Mention social media marketing and most people think of Facebook and Twitter. Sure, they are the biggest players on the Internet…or are they?

It’s true that Facebook and Twitter receive a lot of visitors each day, but that doesn’t make them the biggest players when it comes to social media marketing. There are some businesses that don’t seem to be able to make an impression on either of those sites, yet they find real success connecting with their audience on Pinterest or MySpace.

Where is your target audience online?

Social media sites are not all the same. Each site draws a different group of people for different reasons. With over 900 million users, Facebook has the widest appeal when it comes to demographics; however, each group has a different agenda when logging in. “Millenials” tend to want to upload photos, banter with their friends, and organize party dates – they really are social. Parents will log in to check on their children, compare notes with friends, ask questions, then log out again.  While that’s a bit of a generalization, it’s clear that everyone uses social media just a bit differently.

“If you look at the latest fad in social media, it’s Pinterest,” shared Social Media Strategist Caroline Melberg. “By all accounts, Pinterest is driving more traffic than Facebook and Twitter combined for some niches. When it comes to Pinterest, the audience is 75%-80% female, generally mothers, and mostly interested in fashion, food, personal services and baby-related goods. If you deal in any of those niches, then you may well find that Pinterest is the best social media channel in which you should market.”

When considering a social media marketing campaign, you need to strategically segment the social media channels that are available. Analyze each one to see whether or not your audience (potential customers) is heavily involved, and if so, find out in what way. Just because the numbers are large, that doesn’t mean you are going to get a huge response. By carefully assessing each option, you can then plan a marketing campaign that doesn’t just deliver your message to the right audience, but one that delivers that message in a way that is acceptable to them in that channel.

“The days are long gone where you can just pump content through Facebook and Twitter,” said Melberg. “You now need to be smarter in how you approach social media – more importantly, smarter in how you assess your approach to each social media site.”

Many business owners are asking themselves if they should be using Google+. Josh Lloyd, chief technology officer of ShopVisible, recently shared an article on Forbes.com with his recommendations of why businesses should use the tool.

Lloyd’s main points for his recommendation were, “Better social search rankings,” “It broadens your consumer appeal,” and “Potential to upsell, cross sell and just sell.”

There are actually a few other important pieces of information that must be included when deciding whether or not to use Google+…

First, it is necessary to distinguish the difference between Google +1 and Google +.

Google +1 is a button you can place on your website that will help you in search if people “+1″ you.

Google+ is a sharing site that allows you to interact with others, much like a social networking site but with the added benefit of using Google’s other shared products (mail, youTube, calendar, docs, etc.) with everyone in your network – much like cloud computing.

“Lloyd’s article is a bit confusing because he does what a lot of people do, and that is cross the streams between Google+ and Google +1,” shared Social Media Strategist Caroline Melberg.

In the article, Lloyd mentions, “Unlike the Facebook Like button, the +1 button is not limited to use within the confines of the social network, but rather it’s open to anyone searching on Google.”

“This statement is true – the +1 button shows up in search results and if people click on it, it will help you in search,” said Melberg. “However, what Lloyd doesn’t’ mention is that the Facebook ‘Like’ button can also be placed anywhere across the web – on any website or blog – so people can Like you from wherever they are…but not within the Google search results.”

Here’s the bottom line: yes, businesses should consider implementing both Google+ and Google +1 into their overall search and social media strategy, particularly if search engine optimization is one of their overall goals.

However, if word of mouth and reaching your audience is a more primary goal than SEO, then it may be too early to jump into Google+, (with 100 million users) as it is a community of early-adopters at this point (not necessarily where your potential customers are spending a lot of time yet).

It may make more sense for businesses interested in driving word of mouth to really maximize the potential of Facebook (with 850 million+ users) for their business before investing the time necessary to branch out to Google+ effectively and strategically.

Should small businesses add the Google +1 button to their website?  Absolutely, there is no reason to not do this as it can help with search engine optimization and is a low-time-commitment activity (adding the button to your site is not complex, but you may need your webmaster to help you).

However, if you are going to add the Google +1 button, then you should also consider integrating other social media connectivity (such as the Facebook “Like” button, Twitter “Follow” button, Pinterest “Follow” button) to your site as a part of your overall strategy. You may also need to look at the design of your site and determine where and how you will place these on your pages effectively for maximum usability.

Are you one of the many magazine readers who have been scanning up a storm while flipping through the pages of favorite publications? According to Nellymoser, a mobile marketing firm, the use of their QR codes by magazines has spiked by 228% over the last year.

QR code to view our packages.

What does this mean for the publications? “It’s clearly a great opportunity for the print industry to keep up with the ever-increasing use of technology,” said Online Marketing Strategist Caroline Melberg. “Since 40% of mobile phone users have smartphones – and that number is increasing – the use of QR codes will most likely continue to grow.”

BizReport.com reported on the findings, sharing that 2011 saw a major increase in the printing of QR codes. “In 2011 almost 4,500 QR codes appeared within ads and editorial of the U.S.’s top 100 magazines. The year started off with 352 codes in Q1. It grew to 1,899 in Q4, which is 439% growth,” reported Helen Leggatt of BizReport.com.

So if printing QR codes in a magazine has a positive outcome, is it better to add more codes per issue, or will that overwhelm readers? The information showed that the more QR codes that were added in a magazine, the higher the response rate.

“QR codes are a powerful business tool because their results are very measurable,” said Melberg. “It’s very simple to use a QR code creator that allows you to track the results to see how many readers are scanning the code. You can test the effectiveness of your ads by comparing their numbers to one another to see which ones have the highest response rates.”

Do you think QR codes are helpful? Do you think they will have longevity in the online marketing world?

In a recent article in Ad Age, reporter Judy Shapiro explained that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) proposed the release of a new Top-Level Domain (TLD) Program.  TLD’s are what falls at the end of a domain: .com, .net, .org, .biz, and so on.  ICANN believes there is a market out there for more specialized domains.  These domains can be specific to your industry, such as ford.cars or travel.adventure.  It sounds neat, but is it necessary?

When considering the qualifications for getting such a domain, we believe you can get more return on your investment through strategic search engine optimization.  Your company would have to fork over a $185,000 application fee.  Social Media Strategist Caroline Melberg said, “Just think of the marketing dollars that will need to be associated with educating people to use the TLD instead of .com, which is still the holy grail.”

“This certainly opens up competition in terms of domain selling, but will internet searchers adapt to this initiative or will it just add confusion,” asked Melberg.  Just when the consumer got a better understanding of what a safe URL looks like, this TLD update could add confusion.

Shapiro notes, “With hundreds of new gTLDs likely to be introduced starting next year, consumer confusion is virtually guaranteed. There’s little doubt fraudsters intend to exploit this new window of vulnerability.”

Instead of spending more money on new domains and even more money on figuring out the most efficient way to use them, we suggest optimizing your website, blogs, and social media sites for search engines.

In an article in response to the TLD initiative, Gary Elliot, Chair of Association of National Advertisers, replied, “New search technology has improved search and innovation making the search market extremely competitive.  That competition and innovation offers consumers simple ways to find what they want intuitively without the necessity of remembering one of hundreds of TLD addresses.”

By optimizing your brand from your website to your Twitter feed, you are increasing your social authority.  Pricey top-level domains are not the cure-all to a low traffic problem.

A YouTube video based on a #1 international best-selling book, Socialnomics, by Erik Qualman, has recently been released.  Social Media Revolution 2011 is a three-minute video with the latest facts on how social media affects our communication, business, and the way we live our lives overall.  While the new video is full of remarkable information, we found the following statistics especially fascinating.

How have you seen social media connect people around the world?

1. YouTube is the 2^nd largest search engine in the world.

YouTube is a powerful search engine that generates a massive amount of traffic from all kinds of viewers – some of whom could be your potential clients.

2. The latest Ford Explorer ad on Facebook generated more traffic than a Super Bowl ad.

Compare the cost of a Super Bowl ad to a Facebok ad.  That’s a no-brainer.

3. 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations.  Only 14% trust advertisements.

Online resources, such as Yelp!, are changing the way people are deciding to buy.

4. 93% of marketers use social media for business.

Your competition is most likely active in social media – are you?

5. “We don’t have a choice in whether we DO social media.  The question is how well we DO it.”  – Erik Qualman

Qualman hits on the purpose of social media.  If you are still wondering how social media is worth your investment, now is the time to learn how measurable social media can impact your ROI.

Social media is strategic.  Are you involved in the social media revolution?

What’s more frustrating for a customer than trying to connect with a company regarding service, and that company keeps redirecting the customer to various departments? Or, how about once the customer is finally connected with a real person, the service is handled either incompletely, incorrectly, or both?

What is a disgruntled customer to do?

More and more customers are reaching out to connect with companies via social media. As a result of this, virtually any company who deals with customers should have some kind of presence on social media.

How angry do you get when you get terrible customer service?

Now is the time to define ‘presence’ on social media. ‘Presence’ does not mean the company simply has a Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn account. ‘Presence’ means that the company has people on their staff who ‘get’ practical social media. They need people whoknow how to monitor, strategize and use social media to enhance the customer service for that company, as well as the having the ability to build authority for that company and their brand.

In other words, the company must have an active and knowledgeable social media person or team in order to have an effective social media presence.  After all, a company doesn’t want a disgruntled customer to tweet to their hundreds or thousands of followers something like this:

“Epic #fail 4 @companyname Was just told it would take 2 wks to correct phone#/message. Unable to receive messages/incoming calls in meantime.”

Those 140 characters or less in Twitter can do a LOT of damage for the company’s customer relationship. And what company wants their name or brand linked to the words “epic fail”?

Time to look at a couple of companies who use social media correctly.

Take Facebook for instance. Facebook has integrated Survey Monkey for their fan page survey. This gives Facebook information they can use in discovering how Facebook users integrate with different brands or companies.

Another company who uses social media correctly is AT&T Customer Care on Twitter. Right off the bat AT&T says “AT&Ts social media care teams (https://twitter.com/ATTCustomerCare/teams) are here to help you. For more online assistance, visit http://support.att.com.” By having a Twitter account and actively and correctly using it, AT&T engages their customers, builds authority for their brand, and knows that customers with a good experience will Tweet this experience to their hundreds or thousands of followers.  A case of simple inbound marketing.

If your company is on social media but does not know how to use it effectively, or doesn’t have a social media presence at all, it’s now time to step forward.

Social Media Strategist Caroline Melberg shared a recent experience with a client that reaffirmed her opinions about automating all of your online communication.

“I was talking with a prospect recently about social media, and as I explained how we could help him manage his social media activities, he asked me, ‘Aren’t there tools that let me just automate all of that so that I can just set-it-and-forget-it?’

I paused, as the following possible responses went through my mind in rapid-fire succession.

- I don’t know – could we just automate your receptionist and have everyone who calls your company speak with a robot?
– Sure – if you want your company to look completely clueless online, you could do that.
– Um … are you human?

I chose to not say any of these rather snappy replies, and instead explained how social media is different from every other marketing tactic he’s used in the past.  It’s really more like networking than marketing – and it requires participation and building relationships to be successful.”

Melberg knows that people on social media, who understand not only how to use it but how to have it work for them, want to get to know the person behind the business before they begin to build a working relationship with the business. After all, the people behind the business are a great indication of what doing business with that company will be like.

Social media doesn’t work if you take the ‘salesy’ approach – as a matter of fact, that’s one of the best ways to get unfollowed or blocked on Twitter, and unfriended on Facebook. What used to be considered a salesy approach is now usually considered spam. Obviously, spam is THE big no-no on social media.

Recently we have received a post on Facebook saying something very similar to “I’ve ‘liked’ your page, now please return the favor and ‘like’ my page.”

Seriously?

Isn’t that a little immature? It’s like saying, “I’ll be your friend if you’ll be my friend.”

That approach didn’t work well in elementary school, and it doesn’t work well now.

A company that does work well on Twitter is Zappos. Most Zappos employees have an active account, lending their personality to the company brand, letting them be engaging, helpful and friendly with Zappos customers.  In return, their customers say marvelous things about the company. (See the screen shots)

Yes, social media takes time, and there are some time-saving tools, such as Hootsuite, that can be employed to help. But that doesn’t mean you use them only as a time saving tool and completely ignore your social media account. That is detrimental to real-time responses that are essential to your success on social media.

Social media is about building successful relationships, and aren’t successful relationships the foundation on which every successful company is built?

In our last post we shared how to accurately measure Business-to-Consumer (B2C) return on investment (ROI). Now let’s look at the business side; Business-to-Business (B2B).

Selling to consumers is different than selling to business professionals – for a variety of reasons.  Typically a B2B sale will have a higher price tag, and your sales cycle is usually much longer, just to name a couple of differences.  Additionally, B2B sales often tend to be sales of service, rather than a tangible product.  Can a business that sells to other businesses measure ROI with social media?

Absolutely!  The trick  with B2B is to know what your overall marketing goals are, and to tie your social media objectives to your overall goals.

A few questions to get you started on your measurement of social media:

-   Is it new prospects or leads you’re looking for? How many do you get each week now? How many do you want? How many leads do you need to speak with before you get a sale?

-   Is it new revenue? How many new customers do you need to achieve your revenue goals?

-   Are you looking to increase word of mouth referrals? How many referrals are you receiving now? Are you tracking them?  Where do they come from and how many do you need before you achieve a new sale?

Knowing what you want to achieve with social media, establishing concrete goals and then putting a social media strategy in place to help you achieve those goals is how you begin to determine a true ROI (return on investment) for your social media efforts.

Many people suggest that social media is not measurable – we’d beg to differ. The old saying, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” has never been more true than in social media.  To demonstrate social media return on investment (ROI), you must first determine what goals you want social media to help you achieve, and set measurements that track your progress toward your goals.

Measuring Social Media ROI for Retail (or Business-to-Consumer Sales)

Head of Marketing for Lane Bryant and creator of the Supergroup network, Jay Dunn has developed an equation that attempts to quantify your network’s value.  Called “Dunn’s Equation,” it is Network Value = Annual Value x Network.

To use this calculation, you need to know what the annual value of a new customer means to your bottom line.

Find the ROI in your social media efforts.

For example, let’s say a customer’s annual purchase from you is $500.  Assume that each member of your network has 100 followers, and 5% of those followers have similar interests.

That means your network value is:

Annual Value:  $500

Network:  100 Followers

% with Similar Behaviors:  5% (5 x $500)

Network Value = $500 + (5*$500) = $3,000

That is, $500 for the first customer from your network, and $2,500 for the referral potential from your network because of the viral, word-of-mouth nature of social media.

Jay is quick to admit that this is not highly scientific, but it is an interesting look at what the value of your network is to your business – if you’ve built your network properly.  Notice that the equation assumes that 5% of the people within your customer’s network have similar interests.  If you’ve built your network strategically to attract your target audience (as opposed to focusing on quantity over quality, for instance), then this percentage could well be higher.

As you can see, as you grow your network strategically, your network’s value grows with it.  Focusing on quantity over quality could reduce the percentage of members with similar interests, and will have a negative impact on your network value.

In our next post we’ll address measuring ROI for business-to-business sales – stay tuned!

Are you one of the many businesses interested in advertising on Facebook? If so, you’re clearly not alone. According to figures from eMarketer, Facebook‘s  advertising  revenue — which does not include revenue for “virtual currencies”  — came to an incredible $1.86 billion earned in 2010. What’s even more remarkable is that the site has only existed for less than eight years. Regardless of the site’s age, many brands have seen success when using Facebook ads as a marketing vehicle for their companies. Social Media Strategist Caroline Melberg hears quite a few questions from clients regarding small businesses starting to use Facebook ads.

“One of the biggest mistakes I see business owners making is creating and running only one ad within each campaign,” said Melberg.  “Even the smallest change in the words you choose or the graphic you use can have a large impact on the click-through-rate for your ad, so it is best to create multiple versions of your ad and test them (known as split testing or A/B testing) to see which ad gets the best response.”

A good way to do this is to create four ads for the same campaign.  Run them for a day and then view your ad statistics on Facebook to discover which ad performed the worst.  Create a new ad that is similar to your best-performing ad, but tweak it just a bit and try to see if you can beat your best ad.  Do this consistently, always replacing the ad that is getting the lowest click-through-rate with a better performing ad.

Have you used Facebook Ads for your business?