The latest social media site to join the ranks of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter is Pinterest. Haven’t heard of it? You will. With over 10 million users, it is quickly rivaling Google+ and YouTube for traffic.
For those of you who don’t know about Pinterest, it is a visual site that allows you to post or PIN pictures to your wall, or a wall of your choosing. It might seem more like a B2C site and it has been historically a strong site for people selling jewelry, crafts, or major retailers highlighting new products.
But lately, it has gotten some traction as a traffic generator for business marketers too. Here are a couple of considerations for including Pinterest in your social media marketing efforts.
1. Pinterest is a visual medium, so think about the visuals you already have in your content library. These could be cool pics, images from the covers of your white papers or ebooks, visuals from your blog posts with links back to those posts, even pictures from behind the scenes at your company. All these could capture traffic from Pinterest and drive visitors back to your site.
2. Expand your definition of visuals and you can include data and charts too. Graphs, charts, even illustrations communicate complex thoughts in a single picture. This type of content is perfect for Pinterest.
3. Take photos of happy customers and PIN them as well. This gives everyone a warm and fuzzy feeling about your firm and helps potential prospects feel more familiar with your company and therefore more comfortable reaching out to you.
4. Use dedicated landing pages associated with your pins so that you can track traffic from Pinterest and measure the effectiveness of your efforts.
5. Comment on other people’s pins. This will give you some additional exposure and when people see your comments they might eventually find your site, your blog and your content.
6. Promote your Pinterest content through other, more popular, social sites. Create a Tweet or a Facebook post that links to your Pinterest page. Pinterest is hot, so these extended networks might be interested in seeing what someone else is doing on a newer social site.
These six tips only scratch the surface, for a more detailed description and even more tips, click here to learn more about how to use Pinterest to generate leads.
Start Today – Today’s action item is simple. Sign up for Pinterest and get a feel for what it is and how it works. Click on the link to learn more about Pinterest and try one of the tips. Any additional traffic to your site is a positive outcome and extending your reach to the 10 million Pintrest users will definitely drive traffic, conversions and leads for your company.
Square 2 Marketing – Leading the Reality Marketing Revolution!
One of the questions we are often asked is, “How do I get people to share my content?” This is the right question because, as marketers, you want to create content and then have that content shared across the social network.
If you look at the anatomy of a viral video, you might get some insight into the components required to have content shared through social media. Here is a link to a video that has generated over 3 million views. WARNING: If you find cursing offensive, then just skip the video.
If we look at why this video generated so much buzz, we see a few common traits and characteristics. People love what they can’t see every day. We refer to this as the “car accident” effect. Why do people slow down to see a car accident? To make sure no one was hurt? No, it’s to see what they don’t see every day and to be able to tell other people what they saw.
The ability to instantly share experiences is why remarkable content and social media work so well together. After I watch this remarkable video, I can easily share it with my entire social network.
Connections to other events also make for hotter content. This video is a follow-up video from a few other altercations, so people already know some of the history between these two guys.
It's video. Video is most people’s content format of choice. Research shows that 63% of the population identify themselves as visual learners. This means they prefer to watch content rather than read it. There is a reason YouTube is now the second most popular search engine behind Google.
It’s short. In just 6 minutes you can see the content, you can stop it anytime, and you can come back anytime you want. So convenience also plays a factor.
Here are some takeaways for you to consider if you want to create content that gets shared.
- You need something remarkable, interesting, contrarian or different to say, show and share. The more remarkable your content, the greater the chance of having it shared. The more mediocre, average or safe, the less likely.
- Make sure your content is easily shareable. This means you need to give your audiences the tools they need to quickly and easily click their mouse and share your content.
- Try to connect your remarkable content to other news, events or happenings going on in the world, this brings a new facet to your content and makes it more relevant.
- Consider video. Most people would prefer to write, but video rules the day.
- Keep your ideas short and sweet. Most of us have short attention spans. A couple of minutes at most.
Start Today – The hard part is creating remarkable content. Consider your position on topics related to your business. Be bold! If you don’t have something interesting try a different perspective. Use video. It doesn’t have to be a professional production, but make sure the sound is good. If you can’t be heard, your message won’t get out.
Then post it everywhere and encourage viewers to share it. Last but not least, track it. How many views? In what time period? Use that as your benchmark and keep working on new videos until you get the viral content you need to drive leads.
To learn more about creating viral video and content that can be shared through social media join us for a webinar on February 22nd, click here for more details.
Square 2 Marketing – Leading the Reality Marketing Revolution!
On President’s Day, we thought it would be fun to see how George Washington and Abe Lincoln would have used Social Media had it been in existence when they ran our country.
The first President of the United States was far from a perfect man, but his contemporaries saw in him as noble of character and passionate about rules. For instance, according to the editors of Foundation Magazine, “By age sixteen, Washington had copied out by hand, 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.
While social media appears to be the Wild West and anything goes, Washington would have attempted to manage his interaction with a set of rules that protected his personal values and helped guide his online participation.
Some of his rules might have looked like these.
- Truly listen, read and understand the perspectives of others online and make sure you have a constructive contribution before you participate in the conversation.
- Be mindful of generational or vocational differences across all the social platforms.
- Use language appropriate to the forum you are speaking within. In general, don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your mother to see.
While Washington was a conservative and a rule follower, Lincoln was an early adopter of technology and would have had a different approach to social media. Lincoln’s presidency was faced with turbulent times; specifically, he was tasked with keeping the U.S. together during the civil war.
At that time, he was fortunate to have a new technology—the telegraph. No previous president had this technology and some historians think that Lincoln’s use of the telegraph helped him win the Civil War.
Like all technology advances, sometimes it takes a while for people to catch on. For Lincoln and the telegraph it took him asking one of his general’s aides if there was anything new on the front. The aid responded that "there was nothing new in the file, Sir.”
While this was technically true, what Lincoln discovered when he walked into the general’s office was a copy of a telegraph transmission with news of the Battle of Ball’s Bluff. This discovery made it apparent that the President was not getting a true look at the war as it was happening.
Social media has given us unprecedented access to the thoughts, emotions and conversations of so many people. Never before has it been possible to learn what your target market likes, dislikes and talks about. This power is now in your hands and within your reach.
Action Item – Like Washington, keep rules in mind when you participate in social media. Make sure you stay true to your personal values, brand and overall marketing message.
Just as President Lincoln used a new technology to get a full picture of a nation at war, you can use social media to get a full picture of your marketplace. No filter, no clerk telling you that there is “nothing new in the file,” just raw actionable intelligence that will help you connect and engage with your target market.
Square 2 Marketing – Leading the Reality Marketing Revolution!
A few years ago, getting on the first page of Google was the goal for most marketers. With the torrent of social media sites and the changes in Google’s search strategy, the future of search is now social in nature.
What does that mean?
In short, it means there are so many opportunities for searchers to find your business that you can no longer focus solely on Google, Yahoo or Bing to drive visitors to your site. It means you need to adopt a broader Get Found approach to your search tactics. Specifically, including Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and other social media outlets in your strategy makes much more sense.
Your actual ranking on Google is now less relevant and overall website traffic to your site now becomes one of the key performance metrics for your search marketing tactics. After all, do you care if you’re on the first page of Google or the third page of Google, as long as your website traffic goes up month after month? The answer is no!
The key to getting that traffic up is using all the tools in your arsenal. Those tools include all the social media sites. Your prospects are already looking and finding businesses, products and services on all these sites and each of these sites is great at linking back to dedicated landing pages. That helps you drive conversions, the second key metric you should be looking at weekly.
Google is also now ranking social media content. They recognize that their users are looking for social content like reviews, videos, postings, comments and natural occurring conversations. Since they are prioritizing that content, making sure your content is part of the social conversation puts you in position to rank highly on Google.
Action Item – Define your list of keywords or keyword phrases. While you can have many, try to focus on the five most important to your prospects. By focusing your keyword strategy, you will be able to create content centered around those words, terms and phrases. Then post that content on social sites like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.
Better yet, create a video that deals with that content and post it on YouTube. Make sure you use the keywords in the description and in the tag selectors. These help people searching to find your content. If you create dedicated landing pages for each, then you should have an idea which term is generating the most traffic and from what source. This helps you make adjustments to your marketing mid stream.
If you need a little help, join us for our webinar on the topic of Social Media, click here to learn more.
Square 2 Marketing – Leading the Reality Marketing Revolution!
There are so many social media websites out there, it's no wonder people are confused. Take a look at the list of the most obvious options: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Flickr, Pintrest, Google+, MySpace, Friendster, Bedo, Tagged...and there are many more. Each of these websites have millions of registered users.
Which one is right for your business? Check out our video on this topic.
First, if you have a sound strategy you should already know where your target buyers are spending their time online.
An obvious choice, if your target is business owners and executives, is LinkedIn. We already know that LinkedIn is more effective at generating leads than Facebook or Twitter. In fact, it is 277% more effective in that department. It also has over 100 million users, making it a B2B marketing goldmine.
If you are selling to consumers, Facebook might be the more appropriate option. With 800 million users, most of them visiting daily, you have a huge marketing opportunity here if you leverage it correctly.
YouTube, often overlooked as a social media site, is now the second most popular search engine behind Google and the most popular “how to” site on the internet.
These are marketing opportunities businesses shouldn’t overlook when formulating a strategic marketing plan. The right answer is typically: do something with ALL the social media sites.
What about the new ones you haven’t heard of? That’s where tracking and testing comes in. It’s fine to try new sites, but if you don’t get results, it might be a mismatch for your target market. Set aside a fair amount of time for testing. Typically 30 days should be enough to give you an idea of performance. If traffic to a dedicated page doesn't increase in 30 days, then move on to another test site. If traffic is coming in, double down and add even more content or increase your post frequency to continue the positive momentum.
This new marketing approach is complicated. It takes a concerted effort to develop engaging, creative and compelling content and then get that content out to the right site. Then there is the time associated with creating landing pages to give visitors the personalized experience they need and tracking the results.
Most companies should consider bringing in an expert to handle this type of work. After all, your brand, your persona and your reputation are at stake. A mistake on a social media site spreads even faster than something positive. Wade into it slowly and don't be afraid to ask for help from professionals.
Action Item – Create the short list of social media sites. Start with the big four, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. From a volume perspective this is where the people are hanging out. Create a specific and targeted strategy for each. Create the content you need to drive people back to your site and to a dedicated landing page. Then track and test. After 30 days, assess and relaunch.
Square 2 Marketing – Leading the Reality Marketing Revolution!
P.S. Looking for some short term help, guidance or just a little more education. Join us for our webinar on the topic of Social Media, click here to learn more.
If we all agree that great content will be shared across social media, then it seems reasonable that we should work hard to create really compelling, engaging and remarkable content. For more discussion on this click here.
So how do you create remarkable content?
First, if you have a sound content strategy you should already know what kind of information your target audiences need. What challenges do they have in their jobs? What issues do they face when making a purchase decision or choosing the solution that best fits their business? The needs of your audience should drive the content development process.
In our case, people are confused about how to use Social Media in their marketing programs. The goal of our content, therefore, is to help them understand and be able to make sound decisions on how to add these tactics to their current program.
One great way to create remarkable content is with video. Wine TV has done an amazing job providing content in the form of short video segments, just like a TV series. Since around 60% of the population are visual learners, video provides an excellent opportunity to create remarkable content. When creating your videos, remember that you aren’t just educating them, but entertaining them too. We call it edutainment. Square 2 Marketing has our own channel on YouTube, called the Video Marketing Minute where we continuously strive to "edutain" our audience. Click here to see an example.
Another way to engage your target audience is to make your content interactive. Provide a short quiz on your website that educates people and offers them a measure of how they are currently performing. This sort of interactive content provides you with an excellent opportunity to talk about how your products or services can help them improve performance.
Action Item – if you've been doing your homework, you probably have a couple of strong content ideas. Turn one of them into a video. It doesn’t have to be professionally produced to be effective. Keep it simple. Since videos tend to get better with rehearsal, do three or four takes with the same content. Make sure the final video isn’t any longer than three minutes.
When you have a take you like, put it on the web. Track views on YouTube and click-throughs to your site, as well as conversions from visitor to lead. If the content is driving leads, keep it up…in fact, do another one. If not, take it off and try another topic.
Welcome to the new content marketing ecosystem!
Square 2 Marketing – Leading the Reality Marketing Revolution!
How do you make a purchase decision? If you are like most people, you start by asking your friends, family, peers and colleagues, right? They are your trusted advisers. If you have a business, then you might ask your attorney, accountant, financial planner or real estate broker. But, in essence, you are asking for a referral. If you are looking for more information on the new buyer behavior, click here.
For business owners, entrepreneurs and marketing professionals, the referral is the “pièce de résistance.” It is what we are searching for night and day. It is why we work so hard in our companies to do such a good job that people refer us to their friends and colleagues.
The challenge with referrals is that they come with a set of constraints. First, you are limited by your network. You can’t reach out to the entire city of New York to ask everyone if they know a good marketing firm. You can’t even ask your extended network because do you really trust all those people? Probably not. You can only ask your immediate network, the people you know, like and trust
Next, only those people who have had a direct and positive experience can provide you with a referral, further limiting who can help you. Finally, people have to think back to their own experiences and be willing to provide you with the referral. This is often the most challenging part of the process.
So, this situation has become complicated quickly: if there aren’t enough people in your trusted circles who are willing to share their experience, remember who they used AND have the time to send it along, then no referral is made.
This is where social media shines.
All social media sites including YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, Pintrest, StumbleUpon, Flickr and others are open invitations to extend your referral networks. In fact, the faster you build your extended networks on these sites, the larger your reach will be when you have content worth sharing. This helps with the first challenge of having a limited network to ask for referrals.
Your network is extended exponentially through social media because all of your friends, followers, connections and viewers all have their own networks. Research shows that each person is worth about 20 additional people. With that in mind, it's clear how fast your network can be extended.
Lastly, social media actually encourages sharing and makes it easy for people to share your content, stories, videos and free reports with others. Make sure you help them along by reminding them to share it and by giving them those share buttons on your website, email, videos and PDFs.
If you treat social media like you treat referrals, you are just a tactic or two away from a whole stream of new leads.
On Thursday, we gave you some great tips on how to integrate social media into some of your other marketing tactics like email, websites and video. To see those tips click here.
Today we are going to go a little bit further and talk about how to personalize your visitors' website experience whether they are visiting your website for the first or the tenth time.
One way to do this is to consider social media. If you are executing your marketing successfully, visitors are finding your company on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter, in addition to Google searches or direct links.
People coming from Facebook might have different needs or interests than those coming from LinkedIn or YouTube. To make them feel comfortable, you should consider personalizing their experience with customized landing pages and/or special content sections on your website.
One great way to do this is to create specific and unique content for Facebook visitors, special videos for people coming from YouTube or quick tidbits of information that could be shared over the Twitter network.
Another simple way to personalize a visitor’s website experience is to create micro sites on your main website. Micro sites include areas with special content, typically based on role or industry. If your site is B2C, specific demographics can have their own micro sites.
Action Item – Look at your target markets. Are there specific roles or specific industries that you work with? If so, create a list of content that you think might appeal to them and only them. Then get together with your website team and create a set of pages for your micro sites and add content to those areas. After you make them live, be sure to monitor the traffic and keep an eye on conversions.
Square 2 Marketing – Leading the Reality Marketing Revolution!
One of the latest marketing crazes is ads on social media sites. In case you didn’t know, you can buy ads on Facebook, LinkedIn and many other social sites. Given what we have talked about over the past few weeks, here are the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of social media advertising.
Since I am a positive guy, let’s start with the good! Adobe provides this ad.
The good here is that they are offering to help us understand how social media improves search and they provide a free report as an incentive for us to connect with them.
This is a great example of a NRO (no risk offer) and this ad will likely draw a lot of attention and clicks from potential customers. Congratulations!
Now for the bad. Here is an ad from TD Bank.
Business checking accounts with a $1,500 balance requirement and no monthly fee. Who cares? If I don’t need a business account they wasted the impression. Unless I am ready to open an account today, their message isn’t appealing to me.
Their message is mediocre at best…how about no minimum monthly balance? More importantly, what about the people who are considering switching banks? There is nothing to help them with their decision, nothing to draw them closer to TD, and no Trio of Offers to build trust in the company.
And now for the ugly. I found this ad on my Facebook page. This company sells green screens for video production. They went right for the discount. 50% off products, just click on this ad. No help, no advice, no information, just selling me something I have no interest in.
I know most of these ads are pay-per-click models and advertisers don’t pay for anything until someone clicks. But the bottom line is marketing has to drive leads and convert those leads into revenue.
Use content and offers to grab people’s attention and then nurture them until they become clients, customers, friends and fans of your business.
Action Item – Take a hard look at your marketing. Do you have any old school, interruptive, inefficient advertising campaigns running? If you do, look at the numbers. Are they really delivering leads that turn into clients, customers, friends or fans? If not, stop them today. On the other hand, if you take your new Trio of Offers (created over the past few days) and put them on your website, or in your ads, you will see your leads increase by a factor of five or six.
Square 2 Marketing – Leading the Reality Marketing Revolution!
We all want our networks to be larger. Many of us even measure our success in terms of the following questions. How many Facebook friends do you have? How many Twitter followers? How many connections on LinkedIn? Most of us understand the power behind these networks and how easy it is to communicate with these networks. But the question that begs to be answered is…how do you get more people to like, friend or follow you?
There are many articles with tips and techniques on how to grow your networks. For instance, on Twitter, the more people you follow, the more people will follow you. But that only gets you so far. There is a better, more sustainable way, more value-oriented way to grow your networks by using content.
As I mentioned in a post from a few days ago, people WANT TO SHARE content. If they read something, see something or like something, human nature is to want to share it with other people. This sharing is an innate, human trait. If we have something cool and we show it to others, then we become cool, by association.
Offering people engaging, creative and entertaining content is the best way to build your network. As the content is shared, people want to get more; they want to be connected, to be part of the party or in the know. We mentioned yesterday the three types of content or the Trio of Offers.
Here are some examples of content ideas that our clients have used to build their networks.
No Risk Offer – Video showing the differences between two competitive cooling products used to keep your data center up and running efficiently.
No Risk Offer – White paper with little known tips on picking the best health insurance coverage for your small to midsize company.
Low Risk Offer – Free webinar teaching attendees how to use spray foam insulation in their commercial property to reduce sound and increase energy efficiency.
Low Risk Offer – Online assessment of your current IT support infrastructure with a set of recommendations on how to improve it.
Direct Business Offer – Initial consultation with a Data Center Engineer to see what improvements can be recommended for your Data Center.
Direct Business Offer – Complimentary review of your home to show you how solar energy system will save you on your energy bill.
If you want to brainstorm offers for your business, click here to schedule a call with one of our marketing strategists.
Action Item – Create one No Risk, one Low Risk, and one Direct Business Offer for your company. If you would like us to comment privately on your creative offers, email me at mike@square2marketing.com and I would be happy to give you some suggestions on your ideas.
Square 2 Marketing – Leading the Reality Marketing Revolution!