Social Media Marketing and Your Business

A social network is a website where people connect with friends, both those they know offline and those who are online-only buddies. Social networking sites are a hot topic for internet marketers, as they present a number of opportunities for interacting with customers, including via plug-in applications, groups, and fan pages.

Each social network presents its own possibilities and challenges. Users of individual sites have different expectations of commercial behaviour. Social Media has become an essential component of online marketing and search engines are adjusting their rankings to include search personalisation. One of the effects of the social media revolution is an exponential increase in the amount of content online.

Whether you are part of a small or a medium business, or are an individual entrepreneur, your customers are using social media, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t be, too. It costs almost nothing, it’s easy to get started, and it can have an enormous financial impact on your business.

Check back WebStrategyMarketing's Blog for more tips on social media marketing. Also Subscribe to the RSS feed or to weekly email updates, right now!

     

Posted via email from Nigel Morris WebStrategyMarketing's Blog

Google Takes on Facebook – The Power of +1

Since adding the live search features from Twitter, Flickr and other social networking sites, Google has recently launched a new feature called ‘+1′ in an apparent bid to compete against the ‘Like’ button from Facebook.

According to Google’s official blog, The ‘+1′ or short for ‘this is pretty cool’, will enable users to share recommendations with the world right in Google’s search results. To recommend something all the visitors has to do is click +1 on a webpage or ad they find useful. These +1’s will then start appearing in Google’s search results.

What does this mean for prospects and customers looking for your products and service?

The beauty of +1’s is their relevance — users get the right recommendations (because they come from people who matter to them), at the right time (when they are actually looking for information about the product or service or even looking to buy) and in the right format (search and ad results). For more information about +1, watch this video posted by Google:

Google Takes On Facebook – Watch the Video here

So how will Google know which +1’s to show users? Google plan to use many signals to identify the most useful recommendations such as your network (connected through Google, Twitter etc).

Initially this is being rolled out in USA and will be availabel only when you are logged in to Google profile and will work for organic search results as well as Google Ads. Google plans to roll it out to many other features in the near future.

There are many important implications of this on Organic Google search:

1. ‘+1′ will be used in future to calculate organic search result
2. You will be able to integrate the ‘+1′ on your webpages, similar to the ‘Like’ button of Facebook, enabling visitors to recommedn your web pages.
3. ‘+1′ will also appear on the Google Ads

This is a very important development and keep watching this space to know when the ‘+1′ will be available so you can integrate it with your business website.

Posted via email from Nigel Morris WebStrategyMarketing's Blog

7 Compelling Reasons To Have A Business Blog

To manage the complexities of a Business Blog could appear quite daunting for a business owner. It shouldn’t be. A great business blog will actually help simplify your internet marketing program. Blogging accomplishes multiple marketing functional goals with minimal structural elements.

It is like killing many birds with the same stone ! Below are 7 compelling reasons why you should consider having a business blog. If you are already into blogosphere, then use the below checklist to evaluate if your blog is fuliffling the below functions.

1. Search Engine Optimisation – Blogs such as those based on WordPress are indexed favourably on the search engines improving your SEO rankings.

2. Social Media Optimisation – This really goes hand in hand. When you engage customers on the social media sites, blog content will ensure that the targetted traffic is driven back to your sites.

3. Lead Generation – Blog content can be an effective tool for lead geenration as prospects will read what you have to offer as a company and will make decision to buy or not.

4. Value to Customers – Blogs are a great way of delivering solid value to your current and prospect customers and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.

6. Customer Nurturing - Blog content is a powerful tool that can enable business owners to educate propsects and build trust with them until they’re ready to buy.

7. PR – Blogs again act as a conduit for all your online PR efforts and to drive targetted website traffic.

Posted via email from Nigel Morris WebStrategyMarketing's Blog

5 Pillars of Direct Response Web Marketing

5_pillars_of_direct_response_web_marketing_-_white_paper_1.pdf Download this file

5 Pillars of Direct Response Web Marketing encompasses all the steps you need to take to reach your target market online, attract visitors to your Web site, encourage them to buy your products or services, and make them want to come back for more again and again.

Posted via email from WebStrategyMarketing's posterous

Best Practices for Ensuring Success in Social Media Marketing

Assessing opportunities in social media marketing may seem like a daunting task paritcularly for a small business – There are thousands of social media platforms out there and not all of them may be right for your business. Like with any marketing strategy, business owners are often challenged to find and build strategies that provide the best opportunities for establishing a relationship with their customers. However, this process becomes much less daunting when armed with key insights and clear objectives to use as a prism for assessing which platforms have the necessary scale and engagement opportunities for your brand.

Below we present a 3 step process which will act as a guide before you jump into social media marketing:

STEP 1 – Define Marketing Objectives

Strategic development starts with setting clear objectives. Goal setting for your social media marketing program should be no different than with any other marketing plan. The goals that work best are traditional marketing objectives such as to increase overall business/brand awareness, higher sales converssions, list building, driving website traffic and building loyal customer base.

STEP 2 – Evaluate Opportunities

Innovation in technology has lead to advent of endless social media platforms. Innovation, creativity and outof- the-box thinking often lend themselves to successful interactions in social marketing but often at the expense of acheiving marketing objectives. Remember businesses benefit more from the direct response element rather than awards. Awards don’t pay the bills; results do. Also remember that just because a social platform grows rapidly and/or gains a lot of media attention, this does not mean that you should jumo on the bandwagon as well.

Use the following simple checklist to evaluate opportunities for your business:

1. Objectives: Does the opportunity meet your business objectives? Does this opportunity provide value that will help me achieve my stated goals? How will I measure the opportunity’s contribution to achieving these goals?

2. Assests: Does the opportunity leverage your business’ existing tangible assets? Can it showcase the strengths of your business – online content, endorsements, customer testimonials, partnerships, sponsorships etc?

3 Rules: Does the opportunity abide by the social media rules of the road? Does this opportunity allows you to strike a balance between your brand’s own style and the specific rules of the social space you wish to occupy – without sacrificing creativity and innovation ?

4. Value: Does it provide significant value to your customers ? Is this value perceived by customers to be more than that of your competitiors ?

STEP 3 – Selecting Appropriate Social Media Platforms

Once you have defined marketing objectives and evaluated opportunities, selection of appropriate social media platforms should take place. Just becasue your competitor is using Twitter doesn’t mean you have to be on it as well. For instance, Flickr (photo sharing site) would be ideal for wedding photograhpy business but perhaps not for an Accountant. Do you get the idea ?

This 3 step process should be an essential element of any effective Social Media Marketing Strategy. Please also remember that this has to work in conjunction with any other offline or online marketing efforts and not in isolation.

Posted via email from WebStrategyMarketing's posterous