Local business development professional Richard Berger presents the sixth in a seven-article series designed to help Long Beach businesses successfully market themselves in a depressed economy.
3:30pm | From traditional networking to social networking and content syndication techniques, it’s all about getting your message out there. Creating and distributing your message via the Internet is more effective than you may initially think.
Using Web 2.0 tools like RSS, blogs and social networking sites, like LinkedIn and Facebook, enable you to diversify your message and connect with whole new groups of consumers by either syndicating your content and/or creating links between people and businesses. These kinds of marketing and business development tools are some of the best ways to pull-in new customers.
Social Networking is considered to be one of the hottest trends in marketing and business development right now. Especially for businesses that want to fly their freak flag.
Because, from a customer acquisition perspective, customers you gain from “pull” rather than “push” tactics are less expensive to acquire. They also tend to be more targeted and convert more easily. Pushing and pulling tactics are akin to inbound and outbound marketing efforts; where in both cases, consumers that are pulled to your brand are more targeted than customers that you push your marketing and messaging tactics on.
Here are some comparative examples of push vs pull tactics:
– Email marketing = push
– Blog posting = pull
– Print advertising = push
– Social networking = pull
– Direct marketing = push
– Search engine marketing = pull
With sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and others, businesses have another channel by which to communicate their messages and to connect with and pull-in customers. However, marketing in these sites is very tricky business.
Similar to the more traditional type of networking (covered in our last article), social networking sites aren’t really about business. They are about connecting on common ground and creating meaningful encounters. “It’s still about building relationships,” says Jackie Nagel, whose company Synnovatia specializes in “growing people….and business.”
But with so many social networking platforms to participate in, which is best for your business?
“It depends on where your audience is,” explains Ms. Nagel. She says that businesses need to select the platforms to use based on their target audience. “If you are a business-to-business type of service, LinkedIn might be a good choice. If you target a younger audience, Twitter might be a better option,” said Ms. Nagel. For example, if your target is females over age 45, Facebook is the way, according to Ms. Nagel; who cited this as the fastest growing demographic in Facebook.
Often, social media platforms are used in creating effective grass-roots or viral campaigns in an effort to reach these targeted demographic consumer segments. Yet typical, straightforward marketing and sales efforts frequently backfire in social media environments.
Successful social media efforts take careful, strategic planning. Ms. Nagel has nailed-down an approach that works for her and was kind enough to share it with us:
1. Identify your social media platform – ensure that it aligns with your company vision, mission and strategies.
2. Assess the audience – understand the behavior, conversation and topics that excite them.
3. Establish objectives and goals – develop targets and milestones that participating in these platforms and conversations will help to achieve.
4. Generate leads – create ways to help solve issues and/or engage the audience in a way that also helps you reach your business development goals.
Even with careful planning, marketing in the social media environments requires wrapping your business message in a way that is conducive to the social networking scene to avoid being “misunderstood” by the community. Ms. Nagel stresses that building relationships through trust and credibility are critical. This makes sense when you look at points #2 and #4 above.
Of course, relationship building takes time. Between your blog, Facebbok, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube efforts, how is it all managed for maximum effectiveness? Be selective.
“You simply can’t pay attention to all platforms, you have to pick and choose,” said Ms. Nagel. “People feel like they have to be on all key social networking sites, but they don’t nurture the relationships because they don’t have the time,” she added.
The key, she says, is balancing the time between your goals and objectives and your marketing plan. “I recommend using a timer,” said Ms. Nagel. She likens social networking to a normal mixer which has a start and end time. “This way,” she explained, “You can focus and build quality relationships without losing track of time.”
Measuring the ROI of your social media efforts is easy, too: especially when tied-in with your other digital properties. “I measure how much traffic I’m generating from my social networking sites to my main web site,” explained Ms. Nagel. Online newsletter sign-up’s, email and web form inquiries, sales appointments are all leads that can be traced back to your social networking efforts. “These measurements help me to be more strategic in my involvement for the best results,” stated Ms. Nagel.
“The truth is,” said Ms. Nagel, “If it’s set up properly and you work it like your offline networking, there is no reason you won’t get customers. People are doing it all the time.”
Finally, in search results, social networking sites tend to produce some good placement. So, getting additional organic (free) search engine play is an added bonus when you fly your freak flag.
Syndicate Yourself!
From a consumers’ perspective, finding the right content can be daunting. That’s why many sites aggregate content to help create deeper interest for users. They do this in many ways, one of which is RSS.
With RSS, you can syndicate your content across the web quickly and easily. You can reach audiences that you may not have been able to connect with previously. Some sites push RSS data out to diversify information and products onto other websites or into other mediums. Or, RSS can be used to pull information and products into your website to create more value for your consumers. Both ways are beneficial depending on the strategy.
RSS feeds can also be wrapped in other mediums to create embeddable widgets, gadgets, badges, modules, webjits, capsules, snippets and flakes. These are essentially “stand-alone applications that can be embedded into third party sites by any user.”
For example, if you’re a realtor wanting to reach a broader market, consider creating a RSS feed of your homes/inventory to be fed into local portals’ or newspapers’ websites and thereby distributed to a larger audience. This helps all parties involved: The website or online newspaper that holds the RSS feed now offers diversified content to its consumers, the consumers now have access to this new content and your business is now reaching whole new market segments.
In creating a new product RSS feed, in certain circumstances, you can encourage consumers to add the RSS feed or widget directly to their social media page, their homepage or their mobile device. Then, they can receive timely and instant updates on promotions and products, giving them first crack at offers made thru this medium.
Consider RSSing your content with other websites wherein you can plant your freak flag and create mutually beneficial connections that help pull customers into your world.
The Next Frontier is Now
With the explosive growth in mobile phones and hand-held devices, social media and embeddable solutions now reach farther and provide more benefits to consumers and businesses.
With 30% of internet traffic occurring via mobile devices, the rush is on for businesses to stake their claims in this new frontier. Using a combination of social media models, geo-location platforms and local search technologies, mobile applications like Cellflare, FourSquare, Poynt, and many others, enable consumers and local businesses to form even deeper relationships and more engaging experiences.
Keep your eyes on the mobile market space for sure. Adding this high-growth channel to your marketing mix will help extend your marketing reach into the palms of consumers’ hands. Add social media to build relationships and RSS to syndicate your message. The, you’ll have powerfully effective and engaging platforms by which to connect with consumers on their terms.
Ultimately, flying your freak flag in the places where your target consumers are will certainly help get you noticed and create interest. If your messaging is good, you’ll drive traffic, both on and off the web.
Remember, the market waits for no one. So, get going.
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Previous articles on Doing Business in a Freakonomy
How To Successfully Market Your Business In A Freakonomy
Success In A Freakonomy, Part II: (Re)purposeful Marketing
Success In A Freakonomy, Part III: Press, Press, Pull
Success In A Freakonomy, Part IV: Organic Positioning
Success In A Freakonomy, Part V: Put Your Net To Work
Richard is co-founder of the digital business solutions firm ASTRALCOM, LLC, a published author and an avid socio-political marketing fan. Previously appointed to the Presidential Business Commission and recognized as California Businessman of the Year, Richard’s primary business focus is assisting clients achieve success through effective social intelligence messaging and customer experience management. Richard encourages your comments and feedback. He can be reached at 562.240.2114, via email through the lbpost.com at [email protected], or by posting your comments here.
Disclosure: ASTRALCOM is an advertiser of the lbpost.com.