Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category
At the beginning of March, Facebook notified users that big changes were taking place at the end of the month. On March 30, brand and company pages will be required to change their page design and layout, which will parallel the timeline format currently displaying on personal profile pages. If you don’t make the changes, keep in mind that they’re going to automatically happen anyway!
After March 30, visitors to company pages will see a much different looking company page and profile. Instead of a series of posts, visitors will see a compilation of stories from various users. The timeline format provides brands with a much more visual presentation of what your brand is about. With these changes, Facebook is looking to help business brand their pages better, highlight what matters most and easily manage everything from one place.
How does a company prepare for these changes?
Start thinking about design first, since the visual changes is what fans will notice first. You’ll want to pick images that best represent your company through pictures and graphics. Don’t just make random choices; try to pick images that speak well about who you are. The design changes that accompany the updated business page include a large cover photo (825 x 315), a smaller square profile picture (180 x 180), an abbreviated info and about section under the profile picture, four larger icons (111 × 74) featuring the first four page tabs or applications and the tab width has been increased from 520 pixels to 810 pixels—drastically increasing your visual options.
Next thing to consider is the concise about information section that will appear just under your newly placed 180 x 180 logo. Again, you’re not given much room, so be sure to write something that clearly describes what your organization is about. For example, Starbucks has “We are the premier roaster and retailer of specialty coffee in the world since 1971.” This section is the new home for any key information. Also, this little section links to a page that has all brand information such as mission, company overview, description and contact information.
Knowledge Marketing can help with any of your marketing needs—email, social, SMS and more! Please contact us to find out how.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, Pinterest is the fastest growing social networking site on the Internet. Pinterest is a female dominated site with nearly 12 million unique visitors per month from the United States alone—and that is rapidly rising.
With those basic (but amazing) statistics, I hope you’re already asking yourself, “How can I use Pinterest for marketing purposes?” Here are some basic tips and guidelines to help you get started!
1. Request an invite from an existing user—the fastest way to get on Pinterest is to request an invite from someone who is already a member. You can request an invite directly from Pinterest, but because of the growth, it could take a while for Pinterest to approve your account. The easiest way to get around the waiting list is to ask a friend who is already on Pinterest.
2. Know the lingo—A pin is an image or video that is being added to Pinterest by being uploaded from a camera or computer or from a site on the Internet. For example, you might pin a picture of a cupcake, which will direct people to the recipe for the cupcake that is pictured. A re-pin is when an item you come across piques your interest, so you decide to re-pin it to a board of your own. Boards are created and categorized by user chosen topics, which are virtual pin boards. Pins are then placed onto the corresponding board. Again, a cupcake would be placed on a board that is labeled for “desserts.”
3. Put a face to your brand—This will help to humanize your brand, which will instantly make it easier to relate to. Also, this is a great opportunity to highlight your company’s core values, team spirit and hard work.
4. Have numerous images for pinning—Because Pinterest is such a visual social network it is necessary to have a lot of images ready for use. My previous point talks about putting a face to your company, posting a visual representation of your organization’s core values, but what about pinning the cover of your latest whitepaper? All of these things will add value to what you’re offering your followers.
5. Don’t make your pins overly promotional—Pinterest is a great community for making connections and fostering relationships. The best way to interact with people on Pinterest is to offer value. For example, an organic food maker might want to pin great recipe ideas, tips on growing your own organic fruits and vegetables and ways to lead a healthy lifestyle.
Most of all, have fun with it! Pinterest is such a unique social network that can be a great component of a marketing campaign.
Please feel free to contact us to find out more about how we can help with your marketing needs—email marketing, lead generation—KM can do it all.
At KM, we’re always talking about coming up with new ways to continue marketing products and services—even when the budget to do so just isn’t there. Anyone who has done any email marketing knows the importance of your email list. Your list of email address for your customers and prospects is invaluable.
However, the problem with those lists is that they’re ever shrinking—clients move on, prospects find different jobs and sometimes people are just doing research. For those reasons, it’s extremely important to continue growing that list. Read on for some interesting—and free—ways to grow your email list.
1. Let’s start with Facebook—it’s the largest social media site, by far. While your company or organization might have thousands of Facebook fans, have you successfully been able to send email to those contacts? The solution is simple: add a signup form to your Facebook page that specifically collects your fans’ email addresses. A feature this simple is available right in our Enterprise Communication Network.
2. Provide value—time and time again, we preach that providing good content to your subscribers is what people want. Whether it’s discussing some frequently asked questions, or an article based on current trends, providing valuable content is of the utmost importance. While this point may not actually help to grow your list, making your subscribers happy by providing excellent value will help to reduce your average amount of unsubscribes.
3. Make the most of associations—many times, business or professional associations will either email something out on your behalf, or they’ll provide you with a list of members. If you can obtain a list of association members, you can engage them through email marketing efforts.
4. Make sharing simple—this point is also key to growing your email list. Include a “forward to a friend” option in all outgoing emails, which will allow people to pass on the valuable information you’re providing. This is an easy way to allow for sharing, which will result in additional subscribers. Also, we recommend that you include links to your social media pages—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. These are more places you can engage people and hope to collect their information for future mailings.
5. Keep track of your rate of unsubscribes—this is something that many of us forget to do, but it’s so important to keep an eye out for downward trends. Many email marketing platforms, like our Enterprise Communication Network, provide reporting that generates these numbers and percentages for you. Make sure to check your statistics after each email campaign to see if people are unsubscribing for certain reasons. Are you mailing too often? Not enough? Are your emails too sales-centric? These are all factors to take into consideration each time before you hit that send button.
Please feel free to contact us to find out more about how we can help with your marketing needs—email marketing, lead generation—KM can do it all.
Everyone was claiming that 2011 was the year of social media, so why shouldn’t we make 2012 the year of honing our social media skills? Social media can be an amazing source for generating leads—you just need to know how to go about polishing and enhancing your efforts so that you get the most out of them.
It’s one thing get visitors to your social pages, but it’s a whole other game to create enough value to keep them coming back—and eventually converting them into a lead. Here are some ideas and guides on how to do just that:
1—Make sure your brand has strong presence
What is your company’s message? What is it you want users to know about you? Are you communicating that clearly through your posts? For the most part, people enjoy connecting with brands, and they enjoy interacting with those they can relate to or have an interest in. However, you need to make sure your social media presence is well branded—use your company colors, logos and slogans on your pages to ensure your page is a strong representation of your company and easily identifiable.
2—Use personality
Relateability goes a long way with people—we’re logically drawn to things that seem natural to us. Try using a tone in your messages that is quite conversational. Write as if you’re actually speaking to someone—loosen up and have a little fun with social media.
3—A little lesson on feedback
Users who respond to your posts, write comments and ask questions deserve feedback. They should receive a comment back or an answer to their question. Make time every day to give feedback to those who deserve it, which is everyone who took the time to give you feedback.
4—Search engines
Keep in mind that everything you blog and post on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are all indexed by search engines. That means that it can all appear in search rankings from Google, Yahoo! or Bing—so always be sure to bring your “A” game. Anyone and anytime could stumble upon a blog post from the previous day, and that is one of the best ways to put yourself in front of prospects.
5—Help your business while helping a reporter
In an effort to gain exposure, companies should always be searching for new ways to get their name and expertise out there. At www.helpareporter.com, there are as many as 200 stories a day that journalists are looking to talk to experts about. SO why not throw your hat in the ring? Media exposure will help your company and brand in more ways than one!
6—Social media sharing via icons
We’ve all seen them—it’s practically impossible not to spot one on a daily basis. I’m talking about that small blue box with the white lowercase “f” in it. Yes, that universal symbol for Facebook. Icons like that are key for sharing your content. In fact, those little icons make sharing downright simple. You have a lot to lose by not making your content easy to share, so make sure you have a solid strategy in place.
7—Mix it up
Different things appeal to different people. While some visitors look for articles or top ten lists, others look for videos and some might enjoy reading a good white paper or case study. My point is is that it’s absolutely necessary to offer a variety of content—it would be a complete shame to lose out on a great prospect because you didn’t over a demo video or client testimonials.
8—Content is key
I feel like I can’t write a blog or article without mentioning this point, but I’ll do what I have to do drive this point home. High quality content is worth the investment of time. Your readers and prospects truly appreciate your best practices and expertise, but the search engines do too. Google Panda among other efforts have changed the way pages are indexed, and those changes are all geared toward providing high quality content.
9—What others think counts…
…at least in the world of word of mouth marketing. Social media actually promotes word of mouth marketing. Word of mouth has been, and continues to be, a top lead generation tool. Reputation is key, and buyers have the tendency to seek referrals from their peers. Because social media is an open forum, it enables people to share their experiences. Who isn’t looking for a way to build trust with potential clients?
10—Find relevant communities and groups
Find online communities that are relevant to your product or service. LinkedIn is an amazing source where you can join different groups to start conversations and ask questions. Many times you can stumble upon someone who is asking for recommendations on a product you offer—this is the perfect time to offer demo or give them more details. Use these communities to grow your network.
Please feel free to contact us to find out more about how we can help with your marketing needs.
Getting the most out of the integration of social media and email marketing has been a recurring theme in our monthly newsletters. Simple things like adding icons to your message to encourage your email recipients to follow you on popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter can quickly grow your social media followers. One of our clients added 200 new Facebook fans in just 48 hours through an email campaign!
But how do you use your existing Facebook page to grow your email list?
The answer is to create a Facebook tab on your page. Tabs are like mini-websites that appear within Facebook. They can display text, images, video, as well as link to your main site. Tabs can also be created to collect data that the user provides, so in the case of email marketing, it is an ideal way to subscribe people to your newsletter. In fact, at KM we have a tab for people to sign up to receive this newsletter. Click here to see our Partners in Profit Newsletter tab.
With KM’s SmartForms, you can quickly and easily create Facebook tabs that will add to your existing email marketing groups. The email address or other information entered within the SmartForm on the Facebook page is automatically stored for future email marketing efforts such as newsletters, a welcome series, or product messages.
For more information about creating a customized tab for your organization’s Facebook page, please contact us today!
In 2009, Nielsen concluded that the growing popularity of social media would signal the end for email and in particular, email marketing. It was a bold conclusion and caused shockwaves among email marketers. Yes, social media was growing in popularity, but was it an email killer?
Over the course of the next year, Nielsen reviewed their original hypothesis, analyzing the email usage of high level, medium level, and low level social media users as well as those that were not using social media at all. Just a year later, the results caused them to reverse their claim. Email marketing was not dead and in fact was growing as a result of social media. Nielsen concluded: “Social media makes people consume email more—particularly for the highest social media users.”
Additional research by Merkle in 2010 provided more specific information about how social media users interact with their email inbox. They found that 42% of social media users check their email four times or more per day, compared to 27% that do not use social media. Also in 2010, a study by MarketingSherpa found that 75% of social media users said email is the best way for companies to communicate with them, compared to 65% for non social media users. Email marketing—it would seem—was not in decline because of social media but rather thriving as a result of increasing use.
The lesson for marketers: Email marketing is not dead and is still the preferred method of social media users to interact with companies and brands. Additionally, as we discussed in our whitepaper “Email and Social Marketing: How to Use Social Media to Enhance Your Email Marketing”, when done properly, email marketing and social media can be fully integrated to grow together. A successful digital strategy includes both email marketing and social media and not one or the other.
