Legitimate Concerns with Social Media in the Workplace
Intranet security: Malware may be inadvertently downloaded and spread.
Bandwidth. Potentially a significant expense:
6.8% of all websites visits go to Facebook. 10% of all corporate bandwidth is taken up watching Youtube Videos.
"It is commercially unwise to have a bandwidth free-for-all, especially when you consider that downloading a single half-hour TV show consumes more bandwidth than receiving 200 emails a day for a year."Mark Hutchinson,Managing Director,Telindus
Evidence in Favour of Social Media in the Workplace
“People who do surf the Internet for fun at work - within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office - are more productive by about 9% than those who don’t. “It’s the same in the work place. Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days work, and as a result, increased productivity.” Dr Brent Coker,Department of Management and Marketing,University of Melbourne
Productivity:
If your people are still meeting their deadlines, then does it matter if they spend their down time on Facebook?
Why do they have so much downtime? Fair question - You're paying them to work 8 hours a day, but they seem to get their work done in about 4. Fine, their obviously very productive people. Give them more responsibility. They obviously know how to increase operational efficiency and could help you do this business wide. It's your employees who aren’t connected to the rapidly evolving business climate around them that you can't afford to keep.
I think the issue has more to do with perception: Your peers walk past your work station and seeing you on Facebook, creating an impression that you're not working.
There's no reason to treat your people like children or residents of some military junta run state.
When phones were first introduced in the workplace, they were banned for personal calls.
Today anyone can pick up the phone and tip of the press.
The point is, your people are not going to. You hired them because you trust them to do a job. That trust needs to extend to how they conduct themselves in the workplace.
Further, you have signed contracts with them through which they have agreed to adhere by your policies.
So you don't understand social media and you've heard that its all hype and more likely to cause sensitive information to leak out of the office and harm your brand. Who did you hear that from?
Well then you need to learn social media and set an example for how its used in your organisation because not engaging will do even more harm. A very visible conversation is happening and if you're not participating, then your communications team can't manage your online reputation.
Win new clients and give customers a unique experience they can't find anywhere else. To be able to create these remarkable marketing campaigns, your people need to have a practical understanding of the channel. It has been common place to hire an agency, but unless you have some familiarity with the channel, how do you know what to look for in an agency? The inevitable result will be paying too much, getting burned and taking a hiatus from social media.
A first step. 3 options that can streamline information sharing and enhance collaboration that is currently faciliated by legacy project management tools:
Yammer.com: Your company's very own version of Twitter - with a 99% SLA
A Wiki: These group collaboration systems are simple, customizable and used by multimillion dollar companies.
“Since I’ve started at Google, I’ve been extremely impressed how well the internal version of Google Buzz (Google Buzz) works to facilitate routing important information to people who need to hear it, and facilitate fast reactions.” Tim Bray, Developer Advocate, Google Inc.
Launch a pilot program to prove the concept. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
And besides, since most of us own or will be getting smartphones, we can access social media at work anyway. - Corporate policy be damned.
Take the Social Media in the workplace survey. If you're an employer: Do you have a block access to social media? Why? Answer in the comments. If you're an employee: Do you use social media during work hours? How? Please leave your answer in the comments section.
Recently I was asked what I thought about using competitions and giveaways as a way to get more fans on Facebook. Is it like "standing in a bar and giving stuff away to make friends?" Here's my response:
It's the same way you built your email database - You incentivised. I think it's not the most creative of options, but it is the tried and tested method of choice.
Remember that social media marketing offers faster and wider distribution of your message. The more fans you have, the more fans you get via news-feed stories. For example, if I become a fan, then this is broadcast to all 206 of my friends, who may also choose to become fans. The exposure can be viral. Also, your website link gets added to my profile as an 'interest' for all to see - so "standing in a bar and giving stuff away to make friends" is only true for one degree of separation. You could run a simple 7 day competition that gives people an exclusive coupon code when they join your fan page or simply offer them the chance to win something.
For example: Privatebox.co.nz are giving away an iPad, capitalizing on the buzz around this new product to build their Facebook follower base.
In deciding on what enticement to use, It's important to focus on the reasons people choose to follow Facebook Pages:
Notice that the two survey results above do not completely agree with one another, but 2 key motivations hold true:
Learn about specials / discounts / Exclusive Offers
I am an existing customer and / or showing my support of the brand (For example, 2 Degrees Mobile built up a sizeable following before even launching.)
16% of respondents overall thought companies were genuinely interested in them. This jumps to 33% when we segment social media users.
Currently your email database is probably the only way you have of contacting your customers.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket - who knows how peoples' habits will change in the future.
Going forward, I think it's important to dis-aggregate your database so you're not completely reliant on email. You will need to leverage existing assets like your email database and product pages to build your follower base on Facebook and other online properties that are likely to become more important to recurring revenue in the future. Don't rest on your laurels.
Email: Even if you run a Facebook competition, I suggest using your email newsletter to help publicize it. You will need to offer some bait: a prize or exclusive offers. It may be as simply as a coupon code exclusively for Facebook followers, or something that integrates a new product or category launch. If you want to figure out what is most effective in gaining followers, try testing with some Ads on Facebookusing variations in the headline and copy (like Adwords, but with much narrower targeting capabilities.) Ads that push traffic to company pages native to Facebook convert better than pushing to external pages. This is because of better continuity and relevance - a conversion optimization issue.)
Email Database Segmentation:Flowtown helps you identify what social networks your customers are on by matching email addresses. Within minutes, you can see what % of your audience is on Facebook, Twitter etc. Thanks to ConvinceandConvert.com for this tip.
Product pages: Firstin.co.nz have the Facebook Fan box widget on their website. But now, you can simply add a 'LIKE' button to your product pages. This way, you can turn your website visitors into a loyal fan base on Facebook. These people may otherwise have not signed up to your email newsletters and as the data below shows, people are more likely to become customers and recommend you to friends after becoming your fan on Facebook.
Social Media helps you convert prospects and derive recurring revenue from customers who are not interested in email.
Be aware that companies that have multiple product categories can end up with a Facebook page that can fall foul of, as the old adage goes: trying to appeal to everyone and therefore appeal to no one.
A great model for style, tone, use of offers and cross-promotions on Facebook pages is 2degrees Mobile.
After all the effort of building up a respectable fan base, you will want to know how to turn your social capital into financial capital (paying customers.) But that's a story for another day. In the meantime, here are lots of Facebook Promotion Ideas.
The mobile web truly bridges the divide between offline and online marketing.
Smartphone applications like Foursquare are being used by innovators and early adopters. Very soon, we may reach the tipping point and see mainstream adoption of location based mobile applications.
Attempts were made to leverage mobile connectivity using bluetooth marketing, but the onus was on the user to have their bluetooth switched on and be willing to receive an unsolicited message with content that was not always compatible with their handset model. Further, bluetooth has always been more popular with business users than any other niche, severely restricting its audience.
Text message marketing is still having some success especially with fund raising and voting. Physical retail stores also use it as a promotional channel to customers who have opted in and the channel arguably works as well for physical retailers as email newsletters do for online retailers.
Fourquare is a clever application that uses game theory, where you earn badges, points and can become the 'mayor' of any location you visit. It is designed to be addictive, making it a powerful loyalty marketing tool and also a great source of recommendations.
You can leave tips at nearby locations that promote your own store. For example, anyone who looks at Foursquare tips at Skycity Cinemas on Queen Street will be reminded that you can get Giapo Gelato just 20 metres around the corner.
As a marketing tool, retailers can use Fourquare to attract customers from surrounding locations and as a loyalty channel, rewarding customers for repeat visits and achieving mayor-hood or as an extension of an existing loyalty card program.
Right now Fourquare is a secret club. It has a very exclusive feel to it that retailers can use to appeal to a select group of prospects. It's also under the radar- classic 'below the line' marketing that doesn't cost you anything, and doesn't get your competitor's attention unless you go out of your way to promote it with a press release.
You may find that Fourquare only gets you 2 or 3 new customers, but let's remember that popularity takes time:
And it's best that you experiment with & evaluate the opportunities of this social media channel early.
Other location based applications that are or could become important: Google Latitude, Facebook Geotagging, Twitter Geotagging, Gowalla, Loopt and Yelp.
Consider how many clickthroughs (publicity) you attract to your website & how many conversions result. This is trackable using tools like Hootsuite or Bit.ly
Mentions like @justinflitter are like tagging people on Facebook photos or backlinking to blogs. It cuts through the noise and commands an individuals attention. It's a great way to engage key influencers who can dramatically increase the visibility of your message.
A short saying often contains much wisdom. - Sophocles
How I've been using Twitter:
Use Geofollow to find people to connect with in a particual location.
Use Twubs to connect with people associated with a specific #. Also great for post-conference connections.
Find followers who may be interested in your thought leadership by following followers of subject matter experts in your niche.
Use TweetML to find easily follow people on Twitter Lists.
"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless." Mother Teresa......And since everything on the internet is forever archived, this quote holds true in more ways than one.
We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak - Epictetus
Retweet generously, but QA any link behind the headline first. A good headline needs to be backed up by good content.
#ff generously and give a reason for your recommendation. This is as much for the followees ego than anything else.
Ask peers for their opinion on your blog posts. These comments feed back into Twitter and can work to widen the number of participants in the discussion you initiate. Email them, or simply give them a mention a related tweet.
Leave enough free characters for retweet accreditation - ideally 3 or 4 times. This means the shorter your username, the better. My username: @kunalkripalani is a classic case of what not to do!
@SMJunction on Monday May 17,2010 is a landmark in that it marks the widespread interest and adoption of social media by business in New Zealand. With the conference in just a few days time, I thought I would do a little background research on the presenters and the subject matter so I can get the most out of the day. If you're attending, then I hope this is useful for for you also. Reading time is ~20 mins :
Easliy track #smj view photos, access links & connect with other delegates, speakers and organisers before and after the conference at Twubs.com/smj
Trust Agents - @Julien. You know you need to "join the conversation" but what do you do now? Julien will be discussing:
How to use the tools of the web that make relationships that mean something. - Chris Brogan, Co-author, Trust Agents.
Trust Agents are people who understand that the web has become more humanized and build their business accordingly. They are the pioneers mastering the latest communication channels. Julien will help us become better at communicating a message online through:
Learning to be human at a distance - Connect people, share information & practice simple touchpoints of loyalty.
Understanding how to leverage social networks - Leverage your existing assets. Build on what you've got. Don't rest on your laurels. Be the relationship before the sale.
Knowing how to stand out from the crowd - The Attention Wars. Gathering awareness, gaining reputation and earning trust. Effective strategies that make sense but are not common sense like: Make your own game. Find your value differentiation and create a new word because in a crowded niche its impossible to own the defacto keywords. For example 'Lifestyle Design' by Tim Ferriss.
Making the decision to ignore, listen or engage: Check out the US Airforce's flowchart.
Take information and link it back to business objectives: How can social media engagement be used to help us achieve our strategic goals?
Research: Real time snapshots of customer satisfaction and future intent. This provides invaluable insight into what customers care about right now.
Changing organizational mindsets: Championing the cause, a shift in mindsets, providing skills and a sense of self-responsibility - Converting employees to ambassadors. This is achieved through Telstra's remarkable staff online education tool:
International Best Practice in Social Media: Examples from the private, public, not-for-profit and creative sectors
@Giapo know how to use Twitter to express what their gelato is about. They also use it to engage heavily with their friends throughout the day.
In their Queen street store you will find a plasma screen with a live Twitter stream and a webcam through which you can end up on Youtube.
On Facebook, their crowdsourced customer photo competition has been wildly popular. The resulting photos are now used as Giapo's main profile photo. - That's real engagement.
Leveraged their email newsletter to drive traffic directly to the competition landing page. They understand the need to disaggregate their customer database and move away from complete reliance on email.
Companies that offer social network competition management include Wildfire (run by an expat kiwi,Victoria Ransom, in Silicon Valley) and also Auckland based Netfinity. More comprehensive Social Media management platforms include: Objectivemarketer and Spredfast
Public Sector After the success of Barack Obama's digital media strategy, it's no surprise that politicians the world over are engaging.You can connect with @johnkeypm via Facebook, Youtube and Flickr. The importance of these channels as campaign tools is obvious. With Twitter and Facebook, we are given the impression the PM wants to listen to what New Zealanders are concerned about and he is embracing new technology.
Not-for-profit Charities and non-profits lend themselves to success with social media. They are causes that people like to show their support for. It makes us feel good and maybe it feels even better because you know your friends get to see what causes you support. I've found one great local example and one terrific overseas example that speak best practice to me:
SPCA Petfood Product launch. Traffic driven to a custom landing page where pet owners can get a free sample delivered to them. The distribution channels and product aesthetics are also made clear. SPCA Petfood on Facebook has over 26,000 fans.
Don't have social media usage guidelines. Staff education is paramount to success. I defer back to Telstra.
Don't dip your feet in the water without checking the temperature or water quality first. Chances are you will recoil and not want to go back.It's essential to have a strategy in place to properly evaluate and experiment with social media within a framework that drives towards tangible business goals. Allocate sufficient human resources to ensure proper management of your social media presence.
Don't work in a silo. There needs to be organisation-wide buy-in. Cultivate champions internally.
Don't stray off topic. It's about your customers, not your weekend golf game.
Don't start without using a social profile management tool like Hootsuite or the enterprise grade Spredfast. Also ensure you have a good measurement plan in place using Google Analytics, Clicktale, Bit.ly or other appropriate package.
Managing Measurement and Tone in Social Media: - @andybeal
An important first step is to define what success entails for your business. What business goal is the initiative working towards and what KPIs will you use to measure your progress? There's a multitude of Social Media management & measurement tools available including both free and enterprise grade options with SLA's. Examples include: Spredfast,Google Analytics,Tweetreach and Bit.ly.
Tone in social media: You vs. Brand representation was the topic of discussion at the latest Social Media Club in Auckland. My views on the subject are derived from experience working on a Social Media Policy with a bank in Singapore:
I think best practice is to always remember that you represent the organisation. Everything on the internet is public (as highlighted by the latest Facebook privacy debacle.)
The less verbose you are in your responses and your interactions, the less public material can be taken out of context and misinterpreted.
Never admit fault. Acknowlege the issue and say what went wrong, why and how you are working to investigate and resolve it. The worst response ever is:
We are aware of this issue and are working to resolve it.
A typically corporate tone - one that comes from a form letter, has many words but doesn't actually say much, is not the way to go. The 140 character limit on Twitter is excellent in this regard, since there's no room to beat around the bush. You have to be succint and helpful at the same time.
Sometimes it is best to resolve an issue out of the public eye. Move it to email or phone.
On occasion, you don't have to do anything. Your customers (evangelists) answer the query or bury the troll for you.
People subscribe to your blog because they're interested in your thought leadership or stories about a particular niche. They want to learn from you, be inspired or participate in the discussion through comments or, picking up on a thread and adding more thoughts on their own blog post. My thoughts on keeping a blog compelling and relevant:
“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough” - Albert Einstein
Stay within your area of expertise. As a subject matter expert, stick to writing about what you understand best.
Write a series of posts, each one connected to the previous one. To this end also link back to older posts from any new articles (an internal linking strategy is also important for SEO.)
Subscribe to peer blogs and build on their posts. Reference and comment accordingly.
Be among the first to pick up on new trends and ideas in your niche. Demonstrate thought leadership.
Using Social Media in a broadcasting environment; external and internal stakeholder management - @superfabulous
Social & Search inseparably connected; how to ensure you do both well - @gdosborne
I couldn't agree more:
Real Time Search means that fresh content gets prioritised in Google's search index.
Making your content accessible on social media makes it available to more people in a way that allows your message to spread faster.
The Google honeymoon period means that new websites (fresh) get prioritized for a few weeks. Social Media is a way to keep them fresh.
Facebook Like is similar to social bookmarks like Digg,Stumbleupon and Delicious, but offers greater viral spread through your friend network.
Google is getting more social with Buzz and easy to use filters that segment content types, giving you up to 8 opportunities to rank at the top of a SERP.
How to harness video content for a local yet global social media campaign - @KeaRossco
My guess is we will be learning about:
Pass it On: Help share the best of New Zealand with the rest of the world. Watch the introductory video. This looks like a great viral campaign that properly leverages social media. I look forward to learning how successful it has been so far and also what measurement infrastructure is in place.
Using Social Media effectively from an advertising perspective international best practice from MySpace - @AndrewCordwell
I found this presentation that talks about Coca Cola's foray into social media, but there is no mention of MySpace. I look forward to learning how MySpace fits into the picture.
Scientific Advertising by Charles C. Hopkins is one of my favourite books. It provides common sense insights into what works, what does not work, and why. I read this book for the first time over a year ago and i've just finished going through it a second time. The book teaches one about good advertising and succesfully launching new products. The principles can be applied to the entire online marketing suite, from SEO to Conversion Optimisation. I highly recommend reading this book. If you're short on time, here's a summary for you.
(reading time is ~ 15 mins)
Advertising
Advertising is salesmanship. Its purpose is to make sales and thus its results should be compared to those of other salespeople.
Good advertising is expressing oneself briefly, clearly and convincingly. Fine writing and flair steals attention away from the subject. It reveals the hook, thereby creating resistance to the sale.
The plain and sincere salesman that knows his products and customers is best. When writing ads, ask: "Will this help sell the item if I met the buyer in person?"
Advertising agencies have tested and compared thousands of ideas and recorded their results, therefore nearly every selling question which arises in business can be answered by experience. Meaningful metrics like: Cost/reply, Cost/$ of sale and Cost / Customer have been used to prove the best advertising methods for nearly every product line.
Principles are learned and proved by repeat tests. Uncertainties arise from people and products, not the advertising methods used.
Writing Headlines
Headlines should aim to attract qualified prospects and create action.
Headlines should isolate people whom you can interest for your purpose and target them only.
People are busy and skip 3/4 of the reading material they pay for. Headlines can make all the difference to the Cost/sale.
Learn with precision which inherent quality (of your offering) most readers seek and use it to attract more people.
Writing Ad Copy
When writing your copy, always keep a typical buyer in mind. Don't boast. Don't show-off. This causes resentment.
Write specifically. No superlatives because they suggest looseness of expression and devalues your authority. Use exact figures where available. Specific facts are taken at face value.Flair and dressing is a blatant attempt to sell. Content is king.
Present all claims that resonate with your buyer. You have 1 chance to gain interest of the prospect. An average reader is only once a reader.
Use pictures if they offer a better return than text only. Colour offers no benefit over monochrome. Size does not matter.
Use time limits on offers to overcome the tendency to procrastinate.
People are selfish. The best ads often don't quote price, but offer service: Wanted information, advantages, a sample - proof without the risk. Always remember that people do things to please themselves.
Human nature is the same today as in the time of Caesar, so the principles of psychology are fixed and enduring.
Everyone is CURIOUS. Exploit this curiosity.
BARGAINS not cheapness. People don't like to feel like they can't afford something, but they do like to have access to bargains. People judge largely on price.
Guarantees are a dime a dozen. Personal guarantees are more effective, as our 110% refunds and longer right-of –return periods.
Offers to certain classes or groups invite comparisons. People want exclusiveness.
PREVENTION may be better than a cure, but it is not popular subject matter. Focus on the positives: Don't say: "Prevents acne" say "For clear, flawless skin." Present the benefits. No good comes from stating the problem or the "before" state. People are already familiar with it. State the desired outcome.
Individuality in ads count, but be weary of changing a well established identity.
Research & Testing
Constant testing results in exponential savings: The cost/reply can reduce from $14.20 > $0.85 > $0.41 with optimisation.
Mail-order is the hardest way to sell a product. Ads that are used repeatedly are done so because they are proven to work. Learn from them.
What cannot be done on a large scale profitably cannot be done on a small scale. Small advertising expenses become large ones when the certainty of their impact is known.
Never state a supposition before you have proved it. Substantiate all claims.
Knowledge is power. Learn what people spend. Learn total consumption. What % does our ad appeal to? One can answer any question with a test campaign.
Coupons, Samples & Freebies
The best salesman is the product itself. Use samples, together with a mental impression and the right atmosphere.
Altruism leads people to buy. Picture the customer's point of view. Give free samples, free trials with right of return and no-money up-front or even without collection of payment details.
A coupon to try something free is better than just giving it away for free: The coupon redemption attributes a value to the product, whereas a free-trial with no coupon associates $0 value, making it hard to charge for later on.
FREE is always in exchange for: a coupon, an email address, something that let's you stay in contact with the customer and track the effectiveness of your campaign.
Coupons that can be cut-out are actionable. This is important because people forget. They get distracted - absorbed in some story, so something tangible like a cut-out acts as a reminder.
Making people mail a coupon produces lower returns than if you ask people to present a coupon at a store. Allowing people to telephone provides a much greater return than postal replies. Perception of effort is important. (Remember, this book was written 80 years ago.)
Never start advertising without distribution. Samples enable one to direct customers to where they may be supplied for future purchases. They help establish your distribution channels. Make samples available at specific stores and name those stores in your ads (or offer to name them in exchange for stocking your product.)
Correctly used, samples can reduce your cost / customer.
Picking Products & Services
Go to people already educated and satisfy their created wants, rather than trying to create new wants.
Watch the development of any popular trend (the creation of new desires,) then at the right time, offer to satisfy those desires. Every year, it can be done on new things.
Focus on foundations and finding the advantage. Use Names that tell stories.
The greatest profits come from great volume at small profit.
Good Business Sense
If your ad fits in a 1/2 page, then don't waste money on a full page.
You must do your own selling and define your own success. Distributors exist to fulfil orders.
Generic names create new markets that others can share in. They invite commoditisation: substitution and price competition.
Good business is made from educated decisions.
Intrigued? Here's a sample of the book. I'd love to discuss Scientific Advertising with you on Twitter: @KunalKripalani
The book is out of its copyright period and has been published in full on the internet. Here's one source.
Marketing on Facebook is intriguing communiciations departments the world over. We know people turn a blind eye to most ads and that holds true on Facebook also. The consensus is that the cost per sale on Facebook Ads does not make a good business case. One bookstore cited customers acquisition costs of $80.
No wonder Mark Zuckerberg said "Ads is a good business." Good for him. Bad for you.
But that's only part of the story. Like many businesses unfamiliar with Social Media Marketing but intrigued by its potential, the bookstore in question went in unprepared. There was no plan in place, nor was there sufficient human resource allocated to monitor the Ad program and take the required remedial action. It was a passing notion. Let's dip our toes in and see what happens. The inevitable result was getting burned and a hiatus from Social Media.
"Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner." Anthony's Law of the Workshop
While this business was new to the game, many others had already ventured forth before them, if not locally, then internationally. They knew the fundamentals of online advertising from experience with Adwords et al. but they still took a country-wide targeting approach that drove traffic to generic landing pages that offered no continuity. Furthermore, there are lots of resources freely available on the internet to help with making an informed decision and create a proper testing plan. There's no excuse for getting it all so wrong.
With the online environment evolving rapidly, the correct approach is to have a strategy in place to experiment with and evaluate all social media marketing opportunities as they arise. Innovation is critical to the perpetual existence of any business. There's no such thing as a one product company. Nor do company's who operate in isolation of their market know how their customers' needs & habits are changing. I'd like to leave you with one idea:
Listen & experiment so the possibilities of new media can be properly evaluated & integrated into your strategic push towards achieving business goals.
This post is a summary of how I managed to secure the #1 ranking on Google for the keyword phrase twitter marketing campaign.
Good Timing: People were actively searching for more information about a controversial social media campaign being run by a Web CMS company in th UK. It made headlines the world over.The volume of keyword searches was very high. But, there was no data, case studies or analyses published that provided any sort of insight. Having a good understanding of how to measure the impact of online marketing campaigns, I penned What the Moonfruit? A Twitter Marketing Campaign Analysis.
Newsworthy: Professional and packed full of fresh content, the report proved newsworthy. A press release was aggregated by Google News and subsequently picked up by 2 major online papers. Over 30 fellow bloggers interested in social media, twitter and online marketing cited the report on their websites. The 2 key benefits were:
An increase in referred traffic
High authority link juice.
Promotional Activity:
I bookmarked on the report on every relevant social site I could find. Some of these included Delicious, Stumbleupon,Linkedin,Twitter,Slideshare,Docstoc and Scribd.
I republised extracts of the report of relevant niche authority websites: Socialmediatoday, Business Exchange and DaniwebIT.
I commented (insightfully) on related blog posts and linked back to the full report. (Note the 'No Follow' attribute means no link juice, but I still get eyeballs.)
Connected with authority bloggers and asked for their thoughts, which results in added credibility and possible high authority backlinks.
And that's all there was to it. The result is that What the Moonfruit? is now established as an authority page when it comes to social media marketing with Twitter. As a marketing tool, it enhances the credibility of any of my Adwords that prospects may see alongside my organic listing.
It's been almost a year since Moonfruit and I'd like to share what i've learned about SEO Strategy & Tactics.
You can discuss marketing on Twitter with me @kunalkripalani
SM and SEO certainly overlap, but I still see too many people operating in silos...Neither effort will succeed unless it's part of a larger marketing and analytics strategy." @AndrewCMiller
Wise words. So, SEO is only a fragment of an overall search marketing strategy, which in itself is part of a larger stragetic drive by a business as a means of achieving their goals. So let's take one step back and look at:
Why you might use search engine optimisation.
How you can use SEO to achieve business goals.
1. SEO should form part of a strategy to achieve business goals like,
An increase in brand awareness
An increase in sales / market share
A reduction in customer acquisition costs.
Increasing operational efficiency
Reducing customer service queries
2. The business benefits of high organic search rankings are the result of a well formulated and sustained SEO effort.
"SEO needs to be iterative and evolutionary. It should learn from itself and its PPC sister to become more targeted and relevant to the intended audience."@RyanDeShazer
So it follows that SEO does not deliver free traffic, because it requires time to first implement your strategy and then also to sustain it. That's human resources working with an analytics package. There are ofcourse opportunities to reduce the financial investment by using automation tools like Wordstream, but let's not get sidetracked.
You want to make sure people who need what you have are able to find you more easily than they can find your competitors.
We want them to visit our website, to place orders, fill out applications and subscribe to our mailing lists. You need to know what keywords are driving tangible results and we need to measure our progress month to month and quarter to quarter.
Hootsuite might be everything you need for managing all your social media profiles and monitoring your online reputation.
It's easy to use, supports multiple users, provides actionable analytics and their team is great about keeping the suite up to date by integrating with new online services.
However, Hootsuite is a free service and therefore, it has no service level guarantee. This may not be good enough. While they are not prone to fail, one hears stories about the odd tweet being missed that can negatively impact your monitoring plan. This is where paid-for solutions like Spredfast come into the equation.
I was going to compare and contrast all the social media aggregation solutions out there, but @MindSprout has already done a great job. Read her post here.
Kunal does digital strategy, solutions development & online marketing
Kunal's clients like his work:
“Kunal's approach was refreshing. From the outset he was results oriented, and his ability to quickly understand our business (www.firstin.co.nz), allowed us to prioritise the improvement of the crucial components of our offer. The result: The implementation was quick, and Kunal's recommendations represent a significant part of the 250% growth we have experienced over the last 5 months. Kunal's involvement, was a great investment - he has implemented a new approach in how we relate to our customers, and it has paid off.” Mathew Duder, Director, Firstin.co.nz
“Kunal is highly Internet savvy. He has an excellent understanding of web trends which is very valuable to many companies in today's market.” Daniel Robertson, CEO, Fishpond.co.nz / Fishpond.com.au
