7 Reasons Social Media should be part of your marketing strategy for the Festive Season

It's that time of the year again, the festive season. Everyone is looking forward to the annual break. But before going away on holiday there is some shopping to be done. Not only are we going to shop for personal presents, but in our professional circles we are going to share year end presents. Technology has made it possible to buy services that can be consumed anytime. Whatever sector you are in, you stand a chance for your product or service to be purchased as a year end gift. Therefore, we all need to package ourselves in a manner that takes full advantage of this shopping frenzy. Most of our clients including potential ones have some presence in Social Media networks. It is cardinal for us to reach out to them where we will find them and find them in the right mood. Here are 7 reasons why you should use Social Media to maximize on the Festive Season shopping spree.

1. Festive season exudes the shopping spirit
During this time of the year, there is a shopping spirit that hovers around everyone. Some shop for things that they will only use once during the coming holidays. Some shop for presents to be given as rewards to loyal customers, whilst some shop for presents that can be used to lure potential customers. The same scenario is true for family and friends or any other social relationship. Literally everybody is shopping this time of the year. Most retailers come up with various discounted products to maximize on this once a year phenomenon. Despite your product or service, you may find yourself with a sale influenced by the festive season. Social Media if used appropriately, can be a medium to reaching out to shoppers looking for your product to buy out there

2. Brand Awareness
If there was a time for potential clients to remember your brand, it is now. If there was a time to receive referrals it is the festive season. There is no better way to have your product be in the wagging tongues of everyone than felt presence in Social Media networks.  We are at this time discussing the best presents to buy, and we will be looking for the best brand. Some of us are not sure what to buy, and our decisions will be influenced by our peers. The advertisement that you did some time back during the year, which made a significant impact -  might be best to repeated now - just to remind us how awesome your products are. Repeating the advert in the conventional media might cost you an arm and a leg, but in Social Media it is possible to run campaigns at competitive costs. Social Media is structured such that, you can repeat your campaigns several times, with a once off action.

3. Viral Campaigns
This is probably the best time to come up with a campaign that can go viral. The spirit of generosity could help the spread of your campaign. I have often received messages in my inbox about the impact a blog I wrote would have made on someone. But the same individual in-boxing would not have shared my article.  At this time of the year, everyone wants to share, if your campaigns are able to scratch your followers where it's itching, they will definitely share them creating the exponential effect which fuels a viral campaign. In any case sharing is caring and this is the time we show how caring we are. There is no scientific formula for a campaign to go viral, it all depends on the reaction of your audience. The audience is already been put on a sharing mood by the Festive Season, give them something to share, and that might as well be the campaign that will propel you to reach your maximum potential.

4. Identify the popular # hashtags and ride your campaigns on them
There are several hashtags that will be coined for this season. Identify the most popular one within your industry or area of influence and take full advantage of it. The hashtag might be of something not directly related to you, but if it is popular you can ride on its popularity. There is no need to spend time trying to promote a personalized hashtag and fail to make it popular. You will be like re-inventing the wheel; we have different car models but they all use the same wheel. In business we have to exploit possible opportunities to our maximum advantage and that is what you do when you ride on a popular hashtag. By the way, whatever you do on that hashtag, still promotes the originator, its a win-win with any popular campaign.

5. Follow up on any leads - everyone is buying
Remember that lead you once had, where interest was shown, but no commitment made? This is the time to revisit that lead. That is why it is cardinal to have a sound digital marketing strategy. You need to have a database of all your leads, whether from you website visits or Social Media networks. A short reminder of who you are and what your services or products are could be all you need this time of the year for a sales conversion. This is the time where some will buy something and wonder why they bought. But of cause we don't sell useless products or services...do we now... so they will definitely find good use for our products maybe not now.

6. Have a content marketing strategy in place
This is the time we need everyone out there having an in-depth knowledge and understanding about our products. Remember that what we are offering will not only be bought for consumption by the targeted customer. Someone might be intending to use our product or service as an end of year gift. It is crucial that at this time all necessary information is out there about us. What better way can there be to share with potential clients what we do or how our products can help them than through Social Media. We are now in the information age and clients want to buy after they understand. A slot in the television, radio or newspaper to explain our products in detail will break the bank. But we could share all the information we want to share through various Social Media networks without a heavy budget. We might need the services of an expect in this regard though if we are to do it right.

7. Use this time to give as well
Whilst we are in business and should aim to maximize on profits, we also have to take time to thank those who are loyal to us and help us succeed.  It might be impossible to reach all of them physically and hand them goody bags. Through Social Media we have access to almost all our stakeholders and technology has made it possible to share things online. With a bit of tact we could use the process of sharing our gifts as a campaign that will strengthen our brand. A year end activity of this nature can leave us strategically positioned to begin the new year on a high note.

For any further information on this aspect do not hesitate to contact us at www.alefinnovations.com

Social Media in the home - Responsible Parenting

Social Media are websites and applications for social networking. Business and academia have taken advantage of these applications to roll out their own programs. Social Media Marketing is the buzz word in marketing spheres. Some governments have also joined the Social Media band wagon with e-learning projects. Students can use Social Media to do group studies with the assistance of various online communities. Connectivity and mobility makes it possible for students to tackle a number of challenging aspects of their academic journey. However, smart phones, through which social media is accessed, can spell disaster if children are left to access them without any form of supervision. Children do share stories with their peers and educators will admit that story telling is a critical component in child development. But a story shared with the wrong audience can leave children vulnerable.

Social media networks can be a dangerous jungle that can inflict damage with long lasting consequences to both children and adults if not properly managed. In most if not all organisations, there are regulations on accessing social media during working hours. After hours, if one does not discipline themselves, social media can be a serious time waster. At school, children can be allowed to access academic applications which can aid their learning experience. What is accessed at school is guided and directed. Now, who is responsible for our children's activities on social media after school hours.

Responsible parenting requires that every parent be involved in their kids activities on social media. Being involved does not necessarily mean invading their privacy but giving guidance and direction. Facebook keep reminding us of content that they do not allow on their platform. But many times we see that very content appearing on our walls. I remember Twitter also ran a campaign against bullying. These are the dangers that are available to our kids as they stroll through social networks online.

Our kids will one time or the other be exposed to undesirable issues on social media such as nudity, pornography, prostitution, vulgar language, bullying and gambling  which are all addictive in nature. Our duty as parents is to let them know about these and how to avoiding them. As a parent, you are the child's first friend and they are bound to heed your advice. Whilst teachers and relatives have a role to play, the bigger part belongs to the parent. In most cases, you the parent would have facilitated access to social media for your own child, and therefore you ought to practice responsible parenting when it comes to your child's online behavior.

As a responsible parent, how have you helped your child with this critical social phenomenon? Should you need any assistance with a social media strategy for the home, school or business - do not hesitate to contact us @innovationsalef  Alef Innivations Social Media consult  

How Social Media disrupts SEO

Search Engine Optimization is cardinal for anyone who has a website. According to webopedia.com, "Search engine optimization is a methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (SERP) -- including Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines." Driving of traffic is literally dependent on search engines. Our involvement in the digital space is so that we can reach out to potential clients. Whilst search engines do explain how they go about ranking websites, everything happens behind the scenes and we have little influence over those processes. The least we can do is comply with their regulations and suggestions. Our sites ought to be presentable in terms of structure and ambiance, it should be easy to navigate through them.  

A lot has been said about whether being active in Social Media affects our Search Engine Optimization. It does not. However, being active in Social Media helps us take charge of driving traffic to our websites. Instead of relying on search engines to rank us, a process that takes place behind the scenes, we are able to drive traffic directly. Through Social Media we are able to transfer the popularity of our websites from being a behind-the-scenes activity to an activity right before us. All the friends and followers that we connect with, we can direct them to our website. There are several innovative ways of directing traffic to our website. A cardinal strategy will make our website the landing page for any campaign we do in our Social Media Networks. It is easy for one to just click a button that leads them straight to our website. Some of our campaigns can just be snippets in Social Media where we give a link to our website where the full campaign takes place.

Social Media can also be the best medium to campaign for clients to register for membership in our website. Various campaigns can be used to attract clients to register for membership. Members will be afforded different types of attractive benefits. As a condition to attaining membership, clients will provide us with contact details making it possible to communicate with them directly. Social proof is cardinal to our marketing strategy and we need a community of advocates, who rave about us taking a lead in advertising us through word of mouth. Through Social Media we then are able to disrupt SEO and take charge of making our website popular. However, this does not in anyway replace SEO as we will only reach out to those that we interact with through Social Media. There is still a number of potential customers out there who are not on any Social Media network and will rely on search engines to reach out to us. We still need to optimize our websites for search engines, both strategies should run concurrently and be a part of our digital marketing.  

Has Social Media helped popularize your website? Kindly share your experiences in the comments below. Should you need help with a robust Digital Marketing Strategy which incorporates Website Design, SEO and Social Media do not hesitate to contact us. 

Choosing the best Social Media Forum for your business

That Social Media Marketing is important as part of your Digital Marketing Strategy is an issue we can no longer debate. That others have done it the wrong way is also beyond discussion. One of the biggest challenges for any business person is choosing the right forum for their online marketing. Perhaps what we can never over emphasize is how cardinal we need a clear Social Media Marketing Strategy. One of the core aspects of our strategy is choosing the appropriate forums for our business. There are several forums that will help us achieve different objectives, and there are some forums in whose presence we can achieve little. Clarifying our goals and objectives should precede choice of forums.  Let me hasten to say it is possible though to be in as many forums, as long as we will attain a good return on our investment. What attracts our availability in any forum is the possibility to engage with stakeholders. Forums attract different people, and our customers could be composed of different types of people as well. However an informing strategy will guide where we should we should be present and the amount of resources to invest in a particular forum.

Blogging Forums
A blog consists of a writer's experiences, observations and opinions and normally has images and links to websites. For a digital marketer, a blog is no exception because it is the best medium for content marketing. Customers no longer buy without enough information. Connectivity and mobility have added social proof as part of customer decision mix, if their friends are talking about your product - it must be good. There are many blogging platforms that one can choose from. 

Facebook
This is the big brother of social media with close to 1.5 billion active members. You can join as an individual and can create a business page. As an individual you are allowed up to 5000 friends but you have an option to have followers and these are not limited. For your business page your number of followers are not limited. Engagement with your followers is in the form of likes, comments and sharing of content. The activity of your followers will give leads into potential sales. You can form or join groups of various interests though some groups have restrictions on membership and engagement could be vetted. Whilst the platform warns against illicit activities it is not always possible to enforce this regulation. Caution has to be taken for vulnerable and sensitive members.

YouTube
YouTube is a video sharing website with over a billion active members. Whilst we can still share videos on Facebook, YouTube comes with more features especially on editing of the videos. Across all platforms, videos are viewed more than all text updates. It is a fact also that videos attract more engagement, as alluded before - engagement is what will give us leads. The brain is said to interpret images faster than it can interpret text. There is a huge collection of material on YouTube that one can edit and include into their own presentations. The shorter the video the better. However paid advertising on this channel can be pretty expensive. A well thought out strategy which addresses all our needs can help us attain engagement that can equal or out compete paid advertisements. One post gone viral would do all the trick.

We Chat
We Chat is actually a messaging and calling application. Although it does not have all the features of a Social Media forum; I have decided to include it here because the services that it offers. We Chat competes with WhatsApp - the biggest messaging application with an active membership of 800 million. The difference between these two is that We Chat allows advertising and as such has attracted a number of other innovations around its services. According to statista.com We Chat has an active membership of 549 million. Some Social Media evangelists believe that active members could be slightly over a billion. I have found a service like We Chat handy in complementing online sales innovations. I have read of fast food outlets in China that have incorporate We Chat as part of their home delivery services. You can place an order using We Chat and when your order is on its way you receive an update.

Twitter
I call this the jungle of Social Media. If you are not clear how the game is played, you may get lost and never find your directions. In this platform you will find current news just about everything. Some organizations live tweet their activities. Without a strategy detailing how you are going to play your game you may spend all your valuable resources trying to figure our what is going on. However they are various tools that you can use to manage all your activities on your twitter accounts. You can create lists of various topics that you are interested in and add those who make valuable contributions. Competitors may add you to their lists, this is a plus for you as they would be exposing you to their customer base.

Instagram
Instagram is an image sharing platform. According to statista.com, its current active members are 300 million as of August 2015 but the company recently announced have gone beyond the 400 million mark. Because of the ability of the mind to process images faster than text, Instagram has a high rate of engagement just like YouTube. I have had some of my clients ask how they can participate on Instagram when they offer services and hardly produce any images. There is literally nothing that can not be visually expressed. A mathematical equation,  expressed with a background of an intriguing picture will draw more attention than a simple text of the same. Our everyday stories can be captured as amazing images, which can help us engage with potential customers.

Other Forums
There are other forums that are not as popular but that command quite a following and would be worth exploring. Google + is said to have up to 300 million active users. Most of our customers are bound to be utilizing a service or another offered by Google and it's easy to reach out to them through Google circles. SnapChat is another video and image sharing platform which basically offer similar services as Instagram. The major difference is that all updates are given a lifetime of not more than 10 seconds. So if you want to share something that you would not want to remain available online this is your best option. SnapChat currently has over 200 million active users. Another platform of note is LinkdIn with active users that are slightly less than 100 million. This platform can be confused for an online job market but marketers for both business to business and business to consumer clients have taken advantage of advertising services offered by this platform. The other advantage with LinkdIn is that it groups professionals and most of your followers seek serious engagement. Leads in this environment are most likely to have a better strike rate.

What has been your experience in choosing the best forum for your business? If you are still not sure which forum to have a presence in, contact us and we will gladly assist.

Aim for Organic Search Engine Optimization and Organic Reach for Social Media Marketing

Digital marketing has proven not only to be the game changer in strengthening brands and reaching potential markets; but as technology keeps developing - new innovations are positioning digital marketing as the best game in town. Two pillars that support a Digital Marketing strategy are - an individual presence in the World Wide Web through a website and Social Media. A website allows you to showcase your products, internal processes, run campaigns and social proofing through testimonials.  You could also offer online sales. Social Media allows you to do the same but the major difference is that all your activities are happening on a rented space. How you link and communicate with your customers is dictated by the owners of the Social Media networks and some of their conditions might be restrictive and frustrate your efforts. Both strategies need a robust plan to drive traffic, identify leads and sales conversion. For our website we need a strategy for Search Engine Optimization, which helps search engines recognize our website and position it ahead of competitors. For our Social Media we our posts have to reach our target audience. 

A lot has been said about search engine optimization, a phenomenon that has actually become a profession for some. When we search for anything on the web, we use search engines and the big players are Google, Yahoo and Bing. Search engines use Web Crawlers to read web pages and create entries for search engine index. Our websites need to have proper web addresses or URL, pages have to be titled properly, the structure of our site must allow easy navigation. Where we have used images, they must give them titles using keywords. Our sight should have excellent content and we have to use keywords repeatedly. A few links pointing to our website are cardinal as part of our optimization strategy. As our content is discovered and becomes popular, others will link to our website, this is called backlinking. However linking has been wrongly ascribed to as the most important part of Search Engine Optimization, leading to link spamming (Artificial SEO). Search engines will penalize for links that are deemed spam-my. Ad words can also be misrepresented as a short cut to optimizing. Having a well structured website with excellent content, and tactical use of keywords is the best way to optimize your for search engines. This is optimizing your site organically. Another great way of promoting your website is announcing changes and new developments through blogging and posts in Social Media networks, and direct them to your website through landing pages. 

The advantage with Social Media networks is that all engagement has an exponential or multiplier effect. If we engage with our target audience, those that they are are connected with will be able to see our engagement, making us reach potential customers that we were not initially connected to. Our target audience could be current clients, potential clients, past clients or even those who my never use our products/services but have an interest or are somehow affected by what we are offering. Through Social Media we are able to run various types of campaigns and lead our prospects to our website where we offer a complete online service.With so many Social Media networks, a mere presence in one of them will not assure success. It is critical to choose an appropriate network that will make us meet our objectives and satisfy our customers' needs. We need to have followers who will view our posts and engage with us. Many have been misled into believing that if they buy followers it will lead to the success of their Social Media Marketing efforts. Nothing can be further from the truth. Followers that we gain organically naturally become our community of advocates. Our posts should propel them to engage and our interactions will expose us to those that follow them. Success of our marketing efforts is depended on the quality of those following us, and it gets contentiously multiplied if they also have organic followers.

There has been a misconception that Social Media activities directly affect Search Engine Optimization. This is not quite true. Engagement in Social Media is regarded as nonfollow links. This actually protects us as some comments might direct search engines to places that do not reflect our beliefs and some could even harm our reputation. Our conclusion therefore is that just like Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing will only succeed through organic reach. Both strategies need excellent content that addresses the needs of our customers. Do we know what information to we should share in order to attract followers? Is our website organically optimized for search engines? This is what we do, get in touch and we will gladly assist you.

Business Innovation through Social Media

The ultimate goal of any business is to make profits. However the highly competitive environment driven by ever changing technologies leaves most organisations struggling with effectiveness and efficiency. In order to compete in this fast paced environment, businesses have to innovate. Business innovation is defined as...."an organisation's process for introducing new ideas, workflows, methodologies or products." This might be time consuming and expensive exercise especially for small to medium enterprises. With connectivity and especially through Social Media, costs for innovation can be contained. The following methods can be co-opted into any Social Media strategy to facilitate an affordable business innovation.

Crowdsourcing

Image source:- iitaablogs

Premised on the idea of outsourcing, this concept allows for individual contributions from volunteers or part time workers and the total effort comes from an unidentified public. Since organisations engage with audiences through Social Media, they can solicit for contributions from the public on how to improve certain aspects of their businesses. When systems are improved with the assistance of potential customers, success is assured. Innovation remains key and to attract attention and run an appealing campaign, competitions can be co-opted into this strategy.

Crowdfunding

Image Source:- investirstartup.com

According to crowdsourcing.org, "Crowdfunding is an approach to raising capital for new projects and businesses by soliciting contributions from a large number of stakeholders...." There are a number of crowdfunding sites and www.crowdfunding.com lists the following as the top three, ranked according to traffic data. 

1. gofundme

2. kickstarter

3 Indiegogo

Billions of dollars have been raised through these websites. Social trust is cardinal for a successful online fund raising campaign. An active presence with healthy engagement in Social Media networks is all you need to establish social trust. Most common models of crowdfunding are 1) Donations/Philanthropy/Sponsorship 2) Lending 3) Investment in exchange of equity

Co-creation

Image Sources:- SalesCubes

In pursuit of innovative ways of product development, some organisations are inviting thier clients to participate in the design of products. Customers are requested for their input to create value reach experiences. These interactions would normally take place on the organisations' websites, but to reach a wider audience, you will need to make use of Social Media networks. This exercise is not only fun and rich in varying options, but can also be collaborated with product launch, brand awareness and new market explorations. Integrating these activities becomes a cost cutting measure

Big Data

Image Source:- Svetlana

Bernard Marr defines big data as, "....data being collected and our ability to make use of it." He asserts that as we conduct our normal activities, we leave traces of data which can be analysed. Analysis of this data informs behavior. Big data can be exploited for commercial opportunities. Performance improvement can also be identified and devised through data analysis. Connectivity through the internet and most importantly Social Media is a very rich mine field for all sorts of data. 

Internet of Things (IoT)

Imange Source:- Credencys

Another online phenomenon that can help innovate any business is the Internet of Things, which is defined by Webopedia thus, "The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the ever-growing network of physical objects that feature an IP address for internet connectivity, and the communication that occurs between these objects and other internet-enabled devices and systems. Internet enabled devices can be used to control and operate various processes and all that will be required is one to be connected to the internet. For an example; an office's telephone system can be controlled through the internet reducing the costs of telephone equipment and a telephone operator. Most home appliances, security systems and even wearable devices are now internet enabled. Social Media networks are in hot pursuit of developing systems that utilize the IoT phenomenon.

Besides seeking to increase sales, how else are you utilizing your business presence in Social Media? We would be happy to hear from you with a comment below. Should you need to know how you can harness these lucrative developments in your business strategy, do not hesitate to get in touch.

The art of engagement in Social Media Marketing

Connectivity and mobility have made it possible for different segments of society to stay connected. This has perfected the innovation for online communities that are grouped according to their various interests. Online communities provide vast opportunities for marketers. The goals and aims of Social Network Platforms and Marketers will not always be in sync. Logic then detects that parameters to measure whatever each group seeks to achieve will differ. Another dimension of note, is the mushrooming of consultants (some may like to see them as opportunists) that have come into this space offering training, advice, support and tools to manage this technologically propelled jungle. These providers of support services, have their competency limitations. Some are merely computer geeks that communicate in technological jargon, others are professional marketers who lack technological depth. It is therefore not surprising that there is no generally consensus among these different groups in defining jargon used in such a multi-disciplinary environment. Engagement is one of those terms that have aroused a lot of debate; is it the core objective of a Social Media Strategy?  Some view it as a cardinal matrix whilst others think its overrated.

According to Facebook, engagement is when your status update receives likes, shares, clicks or comments. Linkdin trainers for community bankers TrakPointe, define engagement in Linkdin as the reaction for any update which can be in the form of comments, likes, clicks or shares. Seochat defines twitter engagement as being more than just reaching out to those you wish hear what you have to say, they assert that it should be a conversation. This dialogue will propel those you are communicating with to follow you, favorite your tweets, re-tweet and mention you. Simply Measured defines engagement in Instagram as, "The sum of likes and comments on one, individual Instagram post or all Instagram posts during an established time period." Across all networks, it seems engagement has a similar definition and measurement. However, some networks will tend to have more engagement than others. By design other networks tend to group people of similar interests, which inspire appreciation of average posts. Visuals have proven to attract more engagement than wordy posts.

For the purposes of brand awareness, whether its for a business or personality, engagement according to Social Networks is straight forward. Share posts that are informative, witty, exciting with lots of visuals especially faces; and boom....you will have lots of likes, clicks, shares and comments. You would have achieved a high engagement rate. However if our aim is to grow sales through Social Media Marketing, this type of engagement might just signal the beginning of a process. If we follow the AIDA Sales Funnel; engagement in the form of page views and likes would signal the top two rungs of the funnel which is the arousal of Awareness and Interests. Clicks and Comments assist us realize a desire from our prospects. Post shares are like a double barrel that gives us Social Proof and most important Word of Mouth Advertising. Through post shares our campaigns might even go viral. With smart listening and responding at each stage of the funnel, we should guide prospects to positive actions with the ultimate goal of sales conversion. The information that we share as status updates or paid campaigns, must be tactfully coined to exert appropriate influence which will guide our prospects through these different rungs. Whilst more page views, likes, shares, clicks and comments would be applauded, a business page seeking to increase sales, requires more tactical engagement.

There are a number of Tools and Applications that support and help us manage our Social Media Marketing efforts. These make it easy for marketers to engage in a complete conversation - a two way dialogue with their prospecting markets. This becomes the basis of our content design. Relevant content is aimed at triggering desired results. An up sale of Marketing through Social Media compared to other forms of media; where a marketer only heralds their campaigns without receiving feed back from the targeted audience, is the potential for dialogue. This might sound too cumbersome but with the aid of an expert, it is not an impossible task to achieve. Should you need any assistance with your Social Media Marketing Strategy, do not hesitate to contact us.   

Building a strong brand through Social Media Marketing

In order for us to understand how to build a strong brand, we need to first define some terms. The website businessdictionary.com defines marketing as the process through which goods and services are relayed from concept to customer. This process involves different elements that will affect our marketing efforts, although some of these elements are not directly under the marketing department. For instance the production process, from source of raw materials, through the production line and methods used all the way up to distribution channels, will affect our price. As marketers engage with potential customers, they make certain promises which are affected by all these other elements. Pricing has a direct influence on market perceptions. Our endeavor to attract more customers propels us to advertise. Dictionary.com defines advertising as, "....the practice of calling public attention to one's product.....". This brings us to our third definition, branding; which is defined by Small Business Encyclopedia as, "The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products."

From the definitions above; branding and advertising are part of the marketing process. When we only push advertisements through Social Media, we would have dismally failed our Social Media Marketing strategy. Our efforts should inculcate our uniqueness making it rather difficult to ignore Inbound Marketing as part of our Social Media strategy. When we showcase how we do things internally and preach about our core values, that naturally strengthens our brand. Social Media Marketing should be more than an exercise to canvass for sales.

Any marketing strategy should address the 4 p's of marketing.
Product - discussing the product is literally addressing Content Marketing issues
Price - when we look at price determination we are directed to Inbound Marketing
Place - alludes to distribution channels and this will also be part of our Inbound Marketing
Promotion - this will cover our advertisements. Note that how we cover these four elements influences our brand.

These are the agreed marketing elements and an effective Social Media Marketing Strategy will incorporate all of them. Emphasis on some of the elements at the expense of others, will dilute our marketing efforts and weaken our brand. Paid advertisements will only be effective if we have a strong brand within Social Media Forums. It is not how much we spend on paid advertisements that might generate us more sales, we might actually need to spend more on Content and Inbound Marketing in order to build a stronger brand. Social Proof has a key role in building our brand. Therefore, all the content that we share, must have an engaging effect. When we have a lot of engagement through liking of our content, sharing of our content and direct queries and inquiries including suggestions our brand will have a positive effect on our potential market. This effect will also reduce our advertising spend.

How has your Social Media Marketing efforts affected your brand? Should you need any assistance with your Social Media Strategy do not hesitate to contact us or you can drop your numbers here and we will get back to you.

Types of followers in Social Media and how to target them as your audience

Social Media experts generally agree on 7 different types of followers, with some adding an 8^th. In our article Targeting and Growing an Audience, we noted that followers are not necessarily in Social Media to look for products/services to purchase. It requires skill and tact to be able to convert a follower into a sale. You cannot appeal to anyone with your content unless you understand why they are following you. Below are the different types of followers and the type of content you could possibly use to attract them.

Follower Type                                                               Possible Content 

·         The quite follower – just there reading your content	Content should show how products or services are going to be of help/benefit to them
·         Casual liker – they fancy some of your posts, and will occasionally 'like'	Have content that makes this follower feel like part of your product offering. They already fancy you, make them see how they are missing out by not buying your product or service
·         Deal seeker – always looking for promotions / uses Social Media to stay up to date on business	Offer specials; Run competitions; Make offers for purchases processed through Social Media Forums or in response to any activity in Social Media
·         The unhappy customer – is there to share a bad experience	We all make mistakes; be ready to apologize. Come up with deals aimed at making peace
·         The ranter – always yelling about something	Some of our clients suffer from challenges that have nothing to do with our products or services. Do not delete these from following you. Their comments won’t change who we are, but understanding them might provide the right attraction
·         The cheerleader – loves your brand and everything you post	That this groups raves about us does not automatically make them want to buy from us. We still need to nudge them in the direction. Content targeting this group should not only appeal for a sale but should be shareable so that they become our word-our-of-mouth advertisers as well.
·         The loyal fan – always has your back	This is the group that will comprise mostly of happy and satisfied customers. Whilst we have already done business with them we still need to target them for repeat business and they provide vital information on product improvement or development
·         The Fakers – cheap followers bought from agencies; In early 2014 – 1 out of 10 twitter accounts were fake; mid 2012 – Facebook had 83 million fake accounts. Source http://bit.ly/1MwXOK5	Some Social Media experts will advise you to buy followers and some can show you tricks on how to have thousands overnight followers. You are also going to be followed by fake accounts. Whilst these should be avoided, where we do come across them, let us not even waste time pretending to be addressing multitudes, we can never fake a sale.

 Our posts should therefore not only comprise of advertisements or promotions or special offers. We need to have a content mix that will address the needs of all these different followers. Our follower mix will determine how fast we can start converting followers into sales. We can never come up with content to share without understanding our follower make up. Classifying our followers into their different types, marks the beginning of the audience targeting process.

For assistance in classifying your followers and targeting your audience to yield a higher Return On Investment in your Social Media efforts, contact us on +27218516121 / +27799319372

Targeting and growing an audience in Social Media Marketing

I was reading an article that was discussing how some organisations are not realizing the value they expected on Social Media Marketing. The author had their own reasons whilst those who joined the conversation through comments added their diverse views. Basically it boiled down to two important aspects. The first one being the ability to differentiate between followers who are just potential clients, and followers who are an audience for your content. The second aspect being the ability to have an accurate measure of your efforts. We are going to restrict our article on the first aspect.

To better understand followers and a target audience, I will use the following example. If you went for a football match for your local popular team and found the stadium filled to capacity. There is a high probability that there is a sizable number of potential clients for your product or service within the crowd. However if you somehow got a way of making a sales pitch to part of the crowd, maybe those sitting close to you, its highly unlikely you will get a sale. Reason being that the emotional state may not be conducive and also the mission of your neighbors in the stadium could be very far from the need for your product or service. This scenario might almost be exactly what frustrates most organizations with Social Media Marketing. Most of the account holders in these forums did not open their accounts to look for products or services to buy. Advertisements, which are mainly graphic chew up a lot of data for those who do not have access to free internet, offending the would be viewer. However with a well structured strategy, it is possible to appeal to these followers and even convert them into sales. The first step of a smart marketing strategy is identification of a specific audience and presenting them with engaging content. Posting advertisements without any prior engagement might be disastrous.

I once read somewhere where an entrepreneur was having issues with their Facebook marketing campaigns because the return on investment was below what they considered acceptable. Their standard of evaluation was the low sales that the campaign had generated. They then queried why the traffic that they witness in Amazon did not compare with what they found on Social Media Forums. This simplistic view overlooked a cardinal fact that we have alluded to. Those that open accounts on Facebook may not be having any intention to purchase anything; whilst those in the corridors of Amazon are in essence there for shopping. This brings us to a critical point in audience identification. Most of those found in the Social Media Forums, might be there for various reasons, but one thing for sure they are hungry for information. Now our target audience should not only be potential clients, but we should target to engage even former customers so that they can vouch for us and our service offering.

When we evaluate our Return On Investment (ROI) in our Social Media Campaigns, we can not only look at sales generated and consider that a competent evaluation. Social Media has the capability to help us build a strong brand. A strong brand will not give us sales today but will leave us with a competitive edge. An astute strategy on material to share on Social Media will take into cognizance conversations with past clients for social proof; relevant information and professional advice to attract new customers; dialogue with industry influencers to affirm our product/service knowledge. Therefore when we define our audience, we need to make sure that we are conversing with all these three categories. The growth of our audience will also follow the same path, which should equally be reflected in our content. The more past customers we have, the more new clients we are able to attract and the more industry influencers will find it easy to identify with us. The numbers that reflect as our followers will not automatically become sales. It requires tact and skill to convert them.

How have you justified or reconciled the difference between your overall followers and sales conversion from you Social Media Forums? Kindly share with your comments below.

Organic Followers - Your Social Media Currency

One of the greatest philosophers Aristotle has this to say about Friends, "What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies." Another all time wise man, King Solomon states; "One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." These statements depict friendship as an emotional connection. In fact friends are viewed to have an inseparable connection. I would vouch for my friend and they can sacrifice anything on my acount. However, the advent of Social Media has literally redefined the meaning of friendship. In 1990 a British anthropologist Robin Dunbar in studying the relation between brain size and average social group, suggested that, "....humans can comfortably maintain 150 stable relationships." But we find in Social Media, an average person doubling that number. Some celebrity profiles have friends that run into millions per account. 

What Social Media defines as friends, is not the normal intimate relations that we have as friends in the real world. However the principles of acquiring these friends remain the same. Take note that different Social Media Forums have different names for relations. On Facebook you can have up to 5000 friends but if you opt to have followers or are running a business page, you have unlimited followers. Instagram and Twitter has followers, with an unlimited maximum. In LinkdIn there is a combination of connections - those that you have a two-way relationship with. You can also follow someone, where you will be able to see all their updates by they do not see yours. In order to avoid confusion, for the purpose of this article we will refer all Social Media relations as followers

Organic Followers

Organic depicts originality. It has become a popular word nowadays with the advent of genetically modified foods. In Social Media it is possible to modify followers. Organic followers are those that we attain naturally. It could be that they have always been in our circle of friends, and we connect on Social Media. I believe that there are primary and secondary Organic Followers. The primary Organic Followers are; family members, school mates, workmates, members of professional associations and church mates. In the second group of Organic Followers will be; those from our neighborhood, those in the same profession with us, same industry, share similar beliefs or those we share friends on Social Forums. Although relations may not be intimate, we share something in common and they would not hesitate to either vouch for us or confirm our authenticity. Basically they provide social proof about us. These are the followers who will always like our content, will not hesitate to comment and or share our work. However it does not follow that they can automatically be converted to sales when we market ourselves in Social Media Forums.

Paid/Bulk or Mass Followers

As the name implies, these are the modified followers. There are several ways that one can amass these followers. On Twitter one can follow a large number of people each day and wait for them to follow back. Then you go and unfollow those that did not follow you back, and you could artificially inflate your followers. This is called Aggressive Following Technique. On Facebook and Twitter, you can pay a 3rd party who has thousands of 'zombie' accounts to follow you or like your page. This is called Zombie Account Following. In all honesty, this is a wasted investment because for starters you risk your account being suspended, above that, you will be living a lie. Your brand can never grow when you are being followed by 'zombies'. In Facebook others use Like-Gates to entice followers. In order to qualify for a contests one is required to like the Facebook page running the contest. Large numbers can be attracted, but be rest assured they will pay no attention to your other efforts as their only interest will be the contest. Since only a few are going to win, those that feel unfairly treated have a potential to actually bad mouth your page inflicting damage to your brand. Boosting our presence on Social Media Forums will with no doubt make us visible to potential markets that we have no relations with. But an astute Social Media Strategist, will make sure that we have a healthy social proof from Organic followers before engaging in any paid media.

Why it is crucial to have a strategy guiding your efforts in Social Media Marketing

Advertising in Social Media can be low cost without compromising quality. That is great news. In fact it is possible to run free campaigns. I recently saw an interview of a Marketing Manager for a low cost airline who was saying they were only running their marketing campaigns on Social Media as part of their strategy to reduce costs. However the key to success is having a sound strategy for your efforts. Dropping advertisements, sharing blog posts or running campaigns without a strategy that spells out target audiences, means of reaching out, desired results, intelligent data analysis and program evaluation is futile and might actually produce negative results.

I have been working with a client who is an Immigration Attorney. They opened a Facebook business page and their immediate action was to flight advertisements. Obviously they attracted a lot of traffic to their page. Unfortunately most of the respondents where not exactly their target market. Of a bigger challenge was the fact that some of those that were commenting were actually querying the authenticity of  these attorneys. A mere advertisement did not quite achieve the desired results. Their efforts equally lacked social proof - a cardinal component for success in Social Media Marketing. I also found lacking in their efforts the human element in their communication. One of the proprietors in this project is on a LinkdIn, they have a Twitter account, but these are not active nor are they linked to the business Facebook page. It has been proven that clients easily engage with a personality.

Another interesting experience I had was with a client who is running an accounting firm. They also ran advertisements on Facebook but they are linked to their personal account. The challenge that I found with their work was that they were not taking advantage of content marketing to share relevant information with their target market. A technical and legislated service offering like accounting, naturally requires a lot of information sharing. Information shared could be from other technocrats, service providers and regulatory authorities. Source of relevant information is not much of an issue, what is important is to show that you have adequate knowledge about that information. As you share advice and relevant information, showcase your expertise to assist your potential clients utilize the information to their most advantage.

I am currently working on a Marketing Strategy for a client in the Construction Industry but offering a unique service. Initially the client was not convinced that their services can be marketed through Social Media Forums. But after noting that most of their clients are on Social Media Forums, they have since acknowledged the possibility of running a successful marketing program through these forums. The uniqueness of their product and regulations in their industry are a lucrative environment for content marketing. What is clear from most of these experiences is that enlisting the services of a consultant will help you identify the best methods to pursue. Marketing efforts need to be treat differently from mere information dissemination. A specialist will also help you come up with appropriate evaluation methods which are cardinal for the measure of Return on Investment.

Are you realising your desired results with your Social Media Marketing efforts? Maybe you have not yet considered Social Media Marketing. Get in touch and lets see how best we can assist.

Using Social Media as a strategy to Re-Invent

The saturation and decline stages of a product life cycle are a nightmare for any entrepreneur. Anything that can be done to re-invent the product and take it back to the stages where sales are growing and keep it at the maturity stage for a longer period, would be a dream come true. The advent of Social Media Marketing, makes this a reality. How? A Social Media Marketing Strategy worth its salt should enable dialogue between the organization and its clients. In all the data exchanged, our strategy should incorporate applications and tools that will aid data analysis which is intelligent enough to help us identify opportunities. This data when analysed appropriately, will arm the business with vital information on product use, product need, distribution channels new markets and possible joint ventures. It will be cardinal also to align our advertising efforts with the information unearthed from this data analysis.

One of the initiators of dialogue is Content Marketing. Through this marketing method you want to share relevant and valuable information about your product. The information has got to be targeted to a specific audience with a deliberate intent to attract dialogue. It is key to note that the targeted audience is already searching for information out there, and our aim is to conveniently avail ourselves as the providers of that information. Embedded in our information dissemination strategy, is a call for the consumer of our information not only to purchase our product but share this information. The availability of various platforms as sources of information through the internet has left almost everyone with a zeal to research. Most consumer will only purchase products that they have adequate information about, providing us the opportunity to share this information. The cyberspace is infiltrated with a lot of 'experts' and some are of questionable repute. There is no better advantage you can have than present yourself as an authority in your trade by sharing product information and professional advice.

Another dialogue instigator is Inbound Marketing. This is a strategy where you want to showcase how you perform internal activities and use that to attract clients. With Inbound Marketing you are literally saying to your target audience....."Hey, this is who we are, this is what we do, this is how we do it....do you fancy?" Since Social Media is designed to propel dialogue, who ever has been targeted with this information is going to respond. They will either confirm that what you are doing tickles them the right way, they might scream at how shoddily you are conducting yourself or they might give indications of how you fair compared to the best within your industry. That you have bared your soul is in itself some form of an evaluation and the responses you get will arm you with a with relevant information on how to keep your product offer high on the performance rung.

Research and development can be very tricky as it is premised on a lot of assumptions. Where sampling is conducted there is no guarantee that the results are harvested from the appropriate potential markets or the results will survive the changes in our fast paced age. With Social Media Marketing, research can easily be conducted through engaging our followers who are our target markets. Not only will the research be a fair representation but our strike rate will be very close to assumptions. When we develop a listening skill, it is possible to pick out from clients new product use or even product diversification. Our clients will provide us with relevant information to purse new markets. It is through dialogue in Social Media Forums that we can as well identify potential strategic partners. Our Social Media Marketing Strategy is as good as our investment on data analysis. With adequate analysis, we can re-invent ourselves from market saturation and product decline, to growth stages either with a new product or with our current product in new markets. It is also possible to identify new product use.

Is your Social Media Marketing Strategy able to re-invent you? We could help you with an evaluation.

How Social Media Disrupts Conventional Business Processes

Social Media is here to stay. Not only will it stay but it is going to disrupt a number of business models. Some of the disruption will be advantageous to some business models whilst others will be negatively affected. Like any change, the introduction of Social Media into the mainstream business processes has got both threats and opportunities. For bold entrepreneurs with an innovative appetite, this presents enormous opportunity for product improvement, penetrating new markets and affirming a competitive edge. Below are five points that detail how Social Media disrupts conventional business models. Each one presents opportunities that cut across most if not all industries.

1. Social Media removes barriers that exists between businesses and their customers. Content Marketing provides organizations an opportunity to showcase products in detail. It is through the understanding of the product; the acceptance of the solution provided by the product, that influences a purchase. Inbound Marketing bares open the soul of the organization. The organization has to demonstrate its internal processes as a way of attracting clients. The main goal is to have prospecting clients engage. The organization should exude a persona that prospecting clients can identify and are comfortable to converse with. Whilst organizations rarely seek a response from their advertisements and marketing efforts, with Social Media Marketing, unless the audience/target market engages, one would have not achieved their objective. Marketing as we know it, is disrupted by Social Media

2. Social Media streamlines internal and external business communication. With Social Media communication can be on real time. Individual business units can communicate with clients. It is possible for line workers to be authorized to communicate directly with clients. Let me hasten to say that we ought to support our Social Media Strategy with communication policies that clarify what can be communicated and what can not be communicated. Traditionally we have Public Relations, After Sales Care and Client Relations handling how we interact with clients. Social Media Forums streamlines these departments and leave clients dealing with the organization directly. This empowers both the clients and organizations. The client is free to converse, ask all questions and even contribute their views or make suggestions. This environment strengthens the relationship between clients and their suppliers. When clients are happy with the service they receive, they share company information with their friends becoming brand ambassadors.

3. Another disruption that comes with Social Media Forums is the opportunity for entrepreneurs to incorporate co-creation. Clients' ideas can be co-opted into the design and manufacture of products. The norm has always been that if you come up with an idea, once perfected you patent it and go through a phase of trial and error where you test your market. With Social Media, it is possible to involve prospecting clients in product design and manufacture. By the time the product hits the markets, the customers are not presumed, they are known by name and location. Co-creation reduces the cost of research and development. Research remains cardinal, but it is done in a smart way which involves prospecting clients and reduces costs.

4. Social Media does not only affect Business to Consumer activities even Business to Business processes are disrupted. System developers are making use of participatory design, to involve clients in the design of systems. Social Media Forums make it possible for this engagement to happen without physical presence of all parties involved. System upgrades and maintenance is also made possible through easy communication facilitated by Social Media Forums

5. Social Media avails enormous data to organizations about their clients. This data is a game changer that does not necessarily bring any disruption to conventional business processes. However it avails information on client behavior, client preferences and client needs. Shrewd innovators have invested heavily in Data Analysis. Data Science is enabling organization to mine information from data availed by Social Media Forums. This information if properly analysed can improve services and be utilized to explore new projects.

Besides marketing, how else have you used Social Media Forums to improve your business offering?

Follower categories and their impact on your Social Media Marketing Strategy

One of the marketing objectives in Social Media Forums is to get followers to engage. There are different rungs at which you will engage with followers. There are some whose engagement will end by merely following you. Whilst this is the lowest category in the engagement rung, it holds some value in that these followers could be migrated to a better category. Following this group are those that will just like your posts without commenting. This groups goes a step beyond just following, they view what you share, and they like. This could indicate some improvement from the first group but again this action does not mean much to justify our investment. This reaction is still not what we are looking for, but this group belongs to an important sector of our target market. They have paid some attention to our activities.

Next to this group are those that will make inquiries or ask questions about our products. This is a critical group because the way we respond could literally convert them to sales. This group actually brings us to another important point in our Social Media Strategy, we might need different individuals engaging with our followers. For technical inquiries, we need the most technical brains showcasing our technical expertise. Remember that internet has equipped our market with information and when they engage us, they are actually knowledgeable to some extent. For engagement on a situation that bares the possibility of sales conversion, we need our sales expert to harvest this potential.  We also have another group of followers who will go through our content and give us negative feedback. Some will criticize everything about our work and run short of calling us names. This is valuable engagement. It is valuable in that, if we analyse what they criticize us on, we might actually land ourselves on a competitive edge. Criticism from a competitor, could mean just a feat of jealous; whereas criticism from a potential client will always point to room for improvement.

Those that have done business with us migrate to another group that raves about us. This group needs to be given its own type of attention because they become brand ambassadors and will push our interests through word of mouth marketing. This is the group that will share our content. They will also recommend us to anyone within their social circles. The more followers we have in this group, the less paid advertising we will need. It is therefore cardinal to convert the larger part of our followers into this group. Our strategy should help us identify these important engagement rungs from our followers and migrate them to the most important group; those that rave about us. Our engagement with this group is more valuable than a company profile that details our past experiences. For most small business operators, our potential B2B clients will always request a company profile before giving us any business. The profile details our trading history. Our engagement, especially with clients that we converted to sales, is more valuable in profiling our business than historic events, that may have been left redundant by the paced changes in our environments. Ou

Our followers do not only authenticate us to their peers but can also be part of our profile for B2B clients. Have you ever used Social Media Activities to profile your business, we would love to hear your valuable comments below....