7 Ways to Market on Twitter

When a company decides that it wants to take that step and take their marketing campaigns into the social media world they often ask themselves how they can effective accomplish this transition. Many small businesses are hesitant on taking this initial step due to either the lack of knowledge on how to market in those areas or unsure of the potential revenue that can be achieved through the new channels. Without proven ROI through the channels it’s hard for them to see the benefits of marketing in that channel.

Here are some examples of companies that have taken that step and how they are choosing to market in social media.

1. Promotions

One of the things that Biltmore Estate is using their Twitter account for is to promote various holidays and specials that the run during those holidays. An example would be this upcoming Fathers Day. By having specials and promotions around holidays it gives people ideas of things to do or buy especially since it’s a time when people are already looking for things to do or gift ideas.

2. Industry Information

Blue Sky Factory is known for their industry related articles. By putting out articles that reflect their knowledge regarding the industry that they are in Blue Sky Factory is becoming a leading expert. People that utilize email marketing campaigns look to them for the most recent information on how to effectively market within their email campaigns. By becoming a leading expert in their field Blue Sky Factory is building the trust of their clients and potential clients. In turn the potential clients will turn to them when they need an email marketing solution.

3. Contests

By advertising you company contests on you social networks it will help increase brand evangelism. The company can capitalize on their loyal clients and in turn the clients can help make the product that they love that much better. The companies are ultimately wanting to make their products or services better for their clients and entice new clients to want to buy the company’s products or services. Completed contests give the companies leverage for future contests as examples on what can be accomplished.

4. Events

Promote any events that you’re attending on the company’s social networks. By promoting the events that the company is attending it can increase attendance to the event plus get words out to those attending to stop by and visit the company. Some company’s will reward those clients that visit them at the events with discounts.

5. Case Study

If you notice a client doing exceptional well promote them. Doing case study’s on your clients will help show other clients and potential clients what they can achieve by using your product or service. Be proud of those clients and advertise their achievements not only on the company blog but also through your social networks. This will extend the reach of who will access the case study.

6. Customer Support

Your clients are on social networks talking about your company and their experience with the products or services. Maximize your impact on the company’s social networks by including customer support. Best Buy has done an excellent job of employing a customer service base within their twitter account. This lets your clients know that you care about their experience and that the company is reaching out to them through various channels to ensure that their experience with the company is a pleasant one.

7. Inspirational

When the world is starting to think more “green” show that your company cares about what happens in the world by posting what your company is doing to help. Some companies offer volunteer time for their employees to use to volunteer within their community; post updates on this. Some companies are known for their contributions around the world. Toms Shoes is an excellent example of this. By posting messages on what their recipients say in regards to the company’s contributions it inspires the clients and potential clients to follow in their footsteps.

With a variety of methods in which a company can market on social networks there really is no way that you can fail. Establish a solid plan on what you want to achieve, what methods you want to utilize in order to reach your core clientele, and goals to reach. Once those have been established you are ready to take that first step into your social networks.

21 Rules of Engagement in Social Media

In Brian Solis‘ book Engage!, he highlights the 21 Rules of Engagement in Social Media in Chapter 17. I feel that repetition is necessary in order to remind us that it’s critical for businesses to have meaningful interactions with their consumer base via their Social Media channels.

Rules Of Engagement

Discover -

all relevant communities of interest and observe the choices, challenges, impressions, and wants of the people within each network

Participate -

where your presence is advantageous and mandatory, don’t just participate anywhere and everywhere or solely in your own domains. (Facebook Brand Page, Twitter conversations related to your brand, etc).

Determine -

the identity, character, and personality of the brand and match it to the persona of the individuals representing it online.

Establish -

a point of contact who is ultimately responsible for identifying, trafficking, or responding to all things that can affect brand preception.

Customer Service -

representatives require training to learn how to proactively and re-actively respond across multiple scenarios – don’t just put the person familiar with social networking in front of the brand.

Embody -

the attributes you wish to portray and instill – operate by a code of conduct.

Observe -

the behavioral cultures within each network and adjust your outreach.

Assess -

pain points, frustrations and also those of contentment in order to establish meaningful connections.

Participate -

in each community you wish to activate, move beyond marketing and sales.

Speak to Audiences -

Don’t use canned messages, introduce value, insight and direction through each engagement.

Empower -

your representatives to offer rewards and resolutions in times of need

Act -

don’t just listen and placate – do something.

Ensure -

that any external activities are supported by a comprehensive infrastructure to address situations and adapt to market conditions and demands.

Learn -

from each engagement and provide a path within the company to adapt and improve products and services.

Create -

contribute and reinforce service and value.

Earn Connections -

through collaboration and empower adovcacy.

Clarity -

don’t get lost in translation, ensure your communication and intent is clear and that your involvement maps to objectives created for the social web.

Nurture -

establish and nurture beneficial relationships online and in the real world as long as doing so is important to your business.

“Un” campaign -

create ongoing programs that keep your part of day-to-day engagement.

“Un” market -

by becoming a resource to your communities.

Give back -

reciprocate and recognize notable contributions from participates in your communities.

Marketing’s 10 second timeframe

This week in class our professor asked “What is the ten second rule for building a website? Do you still think it applies in today’s world of high-speed connections – why or why not?”. Of course, there were several answers in regards to companies having 10 seconds for their website to establish a visitor as a potential customer by keeping them on their website. Typically that’s how long it takes for us; as visitors, to decide if we are going to remain on that website or move on to the next company’s website.

This, in turn, spurred a debate on whether or not this was still relevant in today’s high speed internet world. I believe this rule doesn’t only apply to how quickly the website loads for a visitor. It is about reaching the customer on a level in which they are intrigued enough with what your company is about, what services your selling or what your message is about that they want to stay and perhaps eventually buy into what you’re selling. And by “buy into” that could mean physically making a purchase or signing up for an email campaign distributes your message. For example, I subscribe to several blogs regarding marketing, viral marketing, social media and brand reputation. Their message on their blog caused me to want to read more. Due to their 10 second capture of me as a reader they now have me as a subscriber.In marketing, this 10 second rule is crucial!

Luckily, marketing and communications departments have Web 2.0 technologies like Twitter and Facebook in order to help capture the attention of potential consumers prior to those consumers making their way to the website. So in some aspects the 10 second rule doesn’t necessary apply. However, when it comes to SEO and reaching those visitors that are coming to your website through alternate channels other than Twitter or other Social Media avenues then it’s imperative that the marketing site is optimized for speed as well as content.

You will know when you are doing it right when you have consumers spreading information about your brand. Good marketing/good company will breed “brand evangelism”.

WVU here I come

Over the last 2 years I have been working on my Bachelors in Information Technology/Multimedia and Visual Communications. I will be finishing in December of this year. For the last year I have just assumed that I would continue with UOP (University of Phoenix) when it came time to start my graduate program.

However, about a month ago Marketing Profs sent me an email that sparked my interest with another school, WVU (West Virginia University). The email was highlighting an online degree program (Integrated Marketing Communications) and online certificate program (Digital Marketing Communications). I am considering both.

The coursework for the IMC degree is very exciting. It promises everything from:

• Marketing & Analysis,
• Audience Insight,
• Brand Equity Management,
• Creative Strategy & Execution,
• Direct Marketing,
• PR Concepts & Strategy,
• Emerging Media & the Market
• with the Capstone Course being Campaigns.

There is a multitude of electives that I get to choose from;

• Media Analysis,
• Consumer Sales Promotion,
• Measurement & Analysis,
• Current Topics in IMC,
• Advanced Creative Concepts,
• B2B Direct Marketing,
• Applied Public Relations,
• Cause Marketing,
• Multicultural Marketing,
• Social Marketing,
• Direct/Interactive Creative Strategy,
• Digital Storytelling,
• Visual Information Design,
• Mobile Marketing,
• and Healthcare Communications & Marketing.

I find that choosing only 4 being a difficult task. Which ones would you choose?

The coursework for the DMC sounds like it’s perfectly aligned as well.

• Social Media & Marketing
• Web Metrics & SEO
• Digital Production for Interactive Media
• DMC Campaigns

With my background in email marketing I feel that this graduated degree will be an excellent choice/highlight to my career path. I’m very excited about this program and am anxious to get started. At times I find myself thinking more about that program than having the desire to focus on my current. I remind myself that I need to focus on this program and finish well so that I can get accepted into WVU. My goal is to start in their spring 2011 semester. Perhaps one day you will find me a WVU Alum.

How to make “Spam”

I received an interesting comment from a long time friend the other day. She mentioned something that still rings true with a lot of consumers. The finer ingredients of ‘Spam” are still unknown to the general public. No, not the spam you eat but the spam you receive in your  inbox.

Unfortunately, most people still view spam as any email that comes into their inbox that they weren’t expecting, knew that they were suppose to receive it, or just receive an abundance in amount from the company.

As a consumer I even have concerns about receiving emails that are unsolicited. So I would like to take this moment to clarify to my long time friend as well as everyone else exactly what the definition of spam is and how to tell if the messages in your inbox are really spam or commercial marketing email campaigns.

Spamhaus’s definition of spam is:

A message is Spam only if it is both Unsolicited and Bulk.

• Unsolicited Email is normal email
  (examples: first contact inquiries, job inquiries, sales inquiries)
• Bulk Email is normal email
  (examples: subscriber newsletters, customer communications, discussion lists)

Keep in mind that not all emails in the Bulk folder are spam. Only those that are unsolicited. Spam is about consent to receive the message not the content of the message.

So when viewing the emails in your inbox or even bulk folder for that matter, ask yourself did I ask this company to receive this message? Regardless of the message that they are sending you if you asked them to send it to you then it’s not classified as spam (even as much as you want it to be). There are ways to combat the increasing amount of email in your inbox. First, before you complete any sign up form on a website view the company’s privacy policy. It should contain in clear language exactly what the frequency is on the emails that they will be sending to you (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc). Also, per the Can Spam Act there is to be a clear way to unsubscribe within every email campaign that you receive as well as a physical address or phone number of the company. These are all means in which the consumer can use to unsubscribe from the company.

If the company is legit and abides by the laws then they will promptly remove you from any list that you belong on so that you wont’ receive any more emails from them. However, iIf unsubscribing is not working and you are still receiving emails from that company you may want to consider contacting Spam Haus.

Amazing feature addition by Litmus

Is an Open rate really an open when the person immediately deletes the email? Would you want to know the delete rate for your email campaigns? Is your email campaign worth printing? Would you want to know who printed your email campaign?

Those are all things that I was thinking during the May 14 webinar given by Litmus. I had the pleasure of attending this webinar. They were showing a new feature; Email Analytics. They posted the recorded version of the webinar on their blog that afternoon.

Their Email Analytics is designed to show more than just the open and click rates that we are so use to seeing with ESPs. It goes beyond bounces and unsubscribes as well. It’s designed to show you deleted, print and read rates. Yes, read rates. Their feature is coded in a way that it will allow for you to see those people that actually fully read the email campaign, just skimmed the email or just deleted it. It can also track those people that thought highly enough of the email campaign to print it.

It can analyze the email clients that people are using to view the message as well as what browser they are using. It gives very detailed information on those email client statistics; showing opens, reads and deletes for each one. It is also aware of mobile devices that are opening the email campaigns.

In order to get these advanced Email Analytics, Litmus will provide a small snipit of code that will need to be placed into the HTML code before the closing body tag of the email campaign. It will, however, need to be a unique link for each email that is sent. The report for these statistics is real time. Coming into the tracking page every 30 seconds to 5 minutes. As with the email client testing that Litmus has you can publish these results and send the published link to anyone who needs to see those results for the email campaign.

The release of this new feature by Litmus will change how those that do email campaigns view their recipients. It will open our eyes regarding our recipients.

Is the Corporate World ready for Social Media?

As I began this review I noticed that I follow a lot of businesses on Twitter. I did not include all of them in my review since some of them are small, local companies.

What prompted this review is that I was driving into work this morning thinking about the tweet that I posted last night. It wasn’t the first time that I posted a tweet with a certain company’s twitter handle in the post. And it certainly wasn’t the first time that I didn’t receive a response from that company. It made me wonder how company’s can expect customers to like this level of communication; or lack thereof.

It’s not just a matter of having a social media presence. Companies have to interact with their customers and build a relationship with them. This in turn will guarantee that your customers will become evangelists; advocating your products and services online to anyone that will listen to them.

There are some companies that are doing social media correctly and it shows! They have built a fan base. Their fans are doing the advertising for these companies free of charge and in every available social media network.

And then on the flip side, there are some companies that clearly don’t understand social media beyond the point that they need to have a presence on these channels. But only having a presence isn’t enough. It’s starting to reflect to your customers that all you are there for is to promote your sales. You can’t grow your customer base, reduce your marketing expense and see dramatic increases in your revenue by just having a presence.

Companies Doing It Right

The first company that comes to mind that has done a remarkable job putting a face/voice with their company brand is Bojangles (@GottaWannaNeeda). As you browse through the twitter feed from this company you will see indications of direct communication with their customers, asking for photos, as well as having back and forth conversations openly with their client base. This has lead to the company growing their followers and the number of lists that they are on (19 as of today). They follow back those that follow them; making it obvious that they WANT to be in touch with the customers that enjoy their products. To the man behind the brand, you have done an excellent job, kudos to you.

The next company that has done an excellent job growing their fan based through social media is Heels.com (@highheels and @heels_girl). Heels_girl is the face/voice behind the brand in this companies social media channels. This company has grown their fan base so much that they had to create two channels on twitter; one for promotions and the other for direct communication. This tactic has not deterred from the fact that they have mastered the art of understanding their customer base. This company continually puts out videos of their products, tips on various show style for the season and contests. They also communicate with their customers and gather feedback to pass along to the appropriate people within their organization. With this strategy, Heels.com has gained over 13k in followers and is listed on 81 lists (as of today). Heels Girl, keep doing what you’re doing; it is obviously paying off with Brand recognition and loyal followers.

I could keep going with companies that are doing an excellent job with social media; however I will just list a few more logos and links to their twitter pages for your review.

Vertical Response

Bronto

Lowes

Think Geek

CrackBerry

Companies Doing It Wrong

As I mentioned previously there are some companies that appear to be on the social channels because someone in their marketing department said it was the new thing to do to reach customers. However, there apparently was either poor planning on the companies end or they simply had no idea how to marketing in the new world. Either way I hope that these companies change their outlook and their strategy on the social media channels. Poor branding can potentially kill a companies revenue.

The first company that comes to mind is one that I personally have been a customer of over the last year; CutesyGirl.com. I have been an advocate for this company since the first pair of heels that I bought. What girl wouldn’t like cute heels for a cheap price? However, the many times that I have reached out to this company via twitter my communication attempts have fallen on deaf ears. Or at least that is how it is appearing to me; their customer. Taking a moment to recognize a client will do wonders for this company. Currently they are only using their twitter account to post promotions. I, personally, don’t care about the promotions. Typically, I purchase their shoes due to availability and my funds in the bank; not when it’s on sale. Their twitter numbers clearly don’t reflect that they care about their clients; Followers = over 1k and Following = 140. Very sad, CutesyGirl. I hope that you guys get your marketing strategy together. How to expect to succeed with only posting promotions and links to your product. Stop forcing your product on me and communicate with me. Not that hard, I promise.

Blackberry is also suffering in the marketing department. Sure they are doing great getting their products out to the masses by selling their products through the various cell phone carriers. And for a long time it was one of the only smartphones available. The company; however, needs to realize that they aren’t alone any longer. The company use to solely focus on people in the business field. However, there is a wider market that they are ignoring that Apple has dominated. Blackberry could use a good adjustment to their current marketing strategy and how they are reaching out to their customers. They should also considering adjusting their product line to move in on Apple’s target market. The Storm and Storm2 starts the process of moving into that direction. I would like to see RIM’s developers create APPs that can work on both the iPhone and the Storm/Storm2.

In Conclusion

The theme throughout this post has been that companies need to stop relying on their product like it’s a crutch. Expand your minds and reach out to your customers. THEY are the ones that you should rely on. Build your brand and cultivate advocates through social media. Deliver WOW to your customers through service; online and off.