The Countdown To Better Social Media Practices

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#1: Social Media Marketing is a Game of Hide and Seek

One of the greatest pieces of advice I was ever given about social media marketing, is that it’s a game of hide and seek. We are programmed to think that if we do our content strategies correctly, we will be rewarded with lots of fans and interactions. That’s just not true. As content competition grows, only 2 things will save you.

The 2 things are – competitor content analysis and consistent content publication. Your competitors are publishing all the time, effectively ‘hiding’ your content so that no-one can find it. To stop this from happening you need to ‘seek’ out their strategies and outdo them! Social media marketing only works well when you publish often. Very often.

#2: It’s Not About Who You Know, But What They Know

Social media marketing experts are always telling people to connect with authorities in their niche. This is great advice – no doubt. What they leave out of course, is that once you have connected with an expert, you need to somehow access their knowledge and use it to further your own business goals. This is much harder than connecting with someone.

So, it’s not who you know, but what they know – that’s what really helps you. Can you get them to write guest posts for your blog? Can you make them an actionable part of your marketing campaigns? If not, then they are useless. The only way to turn an expert into a friend is to give them great content. Share their posts. Become an advocate.

Courtesy of blog.greenhousesocialmedia.com

#3: Patience and Platform is Key to Everything

In social media marketing, there are two stumbling blocks that can make or break a new campaign. They are patience, and platform
choice. The social internet moves likes lightening, except when you need it too! That’s why being patient is an essential trait of a successful social media strategist. Wait and see – that should be your testing motto.

As for platform – don’t be put off an idea, just because it didn’t work on your chosen platform. Many small business owners fail to run a successful Facebook competition for example, so they never run another online competition again. What about Twitter? Pinterest? Vine? The madness can be in the platform and not the method, you know.

#4: Choose One Social Platform, and Master It

Bad advice tends to stick to small businesses, which is why you’ll often find empty social pages all over the place. Social media marketing is about building a quality presence on a single platform. Then mastering that platform. Then combining your efforts – and stringing together a few great pages to make an impressive social profile.

It’s not about being on a thousand networks – even the ones you haven’t heard of, in Russia. If you only have time to work properly on one platform, then pick one. Social media is about ROI, not owning empty social real estate. It’s nice that you’re there, but if you can’t convert your social media marketing fans into buyers, there is no point.

#5: Automation Does Not Give You Automated Results

Let’s get something straight – it’s good to automate some of your social media marketing processes. But so many people think that ‘automation’ means ‘leaving your pages alone, to run independently of you.’ This isn’t the case. You still need to check in every day, and respond to people. You can’t automate conversation, you’re not Skynet!

Automation used properly allows you to publish tips and tricks at your leisure, but it is no substitute for quality interaction. Social media marketing has way too many pages and feeds that are automated. This is a two-way conversation, not a microphone.

#6: Content Curation Saves You Time and Money

Social media marketing us all about content. You need to supply your social media pages with high quality content that engages your audience. But how do you do this when you’re a small business owner with limited time and money? By curating content along with your original content. Don’t only be an authority be the most rounded, current news in your niche.

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#7: Sometimes It’s Okay To Try Something Spontaneous

You have probably read somewhere that planning always comes before success. We become so obsessed with plans, that we forget that sometimes it’s alright to just try new things. Innovation comes from all sorts of places. It’s great to be a good planner, but don’t also forget to be that social media marketing person who isn’t afraid to take risks.

BONUS! One Piece of Advice You Always Get, and Should IGNORE!

Don’t let your employees use social media! This one single piece of advice has kept small business owners from rapid growth because of social media. Let your employees be advocates for your brand, just lay down some ground rules first. They will help you with the exposure that you need to drive traffic and increase sales.

My hope, is that these seven pieces of social media marketing advice have changed your perspective on certain parts of your own marketing campaigns. Maybe now you can re-evaluate your strategies and integrate something really powerful into your online business plan. After all, good advice is only good if you take it!

Is there a piece of social media marketing advice that you would like to share with the SMMU community?

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#1: Your Competitor Brand Files

I once knew a marketer who took screenshots of his top 10 competitor blogs at the beginning of every year. At the end of each year, he would break out the social media rebranding files and review them. Then – he would outdo them.

#2: Core Message Updates

If your business has drifted into new markets or changed direction, your branding could be off. Social media rebranding is about expressing your core message. If yours isn’t on point, it’s time for a design shift.

#3: Social Media Rebranding Assets

At the end of every year, review your online assets. Assets can include URL’s, account names, domain ownership, images, videos and total worth. If you’re missing some – get them. For example – no Pinterest account? Secure yours right now.

#4: Twitter Page Refresh

Social media rebranding applies to your Twitter page as well – so review it. Then compare it with other pages in your niche. Any trends, useful design tricks or graphics that you like? At the end of this year, your brand needs a shiny new Twitter background.

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#5: Facebook Page Refresh

Facebook pages should be refreshed every 3 months, so if you haven’t done any social media rebranding there for a while, do it. A new profile pic and cover page can go a long way for your brand. It says – ‘we’re always moving forward.’

#6: Youtube Video Social Media Rebranding

Youtube is changing, so gear up for the change by freshening up your Youtube brand page. Count how many views you’ve received and chart out goals for January. Then start fresh with a funky new look and feel that will attract attention and more subscribers.

#7: LinkedIn Copy Refresh

LinkedIn isn’t about images, it’s about copy. Redo yours! Research better keywords and create new, interesting and punchy copy for your profile. Social media rebranding is more than design, it’s about strategy as well.

#8: Inexpensive Graphics Packages

If you’re trying to keep costs low, great news! November-December is a great time to cash-in on social media rebranding specials from tech and design companies. Template sites offer a lot of great image packages that you can use to revamp your look.

Courtesy of smashingmagazine.com

#9: Newsletter Recharge

Your newsletter is the one social media rebranding tool that you can’t skimp on this year. Find new templates to use or get one designed for your company – your subscribers will love the way you’re always looking to add value to their experience.

#10: Website Rebrand

Websites can be pricey to rebrand every year, so look at updating it instead. Social media rebranding includes your website and blog! Add new plugins, update your social media plugins, add an app or just redo your header.

Social media rebranding lets your customers know that you’re always on the cusp of the latest design and tech trends. That’s good for business!

Did you like this blog post on social media rebranding? Then please share it with your friends!

Which platform do you think is the most important to rebrand?

No surprises here – in my opinion, Facebook is still the most lucrative and savvy way to socially promote your business online. Add that fact to their recent 1 billion user tally, and their almost OCD-like need to update and evolve, and you have a pretty stable investment launching a decent Facebook business page.

#2: Pinterest Power

Pinterest is my number 2, because it’s the most recent and most revolutionary trend in media-based sharing online. The traffic (and growing sales) doesn’t lie.

#3: Youtube or Bust

Coming in third we have ever popular Youtube. Why? Because monetizing viral video has matured to the point where you can become a millionaire, if you have a hit video here. Say what you like about Google, but Youtube has an incredible ad platform.

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#4: LinkedIn Matters

LinkedIn has made some impressive changes of late, and more are to come. For the small business, it can be a powerful networking tool.

#5: What Did You Tweet?

Twitter comes in at a sulky number 5. It’s not that it’s a lesser social platform, but it terms of financial and traffic conversion – it just not as useful to a small business. That said, it should still be part of your social strategy.

#6: The Return of MySpace

I’m so excited about this revamp, I almost put MySpace at number 1. It has a lot of proving itself to do, but it’s already making a comeback. Ebiz recently reported it as the 4th most popular social networking site, ahead of Google+. If you’re in the media, use it.

#7: Google+ Traffic

If you have an e-commerce site, then Google+ is a must-have purely for its new business functions and SEO potential. Otherwise it’s horrible as a social network.

#8: Hello Yelp

Yelp, if you don’t know, is the huge online review directory for all things product or business based. It adds a lot of weight to SEO practices and social proof, which is why it comes in at eight.

#9: Digg a Little Deeper

Digg splashes onto our list at number 9, for being the most used (and most fun) social bookmarking site. If you’re not sharing here, get to it.

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#10: DeviantArt Anyone?

DeviantArt is a social networking site for all of the creatives online. It has serious merit for small businesses as you can find all sorts of great branding stuff here, not to mention superb artistry.

There you have it! Our top 10 list of social media sites according to how valuable they are to small businesses.

Do you agree with this list, or are there some placements you would change? Tell us where and why!

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The Basic Social Infrastructure

Online shops have been using social media for a while, but only recently have they discovered the sheer traffic and sales potential of these platforms. Here are the must-have social buttons on your e-commerce site.

• Facebook buttons, like, share, comment
• Pinterest buttons, and each of your product images should be on Pinterest
• Twitter buttons
• Blog links

Recent stats prove that for small online shops Facebook can be a significant earner. A viral Facebook group can drive as much as 25% of the overall monthly traffic to a fairly automatic (unattended) online shop.

The potential of Pinterest is evident – take photos of your products in a social context, and see how responsive a built in audience can be. Pinterest users love to see your products in action, in how-to’s, reviews and tips images.

Twitter is a superb platform for announcing your latest sales and exclusive offers. Using tracked links to see who clicks on these specials, and figure out how you can make more people interested in your sales.

Your blog is a great place to create reviews, articles and information pieces on your products, or on topics surrounding your products. This is excellent for improving your SEO potential, which will attract more traffic to your sales website.

Using Social Apps To Enhance Your Online Shop

Forward thinking online shops are getting more involved with adding app functionality to their pages. These apps improve sales, and add specialized features to your pages that your customers appreciate. The group gifts app for example, allows your friends to buy a product at your store, by inviting a few of their friends to chip in on the price.

Through Facebook and Twitter, their social connections can login to the app on your page, and contribute money to purchase one of your products for a friend or for themselves. You’ll find interesting and enhancing apps like these all over the place.

Another app may allow users to check out third party reviews of your product, or will let them see your product close up, using a zoom plugin.

5 Must-Have Social Promotions

• Do stalk your competitors social pages to see what they’re up to
• Do promote your online shop on your core social pages: FB, Twitter, Pinterest
• Do give your social media members lots of free gifts and discounts
• Do add as much social proof to your online shop as possible
• Do gather every single customer’s email address for continued marketing

It’s easy to think of social media as an ‘extra’ for your online shop. The truth is, that with trends going the way they are – the shops that focus on social media, will get the lion’s share of sales. People want to buy from people, and know that others in their social networks have bought from you as well!

This is the secret of building a quality online shop! Do you know how to make your online shop more social? Add your tip below!

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#1: Social Media Has Matured

Social media is no longer some wishy-washy fad concept that will blow by at any minute. It’s matured into what is the most important marketing route forward for your business. Executives that are still dabbling in or ignoring social media are going to find themselves coming last in the marketing race, in a few years’ time.

Social media is not only here to stay, it’s taking over. Sideline it at your own great peril.

#2: Facebook is a Sound Investment

Facebook continues to grow like crazy, thanks to a very clever expansion and development plan from this idea team. Your Facebook business page is essential to the success of your social media strategy. Some experts are even saying that as much as 30% of your social spend should be limited to Facebook. It’s where your clients are!

Spend more time this year developing your Facebook page, and investing in advertising.

#3: Pinterest is Poised For Mass Traffic

You’ve heard about the new site Pinterest, but haven’t bothered to test it out for your business. Well here are some sobering stats for you – Pinterest drives more traffic than Twitter and Google+, and it attracts more interaction than anything on Facebook. In other words, it’s highly valuable to your overall social marketing strategy.

Executives who focus on Pinterest early, will be rewarded with huge traffic streams.

#4: Social Media is Going Mobile

If your business has yet to jump on the mobile bandwagon – do. All social media in the future will be accessible, perhaps even exclusively, by mobile. With devices out there that keep people on the go, it’s unwise to not get involved in the changing online attitude. Your websites need to be mobile. You need mobile apps and infrastructure.

Prepare for the mobile onslaught by investing in mobile technology early on.

#5: Be The Interaction You Want To See

If your pages are dead and lifeless – you’re not out there making friends and supporting other people’s social campaigns. If you want lots of fans, followers and engagement, then you need to be highly interactive yourself. No one is going to do it for you. Get your staff involved – start a sharing movement in your business.

These five crucial points will keep executives working in the right areas, while improving their overall business. Best of all – they’ll be steps ahead of their competition, because they had the vision to see the social future. Get your business involved in these points, if you want to have large scale success later on in the life of your business.

Is there something else executives should know about social media? List your tip here for our community to see!

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#1: Strip All of Your Unique Images

Whether you’re on Pinterest, Flickr or your blog, all of your unique images should be stripped with your business name and URL. That way if the pic gets shared or goes viral, you benefit!

#2: Get Personal on Pinterest

Take some photos of yourself and your employees and encourage interaction by being engaging and open. Start your own Q&A sessions on Pinterest, and you’ll see!

#3: Host a 5+ Person Live Tweet Session

Invite people to join in on your live tweet session. Get a few employees to tweet along with you to encourage chatter. Select a hashtag that will work, and promote it online.

#4: Talking Head Videos as Customer Service Answers

Record videos of yourself, or a team member, answering customer questions, or solving problems in your niche. Videos always get a lot of comments if you syndicate them.

#5: Facebook App Trivia in Your Niche

There’s one way to keep your Facebook fans talking and returning, and that’s with a custom Facebook trivia app. Come up with 500 questions based on your niche, and promote your app!

#6: Linkbait Posts For Your Blog

In the pro blogging niche, a linkbait post is a controversial or highly interesting post that is designed to get people talking, sharing, liking and syndicating. Do at least 1 a week.

#7: Record a Google+ Video Session

Invite experts in your niche to a video session on Google+. Record the session, which should be interesting, informative and enlightening. Then publish the video on Youtube.

#8: Publish Expert Insights in Your LinkedIn Mails

Invite your LinkedIn group to come up with great quotes for your community. Then publish the best ones each month, in your LinkedIn mailers. People will love it.

#9: Run Contests For Real Prizes

Run contests as often as you can – they always inspire chatter! Just remember that people either want a massive prize, or massive exposure, so give them at least one to secure a viral effect for your contest.

#10: Tap Into Tech With Scavenger Hunts

If you have a network of websites, create interesting clues on each of them – like a trail of breadcrumbs, to lead your fans to a discount coupon, or a fun freebie. People will love the process, and that’s what they’ll chat about. It’s a great way to collect email addresses.

Any one of these great ideas can get your fan’s tongues wagging. As long as you’re engaging them outside your pages, as well as on your pages – you’ll be able to insight some chatter. Incentives though, do tend to get people moving.

How do you inspire your social media communities to chat with each other, or about your brand? I’d like to know.

Courtesy of Mashable.com

#1: Real Life Drives Online Social

If, like many other small businesses online, you find your social campaigns lacking interaction – there’s a very simple way to solve that problem. As the Mashable meetups proved, real life is what truly drives social interaction online. Get out there, take photographic evidence, share real experiences and network with others who are doing the same!

Tip! If you’re not yet involved in conferences, workshops, seminars and networking events, then get involved now.

#2: The Power of Hashtags Revisited

Social media day was just another piece of evidence that hashtags can be an instrumental part of your marketing campaign. Mashable seized upon the hashtag #SMDay, and promoted it across 278 cities. The result was a blast of information during the meetups, with enough attention to make even the most lazy marketer come away with new fans, and a massive boost in sales. It’s the eyes and interaction you want.

Tip! If you’re going to be part of an event, get a hashtag going so that people can interact online during the event!

#3: The Benefits of Live Tweeting

Pete Cashmore understands the benefits of live tweeting. I’d bet almost anything that during these meetups, the Mashable site received a huge increase in traffic from all over the net. Live tweeting is a potent form of marketing, and can be used to speak directly to large numbers of people all over the globe, at a given time.

Tip! Live tweeting allows you to collect live market research, source social proof, do some high impact sales, and will attract bulk traffic to your sites.

#4: Building a Large Fan Base

The recent meetups for social media day are a great reminder about how important it is to build a following of real people, who interact with your business. In less than a week, you can organize events, and have large numbers on your side. Imagine how much more successful your product launches, sales and gatherings will be.

Tip! Don’t forget to build your fan base each month. Just remember to make sure that they are all real people, who genuinely like interacting with you.

#5: Fan Relationships For Viral Networking

When you have a dedicated fan base of ‘friends’ you have access to their communities. Your 5000 followers, and 50 other people’s 2000 followers will all be able to see your message, if you really want to get it out there. That’s over 100,000 people that might see your message. It’s controlled viral marketing, and it only happens when you have close relationships with fans.

Tip! Build up a network of fans who are only too glad to share your posts. This will trigger a controlled viral marketing effect, which leads to success nearly every time.

Do you have a great social media tip that you learned during social media day? Share it with the SMM community here!

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#1: Real Estate Sales

At number 1, is the real estate industry. People love connecting and sharing text, images and videos about property. Plus, the realtors have learned to use mobile social technology, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ to increase sales – even for big ticket items like multi-million dollar homes

#2: Careers Niche

Job hunting, head hunting, executive search and career advice couldn’t be a bigger social niche than it is right now. If you’re in careers, you’re in social.

#3: Blogging For Money

In at 3 is blogging for money – loads of people are teaching individuals and companies how to achieve excellent results by running a business blog.

#4: Universities

Education loves social media – to the point where students are even connected to a mobile social network to receive direct updates from the Dean.

#5: PC Hardware

Direct sales for PC and tech equipment abounds, not only on private sites, but on places like Ebay, Amazon and Craigslist – where it’s all built around social communities.

#6: Technology Field

With gadgets, innovations, technology and inventions on the rise, the tech field is very integrated with all things social media. You’ll find that tech newsletters have the best social integration of all, with an entire community infused into monthly updates.

#7: Mobile Marketing

While mobile marketing is technically a form of social media, there’s no doubting that social and mobile belong together. It’s the hottest niche right now, by far.

#8: Social Media

Strange as it sounds, social media itself is a massive niche, with millions of people claiming to be ‘experts’ on the subject. I guess as a viral niche, you don’t get any better! If you select this niche though, make sure you start from the ground up.

#9: Gaming Niche

App games, PC games or console games – the world is obsessed with gaming. That’s why it works so well with social media. Gamers want to be in-the-know all the time.

#10: The Humor Racket

Coming in last is a vague niche that still dominates the internet – humor! With memes and joke sites on the rise, social is taking this niche to a whole new level. One meme has so much viral potential that millions of people could view it after just a few hours.

These 10 niches are the fields that are making the most of social media, to modernize their processes and make more money. If you’ve been searching for a new niche that would benefit from your social media skills – pick one of these!

Heard of any other niches that should be part of this list? Tell me what it is and why it’s leading the way with social media, here.

Courtesy of blog.magnoninternational.com

#1: Say Hello To Excel

If you don’t have a social management program, Excel can be the easiest way to keep track of your campaign progress. It helps to record EVERYTHING you do, so get into the habit now, before you lose track of what you’ve done, need to do, and shouldn’t do again!

#2: Use Some Tools

Manually posting and sharing can take an enormous amount of time – if you’re still doing it, stop! Use some great tools to speed up the process, like Hootsuite or Argyle Social.

#3: Use Less Tools!

If you find yourself overwhelmed by the amount of tools and programs that help you in your social marketing pursuits, then take a step back. Start again, and keep the essentials only. Stop using the ‘extras’ if there’s no good reason to use them.

#4: Plan Your Strategy

Most time wasting campaigns happen because people don’t bother to plan out their strategy at the beginning of each month. You’ll be surprised how much time you can save when you’ve planned your content beforehand, and how much time you have to do it in.

#5: Set Yourself Content Goals

Strange as it may seem, setting goals does simplify things. Check your analytics data and decide which platform needs the most content for the next week. Then set a content goal for yourself and focus on one main objective.

#6: Enforce a Schedule

Set time limits for yourself and enforce them. If you take too long on something – tough – move on, and finish it tomorrow in the allotted time.

#7: Use The Share Buttons on Your Blog

Instead of opening new tabs to share your blog content – use your social media sharing buttons directly on your page. It’ll make things go smoother and faster.

#8: Find What Works, and Work It!

If you’ve recently launched a social text marketing campaign, and it’s getting you loads more business or sales – that’s your queue to focus more on that. Everything else can wait.

#9: Stop Feeling Guilty

If you go missing from Facebook or Twitter for a few days, give yourself a break! You can’t be there all the time. Simplify things and market when you can, or outsource it.

#10: Reality Check

How much time are you spending speaking to people? A lot of the time it can be easy to forget that this is the primary function of social marketing. Posting, sharing, linking, reading and researching is only part of it – the ‘anti-social’ part. Make it fun again by sharing!

How do you simplify your social media marketing campaign? If you have any tips, I’d love to hear them!

Courtesy of blogs.forbes.com

Emerging Market Information

Facebook is soon to hit 1 billion users, and this is because of these emerging sectors all over the world. Research has found that users in these markets are more likely to rely on information that they receive from social sources. This is partly due to the fact that many of these users only have access to mobile internet technology.

Approximately 60% of the global population comes from emerging markets. They’re going to become more and more important as buyers, fans and communities for your business. That’s why you need to know how to reach these demographics.

Reaching Consumers From Emerging Sectors

Emphasis must be placed on mobile technology, simply because all current modern trends, point to the fact that mobile will soon eclipse internet use. Ask yourself these questions and streamline your strategy for emerging consumers.

• Is your website mobile compliant?
• Can people easily subscribe to your lists via mobile?
• Is your blog easy to read on a mobile phone?
• Do you use mobile app technology to engage your users?
• Do you use MMS, SMS or web-related technology for mobile phones?

Think about these questions. If your answer is ‘no’ to all of them, then your social strategy is excluding a huge portion of your buying market. Proof exists that buyers from emerging markets are way more engaged than buyers from mature markets. This means that you’ll be able to interact with these consumers more often, building trust, authority, credibility and social proof as you promote your brand.

Social media is the fastest and easiest way for you to tap into these new emerging revenue streams. But to do this, you must ensure that the language barrier is not an issue. Make sure that users can view your information in foreign languages, like the Hispanic, or Asian languages. This is especially useful if you run a product-based business, and rely on direct website sales.

Features To Consider in Your Social Campaign

Different markets and economic conditions influence how people use social media, and this is true of emerging markets. For instance, there is a very low internet penetration in many parts of the world. You can use this information to target mobile technology as a dominant social revenue stream.

Other factors include the fact that these markets are behind on mature methods of payment – like remote buying, or using credit cards or Paypal online. You can solve this problem by offering more virtual coupons and incentives, to entice emerging market consumers to test out online buying.

Make sure that your social strategy educates everyone, not simply people who already understand the online sales process. If you do this, your business has the potential to source thousands of new buyers from these emerging markets!

Do you think there is value in targeting buyers outside the US or UK? Can emerging markets make a difference to your bottom line?