3 Social Media Marketing New Years Resolutions For Maximizing Profit

social media marketing on switch for 2012Social media marketing is certain to be more important for business growth in 2012 than ever before. Especially now that social media marketing is being tied in with search. This means that even if you’re primarily an offline business social media marketing is now a must.

If you’ve been fighting it then it’s time to surrender before you get so far behind you never catch up with your competitors.

Here’s 3 Social Media Marketing New Years Resolutions for Your Business in 2012.

1. Find more ways to sell your products and services.

Any wise and successful business owner will tell you that one way to maximize profit is to simply find more ways to sell. This is the perfect reason for you to begin taking social media marketing more seriously in your business.

Is using social media marketing worth your time as an additional way to sell?

Well, according to Ad Age, there are now more than 800 million active Facebook users. 200 million of those were added in 2011 alone.

2. Find more customers to sell to.

This one might seem a little obvious as a way to maximize your profits in 2012. The real question, however, is where to find these customers? If the social media marketing statistic about Facebook in number one above wasn’t enough convincing how about this statistic.

According to Social Media Examiner the average Facebook user has 130 friends and is connected to 80 pages, events and groups.

Where’s the leverage in this statistic? Well, if you can get one person to become a Fan of your Facebook business page then when you execute your Facebook social media marketing strategy and submit updates those updates automatically post to the wall of your Fans.

Do you see the significance here? When your update posts itself to your Fans wall their friends will see it too. If your update is compelling enough with valuable calls-to-action chances are good you will generate more Fans. Thus, more potential customers to sell to.

3. Communicate more with all of your customers, prospects, and Fans.

How do you communicate with your customers and prospects and how often do you communicate with them? Two very important questions.

Here’s something to consider. It’s almost impossible to over-communicate with your customers and prospects.

Why is this the case? Because every day your customers and prospects are getting blasted with communication through email, social media marketing messages via twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube to only name a few. They are also getting direct mail correspondence. Throw in radio and TV and you’ve got a perfect recipe for information overload.

The point here is that you have to communicate often just to compete for your customers and prospects attention. Here’s the key with your communication strategy?

It must be systematized.

Social media marketing is one of the easiest communication mechanisms to systematize. Putting in the effort to setup your social media marketing system is well worth it.

In case you’re not counting we’re already 5% into the New Year.

If social media marketing is not a significant part of your 2012 strategy for maximizing profit and growing your business it needs to be. Don’t waste anymore time. You’ve got 95% of the year left to setup your social media marketing system and take massive action. Need some help getting your system in place? Call us today for a complimentary social media marketing consultation! (303) 578-1290

How are you most effectively using social media marketing in your business? Share with us below!

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Chris White is the Grand Poobah of Social Media and Content Development at Poobah Marketing a Denver-based SEO company that helps small to medium businesses dominate online and on mobile devices.  For more information, visit PoobahMarketing.com or call (303) 578-1290.  Mention this article and get a free 20 minute business marketing consultation.

Social Media Marketing With Facebook Sponsored Stories

social-media-marketing-with-facebook-sponsored-storiesSocial media marketing pop quiz of the day. Are you leveraging the full-power of Facebook’s social media marketing tools to increase ROI in your business?

If this pop quiz has created overwhelm, frustration, anxiety or any other negative emotion for you then stop reading this now and call us immediately. There is zero time to waste. Social media is no longer a luxury. It’s now a non-negotiable.

If you’re answer to the pop quiz was “yes” then you may want to consider Facebook sponsored stories into your social media marketing strategy.

Here’s 6 things you need to know about Facebook sponsored stories:

  1. Facebook has started to show sponsored stories in user’s news feeds.
  2. Sponsored stories will only show up on Facebook pages of people who have “Liked” your business page.
  3. You will not have the option to add any of your own additional information to the sponsored story. 
  4. The sponsored stories will be marked on the user’s Facebook wall to clearly identify them as such.
  5. Facebook users will have the option to click hide to remove these stories or even limit the number of stories from specific friends by clicking the “only important posts” option for that friends stories.
  6. Sponsored stories, according to Facebook, increase two things: (1) Ad Recall and (2) Likeliness to Recommend

Facebook’s sponsored stories are attempting to tap into the idea that when we are out in the world looking for information to help us make decisions we want advice from the people we trust. The correlation here to trust is that if a fan or prospect or customer has taken the time to “Like” your business page then they trust you at some level. In such case Facebook is now providing you an avenue via sponsored stories to include in the tactics of your social media marketing strategy to better serve your fan base.

Here’s one quick example of sponsored stories.

Example: Leveraging the power of check-ins

You are a local business. Let’s say a restaurant. One of your customers shows up and performs a check-in action on their mobile phone. This action will show up as an impression on their Facebook page telling all their friends they are at your restaurant.

This example is really cool for the restaurant. The fact this person trusts you enough to be your customer and post it on their Facebook page has now just been subtly advertised to all their friends. If you don’t believe this kind of social media marketing action takes places in a BIG way just do some Google research on the social media marketing company Foursquare.

The challenge Facebook has identified with this example is that this check-in impression from your customer or prospect has a good chance of getting lost among all the other impressions happening on their Facebook page.

Therefore, Facebook created sponsored stories to provide business owners (and all Facebook users for that matter) a vehicle to help them rise above the clutter of impressions that are happening on any one Facebook wall at a given time. A sponsored story allows the friends of the Facebook page owner to click through the sponsored story to your Facebook business page and then “Like” it.

The implications here are tremendous for your business not to mention at the very least creating more organic content for you.

So, if you want the check-in impressions of your customers and prospects to prominently show up on their Facebook wall for all their friends to see then you can decide to make check-ins part of your sponsored stories social media marketing strategy. You can do the same for “Likes”.

Social Media Marketing with Facebook Sponsored Stories VideoWill Facebook’s sponsored stories stick?

We believe they will. Facebook has chosen to be more considerate of the user experience than they were in previous failed attempts of placing ads into the newsfeed.

Facebook’s decision to roll out sponsored stories to users slowly is a wise one. Early indications represent no more than one sponsored story per day showing up on a users wall. While business owners may prefer Facebook to do more initially, the most important factor for business owners and marketers is adoption by Facebook users.

Too much at one time will likely cause backlash from the Facebook community and kill the sponsored stories movement. We are predicting that sponsored stories with have higher click through rates than ads on the side of the page. Time will tell.

As social media marketing on Facebook continues to evolve by providing business owners with better more effective ways to reach prospects and customers keep your marketing eye on this sponsored stories movement. It may prove to be one of the most effective ways for you to reach your customers. If you require some expert advice about how Facebook’s sponsored stories fit into an effective social media marketing strategy for your business we can help.  Call us today! (303) 578-1290 

What’s your opinion on Facebook sponsored stories? Share with us below!

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Social Media Marketing ExpertChris White is the Grand Poobah of Social Media at Poobah Marketing a Denver-based SEO company that helps small to medium businesses dominate online and on mobile devices.  For more information, visit PoobahMarketing.com or call (303) 578-1290.  Mention this article and get a free 20 minute business marketing consultation.

3 Easy Social Media Marketing Tips To Get Better Results In Search

Does social media marketing and trying to figure out how to really make it work overwhelm you?

It used to overwhelm me until I started to really focus on clear, easy-to-use tips from the pros I knew I could commit to on a consistent basis.

I’m going to share three of those easy-to-use social media marketing tips with you now.

Social Media Marketing Tip #1

Make sure you have social media marketing buttons on your website.

It’s the easiest and one of the most effective tips to execute, but yet so many small business owners fail to do so.

Which social media marketing buttons should you have? Here’s my recommendation.

Facebook. This should be the hub of all your social media marketing activity. If it’s happening in your business and it’s newsworthy then you should be sharing it on Facebook.

Twitter. Twitter is like one of your loyal foot soldiers that goes out on the internet and sends short, compelling signals to your target market. That signal is meant to pull those who find it back to your Facebook Business Page where they can discover more about the awesome products and services you offer.

YouTube. YouTube should be the hub of all your video marketing activity. If you’ve been living under a rock for the last several years or just haven’t had time to understand the power of video marketing in your business here’s what you need to know. Video marketing is POWERFUL! So powerful, in fact, if you had to only use one social media marketing platform (good thing you don’t) it would be YouTube.

Start with those three as the core of your social media marketing plan. Then quickly get up to speed on LinkedIn and Google+ as soon as you’re ready.

Social Media Marketing Tip #2

Make sure you are including your keyword strategy as part of the social media marketing messages you are sending to your followers and fans.

Google has made it clear that social media marketing now plays an important roll in search. Just consider Google’s latest seo announcement about personal search results for your evidence.

For example. If you performed social media marketing or seo services like our company Poobah Marketing then you would want these two keywords to play a part in your keyword strategy.

In this case here’s one example of what a Facebook status update might look like.

Social media marketing now more significant than ever for search results. Are you including SEO into your social messages? Here’s why you should be [link here to your blog post]

Hopefully you can see how powerful this is for your business and how easy it is to execute.

Social Media Marketing Tip #3

Take 30 minutes out of your week to build relationships with people on social media.

Social media marketing technology has made it easier than ever for you to connect with your prospects and customers on their turf. We all know people buy from people they know like and trust.

Take the time to build relationships and develop trust with your social media followers. The trust you build can easily translate into inbound links to your website and more social media authority, which you now know is important for search. Ultimately, of course, these relationships will lead to more sales.

You’d be surprised how many relationships you can start and develop in only 30 minutes of focused time a week. I recommend more, but initally use 30 minutes as a weekly milestone to get you in the habit. Then turn it up for greater impact.

Social media marketing is critical to your business if you want to compete in the search engines where all your customers hang out when they are looking to buy. Make it a point to include these three easy tips into your social media strategy. If you need some expert advice to just get you started in the right direction or if you’ve been doing social media marketing but are ready to take it to a higher level we can help. Call us today! (303) 578-1290 

What social media marketing tips do you have? Share with us below!

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social-media-marketing-expertChris White is the Grand Poobah of Social Media at Poobah Marketing a Denver-based SEO company that helps small to medium businesses dominate online and on mobile devices.  For more information, visit PoobahMarketing.com or call (303) 578-1290.  Mention this article and get a free 20 minute business marketing consultation.

Here’s The Latest Social Media Marketing Branding Discoveries

Social media marketing and branding endure a love hate relationship. Smart marketers who understand how to implement that latest branding discoveries into their social media marketing strategy love the relationship.

In contrast, not so smart marketers, who live in the dark when it comes to how social media marketing and branding co-exist well together, write the subject matter off as a waste of time.

Sometimes, these marketing types actually take it one step worse and try to implement branding into their social media marketing plans. Of course there is no better way to quickly ruin your brand than to market from a position of being unaware.

Have no fear if you or your social media marketing team more closely resembles the unaware type. Thanks to AYTM Market Research, after carefully studying the graphic below you’ll no longer have the excuse of being in the dark.

In fact, you’re going to be empowered to take your social media marketing strategy to a whole new level with these new branding discoveries.

So, let’s get to it.

AYTM Market Research recently surveyed 2,000 internet users from its database. The research company asked the following eight questions:

  1. Do you belong to Facebook or Twitter?
  2. Do you use Facebook or Twitter daily?
  3. Do you have more than 100/500 friends on Facebook or Twitter?
  4. How do you interact with brands on Facebook and Twitter?
  5. What is your sentiment about brands on Facebook and Twitter?
  6. Have you “Liked” a brand on Facebook?
  7. What types of content do you prefer to get from brands?
  8. How do you prefer to get updates from brands?

The infographic below represents the answers of those surveyed. Your social media marketing team would be wise to carefully analyze and assess your social media marketing strategy against these latest branding discoveries.

 social media marketing branding discoveries

These latest social media marketing branding discoveries are certain to ensure your social media efforts are on the right track. How are you using this information to effectively marketyour products, services and brand? Share your best practices in the comments below.

Chris White is the Grand Poobah of Social Media and Content Development at Poobah Marketing a Denver-based SEO company that helps small to medium businesses dominate online and on mobile devices.  For more information, visit PoobahMarketing.com or call (303) 578-1290.  Mention this article and get a free 20 minute business marketing consultation.

Eye Opening Social Media Marketing Insights for Facebook Brand Pages

Is your social media marketing team a savvy marketing bunch when it comes to Facebook brand pages?

Here’s a fun test that will give you your answer.

Look at the picture below from Coca-Cola’s Facebook brand page and put the following percentages next to each letter A thru D. Percentages: 47%, 83%, 60%, 57%, 93%

The percentages represent the percentage of people in a study who noticed that section of Coca-Cola’s brand page.

 Social Media Marketing with Facebook Brand Pages

 

 

 

 

 

(Image Source: Mashable)

Here are the main takeaways your social media marketing team should be aware of:

  1. Your wall. The content you are posting to your wall is important. No secret here, but you may be surprised when you look at the data how important it really is.
  2. Profile photos. Profile photos are also important. Case-in-point, to give away one answer from above, only 57% of people in the study of Coca Cola’s brand page even saw the profile photo. Why? Profile photos with faces in them (as a general rule-of-thumb) are going to get the most attention. Therefore, if your social media marketing team is using only a logo for your profile photo make sure to share this study with them. 
  3. Wall photos. Are you using photos in your status updates? If not you should be. The study supports brands with wall photos getting the most attention.

This EyeTrackShop study done for Mashable involved Coca-Cola, Skittles, Victoria’s Secret, Starbucks, Converse, PlayStation, Pringles and Red Bull.  The study also shows how many seconds the participants eyes were fixated on each section of the Facebook brand page. This is definitely key data your social media marketing team will want to get their hands on.

Check out the full eye opening social media marketing study on Facebook brand pages done by EyeTrackShop for Mashable.

The social media marketing team at Poobah Marketing is determined to help business owners develop effective social media strategy and implementation plans to help turn their social media marketing efforts into bottom line results.

Chris White is the Grand Poobah of Social Media at Poobah Marketing a Denver-based SEO company that helps small to medium businesses dominate online and on mobile devices.  For more information, visit PoobahMarketing.com or call (303) 578-1290.  Mention this article and get a free 20 minute business marketing consultation.