Online Marketing for Local Business
Posts tagged social networks
Special Guest Post – Buy, Buy, Buy = Bye, Bye, Bye… Derek Weber
14 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
If you haven’t noticed, the way consumers make purchasing decisions has drastically changed over the last few years. With all of the information available with Google searches, ratings, reviews, and smart phones, the consumer is now extremely educated about nearly every major purchasing decision. I mean, you can literally download an app on your iPhone that will scan the bar code of an item in a store and give you consumer ratings and price comparisons of every store that carries that item within 50 miles of you…now that is a well-informed shopper. So, what does that mean for you?
It means you have to stop selling and start teaching, or as my good friend Scott Ginsberg would say, “Don’t sell, enable them to buy.” You might be able to get a one time purchase through the old manipulative marketing efforts or trying to compete on price and features alone, but as our society’s interaction with one another is being reduced by technology, consumers are looking for more than just a transaction, they are looking for a business relationship with a company they like, a company they trust…a company they can personally identify with.
I was having lunch a while back with Steve Hughes of Hit Your Stride fame, and he asked me my opinion on social media and if it could be effectively monetized. My response was that social media, as popular as it is right now, is not necessarily for everyone. Social media is best used for businesses and organizations that can truly develop a community around it’s brand and service. More importantly, I don’t think social media necessarily needs be used as a tool for direct monetization, it should instead be used as a forum for businesses to interact and educate their “fans” (or ‘likes’ now) about who they are, what they are doing, and most importantly why they do what they do. If you try pushing your product or service, screaming “Buy! Buy! Buy!” from every possible location, including social media, your prospects will emphatically respond with the “Bye, Bye, Bye”.
So, take the time to give some valuable information to your customers and prospects. Take the time to let them know who you are and what you are all about, get to know more about them, and stop having every message coming out of your organization only being about good-buys from you or you’ll end up getting a lot of good-byes from them.
Derek Weber derek@goBRANDgo.com www.goBRANDgo.com 314.754.8712
Why Companies Fail With Social Media
14 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
Social media marketing is difficult for most organizations, and it’s not all that hard to figure out why. They start strong, but after some time lose interest or get frustrated with their results. In general, they view social networking as an event – not a process.
The Super Bowl is an event. Setting up a trade show booth or attending a sales conference is an event, or having sales promotion. These have a distinct beginning and end.
On the other hand, dating is a process; losing weight is a process (if done correctly!); building a brand is definitely a process. And once success has been achieved, it must be maintained.
Events are a lot easier to manage, to budget and pay for, and get excited about. (Think of the excitement generated by the Super Bowl, for example) They can be placed on a calendar.
But this isn’t what creating an online community or following is all about. Often social media doesn’t have an immediate, or easily identified, ROI number that you can assign to it, as you can with most events.
A process builds results for the long haul. Go into your social marketing and communications with this in mind, and you are far more likely to be successful.
Top Myths About Social Media Marketing
14 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
Myth #3: I Don’t Have Time to Manage Social Media
Learning how to interact on social networks is very easy, because it simply involves talking with people and having candid conversations about interesting topics. The real investment in social media comes from the time necessary to interact with people and needed to post useful, engaging content. But the returns on your time should be more than enough to make social media interaction worthwhile.
After some basic exposure, you’ll see how similar social media interaction is to offline conversations, and it should come naturally.
Some helpful tools can make interaction a lot easier, including HootSuite or TweetDeck for Twitter interaction, or our favorite here at Hat Trick Associates, Ping.fm to post updates to multiple profiles and different social networks from a single interface.