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....

Why it is important to balance your content mix in Social Media Marketing

Social Media platforms were not made popular by business activities. But the business world sought to maximise on the opportunity provided by the availability of consumers in platforms that make it easy to target audiences. This suggests therefore that in order to appeal to our targeted audiences, we ought to approach them with a content mix, that is at their 'social' level whilst attaining our business objectives. Our content has got to be witty, informative and timeous. Presentation should be brief enough to make an impact whilst the targeted audience is still paying attention. Our mix should be made up of general product information, professional advice, brand awareness and corporate values. If we are in the service industry, some of this information could actually be part of our stock in trade, but we should be prepared to share it for free. Only when we have detailed the usefulness of our products to our target audience and identified ourselves with their situation; can we then begin advertising and soliciting sales.

Many potential clients may not be aware of the full benefits they can get from our products or services. Detailed product information is one of the main differentiators between conventional marketing and content marketing. The availability of internet on our smartphones, has encouraged the average person to quench their inquisitiveness through researching. A content marketing strategy with the correct mix should leave us with a marketing edge if we present ourselves as both information and product providers. Our strategy should not be a one way communication system, but we have to listen to client responses. The information we get from clients is cardinal in product development and improvement of systems. If we analyse all this data efficiently, we should be able to outperform competitors and place ourselves at a competitive advantage.

A prosperous strategy should have a theme and program built around this mix. The frequency of the different categories on our content mix should be guided by a timetable specifying what information we are sharing on a particular day at a specified time. However this timetable should never be inscribed on stone, we should be flexible enough to adjust and be in sync with the best times as revealed by analytics. Our objective is not only information dissemination but also engagement. In this regard it becomes prudent to post during the times we are likely to receive most engagement. We could find that our content with general information is mainly responded to during working hours, whilst our content with professional advice gets most responses during evening hours. It might be necessary to switch around these times for a couple of days until we have identified the best timing. Our best timing is not when we only receive the most clicks, but when we have meaningful engagement. Without a dedicated timetable for the different categories in our mix, we may easily forget to provide relevant 'social' information that encourages engagement. An engagement, even if it is a negative response, has got more chances to be converted to a sale than a mere page view. A page view is an important lead that should not be ignored, but our efforts should aim at engagement.

How do you balance your content mix, mind sharing with your valued comments below?

How Organic Reach reduces your Marketing Costs when you have the best Social Media Strategy

There are generally two types of groups that you will reach with marketing activities on Social Media forums. The first one is the organic reach. This is the group that we reach out to through our normal activities. This group decides to follow us when they come accross our presence on Social Media Forums. They might also go out on thier own to look for us. In this group is included those that we reach through word of mouth marketing. Those already following us, become our brand ambassodors who either recommend us or share our content. This helps us expand our potential reach without any extra costs.

There is another group that we reach when we pay for advertisements or boost our campaigns; the paid reach. Normally we would not reach this group without Social Media Forums aiding us by broadcusting our campains to particular markets where potential clients, not following us can be reached. It is therefore cardinal to have paid advertisements and campaigns for a wider reach. But in order to contain and even reduce our marketing costs we need to present ourselves in a manner that will attract as many organic followers as possible. The more organic reach we achieve, the less marketing costs we incur.

Business costs need to be contained if we are to grow our bottom line. Reducing marketing costs, without a plan to maintain a competitive advantage is just as suicidal as reducing product or service qaulity. In order to remain competitive, cost reduction requires innovation. Social Media Marketing is one such innovation. A Social Media Marketing Strategy that disseminates appropriate content and is able to enlighten on our internal functions will help us attract and grow organic followers. We live in an information age where our clients crave to know more about our products and those that are in the supply chain. Choice between products and suppliers is now influenced more by direct relationships than reputation. Clients will relate better with us when they see a photograph of us doing our daily chores. Even a one minute video on how we perform certain functions goes a long way not only to inform but also build a relationship. Infact pictures and videos leave a more lasting impression than written words hence are more porpular. These are activities that we do not have to pay for, but if properly designed and strategically diseminated, can grow us organic followers.

Our Social Media Marketing Strategy should therefore be designed to attract and grow organic followers. This will inturn reduce our marketing costs. 

Should you be in need of a strategy to grow organic followers and reduce your marketing costs, do not hesitate to contact us.

Loopholes to avoid when measuring performance of your Social Media Marketing Strategy

A marketing campaign as part of a business process needs to be measured. It is easy to measure performance in conventional marketing methods. However when it comes to Social Media it is still hazy to attach costs to activities and apportion results to specific actions. There are various tools and applications that can be used, but there is still debate whether what they measure is a true reflection of a return on investment of a social media campaign. Campaigns can never be similar. Objectives and results will always differ. Target audience also differs even though we may be using the same forum. With a clear strategy it is possible to identify performance measures for our Social Media Campaigns. Activity in Social Forums, may tempt us to view popular campaigns as successful. But what is success for one campaign might not be considered such for another. There are two types of popular campaigns that we need to be aware of and how they can or should affect/influence our campaigns.

Firstly we have viral marketing campaign. In Social Media, a viral campaign is one that has almost everyone sharing it.  They fall in love with the campaign and are motivated to share it with the next person. The campaign is extensively shared at not extra cost to us. Sharing of company information is good for brand awareness. However the reason this information is being shared might not be in sync with our marketing objectives. Yes, we want as many to know about us, but we just being known, is no assurance for a competitive advantage. We can only attain the competitive advantage if the objectives of our campaign are met.  A wrong interpretation of the popularity of a campaign, might lead us to conclude that we are successful when in actual fact, those sharing our information might never be converted into actual or potential future sales. I am reminded of the ALS Ice Water Bucket Challenge that once went viral. The originators of the concept, wanted to raise awareness on people living with the ALS condition and also to fund raise. I had close to 100 followers on Facebook that I saw participating in the challenge. Of all of them, there is only one who donated to the ALS foundation. The rest just did the exercise for fun or for its popularity. Partly the managed to raise awareness but I am not sure if the fundraising objective was met.

Secondly we have trending topics. Trending is a buzz word for popular topics mainly on Twitter but also applicable across all other Social Media Forums. Twitter has a column on the left side of its main page where it shows trending topics. Whilst it is possible to have our campaign trend and even appear on the front page of twitter, this might not help us meet our objectives.  Recently we had the official opposition party in South Africa run a campaign to promote their newly elected leader. He is a young vibrant man and CNN actually called the "Obama of Soweto" referring to his home area. The campaign #askmmusi was meant to get ideas from South Africans on their expectations on their new leader. That the topic was trending confirms that their brand got a boost. However whether their objectives were met might remain debatable. The interesting questions that came out of the campaign which received a lot of attention, had little to do a political leader. So if we use the matrix that the campaign was trending to measure the success of this Social Media Campaign, we might mislead ourselves.

Trending and Viral marketing can not be used as performance measures in our Social Media Marketing Strategy. But we can not ignore them. We actually need to build our campaigns around them because they give us insights into what our potential market is interested in. Should we have a campaign that trends or goes viral, we need to identify opportunities that we can capitalize on. Attention on its own will not lead to a competitive advantage.

How are you measuring your performance in Social Media Marketing? You can share with your valued comments below. Should you be in need of assistance in this regard, we are more than willing to assist.

3 Ways a Social Media Marketing Strategy can Propel Success in a Township Economy

The World Bank Group conducted a study entitled The Economics of South African Townships. It was published in August 2014 in their website http://worldbank.org This document details the potential of business opportunities in the Townships and Informal Settlements of South Africa. The Apartheid political system that marginalized natives, which was only done away with 21 years ago, left more than 60% of unemployed citizens inhabiting in these environments. Most of these settlements have limited services and are located far from commercial districts. Whilst property developers and large retailers are moving into some of these areas which are accessible; there is still huge potential for small scale entrepreneurs. Government at both National and Provincial levels have recognized this potential and are pursuing various Township Economy promoting initiatives. The private sector through programs like business incubation and capital support are also playing their part in the development of this sector. It is a fact that this scenario will bring in fierce competition between the already established businesses and the newcomers.

1. You can use Social Media Marketing as a Market Penetrating Strategy
Small entrepreneurial projects are usually similar. For any business to stand out, there is need for an effective market penetration strategy. Most conventional advertising mediums, be it print or electronic, cost an arm and a leg for a basic advert. Its critical to note that these advertisement may not necessarily reach most of the targeted audience for a small business in the Townships and Informal Settlements.  Some potential customers do not own Radio or Television sets and a newspaper or magazine is considered luxury. But now there is Social Media. There is no household that does not have at least one occupant who owns a smart phone and are online most of the day time into early evening hours. Almost all these individuals are on more than one Social Media Forum that offers Marketing services. A smart entrepreneur will utilize the services of Social Media Marketing to build a sustainable competitive advantage. It is important to understand what campaigns will tickle your prospecting customers. Planning can not be over emphasized.

2. You can use Social Media as an affordable Advertising Medium
Social Media Marketing campaigns can be quite affordable with the possibility of producing them in-house. One would need to master the use of some applications and tools which are available online, some for free whilst those requiring subscriptions do not cost much. Some form of informal training could help boost one's mastery. In Social Media Marketing we share content that is produced in a manner that attracts attention and encourages readers to also share. The content describes us and our services or products and when our content is shared, its like we get a free ride through the activities of our customers to reach potential market. Most of the material that has gone viral, is original work that has not been edited. Creating and broadcasting of this content can create business opportunities.

3. You can use Social Media to acquire loyal Brand Ambassadors and Marketing Data
Cardinal to success in our Social Media activities is the process of attracting and growing followers. It is essential that we have a number of organic followers before we consider boosting our activities. I would not advise buying of any followers because they may not be within out target market. The process of identifying Who we are targeting; What we will share with them; How we will reach them and When we want to reach them; is another business opportunity in the Township Economy for another small entrepreneur. The data that we will gather can lead to us to other profitable ventures if we analyse it properly. Data analysis could actually be another business potential for other entrepreneurs within the Township economy. Since Social Media Activities are available to us at no extra infrastructure, besides our smartphones; these activities are a mine rich with enormous business potential.

What other potential business opportunities have you identified within the Township or Informal Settlement Economy that one can pursue through Social Media Activities? You can share with your valued comments. Should you be interested in participating in this lucrative venture, we are more than willing to assist.