interesting Twitter statistics:
7th largest website on the internet 100 million daily visitors 83% are 18 or older with the majority over 30 17 million users There will be 175,000 tweets in the next 60 seconds
A recent study from InboxQ found that 64% of twitter users were more likely to purchase a brand that answers their questions. If you put any validity to this study, then it is clear what Twitter users expect. If you are not present within that community, you simply lose out business opportunities. Although Twitter does not have the sheer numbers of Facebook, 49% of those users follow specific brands vs. just 16% of overall social users. When you combine those numbers with the above average intelligence and income of Twitter users it becomes a goldmine of prospects.
Google acquired You Tube. This fact alone indicates the magnitude You Tube has in the internet realm. Couple that with Forrester Research and Business Week finding that you are 53 times more likely to show up on Google’s first page with video than any other type of content. Nielson states 90% of all internet traffic will be video by 2014. You Tube is the second largest search engine with 2.6 billion searches done on a daily basis.
All of these findings are impressive when you consider of how many potential
customers you can target and engage in video. Let’s face it… video is simply much more compelling and interesting than text. If you consider your own habits online, wouldn’t you much rather watch an interesting video than plug along through text? The fact of the matter is video is the ideal way to engage and interest your clients. It allows us to build trust and credibility more rapidly. Can you do this with text? Well yes, but on a much smaller scale. The process is just accelerated with the use of video You Tube Statistics:
2nd largest search engine 133 million users 2 Billion videos are watched a day
LinkedIn is another broadcast platform; however it is primarily considered a professional or business related social networking site. The perception of LinkedIn is still one of a place to find a job and while this is a valuable feature of the site, there are many other advantages for engaging in this platform. It is obvious when you look at the demographics of LinkedIn and the income levels of participants. This is another avenue to target a completely different area of prospects. For example, the “Groups” platform gives you instant access to an extremely targeted niche where you can market and direct messages. Again, by remaining diverse and insatiable with your attraction of prospects you will not miss out on another pool of potential customers. LinkedIn Statistics:
100 million users 60% over the age of 35 68% make over $60,000 per year 38% make over $100,000 per year
If the information you’ve just read does not motivate you to get involved and get started in Social Media, then you’re probably already extremely effective in your traditional marketing efforts! Good for you! If not, it’s time to take action. There truly is no better time than now. My goal is to help SMB’s with limited marketing budgets utilize these incredible and proven strategies to generate business and build their community.
The Social Media & SEO 2.0 Monthly Insider Report focuses on helping companies understand the benefits of an effective Social Media & SEO campaign. As these two strategies continue to merge it is imperative to understand the latest trends, tactics and strategies. This Insider Report is dedicated to keeping you up to date with all things Social Media & SEO. Whether you are handling your marketing in house or outsourcing it to an agency, the Insider will give you the knowledge necessary to stay up to date while still focusing on your core business. If you are interested in learning more about how an effective Social Media Marketing strategy can help attract qualified prospects to your business feel free to email me at scott@scottrwells.com for a free consultation.