Kevin Anchi: Social Media Tactical Plan

Showing posts with label Social Media Tactical Plan. Show all posts

Saturday, 18 August 2012

14 Funny Brands You Can't Help But Follow in Social Media

There are quite a few factors that go into what makes a brand "followable" in social media. Think about it from the follower's perspective -- why do you choose to 'like' or follow certain brands on social networks like Facebook and Twitter? It could be because they share valuable, educational content that appeals to your interests and needs. Or it could be that they give you access to exclusive deals, coupons, or other promotions. Or maybe they're just ridiculously funny.
Truthfully, the best brands to follow in social media should probably have a combination of all those characteristics. But I'd venture to say that many of you are following a brand simply for its entertainment value. (I know I am.) You know -- the brands that really tickle your funny bone and sometimes even make your sides hurt from laughter. You just can't help but follow them, and you've probably shared some of their updates with your own network, expanding that brand's social media reach. And while it may not seem like a funny update has any value, surely there's value in showing off your personality and being a lovable brand, right?
So the next time you're planning your social media updates, why not incorporate a little humor here and there? To help bring out your inner comedian, we've compiled a list of brands whose social media presence gives us the giggles. We're warning you though, by the time you're done with this post, your cheeks might be a tad bit on the sore side.

1) Charmin

You mean the toilet paper company? Darn tootin'! The original inspiration of this post, Charmin's Twitter presence is definitely a must follow. Just check out the following series of tweets to see what we mean. Charmin is a great example of a brand whose humor aligns with the products it sells. And don't you just love that #tweetfromtheseat hashtag?

2) Taco Bell

Taco Bell is known for using humor throughout its marketing and advertising, and its social media accounts are no different. From witty one-liners to clever photo updates, Taco Bell's Facebook and Twitter presence is sure to make you crack a smile, particularly when it responds to some light-hearted criticism from other brands on our list (coughOLDSPICEcough).

taco bell pacman resized 600

3) Old Spice

Old Spice doesn't only pick fights with other brands. It's also funny in its own right, with funny -- and often ridiculous -- posts. Just take a look at its 'About' descriptions on Twitter and Facebook as well as a few of Old Spice's silly tweets.

old spice banner resized 600

4) JetBlue Airways

JetBlue is a great example of a brand that sprinkles in just a little humor throughout its social presence. Not everything JetBlue posts is necessarily laugh out loud funny, but the brand does a great job of infusing some of its humorous personality into its updates, balancing informational content with light-hearted updates like the Facebook post you see below.

jetblue resized 600

**5) Mars Curiosity (NASA)**

As in, the lunar rover. These NASA-run social media accounts feature sassy, first-person updates from the rover itself, who incorporates funny pop culture references and a bold attitude. And, oh yeah -- its Twitter account has more than 1 million followers, and its Facebook page has over 270,000 fans. Not too shabby, NASA.

describe the image

6) Popchips

One of my personal favorite brands to follow in social media (and to snack on!), Popchips' Facebook presence always has me laughing with funny puns and images like those featured below.

pop chips chip faced resized 600

7) GymIt

It's no surprise GymIt has made our list of funny brands in social media, considering we already know how awesome they are at copywriting in general. The result is a comedic Facebook presence that does a great job of staying on brand.

gymit suck it in resized 600

8) Intel

Intel's Twitter feed proves that you don't need to be a consumer brand to have a sense of humor. Like JetBlue, not every tweet from Intel is exactly a knee slapper, but it's a good reminder that a little humor can go a long way toward achieving likability.

9) Whole Foods

Would you "Holla for Challah bread"? Whole Foods wants you to, and that's just one of its witty little Facebook updates. Mainly sharing recipe and food ideas through its Facebook page and Twitter feed, Whole Foods adds a dash of humor that makes it a lot more fun to follow than your average recipe source.

whole foods challah resized 600

10) IMPACT Branding & Design

Another B2B company to grace our list, HubSpot partner IMPACT Branding & Design definitely gets the value of comedy, offering a great balance of educational content and a few laughs on its Facebook page.

impact dwight resized 600

11) Bissell

Bissell, the vacuum cleaner company (who would've thought?), knows how to crack a joke from time to time on its Facebook page. What's great about Bissell's humor is that it never sacrifices brand relevancy, as is evident by this smartly funny Facebook post.

bissell facebook resized 600

12) Skittles

Skittles' social sense of humor is apparently all about being silly and ridiculous. But it definitely brings a smile to your face, doesn't it? Check out the examples below from Skittles' Facebook page and Twitter feed. And for those of you not hip to the meme, "YOLO" is an acronym for "You Only Live Once."

skittles yolo resized 600

13) KRAFT Mac & Cheese

Who knew elbow macaroni could be so funny? KRAFT Mac & Cheese's social media presence features images of macaroni engaging in hobbies such as painting and tennis as well as mac & cheese humor. KRAFT also reportedly allowed two women in their 80s take over their social media accounts for its 75th anniversary, using the hashtag #OldBirdsNewTweets, through which followers could watch the women learn about memes, internet slang, and technology. Oh, and the banner image for its Twitter account? Hilarious.

kraft mac and cheese resized 600

14) Oreo

Oreo's Facebook page regularly features funny newsjacks of current events using visuals, as you can see below from its Elvis Week image and its National Bowling Day visual.

oreo bowling resized 600

What other brands can't you help from following in social media, even for just a good laugh?

Wednesday, 25 July 2012

6 Simple Ways to Grow Your Audience Using Social Traffic

July 23 by Ryan Sammy

You created a brilliant piece of content. It became popular and you received thousands of visits to your site. But how many of those users took action? How do you plan on staying in contact with them?

Your content should be optimized to convert social traffic into long-term audience members. Collecting and building your audience can help reduce the costs of your content marketingcampaign. Already having an engaged audience base can make it much easier to get a campaign off the ground through social media marketing or email blasts.

Think of it in terms of an e-commerce email list. Users sign up because they are interested in your products. When you have a new product, you use your email list to share that product with your customers in hopes some of them will convert or share the new product with someone who might be interested. You will see a much higher conversion rate using your email list because the audience has already shown interest, likes your products, and likes your brand.

If you didn’t have that email list, you would have to start from scratch with every new product, hoping someone will come along, discover it, and share it. Think of your content as the product.Every time you create a new piece of content are you starting from scratch, hoping someone will come by and discover it? Yes, you can pay to get that initial boost, but what if you could get that boost organically? You can, by building an audience using your social traffic.

You want to make sure you’re doing everything you can to get a social user to take an action on your site. Whether it be an email sign up, following your social profiles, or clicking through to another piece of content, below are 6 ways to turn visitors into long-term followers.

1. Email Sign Up

A great way to build a following is to use your blog for collecting email addresses. There are various ways of collecting user email, from pop ups asking them to sign up for your email list, to small bars that appear below your content as you scroll, to calls-to-action at the end of the content.

Be upfront about what your intentions are with their email address, and don’t abuse trust they have bestowed upon you by sending them a high volume of emails. At the bottom of our blog posts, we list exactly what someone can expect when they sign up for our newsletter…

Make sure you test different formats and locations. You want to make sure your method of getting a user’s attention isn’t obtrusive and annoying. If you are using a pop up, consider setting a timer to have it activate only after the user has been on the site for 30 seconds, or once they have scrolled to the end of the article. This tells you they are interested enough in your content to stick around on your site, and more likely to welcome a pop up offering them a way to receive more of your content.

Email collection tools:

Optiskin – multiple options for display
WP Super Popup – only pop ups

2. Social Profiles Call-to-Action

Converting visitors into social media followers allows you to keep your brand in the forefront of their mind, share new content with them, and get real-time feedback. Below are some ideas for how to format and use call-to-actions on your site to grow your social media following.

Below Blog Posts

Simply write a call-to-action sentence below your article asking people to follow you for more interesting posts. Here’s an example of the type of call-to-action

Site Footer or Sidebars

Display visual social buttons in the footer or the right column of your blog. Use contrasting colors and design to make these buttons stand out. And don’t be shy, tell users what action to take with a simple, direct call-to-action.

Pop Ups

Use a pop up call-to-action plugin that asks the user to sign up for your newsletter, subscribe to your RSS feed, or follow you on social media. This can sometimes be annoying but it makes the conversion the main focus. Again it might be better to have it set on a timer so it only appears if the user has been on the site for a little while.

You can also use these to give a choice of actions, like this pop up on the Shoemoney site that gives an alternative to giving your email address:

3. Related Posts Widgets

The biggest obstacles to overcome with social media traffic is the low time on site and high bounce rates. Social users are coming to look at that one piece of content, then click back and look at more links on their favorite social site. The longer they are on the site, your chances ofconverting a visitor into a follower increases. Once someone has read through to the end of your content, you have an opportunity to get them to click through to another piece of related content.

source: Mashable.com

I have found the best converting related sections use images that entice the user to click. A visually appealing thumbnail will make a user want to continue clicking and reading. This method does so well it’s become an ad model for companies like Outbrain and Nrelate.

Related Post Plugins:

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
Related Posts Thumbnail

4. Referrer-Based Call-to-Action

This is an old trick, but still a good one. Similar to how one would create content for a specific social community, tools like WP Greet Box helps you create referrer specific calls-to-action.

Your normal call-to-action is a box that asks users to share and sign up for your email list. What if you were able to target users based on the site they came from?

You have the power to craft and target your CTA based on the referring site. This ability can increase your chances at getting that conversion.

If the user was from Facebook, you may have a better chance of getting them to like your page versus following you on Twitter. If the user came from StumbleUpon, it might be worth more to have them like the page on StumbleUpon verse sharing it on Twitter.

5. Badges, Awards and Comments

Following in the footsteps of platforms like Foursquare that encourage user interaction through a point system and badges, sites have started to use a similar reward system in their comments section.

For example, Huffington Post rewards users based on their shares and comments. They even provided a “follow” function so you can stay up to date with your favorite commenter. This increases the number of shares each piece of content receives, the number of comments, and it increases the chance of a discussion in thread. Overall, it increases the number of users visiting your site and engaging.

Source: HuffingtonPost.com

Having users constantly coming back to check on comments or to respond to other comments, increases the chance of the user eventually converting to a follower. A system like this takes money and time to develop, but an plug in like IntenseDebate can you get you started.

If you don’t have large amount of comments coming in, create more content that asks a question or creates a discussion. You can help start and fuel the discussion just by getting involved. Respond to users who comment and they will be more inclined to comment again. Leaving a commenter hanging means they probably won’t comment the next time.

6. Ad Remarketing

So you have tried it all, and your site visitor still slipped through your fingers. You can either wait for that user to return on their own through an organic share or you can use paid media to remarket to that user.

Google Adwords Remarketing has been around for a little over two years. It basically gives the site owner the ability to tag a user, then add them to a target database then show those users specific ads on any site they visit using the Google Ad network. You can even tag users based on what sections of your site they exited from.

If you’re not actively using it as part of your strategy, you can setup Google Adwords to collect users’ IDs as they visit your content. You can set various parameters on when to collect from the user (such as length of visit) and which database to add them to. Once you have an established database of social users that showed interest in your content, you can create related visual ads and try to draw the user back. They even allow you to set a time limit for the ads. For example, if the someone doesn’t come back after 30 days, it will remove them from the database.

Example of a Remarketing Campaign

Let’s say I created a visual comparison guide on organic manufacturers showing their different certifications, offerings, etc. You visited the page where I was hosting my guide after seeing the link on Reddit, thought it was cool but lost track of it because you didn’t subscribe, like, share it, etc.

Now, I will clip part of the graphic and use it as a display ad. You decide to do some research on organic foods. Since my content is related, and you are in my database, a snippet of my visual guide appears reminding you of it. While you are on related sites, you will continually be reminded of my guide. Hopefully you will click through and use my content to help you make your decision.

This is when you can use a plugin like WP Greet Box to tell the user they have been here before, and maybe they should consider subscribing to your site or following you on social media to keep seeing related content.

Conclusion

A majority of these methods have been around the web for a while. But surprisingly, I’ve seen many blogs still not implementing any system for audience building.

Once you’ve grown your social following, keep these tips in mind to ensure your fans continue visiting your site and sharing your content:

Treat your social profiles like an email list; users trust you enough to follow your updates so don’t abuse it.
If you are looking to drive traffic, share it once and give it time. Data has shown users will click through to your content if you tweet less frequently.
If you’re looking for followers, share a lot of great content every couple of hours.

So, now you have started to grow your followers but how do you maintain that growth and how do you use social media communities to expand your audience even more? Stay tuned for part 2 of this series where I will show you various ways to achieve those goals.

What are you favorite tactics for getting visitors to take further action on your site? Let us know in the comments below.

Thursday, 14 June 2012

How Social Content Attracts and Engages More Customers

By Patricia Redsicker Published June 14, 2012

When you think of content optimization, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

Do you think of keywords, links and search engines?

Or do you focus on useful content, interesting articles, engaged audiences and happy customers?

If you’re in the second camp, you’re clearly familiar with “the big picture” of optimization. But if you’re in the first camp, then stick around—sounds like you need a new perspective!

The most important thing we learned from the Google Panda updates in 2011 is that search engines are really serious about improving search quality and user experience.

Since then, the priority for site owners has been to create original, interesting and sharable content that attracts links from other sites.

Lee Odden has written his first book titled, Optimize: How to Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing. In the book, he takes a holistic approach to content and search optimization and proposes that companies should consider all of the digital assets, data and content they have to work with in order to make both customers and search engines happy.

Here’s what you need to know about the book.

Author’s Purpose

Lee Odden, author of Optimize

Lee Odden would like to change the conversation about what optimization means and help companies realize that a customer-centric approach to content that engages and inspires action is more profitable than fussing over keywords and links.

His objective is that marketers, PR professionals, small- to medium-sized business owners and large company marketing executives will think more about how to meet their target audiences’ needs with content they truly care about.

What to Expect

At 223 pages, the book is divided into three Phases.

optimize book cover

In Phase 1, you will learn about the changing nature of consumer preferences and behaviors in terms of search, social media and content, and what that means for your online marketing strategy.

In Phase 2, you will learn some “optimized content marketing tactics,” such as content planning, measurement and developing buyer personas into topics.

Phase 3 is all about scaling. You will be introduced to the processes and training needed to grow and maintain an integrated social media, SEO and content marketing program in your organization.

Favorite Chapters

Chapter 1: Setting the Stage for an Optimized State of Mind

In this chapter, the author poses a profoundly important question: “Are you optimizing for search engines and rankings or for customers and sales?”

No doubt you’ve had this experience: You’re searching on Google or Bing, and you come across a page that is clearly “optimized” for SEO. This page has a high rank in SERP but when you click through, the actual content doesn’t do much for your overall experience.

When you see these pages, just remember that it is becoming increasingly important to optimize content for customer and user experiences, rather than for search engines. Here are some good tips to guide you:

Use words that matter most to your customers in titles, links and body copy in order to inspire your readers to take action.

Text used in titles should make it easy for readers to understand the topic of the page in the first few words.

Text used to link from one page to another should give readers a good idea what they’ll find on the destination page.

A consistent approach to titling, labeling and copy in your web pages, image captions, video descriptions and links will create more confidence for the reader and inspire sales.

These tips will help you to create an experience that is more relevant to your customers and at the same time produce content that is search engine–friendly. But if you focus only on keywords, links and search engines, you stand the chance of alienating your customers with content that lacks creativity and inspiration.

Chapter 4: In It to Win It—Setting Objectives

Before a business decides what content to optimize and socialize (or even how to do it), they must ask another essential marketing question: “What are we trying to do?” The answer should be obvious: “We’re trying to get more people to buy what we’re selling.”

A winning strategy requires setting marketing objectives that align with overall organizational goals. Image source: iStockPhoto.

This is the general objective for all companies across the board. But when it comes to practical online marketing objectives, these will be unique to each company’s situation. Some companies want to increase their number of customers, others want to focus more on revenue and profitability, and still others want to emphasize customer retention.

These are all great objectives and from a search, social media and content perspective, being able to tie them to overall organizational goals is essential.

Establishing your marketing goals starts with a good understanding of your current business performance. So an online marketing program that leverages content, SEO and social media will include key performance indicators such as:

Search visibility

Social mentions

Web page links

Citations in online media and blogs

Social shares

Social links

Visitors to company website

Visitors to company social networks

Newsletter subscribers

Blog and social content subscribers, fans, friends and followers

Comments and other measures of engagement

Measurable marketing outcomes typically include:

Number of downloads

Webinar or other online event participation

Inquiries

Leads

Sales

Referrals

Brand advocacy

In a nutshell, the simplest thing to do is evaluate your online marketing strategy for what has worked so far and what needs improvement. To tie marketing goals to overall business goals, think about how well your site is performing currently and what the overall online business goals are for the future.

Chapter 9: Content Isn’t King, It’s the Kingdom—Creation vs. Curation

It’s a good idea to mix curated content with original content. In fact, content curating is a great way to extend your own site, but only in addition to—not instead of—your original content.

Rule of thumb: Pure creation is demanding. Pure automation doesn’t engage. Curating provides the best of both worlds. Here are some content curation tips.

Types of content to curate:

Content created by influential people who are important to your target audience

Statistics, research and reports

Compelling or provocative industry news

Videos—YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler

SlideShare presentations

White papers, ebooks and case studies

Infographics and other data visualizations

Tips, how-to’s and best practices

Aggregating the best comments from your own or others’ blogs

Where to publish curated content:

Company blogs

Ebooks

Email newsletters

Social media channels

Contributed articles (or guest posts) to industry sites

Sources of news to curate:

Industry-specific newsletters

Google Alerts, Google News or Google Reader

Curation tools: Flipboard, Scoop.it, Storify

News aggregators: Alltop, popurls, Techmeme

Press release distribution services: PRWeb, PRNewswire, or Marketwire

Chapter 11: Social Network Development—Don’t Be Late to the Networking Party

Lee Odden introduces Chapter 11 with yet another compelling question, “How long does it take to see any kind of ROI from a social media marketing campaign?”

Unfortunately the answer is a long time. Here’s why. The time to start building a social network is not when you need it. The time to start is well beforehand, because it takes time to develop relationships. It takes time to listen, participate, create optimized content and understand the triggers that will inspire sales or referrals.

It takes a long time to develop online relationships that lead to social media ROI. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Many small businesses go after the most popular social sites with a “fish where the fish are” mentality. While that is not an unreasonable strategy in itself, it’s important to know which specific social networks are relevant to your customers.

Because there are only a handful of social networks, chances are one or more will be relevant for your online marketing and there are many opportunities for brands on each network. Here are some of them.

Opportunities for brands on Facebook:

Participate in one-to-one, one-to-many or many-to-many conversations

Build connections and relationships with individuals

Listen to what brand fans are interested in

Create and cross-promote shareable content

Offer promotions and special offers

Interact with current and potential customers

Opportunities for brands on Google+:

Google+ hangouts for B2B brands can be used for videoconferencing to answer questions, conduct training or offer creative pitches.

Google+ allows you to upload a mix of updates, images and videos to relevant segments of your network.

Because Google+ is integrated with Google search, the more people who add your brand to their circles, the greater the chance that you will appear in those users’ Google search results.

Personal Impressions

This book scores very high on two points in particular. First is the author’s interpretation and delivery of a very complete and holistic Internet marketing strategy that includes search, social media and content marketing. This is not a new approach, but Lee Odden delivers excellent insight, detail and practical application on the subject.

Second, I love the way he offers a fresh perspective on the conversation surrounding optimization, as well as his candid critique of the misguided approach to SEO that a lot of marketers have taken.

On the downside however, I’ve already come across several books that are very similar to Optimize. Here’s an example. Many of these authors are peers and industry thought leaders who share parallel platforms and mindsets, so it’s no surprise that their books start to sound a little similar too.

Having said that, you could probably learn everything you need to know about “the three kings” of online marketing—search, social and content—in this one book. Optimize is an excellent investment, especially if you haven’t read other books with a similar approach.

Social Media Examiner gives this book a 4-star rating.

What do you think? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Pages