Social Media Marketing: Take Richard Branson’s Word for It

Earlier in 2012, IBM released its 2012 Global CEO Study, a work born from interviews with over 1700 CEOs worldwide. One of the study’s findings revealed that only 16% of CEOs currently participate in social media. That’s not all. For many CEOs, social media is also one of the least-utilized methods of customer engagement. CEOs listed face-to-face interactions as number one, followed by websites, channel partners, call centers, traditional media, advisory groups, and finally, social media.

Even those CEOs who are using social aren’t in any danger of redefining consumer engagement as we know it. As one CEO interviewee put it, “We use social media less as a marketing or distribution channel and more as a knowledge platform to obtain information about customers.”

Huh…

On the bright side, the Study found that social media will slog ahead to become the number two way to engage customers (57%) “within the next five years.”

No need to rush into anything, after all...

THE TOP CEOs' APPROACH TO SOCIAL

Given this data, it should come as no shocker that CEOs are not exactly moving the needle on individual participation on social platforms. Check out the usage numbers of Fortune 500 CEOS with active  accounts on some of the top social platforms, taken from the 2012 Fortune 500 CEO Index:

LinkedIn- 25.9%

Facebook- 7.6%

Twitter-3.8%

Google+ -.08%

Corporate Blog Contributor-1.2%

Personal Blog-0.2% (one person)

Pinterest- 0% (come on, no pinning? I find that hard to believe. They must be using pseudonyms)

I won’t even bore you with actual CEO social engagement numbers- suffice it to say, they’re abysmal. Amazingly, this data spits in the face of other data showing that 94% of employees believe a social CEO will enhance their brand.

It’s a crazy world.

SIR RICHARD’S APPROACH TO SOCIAL

Into the social breach steps Sir Richard Branson, the clear exception to the CEO social despondency narrative. Branson embraces social. He loves social. In fact, he owns social, using it as a platform to expand his personal and corporate brand influence and reach, honestly engage with his audience, and shape events within and without his industry space.

When it comes to social media, Branson figured out one important thing very early on: social is power.

Here’s a brief rundown of Sir Richard’s social following:

2.4 million followers on Twitter,

250,000 on Facebook,

2.9 million on G+

Each month, 500,000 people check out his blog

Any way you spell it, that’s some real online clout.

So why does Branson bother to maintain such a robust social profile? Here’s an exerpt from the man himself, taken from a blog he published for Entrepreneur:

“Many of our businesses have their own blogs and Twitter feeds as well, multiplying the number of people we can reach directly. If we need to talk to our customers, we no longer need to limit ourselves to placing ads with established media companies — we can just tell them directly.”

I can only imagine the response from one of the CEOs in the IBM Study, “wait a minute-use social to engage directly with your customers? Hmm, yes, we’ve thought of doing that, but not now. Perhaps sometime over the next 5 years…”

In fact, much of Sir Richard’s advice to CEOs regarding how to use social would make any Legal or PR team blanch:

“Above all, remember to be authentic and organic, answering questions in a straightforward manner — there's no need to check with your PR team first. You know your products and services, and people will see through any effort to parrot slogans or broadcast a marketing message.”

Sir Richard understands the power of social media for customer relations and brand management:

“…social media accounts gave us a real-time view of how we could improve. Through customers' comments, we started learning about issues with our products and services more quickly than ever before. In response, we set up systems so that a customer who has a question or a problem can get a quick answer from our team.”

Branson also implores CEOs to show their company’s human side:

“We've been using our social media channels to spread the message that we are just as interested in making a difference as making a profit…like everything, if you're having fun rather than just doing a job, you're more likely to find success”

Interestingly, Sir Richard’s insights run pretty much straight parallel to the latest thinking in inbound marketing in general and social media marketing in particular:

Establish closer, more direct engagement with prospects and consumers- check

Provide simple ways to facilitate real-time interactions with customers- check

Be authentic; use transparent messaging and fresh and original content- check

Show your company’s human side to foster deeper connections with your audience- check

It all sounds good to me. Alternatively, you could wait five years to do all of this, but…

So what’s the bottom line? According to Branson, “Whether you are launching a start-up or leading an established company, you should start establishing your social media presence if you haven’t already.”

Thank you, Sir Richard; you took the words right out of my mouth.

Marketers are still asking the wrong questions about social media

The marketing industry remains obsessed by social media but the problem is that everyone keeps asking the wrong questions.

I spent a bit of time at Social Media Week a couple of weeks ago, appearing on a couple of panels and listening in to others. The week was the best yet and the debate was as vigorous as it always is at a social media gathering, with an engaged and engaging group of very smart people. One thing that struck me though was how, wherever you go in social media circles, the conversation really hadn’t moved on that far from what you would have heard at similar events a year or even two years ago.

This is not in any way to demean such debate; social media remains, despite the continuing media obsession with its fluffier elements, one of the most disruptive digital forces we have ever seen. Despite the wealth of amazing case studies of brands using social media to incredible effect you can read daily here at The Drum and encounter across the industry, most brands are still struggling to understand how best to employ it.

So, it’s unsurprising there’s a desire for healthy debate and desire for knowledge. Ask anyone that runs a marketing publication and they’ll tell you the term ‘social media’ in a headline works on readers like crack cocaine.

What’s interesting though is that debate, across the press and at events, still centres on issues of control and the rules of engagement: how brands can best use this new media to actively engage with consumers, how they can create communities, how to feed these communities, who in a company should ‘own’ such social media engagement, what new platforms and technologies should be used. And why, oh why clients are so reluctant to ditch decades-old control of intransigent brand control.

The discussion is too often about what brands and their agencies can do to ‘use’ social media to change their relations with consumers. Seldom is it about what brands have to do to change their actual businesses to get fit for this new world.

Stanford lecturer and Harvard Business Review writer Nilofer Merchant brought out a fascinating new book last month on the need for businesses to reinvent themselves for the social age. The inability of organisations to truly adopt social media can be simply summed up, she says: “They see social as the purview of two functions: marketing and service but social is not always attached to the word media. Social can be and is more than marketing or communications-related work.”

This view was perhaps put into neater real world context by Scott Monty, global head of social media at Ford, at the Salesforce.com Dreamforce conference a couple of weeks ago. Despite being widely recognised as a leader in social media he said. “Ford doesn’t have a standalone social media strategy…..we have a business strategy supported by social media,” he went on.

He discussed how social media for Ford was no longer about campaigns; it was now about how it helped it operate as a social enterprise,

All this seems to me the biggest prize. The ability of the marketing industry to help brands re-engineer their business to become social by default. To get more people talking like Scott Monty.

Maybe this means the questions everyone should be asking are not about how brands can change their communications strategies for social media but what they need to do to change themselves first.

6 Free Tools That Will Improve Your Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing ToolboxThere can be little doubt of the growing importance of social media to the marketing efforts of many businesses, particularly small and medium businesses, who with a little effort and diligence can use it to reach more prospects and grow their business. Even Google considers social signals when ranking a company’s website in search returns.

The good news is that more small and medium business are adopting social media marketing to increase their reach and attract relevant prospects they just could not reach in the past. As good as those numbers are, that still leaves a sizable number of businesses that are not using social media to support their marketing efforts.

Experience tells us there are usually two hurdles that prevent greater use of social media marketing: time and cost.

Time is always a tough challenge. There are plenty of things to do when it comes to running a small business, and the idea of adding another responsibility is a pretty tough sell. What we do know, though, is that as little as 6 hours a week can result in increased sales. Over the course of the workweek, that’s just more than an hour a day. We’ve come up with a 30-minute plan that can help you manage that time so you still have time to manage your business.

When it comes to cost, one of the great things about social media is that you can get most of the tools you want for free. Yes, you can buy some great integrated social media management tools, and they are great. But many of the best tools are free.

We’ve written about some of our favorites before – HootSuite, Buffer, Social Bro – great tools that can get you going at no-cost other than the time it takes to learn them. Always on the lookout for more great free resources, here are some of our latest finds:

1.TweetReach – Want to know whose reading your tweets or how often they are being shared? 

TweetReach gives you a simple analytics tool that helps you capture this information. You can search on keywords, URLs, Tweet text or Twitter handle to see the reach of your efforts.

 

2.Twitalyzer – Another tool for measuring Twitter effectiveness. There are paid versions of this service that provide a lot of details, but you can use three of the most popular reports they offer for free just by connecting your Twitter account.

     

3.Facebook Insights – If you already have a Facebook page, you already have access to this dashboard, which gives you some great data for tracking growth and impact. Use the Insights to better understand your followers and reach the right audience.

     

4.HowSociable – Measure your brand’s impact online with this tool that provides you with a magnitude score. The score analyzes your level of activity online so that you can determine whether you have enough of a presence. The free version will analyze your presence across 6 social media networks. The paid version will unlock additional networks should you desire it.

5.Google Analytics Social Reports – If you are using Google Analytics, you have Social Reports, which helps measure how social traffic is directly impacting your conversions. Using an overview of your social networks, this tool allows you to visualize your social traffic so that you know where your time is best spent in the social world.

     

6.Topsy – This is a real-time social search engine. Sort through the latest social activity related to your industry, brand, or community and apply that knowledge to future business decisions. We discovered this one while doing a long-term social media monitoring project for a client. We provided Topsy the link we wanted monitored and asked for a regular e-mail update. It was that simple.

There are a lot more of these tools out there. While they might not be as slick as some of the social media suites with integrated dashboards that you can purchase, the price is right and most are very easy to use. If cost is an issue, these are great alternatives.

In the end, regardless of your toolbox, the important thing is to make the most of your limited social media time and resources so you can reach relevant prospects.

3 Tips to Avoid Social Media Suicide

3 Tips To Avoid Social Media Suicide

So you've added Social Media as a key part of your marketing strategy, now what?  Many brands miss the mark when they dive into a social media campaign.  When the hard sell doesn't work, profiles go quiet and eventually die off.  Social Media marketing strategists are then left in the wake to pick up the pieces and turn more naysayers into believers.  For my sake and the sake of my colleagues, don't commit social media suicide.  Be funny, be forthcoming, and be human.

1. Be Funny:  Humor is one of the most viral types of content you can publish on the Web.  It's effective.  It's empowering. It's everywhere.   

    "Science tells us that emotion, not rational thought, is the gatekeeper for consumer behavior" - Dennis Hurley

2. Be Forthcoming:  Transparency is imperative in the digital age.  If even a portion of your target market is online, your customers are most likely talking about you.  Take this opportunity to promote the positive and respond to the negative.  Whatever you do, please don't ignore, delete or attempt to bury negativity.  We've all seen what happens when brands react rather than respond. 

    "A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity." - Dalai Lama

3. Be Human:  The Human Touch allows brands to build long lasting relationships with customers.  It often leads to improved brand loyalty, credibility, perception of value and a significant increase in word-of-mouth traffic.  Today’s customers are all about social, relevant brands who aren't shoving sales pitches down their throat every few hours. Generations are evolving. They have learned to ignore the irrelevant.

    "When people laugh at Mickey Mouse, it's because he's so human; and that is the secret of his popularity." - Walt Disney

Proper strategy and execution will allow your brand to secure and maintain the top position in your market. A top position, your competitors will only dream of. 

Remember, before you jump off the Social Media cliff - make sure your bungee cord is attached. Otherwise, I along with the rest of the Social Media strategists will be left picking up the pieces.    

    "If you work just for money, you’ll never make it. But if you love what you are doing, and always put the customer first, success will be yours." Ray Kroc  

~Angela

The Secrets Of Mastering Facebook

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Make Money! The Beginner’s Guide to Making Money Online with a Blog

Start Making Money!

OK, so there are a million and one different resources out there explaining how to make money online. Many of them are vague and repeat some mantra similar to “Follow your passion.” That’s all well and good, but that’s not very specific. I know the real trick, and I’m willing to share it with you. I’m going to break it down into 10 easy steps. Here they are:

1. Pick a niche that you’re knowledgeable about.

Some people might say this is your passion, but I say it’s just something you know a lot about. If you like it – that’s a bonus. If you know a lot about accounting, but want to be a pro pool player, you can blog about both. If you suck at pool, blog about accounting until you get better at pool.

2. Build content for that niche.

I find that this formula works really well:

Write ten (well written) articles that focus on that niche. Make insightful posts (especially ones that are controversial). Controversial posts get a lot of readers and inbound links.
Write two articles about yourself and why you’re an expert in that niche. This will connect your readers to you. I find that if you put a photo of yourself on those posts, the traffic is much higher too.
Write four guest posts similar to the original ten articles you wrote for the niche. It really helps if you ‘sum up’ the original ten articles across the four guest posts and link back to them.

3. Make a space online to publish that content.

This space can come in many forms (Facebook fan pages, Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress, etc). I prefer WordPress, but you aren’t limited to just that platform. If you don’t know anything about making websites, just start a website at WordPress.com and start publishing content. When you build that space, please, please, please change the default theme to something your readers will enjoy.

4. Schedule content for release.

The twelve articles you already wrote should be scheduled to come out on a regular basis: 3 a week for four weeks. It’s important to remember that these will not be your only posts, but they will make up the meat of your content. You can always post what you had for dinner last night, or some breaking news. Those ad-hoc posts are what give your blog a personality.

5. Drive traffic to your blog from related niche sites and blogs.

You should send you guest posts out to everyone in your niche once a week, so you have one guest post each week for four weeks. Those guest posts will be INSTRUMENTAL in generating traffic to your website. Make sure you also regularly comment on those peoples’ blogs as well. If they have a top commentators widget for their blog that doesn’t have “nofollow” attached to it, try to make it onto that list.

6. Use social media to build a following.

Use the following social media sites to drive traffic and build a following.

I recommend you start a twitter account specifically for the blog. This will allow you to monitor that blog’s specific following as opposed to mixing them in with your main account. Use your main account to promote the blog if you have enough followers. You want to build your twitter followers as much as possible so that when you release new content on your blog, they’re getting it in their twitter feed.
Start a Facebook fan page and promote the site to all of your friends. Use the same principles as you did with Twitter. Facebook‘s traffic is much higher quality that Twitter, but a much lower volume. It’s harder to get fans, but when you do, they convert well.
Submit every article that you write to Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon. Be sure to try and get them dugg as many times as possible, so ask all of your friends to digg/redd/stumble it.

7. Interact with your users.

Be sure to comment on your blog and respond to every @reply on twitter. Engaging users keeps them interested and makes them feel important (because they are!). Whenever someone comments on your blog, respond to them immediately – especially if they have something insightful to say.

8. Monetize.

Most people want to monetize their blog right away, but that’s a really bad idea. Ads tend to drive people away when they’re right there in their faces. My number one rule about monetization is: keep advertising off the site until 1000 unique hits a day. While you’re working your way up to 1000 uniques a day, try some LIGHT contextual advertising with affiliate links to products you talk about. Definitely do not do more than one affiliate link per post. That may even be too much, depending on your audience. Don’t do step 9 until you reach this point.

9. Get sponsors and have a contest.

Why did I say “don’t do step 9 until you reach [1000 uniques a day]“? Because you’ll have almost no chance of getting sponsors until you reach this point anyways. You can also host your own contests and eat the cost, but if you do, your investment and risk increases significantly. Do contests for other blog posts about your blog, comment contests, twitter contests, etc.

10. Repeat steps 2-10 once a month until you can move on to your true passion.

Using this method, you can usually spend about 2-3 days at the beginning of each month writing your posts that really build the meat of your blog. You can the slow release that content over time to give you a little more freedom. Be sure to fill in some of your posts with bleeding edge current news throughout the week.

Conclusion

This guide is a really basic way to make money from a blog, starting at concept, all the way through success. Many of these steps are expounded upon on my blog. There are definitely some great advanced concepts for driving traffic and building incredible blog posts. Write what you know about, give value, and be responsive. Notice that I didn’t even mention making money until step 8. If you jump the gun, you’ll piss off your readers, and your site will never take off. Have any questions? Put them in the comments or email me.