4 Benefits of Social Media Beyond Marketing

The most recent Pew Research study of social media usage shows that 65 percent of adults now use social media sites—up from only 7 percent just ten years ago! And, social media isn’t just for digital natives these days. Pew’s research shows that while those ages 18-29 are still the most prolific users (at 90 percent), those 65 and older are jumping on board as well—in 2015, 35 percent of those 65+ reported that they use social media sites, compared to only 2 percent in 2005.

This is all good news for marketers, of course, and if you spend any time at all on social media sites you can readily see that companies, large and small, are using the sites to market their wares to both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) markets.

But social media has applications that extend beyond marketing.

Recruitment

LinkedIn is probably the social media channel most thought of as a recruitment tool. The site, in fact, started out as a means for job seekers to connect with potential employers and recruiters. Today, employers both post job openings and also “troll” profiles looking for “passive” candidates that might meet their needs. Passive candidates are those who are not actively looking for a job. Recruiters have also extended their reach beyond LinkedIn to use other social media sites—like Facebook, Twitter and even Pinterest—to find job candidates.

Customer Service

If you’ve ever posted a somewhat negative comment or complaint about a company online and received an almost immediate follow-up response from a representative from the company, you’ve experienced how social media can be used as a customer service tool. Savvy companies set up processes that allow them to monitor and curate online comments so that they can quickly intervene and address any issues consumers may have.

Employee Communication and Collaboration

Many social media sites offer the opportunity to create closed, or proprietary, groups that only pre-selected members can join. LinkedIn and Facebook are two examples of this. This can provide big benefits for organizations that want to provide employees who may be geographically dispersed with an opportunity to engage and connect. Setting up such groups can also be an important part of a crisis communication plan—providing an opportunity to get messages out to employees, and other key audiences, in the event of an emergency.

Market Research

There’s a lot of data to be found through social media and a lot of insights to be gleaned about consumers’ interests and preferences. While companies need to be cautious about drawing too many conclusions from what is qualitative information, these insights can serve as the basis for further quantitative research and can also provide early indications of key trends that may be impacting your markets.

Source : http://bit.ly/1TqJvdS

7 Ways To Keep Your Startup Marketing Lean

If you've recently launched a startup, you know your brand needs as much exposure as possible. When you don't have much capital to work with, however, you may require a more cost-effective strategy. 

Luckily, digital marketing is highly scalable. You can start working on effective, goal-producing activities right now, and build on your strategy as you get more resources.

Building Brand Awareness And Value

The more people who recognize your brand from a distinctive logo, voice, and design, the better your chances are of getting content in front of them and driving conversions. Products and services evolve naturally the longer a company stays around, but a recognizable brand is like an insurance policy for your business goals.

Don't think you'll get away with a catchy yet vague slogan like Visa’s “It’s everywhere you want to be” and create brand value. You haven’t gained enough market penetration. Startups have to use explanatory and emotionalcues in their messaging to build awareness and trust.

Yet today's startups have more power than ever to create brand awareness and value without spending money. Even young individuals on social media can create an impactful brand that resonates with followers. Popular YouTube stars Jenna Marbles and PewDiePie both make more than many actors and actresses, and it all started with a free YouTube channel. The key is finding where your target audience spends time and using those platforms to emotionally connect.

Every piece of content, including tweets, infographics, and short- and longform video, has the potential to resonate with your audience in a meaningful way. Having a social impact also increases the likelihood that current customers who believe in your product offering will recommend your product to friends and colleagues.

Optimizing Digital Marketing on a Budget

You don’t need to invest millions into marketing as a startup. Take Zillow. It's now a public company that does spend millions on TV ads and more. But when it first started, it didn’t spend anything on marketing. Its website was its product, and optimizing it at every level ensured the site acted as its own marketing. Email, search-engine optimization, content development, and PR don’t have to cost much money in the beginning.

Consider investing in these areas:

A Strong Web Presence

Websites are at the core of digital marketing. Without one, you have nowhere to direct inbound marketing activities. Your page will serve as a data repository you can tap to gauge success, and it's also the only place online that's completely yours to create. Find ways to add value through your websiteto encourage traffic.

For example, Dropbox used free extra storage as a promotion for referrals, and Pinterest used an “invitation only” tactic to create an image of exclusivity before making the site available to anyone. Each tactic added value without costing the company much upfront.

In addition to traffic-driving tactics, update your website for visibility on search engines. These boring maintenance tasks will continually boost your visibility and become a source of value for inbound visitors.

Social Media

Find out where your audience spends its time. Are they younger folks who prefer to Snapchat, Instagram, and Yik Yak—or are they an older generation who's more comfortable with Facebook and Twitter?

You can always buy your way to prominence on social platforms. But companies that really succeed in social media use these channels as a natural extension of other marketing activities. Social media is a forum for natural engagement that builds credibility, not revenue generation. Consider how Dollar Shave Club used YouTube and companies like Red Bull and Oreo used hashtag campaigns to generate conversations. People of every age use social media, making it a fantastic forum for startups to tap into—you just have to figure out where your users are hanging out.

Your Personal Network

Every entrepreneur has to become a brand champion, and every business owner needs to get the word out. Grassroots marketing is effective because it allows you to leverage personal relationships for the benefit of the business, and almost every company uses it in some form. Get on social media, call up friends and old schoolmates, go to LinkedIn and take advantage of those professional connections, and ask your family to get in on it.

Request that everyone do something to promote the brand, whether that's reviewing the product on a third-party site, sharing content on social media, or mentioning your company online. Every extra link your network puts out has the potential to reach hundreds more people than you could on your own.

Content

Content is the bread and butter of the digital marketing world. Whether you use slideshows, quizzes, surveys, blogs, videos, articles, or infographics, take the time to make each piece of content feel like an extension of the company. Think about what types of content other successful companies have used. 

Although Target is a large company, for instance, its recent holiday marketing campaign told a story across digital and traditional platforms to inspire an emotional connection and engagement. Startups can do the same thing on a smaller scale to generate brand awareness.

Engage With Your Customers

Part of the beauty of digital marketing is the ability for brands to create a personal connection with consumers. Companies are living, breathing organisms that consumers care about. Brands such as Google, Lego, and Uber all outperform their competitors because they make a personal connection with their audiences.

Companies that win at engagement have created an emotional connection. They respond to feedback quickly and publicly. They understand what their target audience finds valuable. Startups can mimic these larger successes with fast responsivity and by sharing in consumer experiences online.

Mobile And App Marketing

Since many startups focus on providing app-centric services, earning visibility in Apple and Google's app stores will yield the best marketing results. Make sure users looking for products like yours can find your app. There are more than 1,600,000 apps in Google Play and more than 1,500,000 in the Apple App Store. Spend time on app-store optimization, including keywords, icon graphics, and descriptions and screenshots to encourage users to download.

Email

Email still offers a lot of bang for your buck. Most online consumers check their email many times a day, and many use a mobile device to do so. E-commerce companies, in particular, invest in email marketing over every other type of marketing activity—and they're smart to do so.

On a small budget, you can find an email marketing platform that allows you to create, send, and monitor responses to your campaigns. Add a subscription form to your website, and start building up your consumer contact base. Send out regular newsletters with the last few blog links or highlight promotions. 

To Market, To Market

The world is your oyster. You can go social all the way or you can focus on using data to carefully market to a niche looking for more than a snippet of information. However, every business is different. Try out a few tactics and measure the results to see what works for you. If you can only spend money on one digital marketing front, invest it in your website. The rest you can DIY until you hit the big time.

Source : http://bit.ly/1KbudGx

7 STEPS FOR AN EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING PLAN

With 2016 under way, one thing is clear: social media is now a vital marketing channel for businesses of all sizes. The common question a few years ago, “why should our business use social media?”, is now being replaced with, “how can our business grow with social media marketing?”.

As a social media marketer, this makes me very excited. What doesn’t make me excited is how many businesses are still trying to market on social media without a documentedstrategy. In this post you will learn the seven steps your business must take to create an effective social media marketing strategy.

STEP 1: AUDIT YOUR CURRENT SOCIAL PRESENCE

“Know thyself. Know the customer. Innovate.” – Beth Comstock

Before you strategize about where you are headed, take a quick look at where you are. A few areas to consider when auditing your business’s social media presence are:

• Which networks are you currently active on
• Are your networks optimized (photo and cover images, bio, URL, etc.)
• Which networks are currently bringing you the most value
• How do your profiles compare to your competitors’ profiles

STEP 2: DOCUMENT WHO YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER IS

“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” – Peter Drucker

You will want to get as specific as possible with this part. For example, if you identified your target market as parents it would be ok. However, if you identify your ideal customer as a parent that lives in the United States, is between 30 and 50 years of age, earns over $70,000, primarily uses Facebook and has an interest in outdoors activities you will have much more success.

Even the best marketers will fail if they are marketing to the wrong audience. Answer the following questions to help you come up with a highly focused buyer persona:

• Age
• Location
• Job Title
• Income
• Pain Points (that your business can solve)
• Most Used Social Network

STEP 3: CREATE A SOCIAL MEDIA MISSION STATEMENT

“What makes you weird, makes you unique and therefore makes you stand out.” – Dan Schawbel

Your social media mission statement will drive your future actions, so make sure you put some thought into it. This statement will make it clear exactly what you plan to use your social media presence for and should reflect your brand identity. Keep in mind your ideal customer when trying to create this statement.

An example mission statement might be “to use social media to educate current and potential customers about digital marketing, with a focus on social media marketing.” Once you have this statement documented, it will make it simple for you to decide what to share and create.

If it doesn’t align with your mission statement, forget about it. Businesses that post randomly without a guiding mission will fail. People follow experts, not generalists.

STEP 4: IDENTIFY KEY SUCCESS METRICS

“If you cannot measure it you cannot improve it.” – Lord Kelvin

How will you determine if your social media marketing efforts are successful? I am not just talking about gaining more followers, I am talking about making money. Afterall, it is hard to rationalize spending time and money on something that isn’t improving the bottom line.

A few metrics to consider measuring are:

• Conversion Rate
• Time Spent on Website
• Reach
• Brand Mentions
• Sentiment
• Total Shares

STEP 5: CREATE AND CURATE ENGAGING CONTENT

“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet.” – Bill Gates

Sadly, many businesses jump straight to this step. Hopefully this post has made it clear that there are several vital steps that you must take before you start creating and curating engaging content to share on your social media channels.

Let’s now discuss the fun part, posting to social media. You know who your ideal customer is and you used that information to create your social media mission statement. Armed with this information it should be easy for you to begin creating and curating content. So, what exactly is considered content? Here are a few examples of content you could create:

• Images
• Videos
• Blog Posts
• Company News
• Infographics
• eBooks
• Interviews

The list of content ideas goes on and on, but make sure you focus only on forms of content that align with your mission statement, as well as your skill set. Content is what fuels social media, so it is crucial that you consider creating high quality, engaging content as a top priority.

I strongly recommend that you create a content calendar that outlines how often you will post to each network, which topics you will share and when you will share them.

STEP 6: INVEST IN A SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT TOOL

“We live in times in which ordinary people can do amazing things using the right tools”

Most marketers have a secret, they leverage tools to boost their productivity. Ok, maybe it isn’t a secret, but without tools marketers would face constant burnout (many do even with tools). When it comes to social media, having a social media management tool allows you to scale your efforts with ease.

One of the main benefits of a social media management tool is the ability to schedule posts ahead of time. Remember that content calendar you created? Make sure your scheduled posts in your social media management tool align with your content calendar.

“If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.” – Ronald Coase

This may be the most important step when it comes to succeeding on social media. Even the best social media marketers rely on trial and error. It might seem basic, but tracking your results, analyzing the data and then making tweaks to optimize them is crucial.

Each previous step should be re-evaluated after you have had time to analyze the results of your marketing efforts. Let the data drive you. If it is telling you Facebook or Twitter is your most effective channel, consider doubling down.

A great social media strategy is never set in stone. It is a constant work in progress that changes when necessary. So get out there, create a strategy and start optimizing it as you continue to grow and learn more about your business and your audience.

Source : http://bit.ly/1ZvS857

5 Things Tech Entrepreneurs Should Do Instead of Learning to Code

There’s a prevalent train of thought running amuck through the tech startup world: Entrepreneurs believe learning to code will boost their credibility, provide them with a deeper understanding of their businesses, and transform their abilities to lead their troops. Many will run to Codecademy, take a few courses, and expect to be able to write an enterprise app. This is comparable to taking a few guitar lessons and challenging Jimmy Page to a face-off; it’s not going to end well for you.

While understanding code could certainly be helpful, it’s a far cry from being acritical skill for most tech entrepreneurs. If you have at least one developer and you’re still coding, you are ignoring your core responsibilities. That’s why I’m going against the grain here and discouraging tech entrepreneurs from learning to code. There are way more important things you should be doing with your time.

Why Leaders Shouldn’t Learn to Code

If you’re starting out by yourself, there’s some merit in learning to code. Most entrepreneurs are great idea people. Knowing how to actually implement ideas could separate you from the endless line of people hoping to create the “next Facebook.”

However, as soon as you hire a single capable engineer, whatever coding skills you have are no longer necessary. One solid engineer could implement more in two weeks than you could in six months — and it would likely be more robust and scalable.

Every minute you spend in the trenches learning a programming language from the ground up is time your customers are being ignored, your marketing isn’t being executed, and your company is running without direction.

You’re the leader — focus on the overall vision of your company. Leave the code to the competent, career-oriented coders.

Instead of wasting time gaining skills your team already has, you should be coaching and guiding your team toward stardom. These five actions will provide much more value to your brand than teaching your computer a for-loop operation to ask your name and repeat it back to you:

1. Draft a Spec Doc

Even if you can code, taking the time to think through and map out actual customer needs, user flows, and interactions is essential to creating a successful company. Having a more detailed product plan with specifics will not only improve your company, but it will also greatly help in product development (as well as hiring great talent).

2. Evaluate Customers

The single most important thing a leader can bring to the team is a clear understanding of customer and market need. Although most leaders would probably claim to have a good understanding of their target customers, it is rare to find one who actually spends enough time studying and interacting with them. If you don’t fully understand the situations, stories, and users of your product, what (or who) are you even designing it for? Anyone can make up a target customer, but real people in the real world rarely act how you think they will.

3. Recruit Actual Software Engineers

If you were to spend a year learning the foundations of computer programming, you’ll likely end up with a crap junior coder (you) who has no real understanding of what they’re doing. Instead, you should hire an experienced engineer, place your clearly developed vision in his hands, and tell him to put the pedal to the metal. Now that is a winning formula.

4. Sell Your Product

Sales are the lifeblood of any company. Without them, you have nothing. So get out and pitch your product to customers, and then assess the ensuing feedback loop. These early pitches will teach you an immense amount about the needs and wants of your target audience. Imagine how helpful this information will be when you’re training your first sales hires!

5. Pitch to Investors

Nearly every business reaches a point where it needs outside funding to grow beyond being an experiment. If this is the path you’re going to go down, you — as the face of the company — need to be able to speak convincingly to potential investors. This takes a lot of practice, but it’s your job to draw interest in your project and get people to sign on the dotted line.

Coding is a valuable skill, but it’s definitely not a necessary one for a leader just because it’s a tech-based business. Leading a company is a skill in itself, and nobody expects a CEO to understand how to code any more than a software engineer is expected to know how to run a successful company. Instead, stick to your strengths, and hire all-star coders to make your vision a reality.

Source : http://bit.ly/1NG8RT7

The Latest Rules of Social Media Marketing

Social media is no doubt an ideal way for you to acquire new fans/followers and engage with them. It’s also an ideal tool to boost the reputation of your company/brand. In a way, social media has become an integral asset in marketing your business.

But how are you going to maximize its tools for your company?

Listed below are some new do’s that you should follow when it comes to your social media marketing so you’d be able to achieve your goals in no time.

Social Plan

Do you have one?

Most of us don’t.

Social plan is essential to make your social media marketing more powerful.

It’s a plan that compiles all fresh contents on your social media. You can create a daily, weekly or a monthly theme.

With a plan, you’ll have consistency. This will also allow you to send out your social updates at the right time.

When your audience knows when you’re going to post your content, they’ll go back to your site and wait for your next awesome piece of content.

Then again, what you post should provide them value. Else, they’re going to leave or unfollow you.

Even though you have a social plan, you should still monitor your channels.

Don’t just post and leave. You want your social media accounts to be as professional as possible as they reflect what your brand is.

That said, you’d want to monitor your channels and take out those spammy comments or inappropriate remarks.

Monitoring your channels will also help you find some comments and questions posted by your prospective clients.

When you’re there monitoring, you can make an instant reply and begin a real-time conversation with them.

Content Should Reflect Your Brand

It simply means that your content must provide value to your audience by sharing content that’s information and educational.

This gives them a sample of what they can expect when they visit your site. It also gives them a preview of what type of information is housed on your own site.

You already have followers. So, give them a reason to click through your link and visit your site.

But never assume what your audience wants. Just because you share your content on your social media accounts doesn’t mean that you’ll increase your CTR.

For that reason, you should know the profiles of those who interact with your content. In this way, you can share content that attracts attention to your potential customers.

Test the Times and Types of Content

A good social media marketer will always test the best time to post content in a social media channel. In this way, you’ll know what content works and what needs to be improved.

As you survey the activities on your social channel, you can generate useful pieces of information that may increase engagements and schedule your post during optimal times.

The best time to post is different from one company to another. That said, it’s necessary that you know your audience.

You can do so by using Google Analytics and check out your demographics, location and so on and so forth. Use these pieces of information to get to know more about your followers.

Source : http://bit.ly/1P7peIf