Using Social Media To Attract Customers & Build a Compelling Brand Online
1. Using Social Media to Attract Customers & Build a Compelling Brand Online (or How I Learned to Use What’s New and Love the Web) Leah Messina CEO & Founder Sinuate Media - The Organic Marketing Company SM February 23, 2009
Organic Marketing is growing. It encompasses Web 2.0 tools & strategies.
New media marketing serves more needs for small-to-medium sized businesses than traditional marketing This is interesting because smaller businesses see traditional advertising as brand awareness. That is not enough anymore. They need to get more from their money. Therefore, new media marketing is seen as a valuable option because it provides brand awareness in addition to more tangible results such as email acquisition, driving website traffic, and driving sales. Double-digit growth is expected in 2008 of new users of digital marketing, especially in companies earning less than $20 million
Social Profiles are an important part of having a presence on the internet. More and more often clients are using YouTube as their social profile face to the world. However, Facebook is also an important way to reach an online audience. No matter the social profile, it is a good way to promote events, recent company news, deals, and to network. Facebook isn’t just for the college crowd any more and many business people are using it to make legitimate business connections.
Twitter is a text-messaging like service which allows you to share short messages with others in your network. The more “followers” you have, the more people will see your message. Companies are also using Twitter to share deals and offers, in addition to driving traffic back to their website to read news.
Reaching out to bloggers includes using public relation strategies as well as good content which will interest them. In order for a blog to be successful, they need to update frequently. Reaching out to bloggers with compelling information is often a win-win-win situation. It helps them fill their blog with good content, it keeps their readers informed, and it gets your name out there.
Distributing video content through the internet has taken off like wildfire with the introduction of sites like YouTube. There are over 40 videos sites where you can distribute your video content for free – all you need is to take the time to do it. Sites like YouTube, Revver, Metacafe, and DailyMotion are the biggest players in this field.
A podcast is like a radio show that is online. They are a great way to build a community around your content. Like all social media, the regularity of the podcast is key. With a digital tape recorder, a good script, and people to interview – a good podcast can be produced. Sinuate Media handles podcast production from beginning to end – setting up the recording, inviting the participants, writing the script & schedule, editing the audio clips, & distributing them throughout the web.
LinkedIn is great for B2B companies. The “Answers” section on LinkedIn is a good way to position yourself as an expert in your field.
YouTube provides several pieces of key data – how many views your video has received (the more, the better), Ratings (will tell you how the public generally likes your video content), and what sites are linking to your video. YouTube will provide the top 5 sites linking to your video. This can give you the opportunity to see if any websites have picked up your content and if you should contact them featuring new content you release in the future.
Google Alerts – (http://ww.google.com/alerts) Put in a keyword such as your name or the name of your business and Google will send you a summary places online that mention those keywords. This is great to track if any one is talking about you online, whether it is good or bad. BoardTracker (http://www.boardtracker.com) – lets you track keywords of conversations happening in message boards Compete (http://www.compete.com) – lets you see web traffic of your site compared to your competitors. Digg (http://www.digg.com) – lets you “tag” an article, video, or photo that you have created that is online. This helps include your content as a resource for others to sort through. Also helps drive traffic back to your website. Reddit (http://www.reddit) – similar to Digg IceRocket (http://www.icerocket.com) – a search engine, like Google, but for just blogs. Helps you find out if your company, brand, or name is being mentioned anywhere in the blogosphere Technorati (http://www.technorati.com) – a tool which lets you track Techrigy (http://www.techrigy.com) - a more complex, but valuable tool which tracks keywords across all social media and summarizes it through charts, graphs, and hard data. This tool is not free. Fyreball (http://www.fyreball.com) – similar to Techrigy, also not free.
Social media may be inexpensive, but it is time consuming. That is why it is important to find out what is the most effective for you and your business. Regular updates and communication is key to the success of a social media strategy.