Social Media Marketing Best Practices?

Zoe Cairns, internationally acclaimed social media consultant, conducts a special workshop at IDMA, (Indian Digital Media Awards), and shares five best practices that brands should follow to make the most of their social media strategy:

Related Article: New Brands Pressing The Right Buttons?

Build Trust in Your Brand

According to Zoe, most people are looking for brand recommendations and social media allows this easily through user generated content. Since people can share their thoughts about any brand on social media, it makes it easier for them to trust a brand if it gets a positive reaction on the platform.

Related Article: Building YOUR Brand's Social Presence?

Look Closely At User Generated Content

Zoe also believes that it's more challenging for brands to promote on social media because the brand is not in total control of the content that gets generated. However, in her view, the user generated content can provide crucial insights to brand owners and help them approach their audience in a more targeted way.

It's All About The Right Strategy

Social media marketing success is the outcome of well planned strategy, says Cairns. She believes that it is important for marketers to know what they want to achieve, to be able to differentiate between brand awareness and engagement, and above all, to know how to choose the right social media platform to target their audience.

Don't Hard Sell

According to Zoe, it is important for brands and marketers to convert social media conversations to potential leads. However, making a hard sell is never an option. It is important for brands to realize what additional value they can give back to consumers to keep them engaged. In her view, the mistake that brands often make is to bombard potential customers with communication which often leads to a situation where brands tend to get ignored. In order to avoid it, the art of subtle engagement is the right way forward.

Related Article: Small Business Social Media Strategy?

Be Guided by Algorithms

Zoe is a strong believer in the power of algorithms, especially when it comes to making content strategy for social media marketing. "The best practice is to look at algorithms and guide the content strategy accordingly. I would say algorithms are controlling social media communication in a major way.

Zoe Cairns is a highly respected and proficient International Social Media Speaker, TV Expert, Trainer and Consultant. 

Specializing in many areas but focusing on one of the many areas people do not cover when they first set out in Social Media, their Social Media Strategy. She works with many companies, brands and Fortune 500 companies to make sure that they have a strategy and know how to implement high profile campaigns to get the maximum from their Social Media activities. Her passion is also sharing the message about Social Media and how it can be used in business.

Zoe has traveled to many places to speak at many events including Poland (She was commissioned by Seldia EU to attend a Roundtable Conference to speak to European Parliament and Government), Amsterdam (The Social Media Strategies Summit), India (Socialathon 2014 for Digital Market Asia), Ireland, Madrid training a 1.2 billion company and Montenegro to speak at a conference for NATO. Follow Zoe on X.

Guest Authored By Ruhail Amin. Ruhail is a Journalist at Exchange 4 Media. Formerly Hindustan Times, and Times of India. Follow Ruhail on Twitter.

Related Article: New Brands Pressing The Right Buttons?

Social media itself is not the answer to having a great marketing strategy.

It has to be done with other media platforms for effective reach.

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  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

Master Marketer Social Media Stratagies?

Most people who have their businesses' on social media are looking hard for answers to solutions for more traffic, engagement and conversions to build their brand..

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While great social media strategies don't simply fall off a truck in front of your doorstep, you don't have to make it any harder than it should be.

Nathan Pirtle, social media/digital marketing specialist and founder of Work With The Coach, is one person who snatched his success from the hands of fate. Pirtle became a hard core marketer because he wasn't looking for someone else's answers, he was looking for his own. These five important tips from his personal strategy can help your brand on social media.

1. Stop Being A Robot

There's a program and an app for everything you want to do with your social marketing, from analytics data to auto posting and direct messaging. While these are important aspects to your digital marketing business, at some point you need to make sure these robots aren't the primary source of your social media activity.

One thing Pirtle is direct in announcing is his approach to being personal with people on social media. Sure, your auto-posting social media tool is helping you stay relevant and seen, but it's not replying to people, nor is it responding to someone's questions in real time. In short, these are mistakes which can share negative messages to your audience.

People want conversation and engagement from your brand -- from the real you. Don't allow your brand to be controlled by these automated sources because it doesn't portray your true personality. Don't get me wrong, it's okay to use these tools because you're a smart marketer. However, because you are a smart marketer, you will understand when to pull back on the reins and allow a more personal touch.

2. Provide Real Content

Your brand pages and accounts need to understand what your audience enjoys. For Pirtle, it was a plethora of motivational, helpful and funny pictures or memes to get his audience engaging with his brand on a continual basis. He also advises the best way to attract more people with real content on your social account is by keeping your house (your social account) clean and orderly. If it is, people will want to stick around and listen to what you have to say.

Related Article: YOUR Content Distribution Machine?

The rule of sharing is 80/20. This means 80 percent of the time, you're sharing content to either help, entertain and/or motivate your audience. The 80 percent has nothing to do with your brand at all. It's all about your customers and what they enjoy.

If you're having a hard time finding out what your audience is into -- let's use Facebook for this example -- you can take a look at Facebook Audience Insights. Simply type in a couple of interests you're looking for, and it will supply you with other brand pages, like yours, who are killing it with real content. Take some tips out of their playbook, and offer some similar posts on your page.

3. Learn To Follow In Order To Lead

Most people want to have a million followers, but they don't want to follow multiple people or accounts. It just doesn't work that way. To create a large social media following with real results, you need to be both a leader and a follower of people. "You have to know how to follow in order to be able to lead, so follow everyone who is relevant to your business," Pirtle said.

Related Article: Power Influencer Tips From Cartia Mallan?

Don't reject the idea of engaging with people. This is going to help your business in the long run because people will always remember a helpful conversation. Once you learn to follow the most relevant people to your brand, and you consistently give them help and guidance, you will soon find yourself leading these people. Don't be shy to follow.

Related Article: The $7 Million Social Media Marketing Affiliate?

4. Measure Success From Engagement

There are lots of ways to measure your success on social media. Stats from analytics to learn different things about your social media accounts is a great way to build your business. However, Pirtle always measured his success based on the social engagement his brand was acquiring every day on social media.

How many people are interacting with you on a consistent basis? Learn who the key players are and who always seems to be there when you share. Anytime anyone likes, comments, retweets, etc., you should take notice, and respond to those people.

Related Article: Boost YOUR Social Media Engagement?

One great way to measure success within each campaign is to set a specific goal within your brand. Perhaps you want to set a goal of 50 signups on Facebook or Twitter. You also would like to see 25 comments and at least 15 shares. These are personal engagement goals you should make for each update your brand does.

KISSmetrics shares a very helpful article on how you can measure each step of your engagement, and they include metrics of engagement like awareness, engagement, drive traffic, finding advocates and fans, and your brand's voice measurement.

It's important to understand and establish a set of goals in which you can measure your engagement success on your social platform of choice. Not all social networks are the same. The people may be the same, but their behaviors on each platform are different. You want to understand the behaviors of each person on your social platform of choice. It will help you provide the best possible content for them in the future.

Related Article: Social Media Marketing Best Practices?

5. Build The Relationship

There is no social marketing tip any stronger than this -- build the relationship. This is pretty much self explanatory, and while it seems pretty hard to do, most people are susceptible to your brand on social media, providing you're not trying to hard sell them right out of the gate.

Relationship marketing creates brand loyalty and an avenue for other people like the one with whom you just built a relationship with. You spend the time, build the relationship, and establish the trust. In turn, this builds a bridge between someone who doesn't know you and your brand with the person you just created this with. You see how important it is? The reach of relationships is powerful marketing within your social community, and you should be taking advantage of it every day.

Guest Authored By Jennifer Spencer. Jennifer is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Energent Media, a digital branding agency focused on helping entrepreneurs share their stories on top podcasts. She is a passionate storyteller, online marketer and social media specialist. Follow Jennifer on Twitter.

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There are all kinds of social media strategies you should want to try out, but these five are the most important ones to always remember to do consistently.

You have a brand name to protect and an audience who wants to learn all they can about you.

Just like Pirtle, when you invest your time, money and knowledge into your audience, you will reap superb results with these strategies.."

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  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

YOUR Restaurant Social Media Marketing?

How many customers are you actually getting through social media marketing?

If you are a restaurant owner and have invested in social media marketing programs in the past, these phrases from “experts” might sound familiar:

--“I’ll get you a lot of likes on social media!”

--“We’ll help you grow your followers!”

--“We promise you’ll get great exposure!”

Related Article: YOUR Local Business Social Media Marketing?

What about actual customers, though?

Although these industry “experts” may get your restaurant’s social media pages more likes, followers, and exposure, will this form of social media marketing get you more customers? That is the question.

The sad truth is that many restaurants invest their money in social media programs which don’t actually bring them customers because they’ve been led to believe that organic likes, more followers, and more exposure are the only options for marketing online today.

Now let’s take a second to analyze what most organic social media marketing methods are actually doing for your brand… To learn more, we must take a look at the two top social media platforms:

Related Article: Making Social Media Work For YOUR Company?

Facebook and Instagram

--Today, Facebook has 2.23 billion active monthly users with an average engagement rate of 0.17%.

--Instagram has 1 billion active monthly users with an average engagement rate of 2.25%.

These statistics tell us that although these two platforms have billions of users, there are low engagement rates due to the high competition. With Facebook’s ever-changing social hierarchy and algorithm, it has become increasingly difficult for businesses to reach their customers online.

A 0.17% engagement rate on Facebook means that a Facebook business page with 5,000 page likes will only get 85 engagements (likes, comments, etc.) on average. A 2.25% engagement rate on Instagram means that a business page with 5,000 followers will only get 125 engagements on average. Additionally, these low engagement rates across both platforms mainly derive from people who are already familiar with the brand… Reaching NEW customers on social becomes infinitely harder to do.

Related Article: How Facebook's Changes Impact YOUR Social Media Marketing?

Posting consistently may be one avenue to re-engage with your current customers and to help your brand look presentable online when people are actively searching for you, but it may not be the best method for attracting new customers to your restaurant.

The next questions you may want to consider in regard to your current social media strategy is: Are your followers close enough in proximity to your restaurant? At what point in your social media strategy do your followers become customers? How do you even track this? The questions above lead me to my next point..

Organic social media marketing methods make it extremely hard to track whether or not your efforts are bringing you NEW customers.

If you can’t track whether the marketing you are doing is effective or not, you can’t trace back to what marketing methods are leading to your success (if you see success), and hence you don’t know where to further allocate your efforts to multiply your successful results.

Related Article: What Other Peoples Advertising Can Teach YOU?

Call me crazy, but if you invest your time and money into marketing, wouldn’t you want to see a definitive ROI (Return on Investment)?

To address the increasingly lower engagement rates, as mentioned above, many “Social Media Manager Experts” have shifted their efforts towards “boosting” posts. A “boosted” post on Facebook or Instagram is a quick way for your post to reach more “People who like your page and their friends” or “people you choose through targeting”.

Although it may sound like a good idea, boosted posts often lack what most good online ads have, which is: an objective and a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) of success.

As a professional advertiser, I consider effective advertising to have definitive objectives with measurable indicators of success. In Facebook ads manager, you can set objectives such as: clicks, custom conversions, messages, etc. but you can’t do this with a boosted post. Without an objective and KPI, an ad (or boosted post) is a shot in the dark. I call this form of marketing “Hope Marketing.”

Related Article: YOUR Tangible Social Media Marketing ROI?

I describe “Hope Marketing” as marketing that has no real way of measuring success and therefore is a marketing strategy backed with only “hope and prayer” rather than with data and insights.

In addition to the lack of objectives or KPIs of success, boosted posts do not allow you to “A-B” test different creatives (ads, pictures, videos, etc.) against each other. If you can’t “A-B” test campaigns, you lose the ability to optimize and test different strategies against each other to see which might be yielding better results.

In conclusion, I bring up these points on organic and “boosted” social media strategies because many restaurant owners believe that these are the only social media options for reaching more customers online. If you are a restaurant owner and are wondering why you aren’t growing, I hope this article has brought you some insight.

Guest Authored By Brett Linkletter. Brett is CEO and Co-Founder of MISFIT MEDIA. He is a Restaurant Customer Builder. Follow Brett on X.

Related Article: Marketing Strategies To Transcend YOUR Industry?

Brett Linkletter's Social Media Marketing Takeaways:

--Clearly define your marketing objectives before you start.

--Create a system or KPI that allows you to measure results.

--Test multiple messaging and creative angles against each other.

--Once you have a clearly defined winner, drop the losers and scale the winner.

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  Post Crafted By:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, CO. where I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

YOUR Live Event Social Media Communications?

How to create an effective social media communications strategy for high-profile events..

High-profile events are important to a business’ future success, and having strong communications strategies in place for the event is an absolute must.

Related Article: Making Social Media Work For YOUR Company?

Attendees, influencers and press need to have ready-to-share information as soon as they arrive at the event.

This means that your business needs to be 100% prepared to hold up under scrutiny before the first footsteps into the room.

In this technology-driven age with Wi-Fi and Instagram-worthy backdrops, successful media coverage is often just a matter of preparation and marketing. But what are the best practices marketers should include when putting together their communications strategy for a high-profile event?

Below, 15 members of Forbes Communications Council explain their most effective ways of ensuring transparency, privacy or accurate coverage during their biggest events.

1. Take The 'TV Camera' Approach

Assume that anything you do or say will end up on TV. Or, put another way, don't say or do anything you wouldn't want to be broadcast on TV. We plan all events through that lens. It makes us think carefully about who we hand the mic to, what our talking points are and how we need to prepare. -Jennifer Jolls, The Connor Group

Related Article: Everything YOU Need To Know About IGTV?

2. Consider Risks Then Plan For Success

Consider all of your constituents: participants, consumers, reporters, competitors and anyone else impacted by the event. Carefully consider what could go wrong and the worst-case scenarios before starting to implement the event. This technique is a big help in mitigating risks and creating the framework for a smashing success. -Deborah Farone, Farone Advisors

3. Respond Quickly On Social Media

If you’re hosting an event, odds are that consumers, partners and other stakeholders are weighing in on social media in real time. Marketers should monitor for social posts -- both the good and bad -- and respond quickly, correcting errors and addressing concerns. Always keep in mind the goal of the event and form your social messages accordingly. -Alex Goryachev, Cisco

Related Article: Maximum Engagement Social Media Strategy?

4. Make The Event An Experience

Brand experience is today’s competitive edge. Stay focused on creating an atmosphere where all participants feel respected, heard and cared for. Ensure journalists have an information package so they can write accurate articles or create content on the fly. If you successfully turn an event into an experience, it'll have a lasting impact on the brand and company’s bottom line. -Parna Sarkar-Basu, Brand and Buzz Marketing, LLC

5. Leave No Stone Unturned

If it is really high profile and important for your business, you have to consider all potential communication vehicles and plan for them. Each has a different voice and it is the marketer's job to make sure they are leveraged the right way. Based on your objective for the event, you should have a plan for utilizing all things new and traditional. Don't focus on just one area. -Blake Rodgers, SiteLock

Related Article: Top CEO Social Media Strategy?

6. Effectively Drive Home Key Messages

Accurate coverage starts with core key messaging that the marketing team develops at the start of an event or campaign. By ensuring that initial communication drives home key message points in a clear and effective way, we’re able to share our narrative. -G'Nai Blakemore, Mattress Firm

7. Visualize The Impact Of Your Event

Before you rush in and create the checklist for your next high-profile event, step back and think about the impact that you want your event to have on those who matter to your success. Visualize the specific individuals and groups with whom you're communicating, and write out how they currently perceive your brand and what you'd like them to think after attending your event. -Stephen Dupont, Pocket Hercules

Related Article: Maximum Impact Social Media Trends?

8. Equip Your Media Response Team

Establishing a media response team is key. Before the event, determine what topics may be of interest to media and which sources within your organization can best respond to questions. Develop a list of contacts and their availability, and conduct media training to ensure a timely and accurate flow of information come event day. -Marija Zivanovic-Smith, NCR Corporation

9. Utilize Influencer Coverage

Influencer coverage is often more accessible to audiences, which is why they've begun to replace traditional correspondents. If you want influencers at your event, craft transparent invitations. Communicate whether they can bring a guest, if their travel expenses and accommodations are covered, how many posts they will need to make while there and other brand expectations. -Nicolas Miachon, Upfluence Inc.

Related Article: Why Social Media Influencers Prefer Instagram?

10. Be Explicit About Who Can Say What To Whom

For high-profile events, be ready for the message(s) to evolve until last minute. You can avoid chaos and ensure accurate coverage via three steps. Be clear internally about who owns the final message and its dissemination. Specify who can communicate what to whom and naming spoke people. Draft what you'd want the coverage, titles, quotes, etc., to be in advance for your spokesperson. -Isabelle Dumont, Lacework

11. Focus On Context And Communications

Without context, communications aren’t effective. Context brings life to communications -- making them relatable, providing information stakeholders care about and delivering something memorable. At the heart of context lies the fact that it must reflect someone’s truth, someone’s reality. This ensures a deeper, more fact-based story and ultimately one that engages an audience more successfully. -Eric Jones, WP Engine

Related Article: 7 Gary Vaynerchuk Social Media Tips?

12. Communicate With Your Workforce

When you are planning to make a big announcement -- a merger or acquisition, for example -- success can come down to how well you communicate internally. Employees will stay productive when they know how their work lives will be affected. Communications from leadership need to be transparent and authentic. Reaching every employee at the same time and with the same message is essential. -Alison Murdock, SocialChorus

13. Show, Don't Just Tell

When it comes to impactful communications strategy, the secret is: show, don’t just tell -- especially when there’s an opportunity to engage a live audience. In today’s digital age, storytelling is key. Identify your goals and tell a story that is honest and engaging. By showcasing a unified story across all your multimedia channels, it’s likely accurate word-of-mouth coverage will follow. -Martin Häring, Finastra

Related Article: Social Media Marketing Steps To Success?

14. Go Live And Let People In

There is nothing more transparent and accurate than livestream video. Go live and let people in. Do a behind-the-scenes live video and get people excited about attending. With social media, you have the ability to create the image you want others to see. Show things they would never about know that will help your image around the event. Interview people working hard on getting the event up and running. -Ellicia Romo, Peoples Mortgage Company

15. Crowdsource Your Content And Give Credit

To secure accurate coverage, equip your attendees with the knowledge they need to capture quality, on-the-ground footage for social sharing. This way, you have an army of content creators capturing every aspect of the event -- resulting in more options for you to choose from when you share. And when you share the content, be sure to give credit to the people who helped you create it all. -Andrew Caravella, Sprout Social

Guest Authored By Forbes Communications Council. Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only, fee-based organization for senior-level communications and public relations executives. Find out if you qualify at forbescommcouncil.com/qualify. Follow Forbes Communications Council on Twitter.

Related Article: How To Boost YOUR Social Media Game?

High-profile events are important to a business’ future success, and having strong communications strategies in place for the event is an absolute must.

Attendees, influencers and press need to have ready-to-share information as soon as they arrive at the event. This means that your business needs to be 100% prepared to hold up under scrutiny before the first footsteps into the room..

• 

  Post Crafted By:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at GetMoreHere.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, CO. where I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)