3 Questions You Must Answer To Grow Your Facebook Community

According to the article 8 Questions You Must Answer To Grow a Vibrant Facebook Community written by Mike Gingerich “Many marketers jump on Facebook and expect instant results. They often see other business leaders seeing success and question why they aren’t experiencing the same results.” I will discuss the first 3 of his 8 questions you must answer if you want to know the other 5 go to http://www.pammarketingnut.com/2013/10/8-questions-you-must-answer-to-grow-a-vibrant-facebook-community/

What are your goals and objectives?
It is always important to first set your goals. In order to grow a vibrant Facebook community you need to set goals if you didn’t that not a problem, no better time then now. The objective is to connect and engage with your target audience in a way that resonated with them.

What is your target market?
The next step if you haven’t already is to clearly define your core target audience. These are the people you are going to target. You need to define the specific demographics, psychographics, and geographic. The questions in which you will be trying to answer are How old are they? What specific industry or niche do they work in? What is the role they have at work? Do they work?

What is the online behavior of your target market?
So what you need to try and figure out is what social platforms are they on now? How frequently do they use or visit these platforms? What type of content do they prefer and how do they prefer it? (I.e. Video, audio, text or all of the above) 

This video is for the people who would prefer audio/video over text, this video explains the 8 Questions You Must Answer To Grow a Vibrant Facebook Community.

“The truth is that although some Facebook marketers may make it look easy, chances are high that the ones that are driving real business results did not just get lucky.” Said by Mike Gingerich

Top 3 Big Myths About Social Media and Content Marketing

Myth 1: My customers are not social

The myth most businesses owners have is that “my customers are not online” well in the article 11 Big Myths About Social Media and Content Marketing written by the Content Marketing Institute and based on the 2013 data from the Pew Internet project 72% of American adults who are online use social networking sites. (Note: 85% of American adults are online). Even among Americans 65 years old and better, 43% of them use social. To further put this into context, about 70% of American households had satellite or cable television, circa 2011. 

Myth 2: Social is not measurable

Social media is measurable but first you have to do something that can be measurable for example: tracking URL’s, visibility into your purchase funnel, unified customer databases. This will allow you to ensure your boss that social media is making you money.

Myth 3: Social is for creating new customers

Most of the people your company is communicating with via social medias are already current customers. Research from DDB found that 84% of the fans of company Facebook pages are on average current or former customers of the brand. For example on Facebook people “Like” what we actually like. On Twitter people will on Tweet about or Retweet what interests them. This makes social media more of a customer loyalty/retention strategy.

If you want to know more there are 9 more big myths that the Content Marketing Institute mention and they are:

Myth 4: You should ignore negative feedback

Myth 5: Social will kill email

Myth 6: Company channels are your most important social assets

Myth 7: Content creates thought leadership

Myth 8: Content marketing and social media are separate initiatives

Myth 9: Your content marketing should be about your products and services

Myth 10: Too much content will give away your secrets

Myth 11: The rules are different in B2B

http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-strategy/11-big-myths-about-social-media-and-content-marketing/

Why Use a Phone Book Anymore?

Smartphone Call From Search

In my Interactive Web Marketing Class (Professor Lindsey Fair) we have been discussing Mobile Marketing in particular. We discussed how many Canadians are using their phones to look up businesses in the moment rather then a desktop computer or a phonebook. So companies need to adjust accordingly by creating a mobile site that is phone screen friendly and has their contact information available because now if you’re like me and your on the go a lot, you probably use your phone to look up restaurants hours or just to call them. All smartphones allow you to call the number directly from the search result. This is a handy feature but did you know that 70% of all smartphone users do this?

According to Google 70% of mobile searchers call a Business directly from search results. A survey of over 3,000 mobile searches that recently made purchases in 7 different areas of business (Travel, Restaurant, Auto, Local Services, Retail, Finance, Technology) revealed that 70% of these searches used the call directly from search feature.

Smartphone users are realizing the effectiveness of calling directly from the search and now businesses need to realize it too, because in the article written by the MarketingCharts Staff “47% said they are more likely to explore other brands when they’re unable to call a business directly from the search results, and an equal percentage said they get frustrated or annoyed.” Not only that if they cannot call your business about 35% would be less likely to use the brand and 33% would not recommend you to a friend.

If a marketer saw this they would realize quickly that a company couldn’t afford to loose a referral because people are more like to go to a company if a friend told them it was good.

Facebook… Grow Your Fan Base

All companies want to have a higher like count and fan base on Facebook, but how? Jim Belosic has a four effective ways to boost your Facebook Fan Base. 

1. Host an Event

• Belosic suggests that you host an event to gain more followers to your Facebook and this can increase your like too. Belosic says “A Facebook contest or promotion can help a struggling Facebook Page Like count — if it’s done right. Like a crash diet, you can have amazing results by preparing well in advance and following the guidelines. Or you can take shortcuts and have a mediocre outcome”.

2. Put Some Skin in The Game

• In business this means owners making personal investments back into their companies but for online advertising many companies are not spending the $ they should be. Belosic says “But to get to the next level with your Facebook Page, it helps to invest more than just time. You also need to spend some money. The most obvious — and often the most effective — option for promoting a Page is Facebook advertising.”

3. Leverage Traditional Media

• Companies are spend a lot of money on traditional media but in todays marketing world that is not enough you need to include Social Media. The combination between new and traditional media could be the knockout for a company if done right.

4. Cover All Your Bases

• Make sure you do everything you can to increase likes and fan base as Belosic says “Basically, there are many little things your business can do to encourage more Facebook Likes, all of which can add up to make a big difference.”

The Little Blue Messenger Bird

A little bird once told me that you can use Twitter to promote your campaign/business and I thought, ok, how exactly? Well that little bird said you have to tweet, tweet, tweet. But it’s more complicated than just sending out any old tweet. You have to engage your audience. It’s not just good enough to do it because others are or be the first to do it, you have to be the best at it. As the little bird said it doesn’t always matter if you’re the first to get the worm now or you show up at the same time as the rest, what matters is that you’re the best at getting those worms.

Twitter is a unique social media platform because you can connect all your Social Medias to it. And Twitter falls into the category of microblogging tools because of the short, disconnected messages it distributes. Twitter shares some features with the most common social media tools (Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube). However, the differences really define Twitter.

• Facebook: A tweet is like a short Facebook status update. However, with Twitter, every tweet arrives at every follower’s feed, unlike the filter of Facebook’s EdgeRank. 

• Pinterest: Twitter allows you to share photographs and provide commentary in your tweet. However, with Twitter, it’s much easier to have conversation around a shared image than with the comment feature on Pinterest. 

• LinkedIn: A tweet is like a short LinkedIn status update. While LinkedIn is based on trust relationships (and two-way agreements), Twitter allows you to follow anyone, including strangers. This is helpful when you target potential customers. 

• Google+: A tweet is like a short Google+ status update. Twitter also allows you to organize people into lists that organize conversations similar to Google+ groups. 

• YouTube: A tweet can contain a link to a video. However, Twitter doesn’t allow you to create a channel or organize your videos for easy location and commentary. 

Gathered from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-use-twitter-for-business-and-marketing/ written by Charlene Kingston.

The first step in using twitter to promote your business, you need to preset your brand. To start you need to create your Twitter profile and this is key to the foundation of your twitter experience. This is your chance to tell your business story to all of the twitter community. Note that it is important that your Twitter has the same look and feel as all your other social media platforms such as:

• Facebook 

• Pintrest 

• Linkedin 

• YouTube 

• Google+ 

• Foresquare 

• Instagram

This helps people identify you and builds trust. Also you must use an image that is familiar and consistent throughout your other social medias. The last step to creating your account is choosing your Twitter handle. Nothing sells your brand better than your twitter name. This is how most people recognize you on Twitter so it better be eye catching.

There is another 11 steps to how you can use twitter to market your business if you want to know more or see where i learned my information visit http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-use-twitter-for-business-and-marketing/ written by Charlene Kingston.

Because of the over abundance of Smartphone’s marketers had to create another class called the second screen. This means that people are using more then one screen at a time. So they will be watching a show while on their phone, and the phone is their secondary screen.

Until now, the industry has focused on what second screen technology can do and not what consumers can do with it. A brand relationship is about more than just providing Twitter feeds, links to IMDb, and quizzes. This isn’t a simple competition for eyeballs, but rather a race for brand engagement which is the ultimate goal for any producer, content owner, or advertiser. Written by John Douglass http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/33790.asp

Another way Twitter is moving forward into marketing trends is by utilizing the second screen, which means cell phones. People today like to multitask or its attention deficit disorder (ADD) but either way there is a unique opportunity.

In recent news Twitter has went to television networks to pitch Twitter to them. Twitter realizes the unique connection they have to the second screen and with social media being instantaneous the perks twitter has for marketers. Basically twitter wants the television companies to have live Twitter feeds going during shows, and this allows a portal of communication directly to the viewers. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324807704579088231837484594.html

To me this sounds like a gold mind. Marketers have access to millions of viewers instantly and target specific audiences it’s like winning the lottery. To explain in a little bit more detail marketers can create a tweet send it to millions during a show and engage them while their watching and unlike T.V. ads during commercials when people leave to get drinks, food, and use washroom etc... You can reach them while they are in front of the T.V. and Phone.

Marketers will be able to target using specific T.V. stations or Channels to reach their target market while having less wasted ad space. This means they can reach the people they want to reach. But one of the best parts is if they want to hit a Hugh amount  of people and I’m talking millions instantly instead of over a month period, sure a billboard will reach a million+ in downtown Toronto over a month span but this will allow for instant contact. For example the show The Big Bang Theory draws in a audience of over 4-5 million people in Canada alone and if you include the USA its about 18 million in total that’s a lot of people you can reach with one tweet instantly. That’s the power and advantage of using Twitter for you marketing needs.

But before you get to excited and start your twitter adventure you must remember what the little bird told me, “it’s more complicated than just sending out any old tweet you have to engage your audience. It’s not just good enough to do it because others are or be the first to do it, you have to be the best at it. As the little bird said it doesn’t always matter if you’re the first to get the worm now or you show up at the same time as the rest, what matters is that you’re the best at getting those worms.”

If you made it this far Thank You for reading, I’m sorry for the length I had to write a 1000 word blog for an assignment when typically a blog is less than 300 words but I had a little Robin in my ear telling me to do a 1000 words.