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What is a blog and why should businesses blog? Blogs, or Web logs, present online journal content organized in reverse chronological order, and should be entertaining and informative. Blogs and other social media can create the following for you:
Online Democracy
This is the human factor that reads blogs, searches online for Information, sends and receives e-mails, sends and receives voice mails, and has a Web site or visits Web sites.
Search Engine Optimization
As much as 80 percent of all Web interactions begin with a search. Using key word phrases targeted to your product or service helps your organic placement and you can also use pay per click campaigns to grow faster, but organic sites seem to have more credibility for searches. From 80 to 95 percent of all clicks on a page happen in the organic results. This will get people to your site, but there needs to be recent and relevant content with links to keep consumers on your site and give information that is valuable to the customer.
Higher Prospect Interaction and Conversion
Google ranks phrases used on your site and it is important to know what the customer is searching for in your industry to be able to best interact on your site and gather leads that eventually convert to sales.
E-mail Acquisition
E-mail personalized newsletters are a great way to educate the consumer and establish you and your company as the expert in your field. There is a downside to e-mail campaigns in that if you are just selling, selling, and selling, you will have people opt out and the e-mail acquisition campaign will fail. Deliver content that your customers want to know and drive traffic back to your Web site with more relevant content.
A great example of this would be in a newsletter. My company links back to our seminar page http://www.exhib-it.com/seminars/ highlighting our FREE marketing seminars for the entire year at a glance.
This is informative for the customer and shows how our company supports businesses in the community (which establishes our promotion and process that is relevant to our strategies).
Employee Retention/Customer Engagement
Employees who blog for a company are more engaged with the company than employees who do not blog for the company. If you want to start with an online blogging site, try WordPress (www.wordpress.org). It is the most widely used blogging site and is free, and has lots of plug-ins. The featured plug-in are WordPress.com Stats that provides simple, concise stats with no additional load on a server by plugging into WordPress.com’s stat system. WP Super Cache is a very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files. Poll Daddy polls create and manage the polls from within WordPress.
Intense Debate Comments enhances and encourages conversation on a blog by building the reader community, increasing comments, and boosting page views. Wickett Twitter Widget displays tweets from a Twitter account in the sidebar of a blog.
Get Recent Comments displays the most recent comments or track backs with your own formatting in the sidebar. The weaknesses are that WordPress usually requires you to have hardware/server and it is a little more technical to use, and is not built for organizations.
Key word-focused blogs compound at a much higher rate than individual blogs. However, if you do not post frequently and systematically, your blog may end up nowhere. Blogs are meant to be written frequently with relevant content that is key word focused. If you are doing something unique in marketing, write about it online! Use the Internet for traditional and media marketing and incorporate social media to grow your business!
About DJ Heckes, Author of Full BRAIN Marketing and Owner of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
DJ Heckes is CEO of EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts and Full BRAIN Marketing . She focuses on educating and training companies to significantly improve their Small Business Marketing strategies. DJ Heckes also presents customized training programs for Business Marketing, Social Media, Leadership and Trade Show Marketing. Learn more at www.EXHIB-IT.com and www.fullBRAINMarketing.com. Be sure to follow us!
DJ Heckes, CEO & Author
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com
Learn six ways to promote your brand and drive online traffic through providing great Customer Service? In this article, we will show you just how to do that! Have you ever noticed that people are more likely to participate in things if they are given an incentive? Well, if you haven’t, just know it is true. People like rewards, it is that simple.
What Does This Mean to You?
Because social media is such a huge deal nowadays, everyone wants to be a part of it, and they all want the same thing out of it: more business! So how on earth are you supposed to stand out when everyone, including your competition, is doing the exact same thing for the exact same reason?
In this endless frenzy of businesses jumping on the social media bandwagon, it is very easy to lose sight of certain things. One thing no one should lose sight of though is customer service. You may be thinking, “Customer service on Facebook?” Well, yes! Anytime you are representing your brand, customers and customer service must be what we never lose focus on.
So, how do you drive business, get people onto your website, and have more loyal followers/customers than your competition? Offer great customer service, and offer rewards. Rewards are an amazing way to inspire people to visit your pages.
Let’s check out a few examples so you can see what I mean…
Available ONLINE ONLY!
Everyone loves a good discount. But clipping coupons out of the Sunday paper is quickly falling out of fashion. What is the fad now? Online coupons! Discount websites, such as Groupon, are exploding in popularity. People just cannot get enough, and have come to not only love, but expect a certain percent off.
Now What?
Well, if you are looking to drive traffic onto your website, this is a wonderful way to do that. Offer things that are only available online, and people will not be able to resist.
There are many different ways to go about this, so use your creativity. You could print codes out on receipts, send out a newsletter with discounts or reach out through social media; sign up with Groupon or other sites that offer similar services.
There are many ways to reach your customer base when offering discounts online. Just be sure to remember, as with everything online, you must be able to reach your audience the way that they want to be reached, so do not just use one avenue.
Make it Into a Game.
We all play games, every last one of us-- especially games we can win. So give your fans and followers something to go for!
Sites such as Gowalla, GetGlue and Foursquare, they entice users by making “checking-in” a game. They will reward you every time you “check-in” by giving you a badge or medal of sorts. Foursquare has a leader board which shows how many points you have collected compared to your friends and other connections. So every time you log on, you will see where you rank, and will probably do what you can to make sure you rank at least in the top three.
Now What?
Easy! Start your own competition!
How you design the game is up to you, depending on your particular business and customer base. But give the people who visit your page or site a reason to come back—offer stickers or stamps (preferably branded) to reward your loyal visitors. Put some creative thought into this so you can make it as interesting as possible.
This method works very well for businesses that survive on their customers making frequent purchases. I am sure you have all experienced going to a place of business, typically restaurants and the like, and they hand you a card and say that if you get a certain amount of stamps your next burger is free. It is a similar concept, and it works very well.
For smaller companies, it may be easier to associate with a large brand with an established reputation for this type of reward system, like Foursquare.
Always keep in mind that the end goal is to creative a positive experience for customers, or potential customers. Be creative and engaging to stand out in their mind as the website that is the most fun, and rewarding, to visit.
Fifteen Minutes of Fame
This is a really fun way to promote your brand: include your customers in your advertising!
I know, the idea sounds a little wacky, but it really does work. Doritos did it by creating a campaign called Make an Ad, Make a Fortune, where customers made commercials for Doritos. The most popular commercial was broadcast on prime-time television!
Now What?
Regardless of what form of advertising you use, offering people their moment in the limelight is always going to work.
Give clear instructions so everyone knows what is expected, and encourage everyone to get involved! That way you are not only promoting the brand, but building a customer base. Also, if you are still looking for ways to build your online traffic, have the vote take place on your website or social media site.
And the Grand Prize Goes To…
Contests, specifically content-creation contests, are an incredible way of promoting your brand. It’s a method that digitally involves customers, or potential customers, and gets businesses free publicity. Nothing bad about that!
A recent demonstration of this came in the form of Microsoft’s Cannes 2011 competition, which asked students to create a film showing the usefulness of a Windows 7 PC in a student’s life.
Now What?
First you have to come up with a great incentive—a prize. Many people are very creative, but it takes a lot to bring that creativity out. So what you offer must be very tempting. For example, the Microsoft Cannes competition offered $8,000, a trip to Cannes for two, parties, and the works. Needless to say it got people off their couches and behind their cameras.
Granted, very few companies can compete with Microsoft as far as cash prizes go, but giving away free products or services will work well also. Get your team together and brainstorm! What do you want to ask people to create, what is the content, and what is their reward?
Areas for Improvement
What is the first brand that comes to mind when it comes to listening to customer feedback? Starbucks.
Starbucks designed a campaign to make the voices of the customers heard, called “My Starbucks Idea”. They do this by collecting ideas from their existing customers and allow others to vote on which they would most like to see implemented, and the most popular suggestions are.
Dell also has a similar campaign going called Dell’s Idea Storm, where, like Starbucks, they encourage customer input and actually use their ideas.
It’s So Simple
Have you ever noticed that sometimes we get going so fast, that every once and a while we forget about the niceties? Well, that should simply no longer be overlooked! One of the best customer rewards systems is to simply say, “Thank you!”
This reward system is meant to go, not only on its own, but with every other method of rewarding your customers we have discussed here today. The person who films the winning commercial should get a thank-you, as should the one who had the winning idea that brought more business into your establishment, and so on. A thank-you can even be as modest as sending a thank-you note. You want to leave the customer feeling as if they are appreciated—and they most certainly are.
Now what?
After using one, or all, of these methods to drive your online customer base, what is next?
Get feedback. Feedback forms work very well. A great way to get the feedback and gathering more online followers at the same time is to put those feedback forms on your website or social media sites. But, whatever you do, do not forget to listen to these comments—they are no use to anyone as just air.
Your customers will know when you have listened, and feel more valued as a result. And that is what it is all about after all, is it not? Customer service!
DJ Heckes, CEO & Author
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com
As a writer, as well as a dedicated user of social media, it is sometimes a challenge to keep coming up with topics that are interesting and engaging. Yes, you heard right—even I struggle as a weekly blog writer from all the research and information I read.
Topics and content are what secure your social media following. Without interesting content, no one wants to engage, and then all the time and effort you put into social media becomes futile and a waste of time. At the same time, you cannot just write about some random topic that has no relation to your industry just because some people may find it interesting. If you are using social media, you have to realize that you cannot reach everyone. What you need to do is discuss things that are relevant to your industry, and valuable to your followers/fans.
The power of social media is undeniable. It assists in building rapport, can increase web traffic or even bring in walk-ins! That is why content is so very important. Social media can be the fuel behind your business, and content is the fuel for your social media. What you need is a source for your content, your fuel, that will not only help you get over that crippling condition known as writers’ block, but make your social media postings a “must read.”
Everyone needs a little helping hand, so here are some tips that will help to make sure you never run out of fuel for your fire.
1. Get Everyone Involved!
The amazing thing about people being different from one another is that everyone has an opinion, a perspective and general way of looking at things that are fresh, new and exciting. This is why it is a great idea to get all of your employees involved in your blogging and social media activities. They may have ideas about content that never once occurred to you, or have a new way of approaching a topic that to you seemed boring and useless. If you have a FAQ (frequently asked questions) area on your website, or a place for comments or concerns, have employees write blogs in response. That way, not only are you answering customer questions and solving potential problems, but you are creating content that is relevant and valuable to your following from multiple points of view. And just to make sure that all blogs and postings are formatted the same, you can create templates! Go to www.contentrulesbook.com for some template ideas.
2. Use an RSS Reader to View Your Subject Specific Blogs at a Glance.
Every writer needs a source of inspiration. One tried and true method is to study the subject you want to write about by reading what other experts have already written. You can sign up for a free RSS Reader that will allow you to see all of the blogs you are subscribed to in one place instead of hunting the Internet for interesting topics to write about. As always, Google is an amazing resource for just about everything. Google offers a free RSS Reader (Google Reader), as well as a place for you to go and search for and subscribe to blogs that are relevant to your industry. If you have a few different areas of interest, you can divide them into categories which will make it easier for you to scan and pick out what you want to talk about. As with all writing, you must make it your own. Combine the new ideas you have read about with your own creativity and ingenuity to create a blog that is new, exciting, and full of valuable and relevant content.
Also try using Google Blogs for their search option to search the blog directory sites such as Technorati
as shown below or Blogcatalog to find blogs that are relevant to your product or service. Be sure to organize your RSS Feeds into folders and sort by category for ease of scanning and you can combine the topics by industry classifications with your own commentary to create posts that stand on their own.
3. Use LinkedIn Groups.
The internet is a constant source for finding tools. Some of the tools offered do not appear that way at first, so you must open your mind and look at everything as a potential resource. One resource you may not have thought of is LinkedIn! I know, it seems crazy to use social media as a social media content resource, but used the right way, LinkedIn can be an effective tool.
There are hundreds of groups discussing hundreds of topics, and believe me, people have no problem expressing their opinions. Join groups that are relevant to your industry, and again, take advantage of experts in your field being willing to share their knowledge. It is never a bad thing to look at things from another’s point of view.
4. Eavesdrop…
Don’t be shy, everyone does it. And it is truly a great way of finding out what the average Joe is interested in. Of course you do not have to listen to everyone’s conversations at all times, but keep an ear out for key words that are relevant to your niche in the world. You can even go as far as carrying a little notepad and pen around with you so you can jot things down as you hear them or even better use Evernote to make it easier to remember things whether big or small, using your computer, the web or even your phone. You can do this while waiting in lines, sitting on the train, or an airplane, or eating out are all good opportunities to hear what interests the average consumer.
5. Audience Participation.
Here is a concept that seems obvious but is so often overlooked: ask your audience. Post something on Facebook or Twitter asking what THEY would like to read about. Many times your followers and fans know exactly what kind of advice they want from you, and they will not hesitate to tell you when given the chance. You can also take polls, surveys and ask questions to find out what the general public is interested in learning from you. Your client base is the backbone of your business, so do not forget about them. You write blogs so they will read them, so who better to go to for subject matter?
6. Audio Books.
What on Earth did we do before the Internet? Oh yes - we read books! We sat down and actually took time out of our day to study, research and learn. Of course I understand that we do not always have a few hours to just drop everything and read a book, but that is why they invented audio books! You can be driving down the highway and still reading, but in a much safer way. The basic point here is not to get so wrapped up in the up and coming way of doing things that you forget about our old friend, the book—believe it or not, they are still around. Check out eMusic or Audible for a nice selection of titles to choose from.
7. Forums.
Call it old fashion, but you should never forget our old friend, the forum. Do a simple web search about forums in your industry and see what is going on. This method is simple, fast and effective, so why not use it? You do not even have to tell people where you found your information if you don’t want to.
8. News Sources.
Isn’t it terrible to be behind the times on current events? Well, there is a way to avoid that…keep up with current events! These days there are an infinite number of sources available for news no matter what topic. You can use sites likewww.AllTop.com or Google News that will allow you to search current events by area of interest. You can find news about your industry from all over the world and instantly have a topic to blog about or share with your fans. Just take a look; you will be surprised what you can find.
9. Go To Events.
I know this one kind of seems like a no-brainer, but just like getting feedback from your audience, this tip is often neglected. Attend meetings, conferences, seminars, webinars, tradeshows, or any other kind of face to face event relevant to your industry. It gives you a chance to learn the up and comings of your industry as well as gather interesting new content to share with your following. Try setting up your own Meetups, Tweetchats, Conferences orWebinars through a wealth of events hosted both on and offline and on a weekly basis with so much free exchange of wealth of knowledge and ideas. You will be left inspired with new ideas and new-found energy to turn those ideas into remarkable content.
10. Merge Your Unfinished Ideas!
If you are anything like me, I am sure you have a plethora of half-finished blogs hanging around, just waiting for something to be done with them. Today is your lucky day, because I am going to share with you how to turn them into a workable, post-able source of information. Go through your blogs and see if you can find a few with related topics, then merge them together—simple as that! Not only have you freed up space on your computer, but you have just created an amazingly informative blog out of ideas you never thought would go anywhere.
11. Try Making a Tag Cloud.
You can use entire conversations based around your keywords that are relevant to you to build a tag cloud. Look for 15 tweets that mention your brand, industry or product and drop them into a tag cloud application such as Wordle. This is a site that is a toy for generating “word clouds” from the text you provide. These clouds give greater prominence to your words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can also tweak the clouds you create with different fonts, color schemes and layouts. The images you create with this tool are yours to use whenever you like. You can print them out or even save them to the Wordle gallery to share with all your friends. You may even find keywords you may not have thought of in addition to a few surprise topics of association. This is a great way to find emerging trends to blog about and stretch your content dollar!
DJ Heckes, CEO & Author
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com
When you hear the phrase, “social media return on investment,” you may ask yourself how you could possibly measure a return on investment of using something that costs you virtually nothing. But if you think about it, although the major social media sites are free, you still have to take time out of your busy day to post something or engage with your followers. Or if one of your employees posts things online for you, they are taking time out of their schedule which costs you employee salary. And what if you hire someone to engage in social media? You have to be able to measure your return on investment to judge whether or not your social media activity is working positively for your business.
Social media return on investment (ROI) means different things to a lot of people. It could mean a “return on engagement,” or a “return on creativity and/or originality.” Simply put, social media ROI is a measurement of effectiveness. In a strictly technical sense, it is a way of measuring the effectiveness of marketing through social media. This may sound complicated and tedious, but it is actually quite easy, and well worth the time.
What Exactly is ROI?
Before we go in depth about calculating the return on your social media investment, let us first make sure we all know what ROI really means, and why it is so important.
In the world of business, ROI is meant to measure the efficiency of an investment. It is based on the financial formula:
ROI = (return – investment) / investment %.
In short this formula tells you whether or not your investment was worthwhile. If you keep your investment the same while seeing in an increase in returns, this indicates a positive ROI. A negative ROI means that your returns decreased while keeping the investment the same. It goes without saying that an increase on your ROI is much more desirable than a decrease on your ROI.
Because the formula for ROI uses just two variables, it is a quick and easy way to not only measure, but compare your marketing campaigns. That way you can always go back and see what worked for your company, what did not, and how to improve any less-than-successful campaigns.
Now that we understand the importance of measuring ROI and what it actually means, we can begin to apply it to marketing through social media. If you want a more in depth look at ROI, see Investopedia’s definition here:
Social Media ROI: What is your investment, and what is your return?
So, now that we understand ROI and everything knowing it accomplishes, we can just take our social media returns and investments and plug them into the formula, right?
Social media ROI = (SM return – SM investment) / SM investment %
Not quite. Although the investment in social media is fairly clearly defined, the return is not so easy. What exactly is the return on social media, and how do you attach a dollar value to it? Just like everything else in marketing, metrics are essential. Thus both of these questions must have answers before we can move on and accurately measure your social media ROI.
The Social Media Return: What do you Plan to Accomplish?
You cannot just dive head first into a social media marketing campaign. As in all aspects of marketing, regardless of the investment, you must have goals. Without goals, nothing is measurable and without metrics, how can you know if you actually accomplished anything? One of the best things about marketing through social media, however, is you can tweak the definition of your social media return to suit your company’s personal goals. As Brian Solis from the Altimeter Group says, “Everything starts with an end in mind.”
The social media return is a way of showing what you have gained from that particular campaign. Let us say, for instance, that what you want out of your social media investment is more sales. Your social media return then becomes the amount of sales that have sprung from your social media engagement. But what if instead of boosting sales, you wanted to make your brand more recognizable? Then you would launch a social media campaign focused on promoting your brand, and your return becomes brand awareness.
Another great thing about social media marketing campaigns is that you can launch multiple campaigns from multiple angles with multiple end goals in sight. For example, let us say that you want to drive sales while promoting your brand and building relationships with your followers—you can do that! Be aware, however, that having more comments, likes, and followers is not indicative of your return. More specifically, your return is indicated by whether or not those follows, likes and comments have moved you closer to your goal, whatever that may be.
In short, you do not want to use social media just to keep up with the times. You must be able to prove that your investment in social media has accomplished something positive for your company, thus you must set realistic and measurable goals for yourself.
But How do you Quantify Your Social Media Return on Investment?
Now we arrive to the most complicated part. We have set our goals and defined our social media return, now what we need to do is assign value to that return—quantify in terms of money. This is without doubt the most difficult part, because you need to assign a dollar value to something that may not necessarily be tangible.
When using social media to promote your sales, the quantification of that return is relatively straight forward. You can pass out coupons that are only available to followers, and in so doing you can track how much business was generated from using social media. But in cases of, say, building relationships, quantifying becomes a bit murkier, yet still essential.
One way of doing this is by asking new clients how they heard about you, or why they chose your company. If you keep track of the answers you get, you can see exactly how much new business was generated by taking the time to listen to your followers. Then you can begin putting value on your return.
Basically, the idea is to be able to see and measure not only the value of building rapport and relationships, but the effectiveness of doing it through social media.
Putting a value on promoting brand awareness is yet another beast entirely. You could accomplish this by sending out e-coupons to your fans and followers and keep track of the traffic and business generated from online. In this way you can judge not only how effective your social media marketing campaigns are, but how they compare with your other marketing techniques. According to the social media analytics company Virtue , who in April of 2010, stated that according to their research, the average Facebook fan is estimated to be worth $3.60. They did this by looking at the average number of messages each fan received, and then compared this number to what it would cost to purchase impressions in order to send the same number of messages to each fan.
Social media offers a multitude of channels for quantifying the value of your return, and in this way allows you, the marketer, to be more creative and innovative in your methods.
Social Media ROI: How Does it Compare?
Once you are able to quantify the value of your social media marketing campaign, and have estimate your investment, you will be ready to plug your numbers into the ROI formula, then, presto! You now can now clearly see if you returns in social media marketing were worth the investment.
The great thing about having accomplished this is that you can now use your calculation of one social media campaign and compare it to your other ROIs. Did you launch other social media marketing campaigns? If so, you can now see which ones were effective and which were not. What about offline campaigns or e-mail campaigns? You can now see how your social media ROI compares to those. Remember, ROI is a measurement of efficiency, so having calculated the ROI of your social media campaign, you use the ROI number to compare to other social media campaigns and also your TV, print, radio and other campaigns.
For a more in depth look at strategizing your social media focus areas, check out the Altimeter Group’s research report by clicking here!
When you are able to calculate the ROI in all forms of marketing, you can start to create a clear picture of what works best for your company—what type of campaign is most effective and efficient. This is why ROI is so very important, and becomes one of the most useful and powerful tools in your company’s marketing arsenal.
DJ Heckes, CEO & Author
EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com
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