Successful Business Social Media Campaigns

One of the objectives in a social media campaign is to find low-competition keywords with high traffic. By sampling a few competitive sites we can examine their use of common keywords and then use sites like Technorati, or Twitter to see what kind of activity is revealed for various sites and common keywords. Maybe you will discover better phrasing of keywords or different keywords would be best for your particular niche and marketing efforts.

There are other sites such as LinkedIn, Google+, MySpace, Orkut, Squidoo, Pinterest, About.com, Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers, Facebook, PitchEngine, YouTube, and Topix.net that can be used as both profile-management and content-promotion community sites. They may not all generate back-links to a Web site but they are good for generating traffic to a site, by using excellent content and editorial policies.

Reputation Management and Social Media

Profile pages can be used to dominate search engine results for a person's name, a company name, or a product, and also send authority links back to the Web site; a solid form of reputation management. Reputation management consists of monitoring the public discourse about a subject (a person, a business, a product, etc.) and the participation in this discourse to answer questions, resolve issues that may lead to negative comments, and reinforce (and offer thanks for) positive comments.

Social media allows engagement with company insiders and executives who demonstrate a willingness to be involved with customers' wants, needs and demands, while also generating conversations on subjects that lead to pages from the company Web site.

As the company Web site becomes more popular, the company name will be typed into the visitors' browser instead of the URL domain to get to the Web site, and the visitor will also get a chance to view the other top 10 results of the company site's name. The company has a chance to control those results by building profile pages on high-ranking domains and if the company promotes selective pages for the company's name (such as a positive review of a product in an industry blog, for example).

Blogging and Social Media

Blogging is said to attract 55% more traffic to a Web site than not blogging. Often, a company will enlist employees to comment on a blog topic. That can be useful or problematic, depending upon the sophistication of the contributing individuals. Engineers, for example, have been known to have the tendency for being too complex for readers, while other employees may not be sophisticated enough to convey the message or information congruent to company communications standards and guidelines.

It is important to choose who will be relied upon to write company marketing and communications materials, to reflect the brand image and strengthen the company's position. The key to marketing success on Facebook, for example, is for companies to talk about their customers, not themselves.

Social Media Manager

When a business decides to become serious about using social networking and place authority with a person to lead the effort, the person in charge of this effort will need dedication, knowledge, and experience in search engine optimization, blogging, social media networking, and a desire to continue learning and adapting to the technological evolution for standard and the mobile devices that continue to evolve.

This Social Media Manager (SMM) will optimize the content with current news searches, using keywords within topics such as avionics expert and avionics trends, for example. The SMM will need to understand and utilize best practices regarding locating niche Forums that allow a signature file, article marketing, and social networks where comments and information can be searched for particular topics, and links can be placed to where readers (and search engines) can find additional information or purchase products.

Customers want to know that they are communicating with people that understand their problem or need and have effective solutions for them. The SMM will need to know how to engage readers on all levels while maintaining the desired communications and branding effects expected by the company. The SMM will use a consultative approach and ask powerful questions that compel others to action.

The SMM will serve as the central contact point for coordinating, editing, and creating social media copy. The SMM will plan, write, comment, and participate in the public relations and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., as the voice of the company.

The SMM will evaluate and release new emerging online opportunities such as digital press alerts, wiki's and other social media initiatives, and collaborate with the company's marketing team to optimize offline marketing efforts. The SMM will manage and integrate the social media platforms into the company's Web site, blogs, and landing pages for organic optimization, and monitor and review social media analytics and public relations to support reputation management initiatives.

The Social Media Manager must be both strategic and tactical, possessing outstanding writing skills and the ability to drive engagement with the company brand across multiple social channels including the company Web site and social media communities and industry blogs, as well as scripts for podcast and video marketing.

The J Howard Company can perform all of these functions and more.

Sophisticated Social Media Networking Software

Using various software to gather data the J Howard Company can reveal what is working, what the competition is doing, how the efforts are effecting improvements to sales and lead generation, how the competition is responding, and more. Thinking with the end in mind, your social media strategy could include:

The discovery process for keyword research and social media site relationships (back-linking possibilities) and analyzing the current status

Becoming better acquainted with the audience and target market

Building a company social media brand and optimizing the relationship with blogs and Web sites with the most relevant landing pages

Creating a publishing schedule for the social media team to follow

Using realtime social media networking to communicate messages at trade shows, conferences and events

Distributing coordinated press releases and articles to traditional media such as periodicals, newspapers, and trade magazines in addition to electronic directories and media sources

Incorporating the company's newsletters, brochures and reports with access to the social media sites, Web sites, and blog posts, and reciprocating messages from the social media to those collateral media

Collaborating with the dealers and sales personnel on how the efforts are effecting sales and market intelligence gathering

Measuring, monitoring and analyzing the achievements of the social media efforts

How Much Will Social Networking Cost?

The immediate cost to a business for social networking should be objectively approached with several thoughts:

1. monetarily, and the cost in time, and

2. the value of the investment; the return on the efforts.

There is also a third consideration: the cost of delay, or not to invest the time and money to a social networking effort.Your competitors are likely either already involved in a social media marketing campaign, or are trying it out, or researching the value of embarking on a campaign. Therefore your business needs to join or be left behind as others dominate the communities already established.

Business managers and owners need to examine what the competitors are doing and try to catch up or surpass them, and when possible, to establish dominance in the social media and be more engaged with customers.

The costs can be catagorized and calculated at X-hours daily/weekly/monthly for the following tasks:

Blogging on the Company Web Site
Microblogging (Twitter, for example)
Social Press (outside Blog sites)
Bookmarking & Tagging
Locating Social Networks
Commenting/Forums/Wikis/Rating and Review sites
Online Video Production
Photo Sharing
Podcasting
Presentation Sharing
Analysis

Social Media Marketing and Networking Application

Social media marketing can be a powerful leverage for gaining access to large audiences using the recommendations of other people, which are viewed as more trustworthy than traditional sales and advertising methods. Compared to advertising, social media is a friendlier, and more accepted communications method because the tactics are similar to that of a conversation between groups of like-minded people.

Think of social media as if attending a cocktail party. A person wouldn't stand up and shout a message to a group of unknown or unfamiliar people (unless it was an emergency or alarm), but instead would likely saunter up to a group of people and listen to what was being talked about. If the newcomer had something useful to add to the conversation, he or she could mention it and thereby introduce their presence as a helpful, useful source of information.

Social media works in a similar way, influencing public opinion while building the brand and expanding the audience. In social media marketing sites, the company profile determines the influence, and for each site there will be a different means for building influence. Success in social media is determined by the number of targeted people the company can influence.

A section of the company's audience will also be influencers, and will have their own audience. These are people who will help promote the company's content by relaying it to their own respective audiences. It is critical for a company to connect with influential people in the niche or business sector through personal communications and social networking.

Not all social media sites are appropriate for every company or organization, of course. Of over 800 social media marketing sites, the top 15 for business (at the time of this writing) are:

1. Digg

2. Focus

3. Wikipedia

4. Flickr

5. Reddit

6. Newsvine

7. StumbleUpon

8. MySpace

9. Pinterest

10. Yahoo Answers

11. Xing

12. LinkedIn

13. Squidoo

14. Google+

15. Facebook

These are in no particular order, and there are more good sites, but certain business sectors will do well to consider these as the best sources to concentrate on using. It is wise to research other sites and update your list of favorites since what is popular one day may become less popular later on.

Leap ahead of your competitors

For a complete social media strategy customized for your business, contact the J Howard Company today.