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On his blog, Jeremy Owyang delves in to that magical conversation that takes place between the person on the inside who "gets" social media and the executives in their company -- who often don't. Selling-in, when it comes to the "scary" world of social media, is no easy task. This post offers some quick and easy tips -- as well as some pre-meeting questions to consider and some ways to arm yourself with as much information as possible -- for how to get executives in your company thinking positively about social media.
Using the premise that "Social media marketing isn't about optimizing or advertising. It's about socializing," this article from ClickZ offers some tips for how to really dig in and get socially active within your social media marketing efforts. Buying advertising space isn't the same as getting up close and personal and making genuine connections with your "friends" and fans -- which is how social media was intended to be used.
This case study provides an in-depth look at how one company was able to garner the attention of its targeted bloggers. The company mailed its select group of bloggers love letters -- yes, actual snail-mail love letters -- which led them to a personalized landing page. Overall, the effort generated more than four times as many page views as letters sent and was considered a success by its creators.
Putting in the time investment to spruce up your corporate blog can make all the difference when it comes to having good customer relations. Customer love can make all the difference between being the best in the business and being driven out of business. Using a blog as a way to convey to customers and potential customers that you are the authoritative voice on what you sell, make, or do can have a resounding impact, according to this WebProNews article.
Getting a good grip on a platform as seemingly limited as the 140-character microbloging site, Twitter, can be a challenge for the uninitiated -- which is why how-tos are so helpful. This article from MarketingVOX offers some tips on how to use Twitter right -- especially as a way to build your brand. It includes insights into how to build your contacts lists (follow everyone), as well as how to interact (be personal and responsive).
Inspired by the small, affordable, and easy-to-use Flip video recorder, Mark Goren suggests some ways companies could get a lot of mileage from relatively little investment by getting these recorders into the hands of all of their biggest fans. From branding the Flip recorders themselves with company-emblazoned skins, to creating contests around videos that brand enthusiasts upload, Goren generated a handful of unique ideas for how to leverage this one, little piece of technology to get WOM flowing.
As with any new venue, Twitter users have established a code of conduct that frequent users adhere to. If you crash onto the scene and break the rules, not only will you step on the toes of current users, you'll mark yourself as a newbie and won't be taken seriously. This article from Get to the Point highlights some of the top rules of etiquette for navigating microblogging site Twitter.
There are a variety of reasons for why some companies are resistant to social media adoption. Whether it's friction from the legal department, trouble with the lack of ROI, or fear compounded by lack of internal expertise, there are ways to meet these social-media-skirting tactics and turn them on their heads. This article from blogger Shel Holtz gives some tips for how to counter some of the most common fears companies have when it comes to social media.
Here are some great tips for anyone who has ever struggled with how to manage their RSS reader -- whether your problem is what to subscribe to or how best to wade through the constant influx of information. For brushing up on blog reading, keeping abreast of industry news, or keeping tabs on community forums, RSS readers are an easy way to aggregate lots of information -- especially when paired with helpful tips like these.
Still haven't figured out the right way to put Twitter to work for you or your company? Here are ten tips from the geekpreneur blog for ways that you can make the most out of the microblogging site.
On her blog, Andrea Goulet, Senior Copywriter at Capital One, offers up ten tactics for getting your fans to say something nice about you. Whether you're looking for a little brand evangelism or a personal endorsement, here are some quick tips for how to get it.
On The Community Guy blog, Jake McKee gives some tips for creating an event that gets employees and customers under the same roof, working together, and collaborating and communicating effectively. Events like these, which bring a diversity of perspectives together, have the potential to reap incredible insights for an organization -- but only if they're executed effectively.
In his Marketing Profs article, Matt Dickman offers up some practical tips for keeping track of all of the conversations going on via Twitter without having to constantly refresh and without revolving all of your daily activities around the site. Some of his suggestions include compiling favorites into an RSS feed reader, using a searchable application such as twhirl, or using a web service such as FriendFeed to aggregate the information. With Twitter as with other social media platforms, the secret is to find a way to get something out of it without having to give it all of your time and attention.
For avid Twitter users, the site can be everything from a way to get up-to-the-minute information and highly networked insights, to a virtual water cooler. Knowing what the microblogging site is capable of can only stand to increase your user experience and ensure that you get the most out of your tweets. Find out from Twitter enthusiast and blogger B. L. Ochman the multitude of ways that she finds to use the site.
On the Buzz Canuck blog, they've constructed a categorization for brand community types based on depth of involvement and exclusivity. Putting the different kinds of brand community efforts into these nine buckets helps differentiate between the relatively low involvement, low exclusivity fan clubs and the high involvement ambassador clubs and brand cults that prompt word of mouth activity in a bigger way. The post also offers examples of brands that are using these varying levels of communities, and a call for readers to weigh in and contribute to the list.
Leveraging your Twitter "follower" base and their opt-in interest in what you have to say (er ... "tweet") is a great way to get the word out about blog posts you've written, comment conversations that are happening on your blog, and other pieces of information your Twitter crowd might find useful. After all, what's the point of having multiple social media platforms to work in if you can't use them cyclically to bolster each other's reach and performance?
Loyal customers are some of the best word of mouth sources for your business. So how do you keep customers coming back? This article from USA Today outlines some customer loyalty strategies -- including some loyalty program structures -- that will not only keep your customers happy, but get them to spread the word about your business, as well.
This article from Advertising Age answers some of marketers' questions about social media, including where opportunities exist, why they need to get on the blogging wagon, what they should do to prevent/respond to negative social media, and more.
In this article from ClickZ, Kevin Carney gives a breakdown of the consumer-generated games model, covering everything from the impact of consumer-generated games on the gaming model to the opportunities that exist for marketers. The most value, according to Carney, comes from the insights both game-makers and marketers can gain from consumers, as well as the connections that they stand to make.
The secret to true word of mouth marketing is to create products and services that people are inclined to talk about -- not to pester or bully consumers into giving you word of mouth recommendations OR ELSE! So how can you encourage people to talk about your stuff without irritating them? This adotas article highlights several ways you can leverage word of mouth marketing techniques without turning customers off.
If you build it they will come -- unless they don't know that you built it and don't really understand how it works in the first place. This is the lesson with RSS feeds. If you want readers to subscribe to your blog's RSS, you can't forget to promote that you have one and make it as easy as possible for your fans to subscribe. Here are ten quick tips for how to best promote your RSS feed on your site.
This article from MarketingVOX offers some tips on how to find out who the big talkers are in your organization's category -- because every organization has its own stable of influencers. The article also gives some suggestions for how to deal with folks who have negative things to say about you -- including the importance of listening and responding to them.
This podcast from "The Podcast Sisters" covers how the microblogging platform Twitter can be used to meet a variety of business objectives. The accompanying write-up also includes some informative articles that highlight the value of Twitter and resources that can compliment, measure, and increase the value of your Twitter endeavors.
Social media, when taken on in whole, can be daunting. To make it more digestible, it helps to think of it in its more basic pieces, which, according to Cory Treffiletti writing for the Online Spin, include: social networks, social applications, virtual worlds, and citizen journalism.
Twitter, despite its format limitations, is being used for a wide range of business applications. On the Inspired Business Growth blog, Wendy Piersall suggests several ways that the site can be used to gain information about consumers. Because the format is quick and compact, it can be used to gain instantaneous insights, track trends, find feedback, converse with consumers -- and more.
When you give your customers a better experience than they were expecting, they respond by telling other people. The Buzz Canuck blog gives some examples of little things that companies do -- from Tiffany's blue box to personalized M&Ms -- that get customers' attention -- and get them talking.
In this MarketingVOX article, Chris Baggott details ten ways to make blogging work in your company -- including shopping for bloggers within your organization to find a variety of voices and topics for the blog and "localizing" your corporate blog.
On ReadWriteWeb, Marshall Kirkpatrick compares several of the techniques you can use to identify top bloggers in any niche. Some of the methods -- such as using Technorati and social bookmarking sites -- are fairly intuitive, while others -- such as using AideRSS -- might not be on your radar yet. Kirkpatrick weighs the pros and cons of each platform, which will make it easier for you to find the one that best suits your needs.
This podcast is a great primer for anyone looking to get started with online video as a way to generate online buzz. It covers the nuts and bolts -- from how to embed your videos on your blog to video platforms you can use -- as well as some case studies and examples of online videos that have worked.
One-off, quick buzz generators are one way of creating instantaneous (though fleeting) word of mouth, but creating sustainable WOM is another story. This Marketing Profs article from Michael Rubin offers five tips for creating the kind of word of mouth that keeps people talking.
On the Community Guy, Jake McKee outlines some of the skills any good community management guru needs to have, as well as pointers on how to hone them. Aimed specifically at college students, the information is also relevant for those in the industry looking to shift their career towards community management.
Here's a quick list of six simple things any organization can do to get consumers talking about them.
How do you get the word out about your blog? One way is to kick off conversations (via comments) with bloggers that have similar interests as yours. It's a great way to start a dialog and to get people to come to your blog and see what else you have to say.
LinkedIn can be a great way to managed your online professional networking, but it can also be difficult to decide who to let in and how to handle invitations from people you don't know. On her blog today, Krishna De offers some tips on how to play gatekeeper to your LinkedIn world, as well as how to be upfront with potential contacts about your acceptance policies.
Sometimes a pleasant surprise is all it takes to get someone talking about the good stuff your company does. Delighting customers is something that every company should do. It can make all the difference in creating a good experience for customers and prospects -- and that's something they'll talk about.
Negative online WOM can have a detrimental impact on your company's reputation, so what can you do to manage it? This article highlights some of the most effective tips, including: know what's being said about you, have a communication strategy, and call in the professionals.
So how does a small company compete with social media giants, such as YouTube and Facebook, for viral attention? WeProNews covered a moderated panel that spoke about how to ignite a viral marketing campaign, all from a small business perspective. Bill Hanekamp of WOMMA member company The Well was one of the panelists, and was joined by Ed Kim, CEO of Red Bricks Media and Fionn Downhill, CEO and President of Elixir Systems.
There are lots of ways that marketers can use Twitter to their advantage. Here are just a few, collected on the This is Going to be BIG blog (with comic relief and photos from the I Can Has Cheezburger? Blog).
The Out of My Gord blog showcases some great tips on how to take something from an idea or rumor and fine tune it into the next viral sensation. The post covers everything from jumping weak ties to what to do about negative word of mouth.
Here are some tips from Bill Balderaz, who is Director of Viral Marketing for ClearSaleing, on how to optimize your press releases for maximum social media exposure.
Because WOM often requires less of an initial cost investment than traditional advertising media, it's a great way for small businesses -- with presumably smaller budgets -- to start spreading the word on what they offer. Here are some ways small businesses have used the power of people talking to get their messages out.
WOM can work wonders, but it's not a magic pill. It still needs technique and methodology -- as well as an exacting understanding of its ethics -- to be done right. Here are some reality checks for marketers before getting started with WOM.
Learn how one library got its staffers to spread the word to the library's biggest fans, garnering tons of enthusiasm -- on a budget.
Who should own social media? According to blogger Shel Holtz, no one is better suited to develop an organization's social media approach than the organization itself. While vendors are able to provide organizations with valuable advice, according to Holtz, companies who cede control of their social media to another organization are missing the mark.
It's not enough to just shoot a video; viral marketing that takes off takes more planning than that. Here are three simple tips for making your viral marketing efforts work.
To get the most out of your social media ventures, you have to plan them with the same finesse that you give your traditional advertising pieces. Here are five areas to focus on in order to get the most out of your social media marketing.
Corporate blogging is a great way to reach a wide audience of potential fans and customers -- if you do it right. Here are some tips about how to get the most out of your corporate blog.
Brand ambassadors don't come with a one-size-fits-all label; you need to pick the ambassadors that are the right fit for your brand. Here are a few things to look for when selecting the best enthusiasts for your ambassador program.
Engaging customers is more than just feeding them a line and hoping they'll bite. It's about being WOM-worthy. Without a genuine connection to your customers, advertising comes off stale. So what's a company to do?
True evangelism isn't something you can buy, but it is something you can foster. Find your evangelists, empower them, reward them, and don't let them forget why they loved you in the first place.
Don't know what to do with podcasts? Find out how to use podcasts to your marketing advantage from the guy who wrote the book -- literally. His name is Greg Cangialosi, and he's the author of "Podcast Academy: The Business Podcasting Book: Launching, Marketing, and Measuring Your Podcast."
Learn how the "I Got a Crush on Obama" video became a political, viral sensation with millions of views on YouTube. Ben Relles details what he did to make it happen.
For a lot of businesses, blogging just makes sense. But for others, it's not such a good fit. Use these "20 Reasons" to help evaluate if starting a blog is the right move for your company.
Want to lose Facebook friends faster than you can "poke"? Break the rules of etiquette and don't respect the venue, and that's just what'll happen.
Done right, launching a social community can take have enormous impact on your organization. KickApps details nine ways companies can steer clear of online community failure -- outlining best practices and good planning techniques.
Everyone makes mistakes, so how do you keep yours from costing you a customer? Here are four tips for how to keep word of mouth working in your favor -- even when you stumble.
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