Social media marketing Archives - Beasley Direct and Online Marketing

Social Media

wpadmin — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 20:18:30 +0000

Social Media Management

Social media is about the creation and exchange of user-based content. While consumers think of social as a way to keep up with their circle of friends and acquaintances, businesses recognize it as a way to provide customer service, do market research, gain user feedback and (when done correctly) promote your brand.

Beasley’s social marketing experts help our clients achieve success in social media through a three-step process. First, we understand how to find out who the thought leaders and influencers in your space are, and what kind of content they are looking for. Then we begin to engage with the community by offering useful, nonpartisan information. Only after we have established your knowledge and expertise do we begin to talk about your product, and then we do it in a measured way while continuing to provide objective social marketing content.

We also help you to systematically listen to your social media audience to make sure your messages resonate with the decision makers you want to reach. As part of our social media management services we analyze social media traffic to your website to give you a full view of how it ties into sales or other metrics. And we help you optimize your website so it becomes part of the social media ecosystem, with sharing features for visitors who want to repost your content.

Finally, as your social media agency we work with you to create an editorial schedule that makes sense based on your market and your resources. Once you’ve become part of the conversation, you want to be a regular participant with a consistent voice. We can help you organize and leverage the expertise within your company for self-generated content, or add our original social marketing content as desired.

The initial discussion with Beasley about the goals of our campaign and the follow up completed has been a very pleasant experience. They pay attention to targets, budgets and completion of the task at hand.

— Tom Brett - Owner - Vanguard Cleaning Systems of San Antionio

Social Media Content Creation

The difference between social media and traditional or “industrial” media is that in social, the publisher and the user are co-creating value through conversation. You can write a brilliant article, but it only gains social value when users share it with their friends.

Through our seasoned social media management services experts we can help you create content that engages members of your social community on their terms, and is deemed valuable and useful based on their needs and their perception of you. This content might range from a regular schedule of update posts to short interviews (in writing or on video), customer profiles and white papers or in-depth viewpoints that reflect your thought leadership.

Much of the valuable content you can share already exists in one form or another within your company—in sales or technical expertise or the personal journeys of your management, which have shaped your corporate philosophy. Our social media content management experts can help you find these stories and draw them out in a form that is relevant to your audience. We can also help you identify the social media champions within your organization and help direct their efforts to better support your brand and value proposition.

Remember that social media has a personal voice—even when it’s a brand that is speaking. We’ll help you ensure your social media content creation results have a voice that reflects your values, mission and offerings and also that you engage with your audience in a way that is appropriate to your uniqueness and to their interests.

Blog Content Creation

Creating a corporate or organizational blog is easy. Blog content creation in a way that makes it a useful element of social media is much harder. As a blog writer, you need to be consistent, useful and interesting in order to attract readership and the attention of search engines.

Working with your team as we provide you blog management services, we can identify the best spokespeople for your values and programs, and help them establish a schedule for regular posts. As part of our blog writing services we can also interview them or work from published documents to create blog posts that reflect their viewpoints. This way, the voice of your leadership is reflected without undue pressure on managers with other responsibilities.

Timing is almost as important as content if you want to establish regular readership. We’ll recommend a posting schedule that keeps your up-to-date blog content creation in front of your readers while respecting the time or budget you have available to create your posts. We’ll also show you how you can easily repurpose existing or third-party content to generate blog content that your audience will read and share.

For a client in a service industry, for example, Beasley blog management services created a series of blog articles that highlighted seasonal concerns. In flu season, we’d write about how to keep germs under control in an office environment. In summer, we’d talk about how to secure your premises before going on vacation. These topical posts got search visibility and established our client’s authority in its field. They got clicks from people who wanted to learn about the content and were introduced to the service offering as a side benefit. Ask how Beasley blog writing services can bring the same added-value to your blog.

Advertising on Social Media

There’s a shortcut to getting noticed on social media: pay for it. As a leading social media advertising agency, Beasley focuses on three platforms that allow our clients to market with ads that appear in the conversational stream, looking very much like the individual updates from users of that social media platform.

But you need to be careful. You’ll be connecting with community members based on information they have volunteered about themselves, and you can’t violate their trust by over-marketing. Consumers can easily opt out of seeing your ads, and a poorly conceived social media campaign may backfire with negative mentions that hurt you.

Facebook now has well over 1 billion users, of which 80% are outside the U.S. and Canada. That means you can reach more people—in almost any country—with Facebook vs. television or radio advertising. Interestingly, Facebook has a very low CPM (cost per thousand impressions), yet allows advertisers to micro-target their audience. While Facebook has easy-to-use ad creation tools for the small business, it’s not much harder to create highly targeted campaigns with rich selects using the Facebook Power Editor. As a leading social media agency, we’ll be happy to tell you more.

LinkedIn is the premier business network with 270,000 members who have provided extensive information about themselves and their job history. You have the choice of advertising within the newsfeed or with a variety of right-column ad formats. Similar to Facebook, LinkedIn has self-serve advertising options but also provides a much more powerful and flexible ad creation and tracking interface through its client services team.

Twitter has the benefit of immediacy. A trending topic will be inescapable for a few hours or days, then it will be forgotten almost as quickly. If immediacy is a component of your advertising mix—whether it’s for an event, a limited time offer, or a product launch—then Twitter makes sense. As an experienced social media agency we focus on Promoted Tweets, which appear in the user’s timeline, capture the essence of current conversations, and appear at the exact time you request.

For these as well as other social media advertising campaigns, the most important considerations are to think conversationally, create an ad that matches the property, and the audience. Beasley is your social media advertising agency, ask how we can help by calling us now.

Building Followers

Followers are essential to your visibility on social media, but it’s more than a numbers game. Google Web Analytics evangelist Avinash Kaushik has defined four metrics for tracking the effectiveness of your participation: conversation, amplification, applause and economic value. We use this model to ensure the right people are engaged with your content. When key social media influencers talk about you (conversation), share your content with others (amplification) and let you know they value it with likes and +1s (applause) then economic value will be the result. And, inevitably, so will additional followers/fans/subscribers to your feeds.

How do you begin attracting quality followers who will help you to build your business? What are the secrets as to how to get followers on Twitter, how to get Facebook followers, or blog followers? Start with quality content, produced internally or with Beasley’s social marketing services support, then let your audience know about it. Monitor the channels of communication to see what others are talking about, then join the conversation with links to your content. For very high value influencers—the thought leaders who exist in any field—it’s worth a direct effort to reach out, introduce your value proposition, and invite engagement. Contact them by email, or post on their internal blogs; ask yourself how to get blog followers, how do thought leaders attract blog followers? Offer content (via links, or perhaps an offer of a guest post) that supports what they are doing to bring value to their readers.

When Beasley’s social marketing services team works on a social media schedule with our clients, we tie it to the audience you want to reach. If you need to achieve a critical mass of conversations with a particular group, we’ll make sure you have content for that group and that they are aware of it so they will engage with you. We’ll also advise you on the one thing you should not do: pay for followers. Many of these “accounts” are manufactured identities that have no value to contribute to the social conversation. Worse, they can earn you demerits with search engines and legitimate platforms. Let Beasley’s expert social marketing services team bring you quality followers instead.

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Building an Online Only Brand Using Display and Search Advertising

John Thyfault — Thu, 01 Mar 2018 06:06:28 +0000

A Case Study for a European Wireless Speaker Company Launching Their Products in the U.S. for the First Time.

Launching a new brand of consumer electronics products is always a challenge. To raise brand awareness and drive the eventual purchase of a new product takes effort and time. The consumer electronics category is by its very nature competitive with short product cycles and shifting consumer expectations.

Beasley Direct and Online Marketing, Inc. was approached by a European speaker manufacturer to launch a new brand of high end, wireless speakers in the US market. The company decided only to launch into the online channel, focusing its efforts on selling direct to the consumer and not via retail. While this made for a more efficient sales model from a cost perspective, it did present a challenge around building brand awareness.

The visibility of a product on the shelf in a retailer, with the ability to interact with it in person, can be a compelling experience that adds to a brand’s awareness and eventual sales. The “touch and feel” element, along with the experience of the speaker’s sound in person cannot be underplayed for a new brand. The downside of filling the retail channel is of course the product sitting on a shelf, with its revenue being frozen as it waits for a customer to purchase it.

We Implemented a Three-Step Brand Awareness Building Process for Launching this New Brand Online

We worked with our client to overcome the challenges inherent in launching a brand online in a very competitive category by developing a three-step strategy:

Raise awareness through display advertising and social media
Remarket to consumers who have seen the first “touch” with additional display ads and focused search ads
Take advantage of the awareness created by online media, driving the customer directly to the company’s website and giving them the chance to purchase either directly or with a “Buy with Amazon” link.

This approach allowed for the brand to go from being unknown with virtually no sales early in the year to meeting its revenue and margin goals in time for the holiday season.

Step one involved identifying the right target profiles and reaching out to them using the Google Display Network and Facebook. The client came to the table with a robust profile of who the likely target buyers were based on focus groups and product research. We used that profile to put the ads in front of the right consumer. The profile shifted over time as dynamic purchase data replaced static research. This was done by paying close attention to click metrics, time on site, add to cart and other metrics with a focus on marketing channel and campaign attribution using Google Analytics.

As the marketing outreach progressed, we embarked on the second step of launching remarketing programs, testing both marketing channel sources (Facebook, specific sites on the display network, mobile vs. desktop traffic) and geographies. Over time, the focus of these campaigns was narrowed to a select set of cities that demonstrated a high propensity to buy.

We Discovered Branded Ads Performed Better Than Product Feature Ads

One surprising result of the monitoring and testing of the messaging for search in AdWords was that the branded campaigns performed exceptionally well over time, but the general feature/benefit campaigns remained lackluster. Many of the individual feature/benefit campaigns were paused due to under-performance no matter how much the ads were tested and revised. Paying attention to the data was key in this decision to shift spend to where it performed the best.

The third step in the process, not necessarily linear, was to update the website to optimize it for the traffic once it arrived. The site went through two iterations in design with input from us, improving overall metrics. But most importantly, it was recognized early on that a challenge existed with brand recognition and trust for the consumer landing on the site. This was addressed in two ways: shifting reviews to a more prominent location on the site and by adding the “Buy with Amazon” button in the checkout. This created a level of trust and endorsement from the Amazon brand, as well as allowing for an easy checkout process.

Throughout the campaign, the success metrics, sales, add to carts, time on site and repeat visits were refined and tied to actual revenue. This allowed for a continual testing program that narrowed focus on supporting what was successful.

Net Revenue Goals Were Achieved in Time for Holiday Sales

The wireless speaker launch and follow-on marketing were very successful by the holiday season despite being part of an incredibly competitive segment of the consumer electronics category. The brand met its goals in both raw unit volume and overall net revenue. This success of building brand awareness would not have been achieved without a well thought out strategy that had a willingness to revise underlying assumptions and a high degree of flexibility resulting in implementation changes as the market dictated. Constant testing and refinement of messaging, targeting, ad creative, landing pages and the shopping cart were key to this success. By paying close attention to the real-time results of the marketing initiatives, constantly building off of successes and quickly ending poor performing campaigns, the brand, with our help achieved its goals and positioned the company for future growth.

By John Thyfault, Vice President of Search and Social Media Marketing

Would you like to build your brand’s awareness? Contact us for a free consultation.

Learn about optimizing landing pages to increase sales in this article.

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Social Media Advertising: Driving Response from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter

John Thyfault — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 17:59:58 +0000

Why is social media advertising different? What are the best practices?

The big difference between social media and other online advertising is sharing. Users’ love of divulging details about their personal and business lives sets it apart from email marketing and traditional display advertising. And leveraging what people share about themselves on social media can be very profitable.

In short, social media advertising helps you find new customers by using users’ own shared information to identify interest. Its tools let you target the right people before they even begin their online search for products or services – giving you advanced options for targeting and conversion tracking, plus the reach offered by social media’s presence on mobile devices.

Three key reasons for making social media part of your advertising strategy:

1. Targeting

Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter enable you to target your advertising to potential customers using a remarkable level of demographic and psychographic data. From sign-up processes to users’ interactions on social networks, user-provided data gives you precise coordinates for targeting consumers and businesses.

Target what they do, not just who they are.

Social media is also about a users’ interaction with his or her community. This dynamic allows you to better understand who they are and what their trigger points might be – giving you powerful leverage when it comes to arousing interest in your brand or product.

The perfect application of one-to-one marketing science.

Based on the model of one-to-one peer relationships, social media platforms provide you the ultimate in opt-in advertising. You can target users with goods and services matching the needs and preferences they’ve shared. Even better, your ad campaigns can reflect sensitivity to users’ opt-out choices.

2. Reach

Social media is the most popular online activity and offers the potential to vastly extend the reach of your advertising. Three out of five Web requests go through social media, meaning 60% percent of all web traffic is social media based.

Perfect for the big swing to mobile advertising.

Marketing via smartphones is the single biggest wave in digital media advertising. It’s also a perfect native option, since mobile users check Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn multiple times a day.

Mobile ads claim the lion’s share of time spent on social media.

3. Cost Effectiveness

The targeting and tracking tools available can help you achieve very low Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) – the cost of actually obtaining a new customer. This means your pricing in terms of Cost Per Conversion, Cost Per Click and Cost Per Thousand Placement can be much more affordable if a lower CPA is factored into their costs.

Next up, 10 Best Practices. But first there’s one big thing to avoid:

Inappropriate Messaging
If your messaging is off, users will opt out of your ads, lowering your display ranking and hurting future campaigns. Worse, offend one user, and they’ll tell the whole community – killing your campaign and damaging your brand. And be aware that some communities are sensitive to what advertisers know about them. Ads that they feel violate their privacy will a raise red flag with your name on it.

10 Best practices across all platforms.

1. Set Goals and Metrics

First, define your campaign’s goal and then the action you want people to take in support of it. Are you looking for direct sales or leads? Do you want signups for your newsletter, or requests for a free sample? Think it through. Then decide the action most likely to support your goal.

Make use of the guidance provided by social media platforms for optimizing your ads to accomplish specific goals.

Metrics: Decide the level of response required to judge your campaign’s success. For example, if you’re going to tie revenue to workshop attendance, decide the dollar value of each signup and the total number of signups needed to be profitable. Also assign metrics to actions that have no near term monetary value, like website visits. Put a percentage on the boost in website traffic you want.

2. Create Lifetime and Daily Budgets

A Lifetime Budget lets you select an amount to spend over the entire span of a campaign. Once set, you can’t go over budget. If you forget, you can end up in a deep hole very fast as your ads cycle and recycle. A Daily Budget controls your spend per day. You stipulate how much you will spend on a daily basis and your ads will cease showing once you hit your daily budget cap.

3. Do Your Research

Regardless of what seems to be the best platform for your campaign, take the time to explore the relationships between the demographic and psychographic patterns of your audience. Don’t just assume Facebook is better for B2C or LinkedIn for B2B.

Example: If you are advertising shared business plane leases, research shows that people who are interested in private flight also tend to be interested in performance cars. So advertising to Facebook users who are into sports cars may be worth considering – instead of solely focusing on LinkedIn lists.

Always explore the relationships between the demographic and psychographic patterns of your audience. For example, people who are into flying tend also to be high performance car enthusiasts.

4. Be Consistent

Be sure that your social media campaigns align with your other advertising initiatives. Don’t bring up question marks in people’s minds by making your ads inconsistent with what you’re using for paid search, display advertising, billboards, etc.

5. Pop!

Social media advertising is much different from paid search – where people are actively looking for a solution like yours. So do whatever you can to give your ads some bite, some pop.

6. Align Targeting Options to Objectives

A big benefit of social media advertising comes from the wide range of targeting options the platforms can support. But be sure you’re matching your available targeting options with your advertising objectives.

7. Test and Retest

Constantly swap out ad versions showing different treatments of the same content. Use the better-performing versions to keep adding refinements and test them over the course of your campaign. It’s an ongoing cycle where you continually apply the lessons learned.

8. Schedule To Your Advantage

Schedule ads to match users’ schedules. Look at your target audience, what you’re promoting, and determine the times they’re likely to be on social media. Consider week-part targeting, too – that is, running your ads on particular weekdays, over weekends, etc.

9. Automate

Whenever you can, use your platform to automatically make optimization decisions based on ad performance. For instance, in Facebook you can set up a campaign stating a daily budget of $150 and it will automatically bid for you on either an impression or per-click basis to garner as many clicks as possible for your $150.

10. Repeat!

Gather data and set regular meetings to analyze results, go over the metrics, plan changes and decide how to implement them as your campaign moves forward. Repeat over and over to ensure the best bang for your social advertising buck.

* * * *

John Thyfault

This post was authored by John Thyfault, Vice President of Search & Social Strategy, and Laurie B. Beasley, President of Beasley Direct & Online Marketing.

Laurie B. Beasley

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How to Optimize Your Social Media Posting Strategy

wpadmin — Thu, 29 Oct 2015 23:00:29 +0000

An Effective Social Media Posting Strategy

Social media has quickly grown to become a major part of online marketing. In fact, 84% of B2B marketers report using social media in some form during their campaigns. Currently, Facebook remains the most popular site among social media users according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center. LinkedIn is reported as the second most used social media site. Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter following behind. Developing an effective social media posting strategy is essential to your campaign’s success.

(http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/social-media-update-2014/)

With all these different social media sites competing for your potential client’s attention, it can be hard to plan an effective social media posting strategy. You, as a social media marketer should ask the following questions. When is the best time to post on each of the social media sites? Is there a ‘compromise time’ where one can optimally post on all the sites? If each site has a different optimal posting time, then how can a social media manager manage effectively manage their social media campaigns?

Your Social Media Posting Strategy: Optimal Posting Times

Facebook

Facebook is the largest social media site with over 936 million daily users worldwide. Surprisingly though, the number of user visits decrease significantly during the work week. Facebook get the largest amount of its user traffic during the weekend, with Sunday receiving the highest number of user visits. Facebook traffic is at its highest each day between 8 a.m.-9 a.m. and 5 p.m.-1 a.m. Posting on Facebook should be avoided between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. when user traffic is at its lowest. Timing is an important part of your social media posting strategy for Facebook and other social sites.

Unlike most other social media sites, LinkedIn is geared toward the working professional rather than a personal profile. Because of this, most users log into the site and view content during business hours. The best days to post on LinkedIn are Tuesday through Thursday during the work hours of 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Tuesday between 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. is the absolute best time to post out of the entire week, with the highest level of clicks and shares. Posting on LinkedIn should be avoided between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.. That is when the lowest amount of users are logged in.

From recipes and crafts to home décor and health tips, Pinterest is every millennial mother’s best friend. In fact, 65% of Pinterest users are women who have at least one child. Unsurprisingly, the best times to pin new content on Pinterest are either between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. or 8 p.m. and 1 a.m. during the week. This is when a majority of Pinterest users are more likely to not be preoccupied with work or with taking care of their family. During the weekends, however, this changes with Saturday morning having the highest level of traffic. This is most likely due to users having more time to browse and try out ideas found on the site.

(https://www.business2community.com/pinterest/best-time-days-pin-pinterest-01152667)

It is important to note that Pinterest users have a different viewing trend than found on other sites. According to user statistics, 52% of Pinterest users visit the site less than once per week. So it is most important that social media managers post often during prime viewing times throughout the week to better their chances of catching their audience while they are logged in.

Instagram

Instagram focuses more on image and video sharing than on worded posts, as Facebook and Twitter do. Businesses can post pictures of their products or snapshots of company events,and followers can leave comments under the images. According to a survey run by Latergramme, the best times to post on Instagram is 2 a.m. and 5 p.m. The 2 a.m. slot catches the late night teen and young adult crowd who may be up late with school assignments, while the 5 p.m. slot grabs the working users who may be finishing up or done with their work day.

(https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/25/get-instagram-likes_n_6751614.html)

Most Instagram users view content pretty regularly throughout the week with Wednesday being the most popular day, and Monday being the least popular day, by a small margin.

Twitter

Most Twitter users visit the site and engage with content before and during work or school hours. Usage drops off after the school and work day are over, at about 6pm. The best time to post and increase the likelihood of receiving retweets is between 12 p.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, with 5 p.m. having the highest number of active users and retweets.

(https://neilpatel.com/blog/science-of-social-timing/)

It is important to remember that a Tweet has an average shelf life of eight hours. Therefore it would be wise to plan to post more than one tweet, the recommend amount would be at least four, and stagger them throughout the day’s optimal posting times.

Google+

Google+ has been rapidly growing as a social media platform for the past few years. With the addition of communities and interactive posts, Google+ has become a site that is greatly focused on people who wish to communicate with like minded groups. Most of the users who visit Google+ log on during the work week between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. Posts made on Wednesdays at 9 a.m. are found to receive the largest amount of traffic out of the entire week.

Effective Social Media Management

As demonstrated by the above data, there is no one perfect ‘compromise time’ to post on all social media sites. Each site caters to a different demographic who will log on at different times depending on the content these sites offer. So how is an online marketer supposed to manage an effective social media posting strategy calendar? There are several tools available that do just that.

Some social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, have features built into the site that allow you to schedule your post. When you post from your profile page on Facebook, a small clock icon can be found on the bottom of your post window. This opens up tabs that allow you to set a date and time for your content to post. Twitter, on the other hand, allows marketers using their Twitter’s Ad Products to schedule their organic and promoted tweets from the blue tweet button.

Another option available to online marketers is to use online social media management programs. Such as Hootsuite, Latergramme, Followerwonk, or any others to manage and schedule all of their social media content. These programs can greatly complement your social media posting strategy.

*** * The Author * ***

This post was authored by Elizabeth A. Beasley, Account Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc.

Elizabeth Beasley serves as a social media manager at Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc www.BeasleyDirect.com. Elizabeth manages new client on-boarding and accounts, social media, corporate presentations, corporate website, and database maintenance. She also serves as an account manager for the Direct Marketing Association of Northern California www.DMAnc.org, managing event logistics, registration and promotion. She holds a B.A. in Communications from National University.

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Effective Social Media Marketing: The Same Old Rules Apply

beasleydirect — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 17:06:56 +0000

The Importance of Segmentation & Targeting.

Traditional public relations uses the media gatekeepers to get the message through to the audience. That means that you must segment your audience, determine which media best targets your audience, and craft the message. The message must appeal not just to the intended audience, but also to the media gatekeepers themselves.

In social media, the gatekeepers have been eliminated, allowing companies unhindered access to their audiences. This does not mean that you get to throw out the rulebook. In effective social media marketing the same old rules apply. Segment your audience, determine which social media will best target your intended audience, and craft your message to appeal to your audience.

Targeting Social Media

Not all social media will be equally productive. It depends on what you are selling, how you are selling it, and who your customers are. Just because Twitter is wildly popular doesn’t mean Twitter is the place to put a lot of time and attention if you are selling gynecological instruments. As Forbes Magazine put it:

“Social networks have been ‘played out’ in the consumer landscape for around a decade now. We are all used to Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and others. It was inevitable perhaps that the business world would develop the networking and collaboration principles of social and evolve them into something that could a) serve users and b) be monetized. But simply creating one network for all business users is too broad a proposition. Train drivers don’t want to network with brain surgeons and landscape gardeners.”*

B2B Organizations and Social Media Marketing

This is especially true for the B2B organization. If you are promoting to IT professionals, there is Spiceworks. If you are a university professor who must publish and hopes to gain citations of h/her work by others, there is Academia.edu. For physicians, there is Doximity. The gynecological instrument manufacturer will do a great deal better on Doximity than Twitter, where they will be competing with 304 million other monthly users—most of whom are not doctors.

That being said, should you abandon Twitter, Facebook and the rest? That depends on your social media marketing resources and whether or not you are reaching people effectively through these social media streams. Twitter is still a productive place to promote events, white papers and the like. Facebook for the B2B company may not be making much sense these days. People seem to be using Facebook for personal news and interests. So, if you’re a nail polish manufacturer or you’re selling cute puppies or kittens, it probably works wonders. Pinterest is great if you have a lot of visual interest (food, clothes, crafts). But, if you’re selling IT services, not so much. LinkedIn is really for individual professionals who want to network with similar professionals. You can get a LinkedIn business page (as you can on Facebook), but the jury is still out on the effectiveness of these pages.

None of these social networks will do you any harm (unless you do something stupid), but you need to determine on a case-by-case basis whether they are doing you any good. If not, put your resources into the most productive social media streams.

Targeting Content to Your Audience in Social Media Marketing

Crafting your message to appeal to your audience is still the basic #1 most important rule of communications. This is regardless of the media employed to deliver that message. At the same time, you have to be aware of the value of keywords in social media. This will assure that search engines will select and deliver the right message to the right person. It’s a balancing act—but that, too, is nothing new in marketing.

Here are a few rules to follow when creating content for social media

Have a valid keyword list

We have covered how to do this multiple times on this blog, and here are a few links to give you some ideas:

Put yourself in the shoes of the customer

What does the customer want to know? How can you make things better for the customer? Give away information that your customer values to build interest, trust—and eventually—desire to purchase.

Do not focus on your company or your product

Focus instead on the customer’s needs. No one cares that your admin had a baby, but they care very deeply when you solve one of their pressing problems.

Invite a conversation

This is easier said than done, but the objective is to get your customers involved in an interactive discussion with you and among themselves. An engaged follower is more likely to become a customer. How you achieve this depends largely on the nature of your business. Ask questions. Invite people’s viewpoints on critical issues in your industry. Have a contest with a giveaway. There are lots of ways to do this, and many of them do not involve spending money.

Does Social Media Work?

As marketers, we are always looking for ways to improve our results—and perhaps more important, prove our results. Marketing automation software developers have eagerly tried to give us what we want: lots and lots of numbers. But sometimes the numbers don’t actually mean a great deal.

What does it mean, for example, when 75 people re-Tweeted your post? It obviously means that more people potentially saw your post, but how does that translate to customer acquisition or sales? How many people actually read your post out of that number?

Social media occupies the same position as traditional public relations; when you’re doing it right, it works, but it’s hard to quantify how or how much. The most reliable way to know it’s working is when a customer says, “I saw your post on Twitter,” or “I follow your blog.”

Automated social media marketing software can help in this respect. Software that can take over the task of posting for you (although someone still has to develop content and load it in the queue) takes some of the sheer drudgery off your hands. And there are tools to analyze and refine your Twitter feed, for instance, getting rid of false or inappropriate followers and helping you to more accurately target your audience. Managing social media takes the same strategic mindset and hard work as any other marketing vehicle.

* The Specialized Vertical Social Network Cometh

*** The Author ***

Kathy Keenan, Social Media Marketing Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing

This post was authored by Kathy Keenan, Social Media Marketing Manager, Beasley Direct Marketing. Contact Kathy at kkeenan@beasleydirect.com.

Kathy brings depth of experience in business and high technology communications, having worked in public relations, marketing communications, and social media for clients ranging from semiconductors and networking equipment to consumer goods.

Prior to joining the Beasley Direct Marketing team, she worked as a senior writer/editor for Cisco Systems, Inc., developing thought leadership for C-level executives across industries ranging from healthcare to telephony. Before Cisco, Kathy worked for 10 years as a freelance writer and editor, working on marketing materials for a variety of clients.

Before becoming a freelancer, Kathy was CEO of Oak Ridge Public Relations, Inc., an award-winning PR agency in Silicon Valley, with clients such as IBM, Solectron, Philips Semiconductor, Bay Networks, Epson, and Xilinx. Kathy founded this company and managed it for 13 years.

Kathy was vice president of Tycer-Fultz-Bellack (now BBDO), formerly one of the largest advertising and PR firms in Silicon Valley. She managed a team of professionals who delivered strategic communications services to clients such as Informix, Exar, and Monolithic Memories. She started her career in PR at Acurex Corporation, an aerospace technology firm.

Kathy is a published novelist, writing under the name K.D. Keenan.

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