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Why Social Media and Paid Search Should Fall In Love and Get Married

(article originally posted on Pomeganda.com)

One thing I’ve noticed from internet marketers is that there seems to be a great divide on the concept of what gets the best “bang for your buck” with internet marketing. There are the “marketing traditionalists,” as I like to call them, who focus their efforts solely on search engine optimization and online paid advertising, and then there are the “new age” marketers who believe that digital and social media is the marketing wave of the future. My biggest issue is with the divide itself. Why focus your efforts on one aspect of marketing when you can take the two practices and marry them? Moving forward, you can call me the Minister of Marketing, because I am about to pronounce Paid Search and Social Media as husband and wife.

Building the Foundation for Marriage

Paid Search/SEO and Social Media need each other like a fish needs water, but for different reasons. Many traditional marketers aren’t viewing their targeted search from a brand identity perspective, which is a big mistake. As a devout supporter of social media, I know how important it is to participate in social brand engagement as a way to create an active dialogue with consumers around products and services. The main goal is to build brand value and connect with consumers, with the secondary goal of driving traffic, and, ultimately, sales. It’s important to stress that if you are looking to drive traffic for instant sale conversions, social media is not going to give you direct results. On the other hand, most marketers know that using paid search and standard SEO practices will primarily drive sales, leads, and conversions, but they don’t expect the short text of their paid search ads to do much for branding.

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Make Your Brand More Social in 2010

Wondering how socially successful your company is?  Believe it or not, there is a way to measure the amount of sociability your brand has.   One company, Virtue, has created an algorithm called the Social Media Index™ (SMI) that provides a visually depicted measurement of your brand’s online conversations, including status updates, videos, photos and blog posts.

If you are a brand that offers an interactive service or product that is relevant to a target demographic of social media fans and fanatics, you might want to consider taking a moment to reevaluate your current online presence in order to move forward in 2010.  How can you do this?  Well, first let’s take a look at a few of the top social brands of 2009 and see what they are doing right.  According to Virtue’s SMI, iPhone, Disney, CNN, MTV, NBA, iTunes, Wii, Apple, Xbox and Nike rounded out the top 10 social brands in 2009, respectively.

Obviously there is something to be said about large brands like iPhone, MTV and Disney, whose massive online presence will dominate conversations on sites like Twitter and Facebook easily and without much promotion or buzz.  People are already following these brands and wondering what they’re up to, so it’s only natural that they would measure highly on a social media scale of measurable conversation.  This is not to say that all is lost for a smaller, less renowned brand as long as it already has an established presence on the web.  The key to success in moving forward with brand socialization is changing faster than you can say “let’s chat!” and now is the time to reevaulate your brand’s social outreach for the coming year.

There are a few crucial steps you can take to make your brand more social in 2010.  Many of these include solutions that adapt to the ever-changing method of how we access information on the web, mobile and world wide.  Facebook fan pages are becoming dynamic rather than just a place to update real-time status with simple news and information.  The key to socialization here is interactivity and we believe that this list of straightforward suggestions will help keep your brand moving in a social direction for the new year.

Offer a Free iPhone Application

Develop a fun, engaging and branded iPhone application that can be given out as an incentive for signing up for a company mailing list.

Make the Mailing List Extremely Accessible

Enable users to opt in to receive your marketing offers & news directly from your Facebook page or Website.

Create Polls

Let users interact with simple, fun, multiple choice questions and see results in real-time

Offer Surveys

Give users the chance to weigh in on various topics for brand insights

Utilize Slide Shows

Create a photo slide show of customized content, complete with variable speed, transitions, background music and full branding

Offer a Built-In Twitter–Chat Application

Incorporate a branded Twitter-Chat application directly on your website or blog that allows other Twitter users to chat in real time.

Offer Games and Trivia

Offer branded games and trivia that lets users compete for status, leader board rankings or just for fun

Branded HD Video Player & Playlist

Add high-definition videos to your website or blog, complete with branded video player watermarking

Sweepstakes

Run a contest on Facebook with in-page registration that will make it easier for users to participate and recommend entry to their Facebook friends.  Promote on Twitter as well as other social networks.

Couponing

Reward users for taking actions like answering a survey, uploading media or sending a gift and add extra incentives for every Facebook fan or Twitter follower that also signs up.