This week on the Blogosphere we’ll take a look at five blog posts that explore the wide-varying marketing opportunities that arise out of the Web’s most popular social networking sites and the best practices for each. Here are some of the topics we’ll focus on:
- Companies choosing to use Twitter as a business strategy should focus on identifying and learning to effectively communicate with their target audience, as well as setting goals and specific metrics for measuring ROI.
- In rebranding your business’ social media presence on Facebook, creative and graphics-driven social media campaigns can help significantly boost your fan base numbers and page traffic.
- Social media-driven website traffic tends not to produce many visitors interested in product offerings–instead, they appear more content-focused.
- Many marketers find measuring social media ROI a nearly impossible task. If this continues to be the case, fewer and fewer marketers may use it, yet this also means that ROI may be the key to making social media more prominent.
How To: Build A Twitter Strategy for Your Business
Mashable | Megan Berry | 6-17-10
This author examines best practices for a business looking to incorporate Twitter into their online marketing efforts. One of a business’ first steps should be locating their target audience. B2B companies should take a look at who their customers are following and interacting with on Twitter, as well as to hone in on which people appear to be the biggest influencers. Marketers should also research and adapt to their audience’s language style. Additionally, companies should make sure to identify the best metrics for tracking social media ROI, evaluate the actual worth of their leads and work to outline their marketing strategy.
- Five techniques businesses should consider when using Twitter as a business strategy include: identifying the right audience, learning how your audience speaks, evaluating the value of your leads on Twitter, establishing and measuring goals and outlining your approach.
Improve Your Facebook Profile to Increase Consumer Interaction: 4 Tactics
MarketingSherpa | Adam T. Sutton | 6-16-10
This author chronicles a case study of Ace Hardware’s multichannel rebranding of their business, primarily focusing on their launch of a major social media campaign on Facebook. Since starting their campaign, Ace has seen a 350% increase in traffic, an additional 26,000 fans and double the number of comments and “likes” from before. In rebuilding their public image on Facebook, Ace used the following approaches: focus on a younger age range to meet your target, average Facebook audience; use creative, graphic-based pages and Facebook applications as navigational tabs; and, employ an experienced IT team.
- As demonstrated by Ace Hardware’s success, redesigning your company’s Facebook brand page and investing resources in a major social media campaign is an effective way to quickly build your fan base and page traffic.
- Businesses embarking on such a rebranding effort (on Facebook, specifically) should concentrate on picking the right demographics, incorporating graphic-based pages and navigational tabs on their fan page and hiring a skilled IT team.
Why B-to-B Merchants Should Engage in Social Media
Multichannel Merchant | John Fairley | 6-7-10
In this post, the author provides a detailed list of specifics a business should focus on when entering the social media sphere. He warns against even engaging in social media, if you’re unable or unwilling to dedicate the necessary time and staff required to maintain a successful social media presence. A business should make sure they’ve established attainable and trackable goals, a company-wide social media policy and effective lead reporting tools.
- If your business is planning to or is currently engaged in social media, it’s crucial that you establish credibility and are actively engaging with customers, influencers and visitors/leads.
- When it comes to social media, companies should focus on setting measureable goals, finding the right lead reporting tools and instating a social media policy.
Is Social a Source for B2B Leads?
In a study led by LeadForce1, it was found that most visitors who were directed to B2B companies’ websites via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Wikipedia were on the whole uninterested in the product or service. The study showed that most visitors entering via Facebook or Twitter were likely to focus on a company’s website content, as well as only check out one page during their visit, but were seemingly uninterested in researching a company’s product, and for the most part failed to demonstrate purchasing intent. Facebook-directed visitors mostly showed interest in a company’s “about us” page or blog posts; Twitter-directed visitors primarily focused on businesses’ blogs. Visitors via LinkedIn and Wikipedia were more likely to view several pages on a company’s website during their visit; LinkedIn-directed visitors tended to visit companies’ job opportunities pages, Wikipedia-directed visitors appeared to perform more product research.
- Much of the website traffic coming in from social networking sites in this study was for the most part uninterested in the B2B companies’ actual product offerings.
- Visitors directed via Facebook showed more interest in “about us” pages and blog posts, Twitter-directed visitors focused more on blogs, LinkedIn-directed toward job opportunities and Wikipedia-directed leaned mostly toward product research.
B-to-B Marketers Still Looking for Return on Tweets
BtoB Magazine | Paul Gillin | 6-14-10
This article examines feedback collected by BtoB in their recent survey of almost 400 U.S. B2B marketers. 80 percent of the marketers were unable to directly attribute profit to micro-blogging. The other 20% were found to be 1/3 more satisfied and could attribute actual profit to Twitter. The companies who were dissatisfied were also found to be investing less time and effort in Twitter. Of the marketers professing success through Twitter as a marketing strategy, they highlighted the following as effective tactics: retweeting messages from prominent bloggers, following a regimented schedule for issuing tweets and scheduling them in advance.
- If measuring ROI on Twitter and other social media sites continues to be a challenge, it is possible that less and less marketers will use them.
- ROI appears to be one of the most significant missing pieces in making social media more prominent.
Share Your Thoughts
We hope this blog post has helped enlighten you as to the varying marketing potential of today’s most frequented social networks. To get the weekly summary, or any other Optify updates, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or subscribe to our RSS feed. Have questions or comments? Share your thoughts with us!
