Social media marketing is a great tool that all small businesses can use to stay competitive and grow their business. One of the biggest barriers to small businesses using such a powerful tool is time. But while small businesses are incredibly time-starved, social media does not have to be the big time suck most think it is.
The two questions I heard over and over at this year’s Social Media Week in San Francisco were: “How should I manage time I can allocate to social marketing?” and “What should I use to help make sure my time spent is worth it for me?” People generally want to control their time dedicated to social media, but they are scared and unsure how to do so. So how can businesses take control of their time and get the most out of their investment in social media?
Develop a plan. As a marketer on any level, you have to start with your goal in mind. (read more…)
This is a guest post by Murray Newlands. Murray is the CEO and founder of Influence People, an online marketing firm based in San Francisco.
To promote his film “The Dictator,” Sacha Baron Cohen arrived at the Oscars clad in a white Gaddafian suit and pinned with medals he most certainly didn’t deserve. He was a mixture between the stereotypical Latin American and Middle Eastern two-bit dictators, Army colonels who led coups and became iron-fisted rulers of Third World non-nation states. While the media expected “Aladeen” to visit the Oscars and draw attention to himself, they did not expect him to go so far as to spill fake ashes (which Cohen claimed belonged to Kim Jong Il) onto reporter and TV personality Ryan Seacrest. Although Cohen succeeded in advertising his film, did he go too far from a marketing perspective? In this episode of “Future of Engagement,” I explore the social media response to this stunt, and whether marketing stunts in general work. (read more…)
Christine Saunders is the director of community for Venpop. She designs social media strategies for Venpop customers. She also works closely with brands to help them successfully execute and leverage their social media networks. She manages all things Venpop, including Venpop’s social media and blogging networks.
The ability to measure return on investment from social media is one that continues to be a problem for marketers and brands. The relationship between social media and ROI is not a direct one. Because of this, social media has come under a lot of criticism for not contributing to ROI in any real way. Still, there is no denying that social networks can drive traffic back to your brand website, and in any kind of terms increased website traffic affects the bottom line.
Making social media work for you is a balancing act. It consists of using smart social media tools that can save time, money and manpower, while remaining engaging and being of interest to your fans and followers. (read more…)
Vicky Smithee is a public relations practitioner at Dallas-based C. Pharr and Co., a boutique agency specializing in public relations, marketing and social media. Follow her on Twitter at @VSmithee.
Social media strategists and community managers might be making their jobs harder for themselves when it comes to finding return on investment for their social media efforts, according to Nichole Kelly, CEO of Full Frontal ROI Consulting. During her “No Fluff Social Media Measurement” session at Explore Dallas, she explained that defining ROI for social media should utilize traditional metrics, rather than attempting to create special measurements exclusive to social media.
At a time when social media is a fixture in most business strategies but big budgets for it may not be, the bottom-line impacts of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more have to be clearly articulated for executives, business owners and clients. Advising social media experts to cut the “fluff,” Kelly recommends adopting traditional metrics already understood by the C-suite. (read more…)
Kara Hadge is head of digital media at the British Council in the U.S. Follow her at @karahadge, and find the British Council at @BCUnitedStates.
The lure of reaching new audiences around the world is a compelling reason for any organization to start using social media. It’s especially compelling when that lure is already your mission. At an event on Public Diplomacy in the Age of Social Media held at the New America Foundation during Social Media Week in Washington DC, panelists from the U.S. Department of State explained how they are using social media to broaden the scope of U.S. public diplomacy, but their advice can apply just as easily to many other professions.
That said, social media is easier to apply to some realms of diplomacy than others. When we talk about diplomacy, that generally refers to governments talking to governments, and public diplomacy is when governments engage in talking to people. (read more…)
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