Social Media Marketing

WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING?

Imagine this scenario: You are married with children. On top of being a social butterfly, your wife Anne engages in volunteer work and is involved in several reputable charities. Your son Fred is a university student who is heavily involved in sports, and your teenage daughter Faith is on the quieter side and spends most of her time on her cell phone and the internet (sound familiar?!). You own your own business, Creative Car Gadgets, and employ 15 people and you are about to release a new product into the market.

THIS IS A FACT: You do not have direct access to all of the people Anne, Fred, Faith, and your 15 employees know AND the people that these people know (their “networks”)! Having an online presence in social networks is like your wife Anne telling 2 friends in her volunteer organization about your new car gadget (because their husbands will definitely want one), who tell 2 friends, who tell 2 friends …… while at the same time Fred telling 2 friends on his sports teams about your new car gadget (because they are young guys with their first car), who tell 2 friends, who tell 2 friends …… while also at the same time Faith telling 2 friends about your cool new car gadget (because she knows their parents will want one), who tell 2 friends, who tell 2 friends and the parents are telling 2 friends who tell 2 friends…….Getting the picture?

The Story Continues….. Sales of your last new product were down significantly in 2010 compared to new product releases in prior years. To promote your products you have attended trade shows and spent all of your advertising revenue on print ads in various car magazines. You’re not exactly sure why, but you think you should have a page on this “Facebook thing” because that’s what everybody is talking about. If you market your product the way you have in prior years, you will not reach your intended audience. Want to know why? Because the type of people who purchased your products in the past (your targeted audience) are no longer reading car magazines. They are spending time reading about cars and new car gadgets online on websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and they are watching YouTube videos.

For businesses, the days of, “Should we be involved in social media?” are over. If you have a business, service, product, or brand – it is essential that you create an online social presence. The questions now become, “Where do we start? Which social networks should we be involved in? Since we are going to get our business involved in social media, does that mean that we need to have accounts on all of the social networks? How do we do it? How much time does it take – I’m already too busy with my business!” Using social media to market your business can involve:

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING?

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is not about hard-hitting sales. SMM content should be 80% information and communication, and only 20% direct sales. Social Media Marketing creates awareness of great content that is produced by the company responsible for designing your SMM campaign. After the initial implementation period, some social networking sites can generate thousands of visits on any given day. Engagement in social media gives you the opportunity to build authority in your field which leads to – sales. Also, when you develop a network of people with similar interests, you are engaging with individuals who support your product, service or brand, and who make good allies for promotion. If you have a new service, product, or brand, internet marketing provides instant feedback from customers, sparing new brands repeated trial and error processes of either developing a product, or marketing an existing one. Done properly, the development of your company’s online social presence leads to improved search engine positioning and increases website traffic. The end result is a strengthening of your brand and market position.

WHAT CAN THE INSPIRE & ACQUIRE TEAM DO FOR YOU?

We provide customized social media management services by capitalizing on all of the Social Media Marketing tools available at our disposal. We have effective methods for ensuring that your social media marketing goals are achieved. For instance

  • Leverage social networks to build affinity with your company, product, service, brand, or issue position.
  • Leverage video sharing sites, primarily YouTube, to advance your message or image.
  • Conduct research to identify partners and online influencers to collaborate with for your benefit
  • Establish relationships with site editors, writers, and other identified online influencers
  • Contribute strategies and solutions to new marketing efforts
  • Proactively introduce new ideas for your Social Media Marketing initiatives
  • Develop a comprehensive online outreach strategy
  • Consistently monitor social networking accounts and profiles for potential opportunities (and less often, threats)
  • Develop and manage online strategic partnerships for your social media projects
  • Conceptualize and manage paid placement opportunities including sponsorships and social media advertisements
  • Produce creative, fresh, high level quality content to share on your Facebook page, Twitter account, LinkedIn profile, blog site, and YouTube channel

Engagement in the social networks for business requires an integrated approach; social networks do not operate on a stand-alone basis. At Inspire & Acquire the strategy developed for your Social Media Marketing campaign incorporates consistent integration with your current marketing efforts so that maximum benefit is realized and success achieved. We work diligently to keep your online content creative and fresh while keeping it exciting and easy for people to share with their “networks.” We work with you on a consistent basis to assess the execution, revisit the objectives that were set, and review reporting intended to measure overall effectiveness.

To ensure consistent branding it is recommended that we collaborate with your website developer to implement revisions to your website that incorporate your SMM campaign. If you do not yet have a website developer or are unhappy with your current website design and content, we can manage this part of the marketing project as well. Social Media Marketing requires specific understanding and expertise in the social networking arena and a high level of knowledge and experience in research, measurement and analytics. A more in-depth explanation is provided on our Measurement and Analytics page.