Written by Anne Miller
Wednesday, 05 May 2010 23:54
Here’s A Few More Ideas About Social Media
“Social media” marketing has been the buzz internationally for the past few years. In Australia, it has had a slow start but the wave is starting to build up now.
1. What is social media? Social media is simply a conversation between people online. Common social media forums include Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. These allow people to easily chat about what they’re doing, swap jokes, photos, videos and play games together. When marketers join in, the theory is that when someone you know says “Joe’s pizzas are great”, you’re very likely to believe this and try the pizza … more likely, in fact, than when Joe himself says his pizzas are great in a flyer in your letterbox.
2. Social media does not replace other forms of marketing. A social media marketing strategy should be part of an overall promotional package. Social media may be less expensive than other forms of marketing but don’t forget to factor in the cost of your time. It takes a substantial investment in time to build relationships with potential customers online as well as posting regular updates, engaging with followers and responding to comments.
3. Set aside a time in your weekly diary to do your social media work. The whole point of social media is to keep your followers updated regularly. Stale content will reflect badly on your business. If your updates aren’t regular, your followers will quickly lose interest.
4. Link your social media platforms. Here’s some ideas … Create a Facebook group … link this to a blog on your corporate website. Create a Twitter account and link this to your Facebook account so your tweets appear automatically on Facebook, too. Create a Linked In account and link this to your blog, Twitter feed and Facebook account. Upload a video to Youtube. Link your Yourtube account to Twitter and Facebook or post the Youtube video on your blog. Remember: be consistent in your message in each forum, and if appropriate, use your company colours and logo. And don’t be lazy when setting up your accounts. Fill in all the fields and be honest. For these daisy chains to work smoothly, you don’t want website administrators cancelling an account because it looks suspicious to them.
5. Be authentic with your content. Nominate someone in your business to do the updates. Readers can detect when a “different voice” is writing. And your content must be interesting! Only a small amount – less than 20% – should be directly promoting your product or service. Chat with followers, answer comments, promote local events.
Every business exploring the world of social media is probably hoping to hit the promotional bullseye by having a message “go viral” on the Internet.
If this happens, thousands – maybe millions – of people will be watching your video or reading your message, and then re-posting it to their friends, tweeting about it etc etc.
Here’s an example of one of the most successful viral advertisements (this was spread around the world, before it went to TV and the cinema):
But be careful … some messages “go viral” for all the wrong reasons!
A United States hamburger chain created a Facebook application called Sacrifice. The idea was simple: “de-friend” 10 people on Facebook and the player would earn a coupon for a free hamburger. The rejected friends would also get an email letting them know that they had been dropped in exchange for a free burger.
This negative campaign was so unpopular that even Facebook eventually banned it – and the story about the campaign? Well, it has gone viral. Not good publicity for the company involved!
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