Simple social media marketing

Social media marketing is a black art for many companies.

Engaging with your customers online can be very scary if you haven’t done it before. Although it has its challenges it can offer brilliant insights into what they think of you. It can also give you the opportunity to head off issues before they get out of control and win support from a sophisticated and sceptical audience.

Beyond the simple idea of talking to your customers in the way that suits them best (which has to be good), it also extends the reach of your organisation way beyond the bounds of your own website and can add a lot of value in terms of search engine optimisation (SEO), which is something I’ll discuss in a later post.

In a previous post I discussed talking to your customers with Twitter. In this superb article, originally posted on Marketing 2.0, Lois Kelly offers another 12 ideas to try.

“Many companies still think of Facebook or blogs when they hear ’social media’.  Here are 13 approaches and my assessment of their value and cost.

Shareable content

1. Social tagging: add social media bookmarks/functionality on every page of your site. This will increase your keyword relevancy and organic search rankings, reducing paid search costs. Value: High/Cost: Low

2. Social mediafy your campaigns: create content people want to share; tap into right social media rigger points, places and people. This will increase viral effect, getting greater reach for less than paid media, traditional PR. Value: High/Cost: Moderate

3. Badges, widgets, ringtones: make it easy for people to promote your company ‘wearing’ badges, sharing branded music. Value: Low/Cost: Low

4. Embed customer reviews/recommendations in your site: Online reviews are second only to personal advice from a friend as the driver of purchase decisions. So why not make it easy for people to decide when they come by your site? Value: High/Cost: Moderate

5. Create a YouTube channel, strategy: We live in a video world. Marketing needs to, too. Value: Moderate/Cost: Moderate to High

6. Take blogging to the next level: move from corporate mouthpiece to more of an online media property with high value to customers and prospects. Value: Moderate/Cost: Moderate

7. Use social sharing sites: Got great content? Share it and tag it where people can find it. Like on Slideshare.net. Value: Low/Cost: Low

Engaging

8. Create a Twitter channel, strategy: There’s a reason why Twitter, which has grown from 4 million 54 million users ini the past year, is disrupting Facebook, email and blogging. Head on over to Pistachio to get all the stats and good business cases on this trend. And then just get on so you experience what it’s all about. Value: Moderate/Cost: Low to Moderate

9. Create ambassador programs: So many of your employees and customers want to help your company by commenting on blogs, Twittering, facilitating communities. Figure out a way to make it easy for people who love you to share the love. That’s word of mouth at its best and social media makes it easy to activate. Value: High/Cost: Moderate to High

Insights/Ideas

10. Create a system to monitor social media conversations: Track issues and trends good and bad to be able to react; ’see’ how campaigns working or not and adjust; get competitive insights, nip problems before they’re big problems; inject Web 2.0 into customer service function. Value: Moderate to High/Cost: Low to Moderate

11. Tap into the wisdom of your crowds: hold webstorm brainstorming sessions and online raves to get ideas from employees, customers, partners on how to solve problems small and big, how to do things better, how to stop doing things that aren’t so valuable. You’ll be able to cut costs, prioritize more easily, find new ideas. Plus when people participate and feel heard they’re more likely to share positive word of mouth about your company. Value: Moderate to High/Cost: Moderate to High

12. Map your social media ecosystem: use social analytics to understand what’s being talked about in your industry about your company; your social media hot spots; who your advocates and detractors are, and what content your audience likes. Value: Low to Moderate/Cost: Low to Moderate

Communities

13. Bring people together: develop specialised communities for like-minded people to share advice, get help, offer help, learn, solve problems, be entertained, create new business models, or change the world. One of the secrets to community success: tapping into deeply-felt and/or widely-felt issues. Check out The Tribalization of Business site, with results from last year’s study and the 2009 survey to learn more about communities. Value: High/Cost: Moderate to High”

Most of these ideas cost very little and present little or no risk to your organisation. Some might not be for you but I would suggest that at least one or two of these things should form part of every company’s social media strategy.

Ursus Media can develop your digital marketing strategy, help integrate it with your overall marketing approach and help you engage with your customers in many different ways. If you’re not sure where to start we run regular courses in social media for business and can teach you how get the maximum benefit from your social media efforts.