Social Media Marketing

1. Social Media Marketing Madiha Saeed Maryam Mehtab Masooma Imran Naqvi

2. What is Social Media Marketing? Social media marketing is a recent addition to organizations’ integrated marketing communications plans. Integrated marketing communications is a principle organizations follow to connect with their targeted markets. It is the process of marketing through social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet access, opening doors for organizations to increase their brand awareness and facilitate conversations with the customer. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns.

3. By utilizing the social aspect of the web, social media marketing is able to connect and interact on a much more personalized and dynamic level than through traditional marketing. Social media marketing benefits organizations and individuals by providing: an additional channel for customer support, a means to gain customer and competitive insight and a method of managing their reputation online.

4. Social media gives marketers a voice and a way to communicate with peers, customers and potential consumers. It personalizes the "brand" and helps them spread their message in a relaxed and conversational way. Key factors that ensure its success are its relevance to the customer, the value it provides them with and the strength of the network on which it is built.

5. Models of Social Media Marketing Every social network will provide you with it’s own possibilities and traps. A well executed strategy is a must or you’ll end up in a minefield. Johan Ronnestam has given us 2 models for successful social media strategy. The Social Staircase The Social Tool Matrix

6. The Social Staircase

7. The Social Staircase Step 1 -StrategyEstablish a strategy that supports your business Step 2 – PresenceThe mother of all conversions is content. Think about it – when you’re at a party, how long do you think your conversation would last if you didn’t provide any true value. Think about you and your business. What value can you provide people with and in what format? Blogs, Video, Photos, Podcasts, Livestreams, Advisory, Games, Knowledge etc. Based on your strategy in step 1 – what kind of value can you provide your target group and potential fans with? Step 3 – ToolsSo know you know that kind of presence you’re after. Then it’s time to gear up. Facebook, Twitter, Slideshare, WordPress, LinkedIn, Scribd, Google Buzz might be the obvious ones. But dig deeper – there’s something for everyone out there and you should consider where your content will work at it’s best! Step 4 – ConversationListen. Talk back. Listen. Talk back. Listen. Talk…This is what a conversation is all about.. You create valuable content and then once you let it out in the open – listen and learn how to fine tune those spirals of yours.

8. Outline your tactical tools with a Social Tool Matrix

9. Once you’ve passed the strategy and presence step in the Social Staircase it’s time to map which tools can do the work for you. It’s now time to create a Social Tool Matrix. What tools shall we use to fulfill our strategy?Just because your competitor is riding the wave over at Facebook doesn’t mean you should. Look back at the social staircase. What strategy and what presence should you support? Why should we use this tool?Publish, interact, spread, buzz, images, video etc. Remember that sometimes you’ll be better off with more than one tool doing the same thing. Video for example. YouTube, Viddler and Vimeo are all about video but have different advantages. Who should be responsible for the updates? Make sure your social marketing is spread out horizontally on your organization.

10. What’s the naming / domain conventions?Use a uniform naming convention so that you do not confuse customers. When can we say we’re successful?This is a hard one. People that comment your blog posts. Diggs. Linkups. Facebook recommendations. Re-tweets. SEO effects. Actual sales. You pick your own index but make sure to pick a couple. Both qualitative and quantitative cause they’re both important.

11. Importance of Social Media Marketing Branding: Companies can use social media channels as a way of increasing their goodwill and trustworthiness which may ultimately result in better branding. Two way communication with customers Creates brand credibility.

14. Engage with its customers • Social media channels make it more easier and flexible when it comes to engaging with its customers. • Customer engagement is the most important benefits of social media marketing and this helps in retaining customers and also increasing brand credibility. • During the recent economic downfall, a lot of companies succeeded in retaining its customers with the help of customer engagement through social media channels.

18. Improve ROI Promotion of your products in relevant and product niche social media channels can help you increase your return on investment (ROI). Industry relevant social media marketing can help in making your conversion rates better and enjoy a enviable ROI.

19. After Twitter announced a program inserting advertising messages into tweets, marketers are chirping the program’s praises.Initial advertisers Virgin America, Bravo TV and Red Bull have kind words for the program, called Promoted Tweets, and point to ROI success.  For instance, Virgin used Promoted Tweets as the sole means of announcing the airline’s expansion into Toronto, offering a 50 percent-off promotion for the first 500 travelers who booked flights from two California airports. Thanks to enthusiastic retweeting, the offer was sold out in three hours.

21. Getting Customer Feedback • Customer feedback is the backbone of any industry and the feedback helps in improving the products as per the customer’s requirements. • Since social media channels help in making customer engagement much easier, customer feedback is always there on the top and one can always expect helpful customer reviews and feedback which can help in making the products or services even more better.

22. Announcing New products or services There is no other better and cheap media than the social media sites to inform the customers about the arrival or release of new products and services.  Social media channels make it easier to spread the news of new product or service arrival to the targete audience.

24. Know more About Customer Preferences: • Social Media allows you to know more about the trends and preferences of the customers and act accordingly. • Knowing the preferences of your customers makes it easier for you to enhance your product and plan your online marketing campaigns in much more effective way.

25. Influence on Search Engine Rankings Search engines are the most relevant and consistent traffic generator for any website. Effective Social Media campaigns can bring out a remarkable influence on your search engine rankings. Since most of the search engine giants are going on with real time search results, the social media updates and bookmarks can help your site rank much better in the search engines.

26. Enhance Customer Relationship Management • Customer relationship is an integral part of the growth of any company and when customer relationship fails, the company and its operations are also bound to fail. • Social media channels helps in making strong bonds between the customer and the company much more easier and thereby increasing the stability of the company.

27. Red Bull - Fan Page • The Red Bull Fan Page is one of the most exciting places on Facebook because it breaks out of the stereotype and offers content that is fun and funny – and it encourages fans to interact and connect with the brand.

28. The Cakery

29. Do’s and don’ts of social media marketing Do’s Dofind the social network that's right for you.Everything that follows hinges upon this point. It's not all about Facebook. Some businesses will benefit more from concentrating on niche networks that may have less traffic, but more are targeted to that particular brand's consumer. Do map out a weekly schedule that outlines the specific days and times that has to be spent on social media Dokeep an eye on the competition and see what they are up to. What kind of promotions are they offering Who are their fans Doanswer the critics: It is important to listen and respond to all customers, not just those who rave about your company and products.

30. Do empower users to engage: Give customers a voice and content to work with, allow them to comment on blog posts and NOT remove negative comments from user forums, blogs, etc. Do use tools to save time: Take advantage of the various social media tools that are designed specifically to time Sites like www.ping.fm, www.seesmic.com and www.tweetdeck.com help by sending updates to multiple social networking sites Sites like www.cotweet.com let you schedule updates in advance.

31. Dont’s Don’t forget to keep your social profiles live and updatedFreshness is of the essence in social media, if all a profile can provide is stale information, it is of little use to anyone. Don’t copy someone else’s social plan: Your business, your category, your culture, your product and your budget are unique to your company. Copying another organization’s model in theory sounds smart, but in practice can set you back months, if not years. Don’t forgot that social media marketing is a team sport: Requires multiple groups in your company to be involved, engaged and accountable Many companies just leave it to the I.T dept Don’t place a person in charge to oversee the initiative who does not understand the impact of the culture of social media. Always hire the correct people Don’t assume social media marketing is silver bullet which will transform a poor quality product or service into a super brand. Don’thave a “self promotion” agenda: Social media is about engaging in the conversation and not just about selling.

32. The pros of social media marketing You can reach customers that traditional marketing misses. You never know who will direct a friend to your blog, Facebook page or social bookmark post You can build brand loyalty. Not only can you use social media to build your brand, you can use it to demonstrate your personality, interact with customers and show them that you care, which, in turn, breeds loyalty. You can learn how to improve your products and services. By encouraging open communication through public comments, you can learn what you can do to make your products better. You can learn more about your target audience, not only by their comments but also by studying visitor analytics. This information can prove invaluable when planning other marketing campaigns Social media marketing is cost-efficient in comparison with other marketing methods, even if you hire a dedicated team or outsource your social media content needs.

33. The cons of social media marketing Social media marketing places high demands on your time. Content must be created, edited, approved and published; comments must be responded to and sites and pages must be maintained. Social media marketing places high demands on your talent. It can be difficult to constantly come up with innovative exciting content that interests a variety of readers and, without relevance, your efforts will be wasted. You lose some control of your marketing efforts. Anything you publish is up for grabs, and others can easily criticize you. Your return on investment is delayed. Social media marketing can work to build relationships and brand loyalty, but it takes time and dedication. Social media marketing efforts are not likely to earn immense popularity overnight, so you must be willing to be in it for the long haul if you decide to launch a social media marketing campaign.

34. Social media marketing metrics TrafficThis is one of the more obvious ways of measurement. Track web traffic breakdowns from all social media sources Bounce rate. Are visitors coming to your site from SM sites but quickly leaving? Maybe your landing page needs to be better and more relevant. Maybe the information they’re seeking isn’t easily found. Membership increase and active network size. Is your collective members, followers, fans network growing, and is there interaction with your content?

35. Activity ratio. How active is your company’s collective social network? Compare the ratio of active members vs total members, and chart this over time. Activity can be measured in a variety of ways, including usage of social applications. Brand mentions in social media. Measure and track both positive and negative mentions about your brand

36. Loyalty. Are social members interacting in the network repeatedly, sharing content and links, mentioning your brands? How many members reshare? How often do they reshare? Virality. Social members might be sharing Twitter tweets and Facebook updates relevant to your company, but is this info being reshared by their networks? How many FoFs (Friends of Friends) are resharing your links and content? Blog interaction: Blogs are part of Social media marketing but only if you allow comments and interact with readers by responding. If the blog’s content is suitable for social voting (Digg, Mixx, etc.) or social bookmarking (Delicious, Stumbleupon) sites, install a blog plugin that displays the necessary sharing “buttons”