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- How to Use Online Social Media Events to Improve Your Marketing
- 11 Social Media Marketing Predictions to Watch for 2014
- 5 Ways to Grow Your Email List With Social Media
- Banner Ads for Affiliate Program
How to Use Online Social Media Events to Improve Your Marketing Posted: 10 Feb 2014 12:31 AM PST Are you providing online opportunities for your fans and customers to come together? Would you like to make better connections with prospects? Social media is a powerful tool for organizing and directing community activity. And the cool part is it's much easier to pull off than you might think. In this article you'll find four different kinds of events you can create on social media to connect you with prospects and help you build your brand. #1: Schedule Focus Group Sessions Using Google HangoutsFocus groups and customer feedback sessions are an important part of growing a successful business. In order to grow, you need to make sure that you're satisfying your existing customers' needs, as well as identifying opportunities to do more business with them. You also need to find out what's currently keeping potential customers from using your product or service. Focus groups help you identify ways to adjust your offering to capture a larger share of the market. Google+ hangouts are a great way to coordinate customer feedback or focus group sessions with your target audience. To schedule a focus group or customer feedback session using Google+ hangouts and social media events, first create a signup poll or some other way to capture the contact information from people who are interested in participating. Set the dates and times for your hangout before you send this out and ask people to indicate which hangout they'd be able to attend. Although hundreds of viewers can watch the hangout, only 10 active participants can interact with each other, so you'll have to make sure you keep your numbers below that if you want to give everyone a voice. Once you get the responses, figure out whom you want to invite to each session. Then create the events and send your guests an invitation to join the appropriate event. Just prior to the event, send a reminder so no one misses out! Google+ hangouts are a useful tool to create focus groups and customer feedback sessions. #2: Orchestrate Virtual Launches on FacebookUse Facebook to create a virtual launch event to leverage the reach of your Facebook community. Just because someone likes your page, there's no guarantee they'll see all of your status updates, thanks to of the filters Facebook applies to the news feed. When you're coordinating online activity for a virtual launch, Facebook events are great way to get around those filters and communicate with your audience about your event. Remember, you don't always need to host a live event to create a Facebook event. For example, many bands create an event for the launch of their new album, even if there's no live show accompanying the launch. Promoting something with a Facebook event lets you develop a more accessible audience and generate sustained interest for the event. When you set up a Facebook event and people join, you can send mass messages to all of them at one time. Use these messages to stay in touch with your audience and create anticipation as you work up to the launch. The event also generates a reminder on each guest's profile when the big day arrives. Because Facebook doesn't allow pages to send event invitations, be sure to let people know they're welcome to spread the word and share the event with their friends! Use Facebook events to stay connected and reach more fans during a virtual launch. #3: Invite Customers to Product WebinarsYou can use Google+ Hangouts to host your product webinars. Hosting product demos or webinars about your products and services is a great way to generate leads for your business. When you use social media to promote your demo or webinar, you make it much easier for word to spread throughout groups of your target audience. If you're active on Facebook, Google+ or a niche network, be sure to use social media to invite your network to your webinars. These social media updates are easily sharable and allow your followers to spread the word to their own networks and groups. Humans tend to congregate in groups that share similar traits. When someone matches your target audience, chances are good that other people in his or her networks will too. By using social media to invite the people in your social networks to your product demos and webinars, you're likely to increase attendance and generate more leads. #4: Host In-person Networking EventsLeverage your social media networks to create networking events beneficial for your business. In today's marketplace, one of the most valuable assets is being able to connect people or companies with mutual interests where everyone benefits from the connection. A great way to leverage this is to create a networking event for your industry on social media. Using social media events to organize gatherings for your particular industry puts you at the center of the exchange of information. You'll be the hub people think of when they have interesting news to share. As the host of a networking event, you'll be well-connected and able to provide useful and valuable insights. Of course, you can capitalize on these opportunities and offer your own services or pass them along to someone else. Networking events on social media allow you to build a larger network of peers, colleagues and customers. Conclusion Use these tactics to coordinate and promote events on your own social media platforms, create more connections, build stronger customer relations, extend the reach of your marketing and generate more leads. What do you think? How do you use social media events to connect with prospects and build your brand? Share with us in the comments section below! Images from iStockPhoto.This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. The post How to Use Online Social Media Events to Improve Your Marketing appeared first on Make Money Online With Twitter Marketing. |
11 Social Media Marketing Predictions to Watch for 2014 Posted: 10 Feb 2014 12:31 AM PST Are you wondering what changes and trends are coming to social media marketing in 2014? In 2013, we saw some big changes. Major platforms made serious strides toward monetization and there was a massive rise in visual marketing. To find out what the new year may have in store for social marketers, we asked 12 social media pros what they think is coming our way. Here's what they had to say. And if you're curious, here were the 2013 predictions. #1: The Resurgence of AdvertorialSeveral trends and technologies will reach maturity in 2014 spawning considerable disruption in social media, but I believe native advertising and sponsorship will have the greatest impact. It's a back-to-the-future scenario. In the 1950s, product placement and "this episode of Your Hit Parade is brought to you by Lucky Strike cigarettes" was the norm when companies wanted to reach prospective customers. We then steadily moved away from integrated advertising for decades. But now, native adverting is back and 2014 will be the year that Advertorial 2.0 becomes a major part of the social media marketing mix for most companies. The days of social media being "free" marketing for companies are over. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest are all in full monetization mode now, and companies looking to reach their fans/customers/prospects via these venues are going to need to pay to do so. This has far-reaching implications for social media users, the concept of authenticity, what is and is not journalism, marketing budgets, the role of agencies and whether the future is more "social" or more "media." Like it or not, I'm betting on the latter. Jay Baer, founder of the award-winning blog Convince & Convert, co-author of The Now Revolution and author of Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is About Help Not Hype. #2: Employee AdvocacyMy prediction for 2014 is that employee advocacy will become a strategic initiative for more and more large companies. Companies are always looking outside corporate walls for brand advocates in social media, but many of their most passionate advocates are also those who have deep ties to their company: their employees. Each individual employee has influence in his or her own unique social network, so the more employees who can help share the company's social media messages, the broader the reach a company can achieve in social media. To think of it in simple terms, if you had a sales and marketing team of 10 employees, your social media messages could be shared by either your corporate account or by your corporate account and potentially 10 more people. Many companies are beginning to realize the exponential power of employee advocacy, especially on professional networking sites like LinkedIn, and I predict it will have a breakout year in 2014. Creating a successful employee advocacy program has its challenges, but the evolution of both social business as well as employee advocacy platforms should move this program forward in many companies in 2014. Neal Schaffer, author of Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing and Maximize Your Social: A One-Stop Guide to Building a Social Media Strategy for Marketing and Business Success. #3: Facebook Forces a Strategic RefocusWith Facebook squelching updates from pages, small businesses and nonprofits (that lack deep pockets for Facebook ads) will have to scrap the old approach of spamming the news feed and refocus in three ways. Facebook marketers will refocus their efforts in 2014 in these areas:
John Haydon, founder of Inbound Zombie and author of Facebook Marketing for Dummies. #4: Social Networks Develop A/B Testing Tools for Brands' Organic UpdatesIn 2014, these tools won't be just for the brands with big media budgets. Once A/B testing tools for social media are rolled out, we'll see an increase in the quality of content distributed across networks. This will have an enormous impact on social media marketing, if brands take advantage. For the brands that do successfully use A/B testing tools for social media, they'll see an increase in impressions, engagement, website visits and ultimately, leads and sales. Think about how we approach email and website testing. These are environments where we have direct control over the elements. Social sites are a bit different due to being "rental property." It's extremely difficult to infuse science into the type of content you share, since there is less control over who sees social updates. The only way you can do this type of testing with the rigor needed is to fork over money for advertising. In my eyes, it's a win-win-win for the social networks, users and brands alike! Nick Robinson, social media channel manager for SAP Americas and co-author of StumbleUpon for Dummies. #5: Pay to PlayFacebook has changed its news feed algorithm to hurt organic reach. Twitter is a public company that must drive revenues. Google+ has introduced ads. In 2014, we'll see increased pressure on companies of all sizes to pay to sponsor their posts to get more visibility, as getting consumers' attention in social media becomes increasingly difficult. This will be hardest on small businesses that obviously have fewer resources than big brands. Dave Kerpen is CEO of Likeable Local, chairman of Likeable Media and author of Likeable Social Media and Likeable Business. #6: Fusion Marketing and Fusion DashboardsI believe fusion marketing is going to become a very common catchphrase for us in 2014, and fusion marketing dashboards will be developed and available for us in the very near future. While fusion marketing is not a new concept, the ability to truly integrate years of traditional marketing with the exciting digital marketing tools of the Internet and social media is going to become even more necessary! And, as the concept of fusion marketing becomes more common, the need for fusion marketing dashboards that allow us to launch, manage and benefit from many different media campaigns all in one place will grow. While HubSpot and Marketo are two of the best-known marketing hubs, they aren't affordable for all marketers, entrepreneurs and small businesses out there. A lower-priced and easy-to-use fusion marketing dashboard that allows us to access, create, launch and manage traditional, digital and social media campaigns all in one place for an affordable fee can fill that gap in the marketplace. Fingers crossed—that's what I would like to see in the new year! Viveka von Rosen, founder of Linked Into Business and author of LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day. #7: Social Storytelling Will ShiftAs a brand leadership firm that helps large corporations define and share their brand stories through social marketing, we constantly witness the struggle companies face to reconcile their existing cultures and marketing strategies with the new demands of real-time, mobile customer engagement. An early reaction was to simply adjust marketing while leaving the organization unchanged. Then, facing increased scrutiny and demands for transparency, large companies looked inward to ensure that what they said about themselves through their marketing was actually true of their organization. As internal and external storytelling align, my prediction for 2014 is the rise of coherent social storytelling. This has huge implications for how brands use social media to build their reputation and sales, and for how consumers use social media as brand ambassadors. It will allow brands to shift their focus to their "story," rather than its "telling." To focus on building relationships, rather than driving transactions. And to unlock the true power of social media, which is to inspire customers to build the business with them, based on shared values and a common goal. Simon Mainwaring, founder and chief creative officer at We First Inc. and author of We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World. #8: The Age of AdvocacyWith the hundreds of thousands of products launching every year and the amount of digital noise increasing exponentially, brands need a solution that allows them to distinguish themselves from that noise. I see it happening two ways: either they have to consistently produce a viral hit (the chance of which is slim to none) or create a powerful advocacy engine that sparks sustainable word-of-mouth. In the age of infobesity, advocacy becomes the most relevant filter. And by advocacy, I mean the highest expression of brand love by a brand's consumers, partners and employees. In the social era, the right form of advocacy becomes true influence. Influence isn't about impressions, it's about impacting someone's behavior. And the only way to impact the behavior of others is through passion, relevance and trust. Genuine organic love for a brand influences behavior much more than a paid promotion. In 2014, brands will focus deeply on creating and nurturing long-term sustainable relationships with their true advocates through building smaller niche interest–driven communities. We are entering the age of advocacy. Customers are no longer buying brands, they are investing in them. Marketers will move from marketing to their fans to marketing with and through them; from simply creating marketing campaigns to igniting brand movements. Ekaterina Walter, cofounder and CMO of BRANDERATI and WSJ bestselling author of Think Like Zuck and The Power of Visual Storytelling. #9: Paid Social Becomes a Requirement for Social Media MarketersAs social networks become more accountable to public shareholders, they will begin implementing "traditional" business models requiring that marketers "pay to play." The organic marketing benefits of social media will continue to decline. Social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn will slowly introduce special features only to paying customers and reduce the benefits of organic activity. This shift will require marketers to go beyond engagement marketing strategies and deeply understand the paid side of social. Those that ignore paid social media will fall behind their competitors. Michael Stelzner, founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner, founder of My Kids' Adventures and author of Launch and Writing White Papers. #10: Brand-Owned Network List-Building MaturesMark Zuckerberg has a network of a billion people—perhaps you've heard of it. Google has a video platform that sees a billion uniques a month. Apple has received more than a billion podcast subscriptions. 200 million users send 400 million tweets each day. We've built their networks, and we did a good job. And 2014 will be the year we build our own networks. The stakes are too high not to. While playing nice with the unique cultures that make up the different social networks, I predict we'll turn our attention to building our own lists. This won't always be the traditional email list, but will include phone numbers, physical mailing lists and more. Right now, Twitter lead generation cards, trigger texting and Facebook offers are leading the way, and you'll see more of this in the coming year (both in tools and implementation). When social media marketers realize that they can reach their entire list without paying extra for the honor, the tide will quickly turn. Don't worry, the change will be subtle, but the lists built will be significant (and profitable). Why shouldn't we learn from the networks we helped build? Paul Colligan, education czar for Traffic Geyser Inc. and CEO of Colligan. #11: Interactive Video Becomes ViableI think this is the year we'll see a real breakthrough in interactive video. When you think about it, our relationship with video has not changed significantly since 1950. Basically, we "observe." But the technology exists to "tag" based on audio content and even recognize faces and objects. Wouldn't it be cool to search the web and get just the right snippet of video to answer a question or solve a problem (instead of the whole video)? Can you imagine adding a comment or even content to a video while you are watching it? I think the time is ripe for real innovation in this space. Mark Schaefer is a college educator, blogger, speaker and consultant who is the author of three best-selling books including Return On Influence. What do you think? How do you see social media in 2014? What trends do you anticipate? Please share your thoughts and comments below. Images from iStockPhoto.This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. The post 11 Social Media Marketing Predictions to Watch for 2014 appeared first on Make Money Online With Twitter Marketing. |
5 Ways to Grow Your Email List With Social Media Posted: 09 Feb 2014 04:59 PM PST Do you want more email subscribers? Are you looking for ways to move social media fans and followers to your email list? In this article, I'll show you 5 ways to use social media to build your email list. Why Email?At least 91% of consumers check their email every day. One of the most heavily used communication channels to date, email marketing is considered the third overall most effective channel for lead generation for marketers in 2013, producing 13% of all leads. To grow your email list, there are ways you can make use of the engagement you have with your social media audience to turn your followers into subscribers who'll become long-term customers. Here are five tips: #1: Use a Simple Sign-Up FormBusinesses of all sizes should set up a simple email sign-up form on their social channels to make it easy for your most invested fans to easily subscribe to your list. On Facebook, dedicate a tab at the top right-hand side of your page for an email form. Then, people simply have to click on the icon to visit the sign-up form. Make sure to use an image and call to action in this tab to incite people to click and subscribe. There are many different app options to add and set up an email sign-up form to your Facebook page. Typically, email clients have a custom Facebook app that syncs with your list from Facebook. Some suggested email sign-up apps are: To add one of these apps to your Facebook page, visit the top right app banner and click on the drop-down menu indicated by a number with an arrow pointing downwards. From here, select the plus sign to reveal a drop-down menu. Then click on Find More Apps to search for an email sign-up form app to add to your Facebook page. Follow the step-by-step instructions provided by most of the apps when you first install them on how to best integrate them on your Facebook page. It isn't possible to host a landing page with an email sign-up form on Twitter or Google+. To encourage your followers to subscribe, I recommend that you add a link in the bio and/or About section on Twitter or Google+ to the email sign-up form you host on your website. Your Twitter bio has limited space, but there's room to add a shortened link to your email sign-up form and a link to your website. Your Google+ page has an extensive About section where you can include a shortened link to your email sign-up form at the top of your description. #2: Preview Premium Content on Your Social ChannelsMany businesses create premium content they offer for free once a person signs up for their email list. If you have eBooks, white papers, infographics, long-form articles or other premium content you give away, gate each one with an email sign-up form landing page to generate subscribers from that content. Tweet, post and share excerpts of content from your premium resources on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+ to drive interest and traffic to the landing pages that gate them. Always include a visual component to these updates to ensure you're receiving the most clicks, engagement and traffic possible. Use concise, intriguing and informative copy in your social updates, as well as a link tagged properly with Google Analytics UTM parameters to track which social media networks drive traffic to your lead generation resources. #3: Share an Incentive for Newsletter Sign-UpsIncentives often help when it comes to driving more email sign-ups for your list. A little push is the only thing some people need to take action and subscribe. Social media will draw further attention to your incentive. Many ecommerce stores give shoppers 10-20% off a purchase when they sign up for their email list. A discount, exclusive content, a free sample, a special thank-you, a coupon, etc., are all things your business can share on social media to encourage people to subscribe to your email list. Be sure to include an image and a strong call to action when posting about one of these incentives. #4: Host Webinars to Gain SubscribersHosting a webinar about your business or industry is an engaging way to share the human side of your business by presenting a person from your organization to discuss a relevant topic with your audience. One of the goals of a webinar for your business is to capture leads in the form of email subscribers. Similar to the tactic in #2, if you host your webinar on a Google hangout on air, be sure to share links to resources that have a landing page sign-up form to collect emails from your efforts. If you host your webinar using a program like Any Meeting, GoToWebinar, PGI, Ready Talk or Join.me, many of them feature a sign-up form to collect emails from viewers before they enter the webinar. Use social media posts to drive traffic to these sign-up forms and your email list will grow. #5: Hold a Contest, Sweepstakes or GiveawayOne of the most effective ways to build your email list using social media is by using contests, sweepstakes and giveaways. Many marketers' host contests and similar promotions to grow their following on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and elsewhere, but one of the main goals of these promotions should always be to increase your email subscribers. Facebook contests are the most predominantly used promotions in social media as compared to other channels, since the platform is the most customizable for promotions. Your business can host a Facebook contest either on an application tab or on your Facebook timeline. However, if you're hosting the promotion on your Facebook timeline, it's next to impossible to collect emails. Hosting your promotion from a Facebook app is the best approach for the purpose of increasing email subscribers. Try one of the following Facebook apps to run your contest, sweepstakes or giveaway (some of these companies feature apps for other social channels as well): Be sure to choose one that offers a sign-up form as a type of entry for participants. This is how your business generates emails from a contest on the Facebook platform. Once you've chosen a Facebook contest app that's right for your business, decide whether you'll be hosting a contest, sweepstakes or giveaway and what messaging you'll use to drive visibility and interest in it. The prize you decide to give away to a select group of winners for your contest is important, and it helps incentive genuine fans, and therefore quality email subscribers. Similar contests can be run on Twitter with platforms like Offerpop, Binkd, Woobox, OneKontest and Wishpond that allow participants to submit their email as a form of entry. Pinterest contest platforms like Piqora or Curlate also allow you to host a variety of different contests that generate emails for your list. After you've published your contest, promote it on all of your social media accounts to drive new traffic to the contest and increase sign-ups to your email list. Conclusion Continued growth of your email subscriber list plays a vital part in the success of your business. The tips in this article will help you reach out to the people who already follow you on social media to increase the rate of new subscriptions. What do you think? How do you use social media to build your email list for the long-term? Share your comments and questions in the comments box below. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. The post 5 Ways to Grow Your Email List With Social Media appeared first on Make Money Online With Twitter Marketing. |
Banner Ads for Affiliate Program Posted: 09 Feb 2014 09:42 AM PST If you want to start an affiliate program to boost your online sales, there are several tools that you will need. Obviously, you will need to start by selecting the right affiliate tracking software. An affiliate recruitment and management strategy is also essential. (If you haven’t chosen a tracking software yet, visit Affiliate Software HQ’s Affiliate Program Software Comparison Chart – the smart way to start an affiliate program. ) If you already have the software, there several other tools that you will certainly find essential to the success of your program, and banner ads are at the top of the list. Banner HQ takes a closer look at the most effective and affordable options. Why Banner Ads? All the top-earning affiliate programs provide pre-made banners ads to their affiliates. Affiliates are encouraged to place the banners on their websites as a way to earn commissions when their visitors click on the ads. In actual fact, it is not strictly essential to offer banner ads but, with the possible exception of digital products like those marketed through Clickbank, they are a standard part of most affiliate programs. Affiliates are attracted to affiliate programs that offer banner ads because they make life easier for them. A Trade Secret Here’s an insider’s tip that everyone should know before they start an affiliate program: Banner ads are actually a pretty ineffective method of affiliate marketing. Every experienced affiliate manager examines their stats closely and knows that text links attract a much higher click-thru rate than banner ads. Unfortunately, when many businesses start their affiliate program, they make the error of investing too much time and money into a large range of eye-catching banner ads, when these are not the most essential thing at all. So don’t be intimidated by the big-time affiliate programs that offer dozens of banner ads in different shapes and sizes. This is far from necessary for a business just starting their affiliate program. Begin with a set of 3-5 banners in the standard sizes. You can then track the click-thru rates and see for yourself whether it’s worth investing in more banners. Another Benefit of Banners Although many affiliate programs try to lure affiliates with promises of attractive banner ads, the reality is that banner ads are much more beneficial for you, as an advertiser, than for your affiliates. Your affiliates are basically giving you low-cost advertising real estate on their websites, and this can be great exposure for your brand, even if there are not many clicks. Just think, thousands of advertisers buy space on popular websites on a CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) basis. Affiliate programs are often paying much less for the same kind of exposure for their banner ads. However, you didn’t start an affiliate program just to promote your brand. You want sales! Therefore, you should encourage your affiliates to use your banner ads in combination with the more lucrative text links. If they have to make a choice between the two options, text links should win every time. More info about guiding your affiliates towards greater sales can be found in our Affiliate Management HQ. In conclusion, in starting your affiliate program, you do need some simple, attractive banners ads, but there is no need to go overboard. 3-5 banners is plenty. The simplest cheapest way to get some cheap, professional banners is through 20dollarbanners.com. The post Banner Ads for Affiliate Program appeared first on Make Money Online With Twitter Marketing. |
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