The temptation to sell is always there and up front, in a buyers market, we have to be thinking more about “relationships”, “value”, “positioning” and “offers” when we think about social media.  Once you have these four pillars bedded down, then the odd bit of promotion is far more acceptable to your fans and connections.

This week I read a great article from Steve Olenski from SocialMediaToday and he presented research on what it is that consumers actually expect to receive when they engage with business or brands through Facebook (and social media).  The results are shown below.

Marketers and business owners, utilising Facebook were asked “Why do you think fans engage with your Facebook Business Page?”

Then consumers were asked “Why do you connect with Facebook and other social mediums” – the answers were surprising…. to marketers and business owners…. they got a big fat FAIL on THEIR understanding of reasons for fan engagement!

Finally, consumers were asked “how will you continue to use social media in 2012” and the results were as follows:

So what does all this mean to You?  Social media is an important cog in your marketing strategy for 2012 and it also means that you need to be thinking about your offering.  Maybe it will be some sort of a “(Facebook) Friends with Benefits” program or incentives that are only offered to fans engaged on Facebook with your business.

Whatever it is, ensure you have a plan and for many clients with whom we work we will be encouraging them to develop new offerings that are ONLY for Facebook (and social media) Fans – this in itself is enticing to your market, when you are closing your marketing loop and ensuring that the business’ on and offline marketing drive each other forward.

May 2012 be socially prosperous for you and that you are completely compliant and do not violate Facebook’s onerous Terms and Conditions, when it comes to offering Facebook Specials and programs!

Turning social media into business profits.

Meredith

It’s that time when people are saying things like “I can’t believe how fast this year has gone”, “Hasn’t it flown”, “Christmas already” and of course “How crappy is this weather!”, which is a new addition for 2011′s summer.

For many of us, it has been quite a year.  We’ve had clients that have struggled under the weight of the GFC, others who are reporting their best year ever and some who have planned to make 2012 a cracker.

In 2011, social media really ‘bedded down’ – it became a main stream marketing activity for business and absolutely necessary where searchability and indexability by Google is concerned.  Remember 10 or 15 short years ago, a website was not necessary?  In 2011 any business without a web presence was (and is) doing themselves a serious disservice.  Given that 80% of people search the internet before they make any buying decision, to be without a web presence ensures that you are missing a huge slice of any market.

Social Media has become the next layer of the web – first we adopted email, then we began to realise the power of a website and now, social layering is critical and adoption of social media of some description is required.

We saw the rise of Google + although it’s still in it’s infancy, I do think it will gain traction for a number of reasons, particularly as I am sure the Google Apps will all interface in a nice and easy to use system.  Of course, anyone utilising Google apps will gain themselves some traction in the search engine rankins and with that said, YouTube is also a Google site – so make 2012 a year you use video for your business!  Video says it better.

Facebook continued to change and whilst some love it – clients often struggle with the constant changes.  Business pages have not seen significant change for a few months but the changes to personal profiles always keep clients guessing.

Twitter is on the verge of launching widely available brand pages – we’ll see how these take off in coming months although I find that even companies tend to have individuals who wave the batten for tweeting, rather than necessarily having an ‘organisational voice’.

LinkedIn is still a great way to touch your database and to use as your online “rolodex” – why business people don’t use this fantastic, highly indexed social site more effectively is just beyond me!  LinkedIn provides us with so many opportunities and I encourage clients to use this – even if this is the ONLY social site they use.

Finally, 2011 has been an enormous year for me and Video Social Marketing.  Professionally the business was awarded a “Highly Commended” award in starting a new business and the absolute highlight was being awarded “Entrepreneur of the Year”.

To have been named as an award winning business person, in a category of business that is still in it’s infancy was truly amazing and humbling.  So as 2011 comes to a close, I thank all the clients that gave me the opportunity to become an official “award winner” and sincerely look forward to working with clients in 2012 to put their businesses on the (new) Google and online map!

With greatest of thanks for a fabulous year, the team at VSM wish you and yours an outstanding and restful Christmas and I look forward to being part of your winning team in 2012.

Turn social media to business profits

Meredith

How Can Not for Profits Use Social Media?

“Get Googilicious 101″ and “How a CPA Changed My Life”, Melbourne

There are many definitions that cover social media and the role it plays. Perhaps this definition best describes social media:

“Social media is content that is generated by the individual user which is shared over the Internet via different platforms where you can promote sharing, engagement and collaboration.”

The main social media platform that has seen a huge increase is Facebook. It actually surpassed Google for traffic for one day in March 2010; that is truly amazing.

As you can see the effectiveness of social media is huge and therefore should be added to your marketing strategies as a vital marketing tool. Having a good website is just not enough, you must implement a strong social media strategy to compliment your site – and you can do this well, whether you have a large budget, or a minimal budget! (see the “competitive edge” series of webinars if your budget is smaller than you’d ideally wish and you need some fast, effective support!)

The most effective process of social media is by building your social authority on the Internet. You must always remember that a good strategy is not to keep marketing your product or service all the time, even though this sounds counter-intuitive, it is why you should build your social authority with credibility so that people know that they can trust you.

Following are some statistics showing you what affect social media has worldwide:

- Facebook now has over 750 million users as at June 2011
- YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world
- Twitter processed more than 1 billion tweets in December 2010 and on average has 40 million tweets per day
- Social media has overtaken pornography as the No.1 activity on the web
- Australia has some of the highest social media usage in the world. In Australia the usage of Facebook ranks the highest with over 9 million users spending almost 9 hours per month on Facebook
- In the US, 22% of social networking now accounts for time spent online, and
- The US Department of Education ran a study that showed online students out performed those that received face-to-face education

Considering these statistics, if you aren’t using social media as part of your marketing strategy to increase the traffic to your website, then you are leaving some serious money on the table.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences - positive, negative or otherwise…

Turn social media to business profits

Meredith

Social media for business and exercise are more closely aligned than you may think.

When choosing social media for your business, make sure you choose a social media strategy and tactics that are sustainable, you can manage and keep you looking good online. Just like choosing an exercise strategy.

Turning social media to business profits
Meredith

I was both amazed and amused by the fact that using the smart phone as a device to make a telephone call was fourth (yes 4^th!!) on the list as the most compelling activity undertaken on a smart phone!

Coinciding with this information, comes a report from Nielsen who have released their Social Media Report for the third quarter of 2011.

Most of the information is US based – and in the past, I have found that the US has been light years ahead of us.  I think this is changing.  Australians are catching up in a big way.

The Team over at Propaganda House have written up some great key takeaways – and as I’m ever willing to share the social media love – am happy to share what a great job they’ve done of summing up the report (after flicking through it for an hour and probably some time to go – let’s give some credit to the team who summarised it beautifully!)  My insights follow in Orange.

Tumblr almost tripled its unique audience over the last year: In the ever evolving social networking landscape the popularity of individual networks can dip and rise like the stock market. However the increase in popularity of Tumblr over the past year is significant by any measure.

Takeaway: Tumblr’s main audience are teens, so if you’re in B2C and teens/early 20’s make up a large part of your target market – it’s high time you look at integrating tumblr into your social media campaign.

Over the past three months, I have had a number of clients asking about Tumblr – it would seem that Tumblr has served it’s apprenticeship as a fledgling social media site and is now coming into it’s own.

Australian’s #1 users of social networking sites:among nielsen’s internet-metered countries,

Australians lead the way in social media

Australians ranked no.1 in time spent visiting social networks and blogs, spending an average of 7 hours and 17minutes per person each month.

Takeaway: If you’re still weighing up whether your business needs a social media presence, this statistic alone should seal the deal.

Google’s mantra is “be found” – given that so many of us are glued to our smart phones, that social layering is becoming a critical factor in search engine optimisation and that social media is NOT going away – what are you waiting for??

Users who are influential offline are also influential online

60% of social media users create reviews of products/services, and are 12% more likely to purchase online: these reviews are the preferred source for information about product/service value, price and quality. Shoppers consider these independent reviews more trustworthy than information provided by the supplier.

Takeaway: If you sell online and you’re not utilising social media to promote your offering, you’re missing out on interacting with a huge group of consumers who are ready and willing to buy. You’re also missing out on the opportunity to activate brand evangelists who can have a big influence on the purchase decisions of others.

Additionally, given that approximately 80 percent of people buy from someone who is endorsed and recommended (whether the purchaser knows the endorser or NOT) – get yourself some social media endorsements and raving fans and drive those sales up!

Facebook continues to dominate: with 3x the audience of the #2 U.S social network blogger, facebook has become synonymous with not just social media, but the internet in general. U.S internet users spend more time on facebook than any other website.

Takeaway: This one’s a no brainer; if brand awareness means anything to your business, you need to be utilising facebook.

I’ll place one caveat on my esteemed colleague’s Takeaway – utilise Facebook if your business and audience will engage there – for instance, I don’t believe that Facebook is the first medium that should be considered for some businesses – find a social angle and a reason for people to connect with your brand.  Maybe your business is a more natural fit for a site like LinkedIn.

Mobile use of social media is ploughing forward: according to the report, nearly 2 out of 5 social media users now access it via their mobile phone, while social networking app usage has increased 30% since Q3 2010.

Takeaway: With more and more people accessing social media content via their mobile, it’s important to consider how easily digestible your content is via these devices.

What else is there to say??

Twice as many people aged 55+ visit social networks via mobile:further reinforcing the fact

Don't be fooled by age - young at heart!

that the 55+ bracket are getting more and more tech savvy, and very quickly. In fact their uptake in this category was higher than any other age group.

Takeaway: If a large part of your target market is 55+, don’t fall into the trap of thinking you only need to optimise for web viewing. The 55+ group have time and money to burn, and are using this to purchase and learn new gadgets and devices.

And remember, this is a powerful buying demographic, maybe initially joining the social revolution to keep up with kids and grandkids – but finding the joy of connectivity, gadgets and happy to spend on themselves!

Overall, the report reinforces what we knew already; Social Media is booming, and with the increasing amount of time people are spending on it – businesses need to think carefully how they can utilise this. The key is knowing who your target market is, knowing which networks they’re spending time on and how they’re visiting those networks. This will allow you to develop an effective and efficient social media strategy for connecting with those users.

Images courtesy of Nielsen and fabulous summary courtesy of Propaganda House in Melbourne.

We make it our business to find out what’s happening and be connected with “those in the know”.  So, it’s with this in mind, that we bring you this neat article on the joys of Facebook Marketing and a number of tips that you can implement right now, to make your Facebook marketing more powerful!

Lori Taylor is a great Facebook marketer and we admit – there were a couple of little gems that we picked up.  With the platform constantly changing, some little things can slip through even the most diligent social media strategist can learn something, every day!

Read this great article and let us know what you learnt – head over to the VSM Facebook Page and share your learnings!

Turn social media to business profits

Meredith

Get Googilicious – Social Media 101

Get Googilicious – Social Media 101