The Social Media Blog @ MoreVisibility

Social Media Marketing for Business - Infographic

In this Infographic we ask the question “What measures up for a recipe for success?”. In response, we have visually highlighted some social statistics from a recent blog post by the socialskinny.com, that provides insight into the more popular marketing tools being used and the social response to them:

The most popular social networking tool for marketing is Facebook – being used by 92%(of businesses), followed by Twitter (84%), LinkedIn (71%) and blogs (68%).

23% of Fortune 500 companies have a public-facing corporate blog.

58% of Fortune 500 companies have an active corporate Facebook account, 62% have an active corporate Twitter account.

43% of marketers have noticed an improvement in sales due to social campaigns.

47% of customers are somewhat likely to purchase from a brand that they follow or like.

Facebook Promotion: Top 10 Tips

It seems that everyone is on Facebook these days. News about using the platform for business pepper broadcasts and print media alongside updates about the upcoming IPO. If you have been waiting to create a Facebook page for your business or if you have one that you haven’t touched since creation, the following promotion tips are written for you. Even if you are managing your business’s Facebook page, the following top ten tip list may give you a few ideas to help promote your page and your business on this constantly evolving social platform.

1. Create Your Page
The first promotion tip is more of a step one – create your page. Without a page, you will have nothing to promote and no one will have anything to talk about. Create your page and make sure to include content. Nobody will want to share a page that is blank or that looks abandoned.

2. Manage Your Page
Create a schedule and begin adding interesting and informative content to your Facebook page, even if you don’t have a single follower. When you start promoting your page, visitors will hopefully be curious what they can expect from you in regard to future communication.

3. Invitations – Soft Launch
Your business’s social network can be divided into different groupings (such as employees, business partners, philanthropic partners, customers, friends, and family). Each of these groups can be alerted to the creation of your Facebook page and invited to engage with you as you actively manage your page. Initially, start with your friends, family, and employees. Ask for feedback. Make changes as needed.

4. Invitations – Hard Launch
Now that you have a presence on Facebook, a number of friends/followers, and a calendar with which to guide your posts, you can invite your business partners, philanthropic partners, and customers to join you. Since you are adding customers to the mix, make sure that there is someone monitoring your Facebook page for questions, feedback, and complaints and you have a plan in place to respond to each in a timely manner.

5. Cross-Promote Your Social Media Channels
If you are active on other social channels, such as YouTube, Twitter, or others, consider adding content from these channels to Facebook or promoting Facebook within these channels.

6. Link to Your Facebook Page From Your Website
Consider adding a Facebook icon and link to your Facebook page from your website. Consider embedding a Facebook module in your website or blog if applicable, to show what your customers and you are saying.

7. Social Sharing Buttons
Consider adding the Facebook Like button to your website (or other social sharing buttons such as ShareThis or AddThis) to help visitors promote your content on Facebook.

8. Consider Contests
Not only do contests give you a reason to promote your Facebook page on your website and in your other channels, but customers and potential customers tend to love a contest by a brand they like. There are a variety of different contest set-ups available for Facebook, but they all must abide by Facebook’s guidelines.

9. Don’t Forget Print
Just because Facebook and your website are digital, does not mean that you can not promote them in printed media related to your business. Companies are posting icons or links to their Facebook pages on business cards, billboards, clothing, and even shopping bags.

10. Paid Ads
Research the possible benefit of creating a Facebook ad to promote your business and Facebook page to be displayed on Facebook. One big benefit of using paid Facebook ads is that the targeting is very precise and you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

Any or all of these promotional tips can help you build a Facebook page that becomes an important part of your marketing mix, but you can’t start without tip #1: Create Your Page. If you would like additional tips, a social media strategy, or customized design for your Facebook page, please contact MoreVisibility.

New Facebook Offers for Businesses

Facebook just released new posting functionality for offers that will help businesses post deals to their Timeline for fans to redeem. Currently the functionality being released is to a limited number of Facebook Business Pages, but will eventually be available to select types of businesses. We have seen this option become available for clients with Local Business Pages and it is currently free to use. Facebook has created a help section to guide administrators and fans through the offer process, and tips for creating successful offers. Here is a preview of how to set up a Facebook Offer, and the types of options available.

To create a new Facebook Offer, Page Administrators will simply select the offer option (if available) from the post dropdown box:

Each offer contains fields for a Headline, Thumbnail Image, Number of claims, Expiration date, and Terms and Conditions:

Headline text: 90 characters

Terms and conditions text: 900 characters

Offer image size: 90 x 90 pixels, non-square images will be cropped to a square

You can also select who the target audience is for the Offer:

Once published, fans will then be able to see your Facebook Offer in their newsfeed and on the company’s Timeline. By selecting “Get Offer” a prompt will appear letting them know the offer has been sent to the email address associated with their Facebook account.

Facebook recommends tracking offers with an internal sales/redemption code, purchasing a sponsored story to promote it, making sure the staff is educated and aware of the offer details, and creating deals that have a high perceived value to encourage sharing activity.

If you have questions about Facebook Offers, or are interested in a Social Media Marketing Strategy, please call us at 800.787.0497, or email us.

Mobile Check-In Marketing Tips for Local Businesses

Mobile Check-Ins have proven a very popular tool for social interaction. By utilizing an API that combines a smart phone’s GPS cordinance with the social media channel CTA Check-In, many users document where they shop, eat, entertain, and even work. This ability to Check-In to a physical location can be easily rewarded, therefore adding a marketing element to a local address. Business have already begun to reward members of Foursquare with discounts, free items, and exclusive specials by becoming Merchants and setting up marketing campaigns. Foursquare is the primary source for Check-In marketing activity for local establishments, but does not have the largest audience in comparision to other social platforms. Let’s explore the larger social networks that include the Check-In API, to reveal marketing opportunities for local businesses using this location based functionality.

Facebook – Topping the charts for the largest social network with the most engaged users, Facebook Places is a fully integrated mobile and desktop feature the offers the ability to provide a location within any post. These locations are also recorded on a user’s Timeline via a map that shows everywhere they have Checked-In. If your business location has a Facebook Page, the Timeline keeps stats on the number of Check-ins for your business address just under the page name. Increase activity with your Facebook Page by asking fans via posts to Check-In regularly. Offer a special discount to visitors who Check-In while checking out at the register. You might even advertise the deal inside the business location or near the counter, to encourage new followers to your Page.

Twitter – This is the second largest network, and one of the most active audiences on mobile devices, Twitter users have access to a feature that tweets their location when they post an update from their account. Although the location services on Twitter will not associate your business name with the address, you can encourage fans to @mention your Twitter business profile - along with the Check-In location - for a prize. This is great for businesses with multiple locations under the same brand name. Each store can include a fun hash tag that is unique to their physical location to differentiate the tweets and make it a contest amoungst the locations. For example: The promotional could be advertised for a month and include Tweet locations with @mentions/hash tags from all of the business locations, but the store with the most activity will get to host a discount day exclusive to their local patrons who participated in the contest and earned them the winning location.

Google Plus - Last, but far from least this social network is smaller that the other two, but the Check-In API is integrated into multiple Google products -like Places and Lattitude- that make it a powerful tool and could effect your organic search results. Even if your business does not have a Google Plus Page, your physical address can be entered or recommended for Check-Ins and a post will be shared on the users profile with a map from Google Places. Try taking a different marketing approach if you have a larger location with over 50 employees. Market this feature amoung your employees to gain access to a wider network of people and online activity by requesting that they each Check-In daily with their personal Google Plus accounts for one week to enter to win a reward. Monitor the response to this increased activity, check to see if your website and business location had an increase of natural traffic due to the additional exposure.

Social Analytics Formulas to Use for ROI Reports

Reporting on Social Media Marketing involves defining a unique set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that help to measure the level of activity and effectiveness of your brand within the social realm. Social analytics can measure the impact of social media on your business. This means collecting intelligence from aggregating and analyzing online conversations and social activity generated by your brand. By using this data, your company will be able to improve and report on brand awareness and reputation, marketing and sales effectiveness, and customer satisfaction and advocacy. The benchmarks to focus on will be those that combine specific engagement metrics that result in lead generation. This reporting will help define the effectiveness of social media as it relates to marketing, sales, and customer service performance. We have created the reference charts below with basic formulas for analyzing the metrics for the KPIs listed based on an Infographic created by Awareness Inc.

These insights will help your company adapt to the social environment it participates in and to improve on the relationship people have with your marketing, sales, and customer service initiatives. Social analytics can be a combination of real-time analysis for campaigns, or historical trend analysis of engagement and growth metrics. By evaluating your company’s social analytics, you can report on the return on investment from participating in social media marketing successfully.

What are other KPIs that your company uses as a measurement for social media success? Share your ideas or questions via the comments box below. We look forward to hearing from you.

Social Media Contest Ideas for Businesses

Influencing a community on a social network can be especially effective when promoting with a contest. Engaged users will participate, promote, and provide content simply by entering to win whatever prize you are offering. Strategy behind running a successful contest in social media includes selecting a prize the will resonate with your audience and excite them to commit to the actions that promote your brand. Before choosing what type of contest to have, and which channel may garner the best results, do some basic research into what current contests appeal to your demographic that are affective. Review the contests highlighted below and the outlined framework that makes them successful promotions.

Facebook Contest #1: White Cloud – Beyond the Green Sweepstakes

Best Practice: Promoted Visually on Timeline, Tab, and App includes sharing

Prize is a Car, and a product coupon

CTA: “Like” Page to be able to Enter, Enter Zip for Coupon, Enter Sweepstakes App that includes address fields.

Facebook Contest #2: Del Monte – Crown the Cook Contest

Best Practice: Promoted Visually on Timeline, Tab, and App includes sharing.

Prizes: Trip to San Francisco, Professional Cookware, Chance to Win Cook-Off

CTA: Like the Page, Enter a Recipe, View Fan Recipes, Share contest or recipe to get a $1.00 off Coupon.

Pinterest Contest #1: AsukaBook USA Pin-spiration Contest

Best Practice: Drives traffic from Facebook, to Pinterest, to Email submission form.

Prize: 3 Photo Albums

CTA: Like Facebook Page, Follow Pinterest profile, Pin 5 images from website, Pin 1 product image, submit entry via email.

Pinterest Contest #2 Dreaming of a PINK Summer Pinterest Challenge

Best Practice: Landing Page on website for Contest, includes Facebook sharing, contest details and email submission form.

Prizes: $500 Shopping Spree and Tote, featured pin board, and 8 $50 Pink Gift Cards for finalists.

CTA’s: Create a Pinterest board with brand name/contest name in it, Pin 3 products, Pin summer images associated with PINK, submit email and board link, pin it examples.

Each social media contest above is tailored to a target audience and is hosted where that audience is most likely to participate, promote, and engage with the brand. By providing the right prize incentive, they have leveraged the most from the value a contest can provide when influencing a community. If your company needs to grow a social media presence, we are here to help with strategy and implementation best practices. Shoot us your ideas in the comments below, or email us for answers to your questions.

Google+ Unexpected Design Changes

Unexpected design changes to Google+ pages and profiles emerged this week without warning to page owners. If you are not familiar with Google+ Pages, we included a diagram in a newsletter article,” What’s the “Plus” about on Google” earlier this year. The original page design was reformatted to include new navigation tools, a panoramic cover image, Explore page, and additional insights that drop down from posts. When Facebook announced the conversion to Timeline for Businesses, there was a one-month publish/preview option that gave companies time to design, and strategize how to use the new format before it went live. With Google+ apparently page enhancements and changes will simply be introduced when already implemented. Here is a review of what to expect when you log into your Google+ Business Page account.

Page design includes a Cover image, Explore page, and new navigation tools. Originally, there were five scrapbook images those images can now be replaced with a panoramic cover image that spans behind the larger profile thumbnail at the top of the page. The navigation to the stream, photos, circles, etc. has moved to a left hand ribbon - that is drag and drop customizable - and includes a new landing page labeled “Explore”.

On the Explore page you’ll find trending topics, recent posts, who to follow, and a “What’s hot on Google+” slider. Personalize the amount information from “What’s hot” shared on your home page with this tool.

Search results have a new look that promotes business pages. Google+ search results used to reveal posts with relevant keywords, then required sorting to view people/page results. A new results page format includes people/page results on the right side, and sorting options at the top.

User profiles get a new Hangouts page. Although this feature is not present within business page profiles, it is important to note the change in the user experience. With the new landing page for hangouts, users can see hang outs on air – hang outs that are recorded – or join hangouts in process.

If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of creating a Google+ Business Page for your company, or require a social media marketing audit to assess your performance within Google+, please contact us or call us: 800.787.0497 for help.

Are you “Hot” on Google+?

If you’ve explored Google+, whether from your personal account or the one you are using for your business, you’ve probably noticed the “What’s hot” button in the left-hand navigation. What is “What’s hot?” It’s another Google algorithm at work – selecting the most popular posts from across Google+ and compiling them into one place.

Currently, the “What’s hot” algorithm doesn’t take any personalization into account when displaying results. Although many of the posts may not be relevant to you, there are still the benefits of discovering new, interesting things and seeing what types of content are drawing everyone’s attention around the net.

That second point is important. The marketing benefits of getting your content featured as “hot” are great. You gain the potential of having your content seen, shared, and interacted with by the entire social network – even people who don’t have you in a circle. Being featured can definitely be considered a viral success. So, to appear in the feed, you must cater to user interests.

Google does not divulge what specific factors can push a piece of content into the “What’s hot” feed. However, a little observation and common sense indicate the piece has to have the makings of popularity. Nearly every single piece of hot content has an accompanying image and several comments. They also have lots of +1’s, as well as shares (although, these amounts may be skewed by appearing in the “What’s hot” feed – which will dramatically increase +1’s and shares just from sheer visibility).

By creating image based content that engages your users and invites a rapport with them, you increase your chances of appearing in the “What’s hot” feed. Monitor popular trends, and give your spin on it. As with all things SEO, quality content that considers the end user will win the day.

2011 Trends of Marketing with Videos Revealed

The concept behind marketing with video makes sense for social media for many reasons. People are attracted to a visual medium, and video can provide stimulus for both the eyes and the ears. There is a power behind providing your message in video if it’s done well, and engages the audience. Basic concepts of creating videos aren’t so different from traditional marketing campaigns where a good story is the core concept behind the messaging. Once the video is produced, uploading to YouTube and providing keyword rich titles, descriptions, meta tags to enhance the video’s exposure is also a key to marketing success.

In The Q4 2011 Video Marketing Survey and Video Trends Report by Web Video Marketing Council (WVMC) and Flimp Media shows that video marketing continues to trend upward as a strong marketing vehicle.

The latest survey results from the Web Video Marketing Council show that:

81% of marketing professionals say that they have used video in their online marketing efforts.

67% of marketing professionals have posted online video to their websites and 61% to social media sites.

52% of respondents have used video email marketing and of those that have used it, 88% report that integrating video with email marketing has made a positive impact.

Social Media is the second largest used application for distributing marketing videos:

As the majority of the social channels support video sharing, it is clear why marketers continue to find value in participating in these platforms. The added SEO value from optimizing videos to rank in organic search results also presents another viable reason to invest in this format. As online marketing and social media marketing strategies develop, expect video to be the most sought after medium for communicating messaging to consumers.

Introduction to Blogging for Business using Tumblr

If your business has already seen the value of the blogging, and invests in creating unique content each week, then Tumblr is definitely a social network to utilize for exposure. If your business is considering a creating blog, but has not decided where to host it, then learn more about the features of Tumblr within this post. Tumblr is a mix between Twitter and WordPress offering a less verbose form of blogging where users can post updates with text, photos, quotes, links, dialogues, audio, video, slideshows, and more. Below are the basic features that are included when participating in this free micro-blogging platform.

Customizable Account:

Design unique themes for your profile landing page to support your brand

Configure an about page or description page with external links

Create a unique url for the blog by re-directing to Tumblr

Combine the use of Google Analytics and Feedburner for page insights

Publishing Options:

Mobile and email applications

Phone number to record audio blogs

Ability to pre-schedule with a post queue

Re-blogging (embedding other blogs into yours)

Photosets and other apps for organizing content

News Feed Syndication to both Facebook and Twitter

Bookmarketlet tool for one-click sharing of external sources

Contributor content with an unlimited number of people and audience members

Optimized Content:

Uses url slugs and xml sitemaps for search engine visibility

Uses tags and hash tags for trending topics

Accepts high-resolution photos

Can organize and share to specific groups/individuals

You own the copyright for all content created

Just listing a few of the options available begins to describe the value this network offers a brand. Over the next few weeks we will continue to examine and expand upon the features of Tumblr, and the ways to effectively use the network to blog for your business.