Avoid duplicate posting if you have multiple social media site. The challenge of maintaining multiple sites is that you have to update each in order to maximize your visibility. However, you can not post a message to twitter that has been already posted to facebook. If you do not have the time to update the other accounts, have someone update the postings for you.

Do not contend on what you see on the general terms of the service. Check out how the site could help you organize your profile. This should be an effective way of advertising your business. Utilize the video, the site content, the comments site. Remember that you are on the social media not just to have fun. You are in social media to promote your business as well. You can have fun but do not forget the work that should be accomplished.

Do not bother yourself with quantity. For instance: the number of your followers. Or the number of comments posted on your page. In time, it will grow in numbers. But while you are starting, focus on quality. And that constitutes quality content. If you are diligent and persistent enough, you might be surprise on the outcome of your work.

Do not close the comments of your blog. Bear in mind that your blog could be a tool to communicate with your customers. It is one of those chances to bond with them. Through your comments, you would be able to know the general views and opinions of your customers. You would be able to know their issues and queries as well. Answering their questions and queries can go a long, long way. And when I say you will go a long way; that is in terms of your business stability and profitability.

Avoid advertising in a too aggressive manner just to sell your product.  Of course you are in the social media to sell your business. But making it too insistent could turn customers away from you. And this contradicts your purpose of joining the social media in the first place. They should be running towards you, not away from you. Note also that social media is not a direct tool towards a complete sale. It is simply a medium to give information. Of course, it is also selling your business on the process.

Do not forget to mention where your customer can order your product. This is the most important part of your page. You may have the proper presentation. You answer all queries and comments. You were even able to win a difficult customer. But if your customers do not know how to get in touch with your, or they could get your product, how can you sell?

Do not give up. Be patient. You should expect that it will take time before you can get people coming to your page. Do not be discouraged. Keep in mind that advertising your business could take time.  Keep on posting. Keep on updating your social media site. Make your blog posts interesting. Give value to your content. By words of mouth, your site will eventually grow on its own. So long as you are nurturing your page.

Do not be on and off in your site. This is not a good way of advertising. Consistency is very important to yield result. It would be great if you could create a schedule. For instance: you will post an article in your blog four times a week. And you will update your twitter at least four times a week also. Make sure you do it diligently. Once you skip, it could minimize the people checking out your site. And the chances would be losing your possible sales lead or your customers as well.

These and more are the common blunders of social media practices. Be mindful on these mistakes and you will never go wrong. Remember that your social media is one of the most efficient way of advertising your business brand.

“Some people dream of great accomplishments, while others stay awake and do them.”
Anonymous

“Vision without action is daydreaming and action without vision is a nightmare.”
Anonymous

“When you reach an obstacle, turn it into an opportunity. You have the choice. You can overcome and be a winner, or you can allow it to overcome you and be a loser. The choice is yours and yours alone. Refuse to throw in the towel. Go that extra mile that failures refuse to travel. It is far better to be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure.”
Mary Kay Ash

“An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.”
Roy Ash

“Business opportunities are like buses. There’s always another one coming.”
Richard Branson

“Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars.”
Les Brown

“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”
Les Brown

“The critical ingredient is to get off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, no a dreamer.”
Nolan Bushnell

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
Walt Disney

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”
Thomas Edison

“I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others… I find out what the world needs, than I proceed to invent.”
Thomas Edison

“Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”
Albert Einstein

“The important thing is to not be afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it.”
Debbi Fields

“Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning.”
Bill Gates

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
Bill Gates

“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.”
Napoleon Hill

“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”
Michael Jordan

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.”
John C. Maxwell

“A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.”
John C. Maxwell

“Learn to say ‘no’ to the good so you can say ‘yes’ to the best.”
John C. Maxwell

“Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as a survival, but that’s exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking. Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it’s about trading: buying and selling.”
Anita Rodick

“Formal education will make you a living. Self-edocation will make you a fortune.”
Jim Rohn

“The only place where success comes before work is in dictionary.”
Vidal Sassoon

“What would you do if you knew you could not fail?”
Robert H. Schuller

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
Alan Scott

“Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you’re generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes the best investments are the ones you don’t make.”
Donald Trump

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sales. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Mark Twain

“Money won’t make you happy… but everyone wants to find out for themselves.”
Zig Ziglar

You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.”
Zig Ziglar

Level Three – The Rest of the Story

There may be far more that your company does than expressed in the brand promise and the specific reasons to believe in that statement. For instance, I do brand strategy, but I also do coaching, customer interviews, advertising, online marketing, startups training, etc. This is not a plug as much as to say that we all have a number of offerings. But are they all equally important to introduce right away, put on the front page of the website, or show on the cover of the brochure? Not necessarily. But they are an important part of the full brand story and building a lasting relationship and loyalty over time. It is very tempting to want to mention everything that we do all at once, but that really only serves to confuse the prospect. These messages are best placed on the services page of the website, discussed deeper in a conversation, or carefully placed within context in a brochure. Examples of this level of information are:

• The full line of products or services, packages or bundled offerings
• A deeper dive into any one topic area, the rest of the story
• Price-of-Entry information or attributes that you must have to be legitimate, but won’t differentiate you (i.e. ATMs, online banking, branches, etc. for banks)

Level Four – Purchase Accelerators

Purchase accelerators can be used anytime to help move someone along through a natural purchase process from awareness through consideration, evaluation, trial, purchase and loyalty. If you aren’t thinking about your purchase accelerators, then you should give this area some consideration. Purchase accelerator examples are:

• News that establishes leadership and credibility
• Incentives (discounts, bundles, trials, etc.)
• Downloads, blogs, white papers, POVs, etc.
• Consultations, seminars, comparisons, trials, value calculations, etc.

One of the most effective descriptions of how to stop wasting your marketing dollars is found in a special report from Business Week that came out in 2008 entitled, “A practical Guide to Branding.” The sub-head reads, “Define your brand identity—your product’s “personality”—before you spend a dime on advertising or marketing.” The opportunity for most of us is to make our very first step as business owners to develop our brands. The article goes on to highlight this through three main points:

1. Studies show that companies who market their products or services without first establishing their brand identities are not likely to achieve return on investment.

2. If you’re spending money to advertise and market without being connected to a brand position, you might as well pile the money up and burn it.

3. Branding is about getting your prospects to perceive you as the only solution to their problem.

The question then becomes, “How do I develop a powerful brand that creates the perception behind my company’s offerings that I am the only choice for prospects?” This is where the large Fortune 500 companies start out right…they know their customer inside and out. They know their customer better than their competition, how the product or service fits into their lives, what trends effect purchase decisions and how to apply those learning’s into a balanced brand promise that connects both rationally and emotionally with prospects. Sounds simple enough.

It is actually quite simple to stay in touch with your customers. And that can happen in part through the ongoing sales and service process, but that only scratches the surface. There is just no replacement for direct one-to-one conversations, which is why phone interviews are my most often used brand research tool.

The following are tips on how best to interview your customers or prospects to unlock the secrets of what will really motivate them to buy from your company. If you accomplish this, then all the marketing dollars you spend to drive qualified leads will have a much greater degree of success. It is the most important first step that you can take as a marketer of your company.

How to Interview a Customer for Branding Insights

It is important to remember that people aren’t always very good at articulating what they are thinking or feeling. So it is crucial to make sure that you think about three things as you prepare to conduct your interviews:

1. Ask the same kind of question from different points-of-view.  This allows people to answer the questions in a different way, getting more feedback than you normally would get from one straightforward question and answer.

2. Think of ways that you can give examples which will allow interviewees to better articulate feelings. One of the most powerful areas that you will want to uncover is the emotional connection people have to your brand. Rational reasons get you on the consideration list, where emotional reasons are usually the reason one brand is selected over another.

3. Talk to your most loyal clients. And if you are just starting out, talk to prospects that you think embody what will be your core customer group. Loyal clients are the ones that stay with you over time, provide the most stable income, are willing to pay more for your service and can be your greatest advocates. In essence you want to create more of them by understanding their thoughts and feelings about why they are loyal to you. Only then can you try to emulate that in marketing and other customer relationships.

What Questions Should I Ask In An Interview?

There are ten categories of questions that you will want to cover in your interview. Each relates to a very different set of insights.

1. Reasons to Purchase – Ask people very directly why they actually bought. What triggered the purchase and what was the most important reason why they thought it was a good purchase decision.

2. Benefit Categories – Ask how they benefit from the product or service. You will find that people naturally start talking about very rational benefits (saves money, more durable, easier to use, etc.). These are very important to know, but it is equally if not more important to know the emotional benefits delivered. This is where you might have to give some examples (trust, fear, safety, pleasure, confidence, security, etc.).

3. Emotional Triggers – This is where we want to know how important the emotional connections are to them and their lives. I often ask people to rate the importance of this product in their daily lives, their retirement planning, their ability to be productive, etc. I have them answer on a scale of 1 to 10, and then ask and probe why. This gives them a great way to project about the true emotional connections to the brand.

4. Unmet Needs – This is an area that usually comes at the beginning of the interviews. I may ask about what set of events or inputs led up to a purchase decision. This gives you a great background into what true needs or desires are and how the purchase decisions form.

5. Pont-of-Difference – This is to establish what makes you different from your competition. You have to understand how others think you compare in order to relevantly differentiate your company.

6. Areas of Strength –I usually start out by saying that every company is good at many things or else they would have gone out of business a long time ago. That is a great lead-in to ask what your company does well.

7. Loyalty Stimulus – I usually say to interviewees that they have been selected to interview because they are a loyal customer. And then I ask them if they agree. Most always they say yes since they were hand selected. I than ask for them to articulate what it is about the company that heightens their sense of loyalty.

8. Points of Weakness – After discussing strengths, you can ask if there are areas where the company could improve in order to serve you better.

9. New Opportunities – This is a time to ask if they see any new opportunity for the company to address a new idea.

10. Anything Else – There is always an opportunity to give the interviewee a chance to say something about the company that has not already been covered. This open-ended approach can reveal some very interesting insights.

Once you have the answers to all of the above, the road to a powerful brand promise becomes a much clearer path.

April 1, 2008, HBR Article Excerpt – “The thing is, companies with a clear, concise strategy statement–one that employees can easily internalize and use as a guiding light–often turn out to be industry stars.”

In addition to your employees, your partners, vendors, customers and network can all be advocates if they are empowered to properly and simply represent the company. In essence, your company’s strategy or brand is the key to making all your marketing efforts work much harder. The better you are at creating a brand promise that relevantly differentiates your company, the more likely you are to attract the right leads, and close a much higher percentage of them.

In addition to your employees, your partners, vendors, customers and network can all be advocates if they are empowered to properly and simply represent the company. In essence, your company’s strategy or brand is the key to making all your marketing efforts work much harder. The better you are at creating a brand promise that relevantly differentiates your company, the more likely you are to attract the right leads, and close a much higher percentage of them.

Creating Your Brand Promise

Most companies don’t see themselves in the business of marketing and thus spend little time trying to craft a brand strategy. If you are a company that tries to attract new clients or additional sales, then you are in the business of marketing. But don’t be confused by thinking that your elevator speech is your brand. A brand is a guide for every action and interaction that surrounds your company. This not only includes marketing, but product development, customer service, pricing, incentives, sales presentations, point-of-sale, events and much more. The brand embodies the total experience with your company that builds trust, expectations and perceptions over time. It is the consistent filter through which every decision from within the company should be judged. This is why so many companies waste their marketing dollars without a solid brand strategy in place. How do I create my company’s brand strategy and stop wasting time and money?

Below is a simple, four level outline of how to start thinking about creating and conveying your brand promise and entire brand story. It is a guide for what to say and when. This is important since we could all talk for an entire day about our businesses, but not all of that information is important for marketing.

Level One – The Brand Promise

This is the level of communications that is commonly missed entirely. As an example, think of how many websites you have gone to that provided no real understanding of how the company would solve or meet your needs. They simply talk all about themselves or focus on features and benefits of their product. All that is Level Two information that I may want to hear, but only if I know what the company or product is going to do for me first.

All websites, ads, elevator speeches, brochures, sales presentations, employee training programs, etc. should lead with the brand promise. The brand promise is what we all want to hear when on the other end of a sell. Make sure you know what your brand promise is and don’t be shy to use it.

If your brand promise follows the five principles listed below, it will be your most powerful marketing tool for converting leads into sales.

• Focus on customer and benefits it brings for them (don’t talk about you)
• Understand and acknowledge your prospect’s unmet need that you address
• Consider both rational and emotional connections to your brand
• Never promise more than you can deliver
• Create a singular statement that is easy to remember and re-articulate

Here are three examples of brand promises to help envision the end product:

• This is a brand promise for the Mazda Miata when it was first introduced into the United States: The Mazda Miata promises to bring the joy of driving within reach
• The Ritz Carlton is a great brand and a wonderful brand promise example: The Ritz Carlton promises to employ ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen
• To show how a small business can create a brand promise, I have included my own statement as a marketing consultancy for review: Magnetic Look promises to help solopreneurs develop successful and magnetic brand while saving their time and money.

Judge for yourself the ability of each brand promise above to stand up to the five guiding principals. Also think of the power of each of these brand promises if used properly, as a guide for employees, marketing, new product development and more.

Level Two – Reasons to Believe

Once you have caught your prospect’s interest and attention with the brand promise, then it is time to give them all the reasons to believe that you can deliver against that promise. If you lead with these reasons, it is very likely they will fall on deaf ears. Reasons to believe tend to fall into a number of categories:

• Credentials for the company or management
• Clients or projects
• Product or service features and benefits
• 3rd party endorsements/testimonials
• Unique point-of-views on relevant issues, topics or industry news
• 3rd party endorsements/testimonials

You can find the second part of this article HERE.

Brands help to attract higher quality leads, justify pricing premiums and close more sales. This is why Business Week advises to not spend a dime on marketing without a strong brand strategy. But brands are no good unless they are fully infused into everything your company does. In marketing, the brand encapsulates the reasons to buy, not the means to communicate that message. And marketing has always been seen as complex and costly, and usually results in some degree of frustration because you have no idea if it is really working or not. There is a saying, “I know that half my advertising is working for me, I just don’t know what half.” Without the right marketing, there is no way to get your brand message out to prospects in any scalable way.

This leads to the second key: social media. Social media is the most cost-effective way to target your prospects with dramatic scale and precision. Additionally, some of the best social media tools are often free to those that know how to use them. Brands and social media work so well together as partners because there is no better way to add power to your marketing message than through branding, and there is no more powerful way to get the message out to incredibly targeted prospects, in mass, in a more cost-effective manner than social media.

What do we mean by social media? If you ask 20 different people, you will get 20 different answers. The crux of it is that the internet has completely changed the #1 factor that influences purchase decisions, which used to be word-of-mouth. The Online Publisher’s Association conducted a study of the top purchase influencers on all stages of the buying process and found the internet to be the top purchase influencer by a factor of more than 2:1 over traditional word-of-mouth.

Social media often refers to blogs, podcasts, wikis, communities, video portals and hundreds of sites that aggregate user content. The internet has not only put individual voices online, but created an environment that is both participatory and collaborative. It has spawned a whole new movement being termed, conversational marketing. This is word-of-mouth on steroids.

According to Technorati, there are more than 112 million blogs, 175,000 new blogs coming online each day, and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media. When you combine all this with search engines that can pinpoint exactly what social media someone is looking for through keyword searches, you start to see the power of how easy it is to find online conversations about virtually any subject.

Social media provides the opportunity for marketers to not only participate in these online conversations, but to create some of your own. Any piece of content, from articles to press releases, videos, podcasts or white papers, along with many others, can be placed online, optimized to come up as individual search engine results and therefore be found by consumers online through keyword searches.

In fact, these consumers are what I call “hand raisers.” They have physically taken an action to search for content that is relevant to what you offer, meaning that they are not only self-qualified, but also open to your marketing messages at that particular point in time. Most traditional marketing simply casts big nets out over demographic or psychographic groups in hopes of finding people that are in the purchase process. If these people are not in the mindset to buy, or simply not interested, you still pay to reach them as readers, listeners or viewers. In social media, the cost to optimize content is extremely low, but incredibly powerful.

But remember, this new conversational marketing/social media trend is all about attracting people to your company. Once they arrive at your website, come into a store, or call on the phone, it is the brand that will reinforce your company’s relevant differentiation. This happens through living the brand promise at every customer touch point in order to connect on both rational and emotional levels. Neither side of the marketing equation (branding or social media) will work well without the other.

This is the essence of why brands and social media work so well together. And you can bet that this very article has been placed online, optimized for search engines, and is being found by numerous people that have yet to come to know my company and what I offer. Now is the time to put this power to work for your business. If you need help, Magnetic Look is the perfect solution for you.

Author: Silvia Pencak

There are conflicting beliefs between these two sources. Some believes that it is more practical to buy marketing leads. While others believe that it is more worthwhile to stick to personal efforts on generating the leads.

The other part of the business population is somewhat stranded in the middle. Unable to decide which option is better. The irony of the situation is that, those who are still in the midst of arguments are the ones who are still struggling for a stable marketability. Actually, both ways could yield lead generation. But then, each of these options has their own advantages and disadvantages.

Generating your own lead would give you quality leads. People you will speak with are really interested in the product or services that you are offering. In fact, on certain occasions, people will be coming to you about your product. On the other hand, if you will buy a lead, you will be speaking to people who are remotely interested in what you are saying.

You may have bought 100 leads in a day. But if 90% of your leads will not even talk to you, your efforts will still be futile. Purchased leads can be recycled. This means that a set of leads could be sold to different distributors in order to make the most benefit that it could possibly get from the leads.

But then, producing your own marketing lead is quite challenging. It takes effort and patience. Most of all, it will take a lot of your time. You will need to do presentations, establish your own website, talk to people, engage in forums and so on.

On certain occasions, you will end up with few leads. Sometimes, there is even none at all. On the other hand, you do not have to worry about time consuming efforts if you will buy leads. You will have your leads as you purchase them.

Producing your own sales leads gives you the leniency to practice your own marketing approach. More so, it gives you the opportunity to promote your business brand. It gives you the chance to market your business in a manner that speaks for your personal approach. You do not have to be tied to a network marketing company.

Generating your leads requires skills as well. You would need know-how on lead generation, conversations, dealing and influencing people, copywriting and more. You will be the one selling your business brand so you will have to be equipped to represent them. If you will purchase leads, you do not need any knowledge about lead generation. Your primary and only task is converting your sales leads into sales.

Both has its advantages and disadvantages. You can weigh from here which will suit you more. One option may work well for John but may not work well for Peter. So, it all depends on how you perceive your current situation, marketing strategy, skills and resources.Y

Author: Silvia Pencak

First, the term “branding” can refer to a process of developing an image, logo, catchphrase, and overall company impression that sticks with a woman entrepreneur’s clientele.  Many times, when we think of branding, we thing of popular logos, such as the Nike swoosh, the Empire Carpet phone number jingle, the Apple Computer apple icon, or other famous visual or auditory cues.  Our senses are tantalized as we easily come up with an image or name or slogan to associate with a particular company.  The company that uses branding does so in a way that makes us easily remember their product.  The Apple Computer Company hopes that every time we eat an apple, we think of what great computers their company produces.  Women entrepreneurs need to think long and hard about the image they want to create.  A woman wants to be memorable; she wants to set herself apart from her competition.  Most importantly, she wants her name to be associated with success.

Branding is more than just coming up with a memorable image.  Branding involves making business choices that will make a consumer always think favorably about a company.  If a business is constantly making headlines that involve disgruntled employees, poor customer service, bait and switch practices, and other negative press, the company brand will be synonymous with the word “bad”.  Women entrepreneurs must work hard to ensure that their company is branded as successful, high quality, superb, outstanding, and above the board.  Because women entrepreneurs must work even harder than their male counterparts to be recognized at times, it is crucial that they set themselves apart and sell their brand to the extreme.

There are many women entrepreneurs who have accomplished great success in their solo journeys.  Let’s look at Rachael Ray, whose name and brand has become associated with the comforts and fun that good food involves.  Rachael Ray has used her own name for branding her business in her particular niche.  By just hearing her name, you may think of food, positive, upbeat energy, and all the passion that cooking can bring to life.  She didn’t have to use a dynamic logo to catch your attention; she used her name, made her image a positive one, and took hold of her audience.  She marketed herself in the media in all forms possible.

To enjoy success as women entrepreneurs, female solo artists must taking branding in their business to heart.  They must be willing to market themselves aggressively, showcasing their positive image and place in the business world.  Branding for women entrepreneurs means more than developing a catchy phrase or dynamic logo.  Branding in business involves setting yourself apart from the competition and selling your positive name and place in your industry.  Soon, you’ll be enjoying success among other women entrepreneurs in the business world.

Author: Silvia Pencak

A well managed leads can be useful for a strategic marketing leads. Organizing your sales lead is also beneficial especially for follow ups. This is to keep track all your leads and to be able to maximize the benefits that they offer.

Before you can organize your sales leads, you have to determine first your targeted consumers. To assist you, the marketing specialist would be able to help identify your targeted consumers. The key is to determine the group of people who patronizes your product and service. Remember that knowing more about the details of your customers is geared towards marketing and sales strategic approach.

You can gather the basic information from your sales lead. These set of information are the name of the customer, Company name, alternate contact person, and address with zip code, phone number, fax number, cellular phone number, e-mail address and website.

It is beneficial to use a computer in order to complete your work. Or you can have a record in hard copy.  You can do both. Have a file in application software and a hard copy at the same time. In case your computer is not working well, at least you have a back up record.

If you will do it on the conventional method, you will need index cards. The size of your index card will depend on the information that you will put in the index card. One advantage of an index card is that it is easier to follow-up your lead. Use your front as your main source information. And the back should be used for notation for each follow up.  Keep the cards organize by arranging them alphabetically. It would be best to put your cards in a box as well.

Another option is a rolodex card. With this system, you can manage a large number of index cards. And such can be done with ease and comfort. Rolodex card system is a clerical device that has a rotating cylinder with a center bar that organizes the removable cards. This way, you are secured that the card will be intact.

You can also use a notebook to organize the lists of your marketing sales lead. Choose a lose leaf so you could write as many leads as possible. With this option, you gain more space as compared to an index card. It is advisable to choose thicker papers for longevity of its usage. This is actually the most economical way to manage your sales leads. Further, it could be accessible to anybody.

Another option to maintain your marketing sales leads is a business card organizer. This is applicable only if you have a minimal number of sales leads. You would have to change or improvise once your sales lead grows. One possible challenge that you might encounter in using a business card organizer is when making notes. The most that you could do is to leave the notes at the back of the card. But then, it will not be as complete as leaving the notes in a notebook, index card or in a software application of the computer.

Another way to organize your sales lead is through a software application in your computer. You could encode the information either in MS Excel or in MS Word. Depending on your preference of usage, any of the two will be a useful tool to record your data. But then, MS Excel will serve you much better. This application has features designed for massive data input. It could prove to be very useful when extracting information.

Managing your sales lead is extremely important. Not simply for keeping your records organized. But it is important to maximize the usage of your marketing sales lead.

Author: Silvia Pencak

None of these things lead directly to conversions but they do lead to higher company awareness and the good old fashioned fuzzy-feelings we get when we know that we are valued as a customer. Many times we are probably not even aware of these things on a conscious level. But the effect shows as we have a tendency to patron these companies more frequently than the other alternatives.

Branding is a viable marketing strategy

Businesses worldwide invest millions of dollars in branding campaigns each year. In fact, let’s put aside pure branding campaigns. If you think about it, providing good customer service is branding too. The quality of customer service a company provides (good or bad), causes an image of that company to be branded into the consumers mind. Over time, a little here and a little there builds up into a solid perception of that company. Whether they like it or not they have established a recognizable brand by doing little more than going about their business.

When it comes to realizing the benefits of branding, most companies will tell you that it is valuable. But increases in sales can rarely be traced back to a single customer service or branding event. But that doesn’t negate the value or stop companies from investing their money into these types of campaigns. The lack of trackable ROI on a per-sale level doesn’t make branding (or good customer service) an unnecessary expense. In fact I don’t think any consumer would argue against the necessity of excellent customer service.

So what’s all this have to do with social media?

Social media is branding

Over time we can see an increase in brand awareness and overall sales due to their clever TV commercials that do little more than show people dancing around a red target symbol, but I doubt they can trace any sales increase to a single commercial spot. I’m sure Wal-Mart can’t track a single purchase to the addition of the elderly employee standing at the entrance greeting customers. But when we walk through those doors, we feel that Wal-Mart cares just a little bit more about me, the customer. And here comes social media.

When we engage in social media and online social networking, we similarly don’t see any immediate, trackable results. But, like branding and customer service, we don’t need to understand that it’s valuable. When companies engage in social media they can’t think of it as a traditional marketing expense with a return on investment that can be shown on paper. Results won’t be seen immediately (be prepared that they might show only after a very long period of time), and you’ll not likely be able to pinpoint a single new sale or customer to a particular branding campaign.

But social media is still important. It provides a way for companies to get out there and get noticed. It’s an opportunity to go where the consumers are and create a presence. Like a TV ad, you don’t have to wait for consumers to find you, you go where they are. But instead of interrupting them while they are watching their favorite TV show, social media let’s you actually hang out with them. You’re not the ad on the wall, you’re the guy holding the drink telling stories that your audience finds fascinating.

Social media is better than branding and customer service

Because of the direct interaction social media affords the client with their customers, it truly is better than any branding campaign, including one-on-one customer service. Customer service means that the target consumer has to become a customer first (or at least be very close to becoming a customer) before you can make a good impression.

Social media, however allows you to brand yourself long before anyone becomes your customer. And it can often be the catalyst that brings them over. And why wouldn’t they? You’ve already become a part of the group. In fact, if you’ve done your social marketing right, you’ve already become their friend. This is interactive branding at work.

So don’t be afraid to participate in social media just because you don’t see the ROI. You’re not likely to, at least not immediately and not in a way you can pinpoint one event causing another. But over time, you can build your social reputation. This leads to credibility. And over time that credibility and awareness will very likely lead to an increase in your customer base. Check Magnetic Look for more tips and information about social media for startups.

Author: Silvia Pencak

In order to live and grow within social networks, your brand must adopt a “conversational stance”. To generate interest, you must feed your community with value added content. Finally, to engage in a meaningful dialogue with your community, you must listen and evolve according to its aspirations. Because if you continue to push content that no one cares about like in the old days, your community will be tired of your marketing messages sooner than you think. And we don’t want to make all these efforts in vain, do we? Here are 6 smart moves you can do to join the conversation before it’s too late.

Component 1, the basics

First and foremost, you must create a “community management committee” (CMC). This will be your special forces, the core of your social media initiatives. As soon as you have identified the Web 2.0 superheroes within your organization and set up this committee, make them work on establishing social media guidelines. This way you will insure the consistency of your “conversational stance” across all touch points. Once this is done, CMC must provide countries with the appropriate tools (Blog platforms, social media guidelines, monitoring tools…) and develop KPIs in order to measure the effectiveness of your strategy as it develops. If you run a small business, you should consider hiring a VA (virtual assistant) to set up, monitor and support your social media strategy.

Component 2, the content

CMC must cover your events, fairs, conferences and other significant actions at the corporate level (including articles, photos, videos…). One thing that we know for sure is that when you forget to cover an event or a news on the web, you miss 90% of the conversational potential of it. It’s too bad because these events cost money and you want your brand to be seen, right? So each time something happens, make sure someone is around with a camera. Then make sure that they talk about it on your corporate Blog, your Facebook page or any branded User Generated Content tool. If you are a multinational organization, the CMC must motivate local community managers to do likewise according your social media guidelines at the country level. Moreover, CMC will be responsible for mobilizing your staff so that it creates powerful content in order to drive traffic and jumpstart the conversation. There are many ways to incentive employees to comment on your company Blogs and to participate in your social media initiatives. If you are a solopreneur, you can team up with other solopreneurs or entrepreneurs to help and support each other in your social media strategies. You can also motivate your existing clients to comment on your blog or social media pages to create more buzz.

Component 3, “take care of the inside, the inside will take care of the outside”

CMC will also create social media accounts (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, you name it) by subject: careers, latest news, investor relations, line of products, community events, etc. By segmenting your news feeds you get more subscribers because they can chose the content that matches their interests. Of course CMC will then urge countries to follow up locally. It will also create value by identifying and promoting “best practices” from all across the organization in order to make everyone move up the learning curve.

And yes, this is the most important point: you will rapidly realize that some of your employees will be more active than others. We will call them the “Ambassadors”. The “Ambassadors” will be very useful to implement your social media strategy and create content. These people like to communicate and don’t mind being in the spotlight. So if you have important recruitment needs for instance, it could be a good idea to interview some “Ambassadors” in order to gather videos for your career section. They could speak out about how great it is to work at your company for instance. They can also participate in the production and promotion of the brand content internally and externally.

Component 4, approaching the blogosphere

Now is the time to get people to read your stuff and that’s tricky! Every day we are bombarded with loads of information and we need to discriminate because there’s just no time to grasp it all. So how do we discriminate? We only read the “relevant” content of course! How do we know it’s relevant if we haven’t read it yet? Most of the time, we deem it meaningful because it is recommended by someone we trust. That’s why you need to get the influencers on board in order to get your message across. That’s why CMC will provide exclusive content and beta versions for influential bloggers. And since these people usually have big egos, they will be grateful if you keep them informed of your company news before everyone else. Make sure that influential bloggers are well treated and that they are rewarded when they cover your brand’s initiatives and product launches. Invite them as VIPs to exclusive venues, conferences and other events. If they are respected experts in your field, ask them what they think and adjust your products and services accordingly. They will be happy to tell the world how valuable their contribution was. Yes, clearly a win-win situation. This works also for small businesses and solopreneurs, but in addition you might consider taking advantage of affiliate marketing to “pay” those who promote your brand, products and events.

Component 5, distribution and consistency

This last part is more mechanical but nevertheless important to get the full potential of social media. CMC must encourage the “Ambassadors” to post comments on other Blogs related to your company’s area of expertise in order to increase your visibility and generate traffic. CMC has to maintain a comprehensive list of social media accounts for your brand. In partnership with countries, it will ensure that the content on these accounts is consistent with the social media guidelines (content quality, freshness, tone of voice …). With the help of “Ambassadors”, it will share and distribute recently produced contents on all social networks (job vacancies, upcoming events, blogs posts, new videos, interviews, white papers, photo essays).

Conclusion: evolve with the communities

Now that your plan is all rolled-out, here’s what all this is really about! Social media changes the whole relationship between brands, consumers and stakeholders at large. Companies that fail to understand this will be left behind by the competition. So please, listen to your community and don’t settle: you must take into account what your community is telling you. Your CMC will gather KPIs both at the corporate level and at country level (some examples: traffic statistics, content sharing via Addthis.com, number of comments, number of posts, photos, videos, number of tweets, number of LinkedIn members). In partnership with the countries, CMC will feed the appropriate departments of your company with information from the communities to make the most of their expectations and adjust your offer according to it. Now that’s adopting a “conversational stance”, bravo!

What are your views on “conversational stance”? Tell me what you think.

Author: Silvia Pencak