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.