How to Build a Social Media Campaign

Article originally from www.businessweek.com

Good marketers see the value of developing a presence where their audience already gathers, whether online or at the shopping mall

By Hilary JM Topper

Social media is all about sparking conversation, not just online, but offline too. Done well, social media draws us in, delights us, and even offers glimpses of the future. These dynamics overlap into the real world, as people go about their daily business. Companies that understand this and interact with their market at every opportunity—both on the Web and face to face—get the most from their marketing campaigns. And they help to further imprint their brand on the public.

Below are some suggestions to help jump-start a successful social media platform.

• Keep it interesting
• Be consistent
• Comb the Web for free market research
• Stay relevant

Hilary JM Topper is the author of Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Social Media, but were afraid to ask….

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Survey says Online Marketing is Key to Success

Written by Resources for Entrepreneurs Staff – www.gaebler.com

Published: 11/18/2009

SMBs plan to increase use of internet marketing in 2010.

It may not come as surprising news for small business owners that most entrepreneurs report internet marketing will dominate future sales campaigns. A new survey from Vertical Response reveals that 74.1 percent of SMB owners plan to increase their use of email marketing in 2010.

The low-cost social media and online marketing is proving its worth to small businesses in these economic times as 96.2 percent of respondents say they will be using internet marketing in 2010. SMBs will increasingly rely on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing next year as 86.2 percent will continue to use or implement search engine marketing.

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Businesses that blog get 55% more visitors

From FurlongPR

Based on a survey in August of 1500 businesses by Hubspot, those that blogged had 55% more visitors, 97% more inbound links and 434% more indexed pages.

Most businesses accept, even if they don’t anticipate these sort of figures, that a blog will revolutionise their static corporate website, but trying to get momentum for that internally can be a trying business. Who’s going to write it, what will it look like, who’s going to build it.

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Twitter and Facebook aid small firms

From www.bbc.co.uk

By Claire Prentice
New York

It is the 21st century equivalent of word of mouth.

From mom and pop diners to cupcake shops to technology start-ups, small business owners across America have been thrown an unexpected lifeline in the midst of the recession by social networking sites.

Companies that have jumped on the Twitter and Facebook bandwagon are reporting a surge in customers while others struggle. With minimal marketing budgets available to many small businesses, social networking sites offer a quick and, more importantly, free means of promoting their wares to a global audience. In the face of stiff competition and a global economic downturn, it is a route more and more companies are going down.

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What to name your Facebook Business Fan Page

by Mark Ijlal

Malik asked a question about naming Facebook Business Pages:

1. Name it after your business. For a local business and especially a location based business like a restaurant / attorney / CPA / retail stores – this is more than adequate after all their name is what is known and how people find them. Yeah I know it is the old Yellow Pages approach but for millions of businesses who you and I both know will use a Facebook Business Fan Page as a business card to put their name, address, phone number, 4 pictures, products or service information, some half hearted coupons and update it once a month – this is more than enough. Maisano’s Italian Restaurant, Aaron’s Auto Repair Shop, Attorney Scott Yaldo and Great Lakes Real Estate Property Managers all will work for their respective businesses.
2. Name it after your website. For Threadless, Zappos, Salesforce and millions of businesses that run entirely on the web and that is where their customers are found – the name of the LLC that owns the business is unimportant; there is no physical location where customers are walking in; the only name that is known to their customers and prospects is their website. So name it after your website that makes the sale.
3. Name it after your brand. Starbucks. Nike. Detroit Pistons. A hit HBO show like True Blood. People know and love your brand. Why not erect a Fan page where they can all hang out and share their love of your brand with each other? Brands know it and they are busy doing it.
4. For firms that sell the invisible: services, advice, consulting, coaching, PR, B2B with long sales cycles: Name it,  so it means SOMETHING to the people who matter the most: your past, present and future customers. And yes that means that you will be active in building this Fan Page as your hub for your business on Facebook.

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Article source: http://bx.businessweek.com

Katie Price v Peter Andre on Twitter

Interesting thoughts on how Katie Price and Peter Andre are using their Twitter accounts. There are certainly lessons as to how and how not to use social media in here.

http://tinyurl.com/mccpox

Watch and learn! This is one of the rare occasions that their very public spat has interested me.

Promoting your business for free

If you or your organisation has something to say getting your message across is very important but in financially difficult times many are taking the decision that the cost of distributing that message is too great. This is understandable if you stick only to traditional methods of promotion such as PR agencies but more and more ways of promoting a business are available now than ever before for little or no cost.

To tweet or not to tweet?

From Marketing Week

By Simon Clift

Last week Brits crashed Twitter in their effort to defend the NHS from US critics, but is that power really of any use to brands?

Last week, I heard all the reports that the microblogging service, Twitter, shut down because so many people were “tweeting” their support of the NHS after former USA vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin called it “evil”.  This was on top of countless other stories that have been reported over the last few months showing the impact of twitter.

But I was still sceptical about its real value. So I called in my vice president of communications planning, Babs Rangaiah who seems unhealthily obsessed by it and my head of global media, Laura Klauberg who sees some of the benefits, but is also not sold on its practical daily application.  Is it the “real deal”, why is it important and how should we be using it…so here’s the transcript of those conversations! On Twitter, obviously.

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Marketing, Social Media Increasingly Important For Business Development

Written by Resources for Entrepreneurs Staff

A recent survey from The Creative Group found that marketing and advertising departments have greater influence over business decisions than they did three years ago.

It may be due to the heightened need to acquire new clients and retain existing ones, or perhaps it is because of the attention garnered by the social media revolution, but marketing has become an increasingly important aspect of business development in recent years, according to a study from The Creative Group.

The national study found that 61 percent of marketing and advertising executives believe marketing teams now have a greater influence over business decisions than they did three years ago – 18 percent believe the influence has increased significantly, and 43 percent believe it increased somewhat.

Read full story: www.gaebler.com

My First Business Public Speaking engagement

I’ve been away these past few days hence a break from these pages but I wanted to recap on my first experience of public speaking beyond best man speeches and a few words to work colleagues at staff meetings.

I was speaking on the topic of social networking at LINX66, the quarterly membership meeting for the London Internet Exchange. This is an event for up to 130 Internet industry professionals notably operators of Internet Protocol networks. What’s more there were dozens more watching on the webcast. This made for a tough first gig as the Internet community have tended to be fairly unforgiving towards marketing people talking on non-technical subjects in my experience.