Here at Wheeler Advertising and Social.Motive, we’re all about giving back to our community and others across the country. So, as expected, our hands have been full this time of year. They’ve been full of goodies given to the soldiers down the hall from us on Veterans Day, canned food collected for a local family shelter and Salvation Army kettles from volunteering at our local mall!
You see that we walk the walk, but we also talk the talk. We encourage our clients to get involved with charities close to their hearts and in their cities to raise funds via Facebook or other social media. The months of November and December offer limitless cross promotion opportunities, which can help you build a relevant, local fan base. Consider holding contest and promotions that involve non profits like:
Local Schools
Pet Adoption Organizations
Food Banks
Veterans Organizations
Here’s a short video we did for a joint promotion between a Arlington High School and The Salvation Army Arlington/Mansfield:
Are you partnering with an organization to make a difference in your community this holiday season? If so, we want to hear about it!
Sometimes when I tell people what I do for a living they don’t really get it. I mostly get responses along the lines of, “So you play around on Facebook all day?” or “All you do is write a status update?” or “You better start looking for a new job, because that won’t last.” While all of those statements are vastly untrue, the worst is the assumption that I will be out of a job when this “social media fad” is over. Social media is not a trend or something like Giga Pets that we will all get really excited about (I wont lie. I had a dog and a pony..it was awesome.) and then discard and completely forget about after a few years.
Admittedly social media is entertaining, it is fun to see what your high school friends are doing or to be able to watch your cousin’s baby grow up from 500 miles away, but social media has also changed marketing and the way you can build relationships with your customers. Here are a few reasons why social media is going to stick around (especially for businesses):
• Simple to Learn.
Unlike other forms of marketing online that require a lot of technical details and understanding, social media is relatively easy to implement once you learn the basics. It’s just a matter of defining your message, finding your audience and spreading the word. And most importantly, being social!
• Can connect you directly with your target market.
Small business owners are always looking for ways to meet the needs of their market. It might take months or years to develop a relationship with a member of your target market via email marketing. But social media is like personal networking on hyperdrive. You can connect with your market in real-time on issues that they care about and become part of their trusted network of friends and advisors.
• Helps build consistency.
When it comes to marketing your business online, consistency is key. Inconsistent marketing efforts will produce disappointing results. Fortunately, social media makes it easier than ever before to be consistent with marketing. You can set up your updates ahead of time – a week at a time – and let them run automatically. This consistent presence helps build your brand and produces better results.
• Makes businesses more personable and approachable.
Other forms of online marketing can put layers between you and your ideal customers. But with social media – you’re right there! You get to see what they are up to, what they are reading and what they care about, and they get to know you too. It’s win-win!
What does this mean for your business? When used correctly, social media can create more visibility, opportunity and profits for your business. Take the time to research your target market and see how they are interacting on social media so that you can determine how best to use this tool to achieve your goals.
If you aren’t using social media for your business. Run – don’t walk – to the nearest computer and if you need a little help along the way we would be happy to help you get started.
Are you using social media to promote your business? What do you think is the value of having your business on social sites?
RICHMOND FORD LINCOLN JOINS FORCES WITH SOCIAL.MOTIVE
Arlington, TX, July 28, 2011 –Social.Motive, an Arlington, Texas-based Social Media Marketing company, recently announced the signing of its newest client, Richmond Ford Lincoln, a 5 time Ford President’s award winner . Effective immediately, Richmond Ford Lincoln has retained Social.Motive to integrate its Social Media platform with Traditional Advertising and grow its Social Media Marketing program.
“We’re excited about working with Richmond Ford Lincoln because they carry a great selection at great prices, and that gives us something to talk with customers about.” stated Ron Wheeler, Owner of Social.Motive. “Social Media is a great fit for their business, because building relationships is key. We are excited they have selected our company to deliver their message.”
About Social.Motive Social.Motive provides Social Media Marketing expertise including: Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, Newsletters, Social Events, Social Promotions, SEO, Reputation Management and other social networks for business. For more information, visit social-motive.com
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Contact Name: Brandi Hodge, Social Media Director
Telephone: 800.678.7822
Email: bhodge@wheeleradvertising.com
LinkedIn is great social site to build contacts, connect with employers, look for an employee, connect with old classmates, or advertise your business, but it can be confusing for a college student or a recent grad. Students are different from your average LinkedIn user because they don’t have a lot of work experience or business contacts, but LinkedIn has now made it easier for students to become better LinkedIn users.
LinkedIn has added a section that is specifically for students and allows students to add their achievements including awards, projects, courses, test scores, certifications, organizations and volunteer work.
Need a little help getting setting up your student section? Here is a how to from LinkedIn:
Go to your LinkedIn profile page in edit mode, and click the blue “Add sections” bar under your profile summary.
Then, browse the available sections and select a section to add to your profile.
When editing the section, include examples and specifics about your contributions, and how the experience added to your skills and abilities.
The new section will appear on your profile – and you can adjust your profile settings to control who can see these sections.
Do you think the new student section was needed? Will you be using it when looking for interns or entry level positions?
I’m a self-proclaimed MSN nut. It’s the first website I look at every morning, and it’s likely one of the last ones I see at night. Throw in my multiple visits throughout the day and you have some idea of how much I need it. The content is refreshed every few hours and it just has a way of being able to read my mind, of knowing what I care about.
So when I saw an article entitled Seven Things Women Do On Facebook That Guys Hate I was more than a little intrigued. That got me thinking. I get questions all the time from people who want to know the difference between this network or that. They always want me to choose sides and I never can. I tell them that both networks are great for different things and very different audiences.
On a personal level, I’m feeling very chatty and random, Twitter’s a better outlet for that. If there’s something I want to broadcast/don’t mind people knowing I post it on Facebook. Facebook has more functionality, but the limited functionality of Twitter makes it more reliable than Facebook. (ie. When someone wants to know if Facebook is down, the first place they check is Twitter) It’s updates are live and I can see what people around the world are discussing at that moment. With Facebook, I have to wait until news reaches my circle of friends.
I could go on and on about both of these, because technically, they’re both my job — along with a bunch of other sites. But I thought it would be more fun to make a list of things you can do on Facebook that Twitter hates!
Place ads
Quantify Reach and Frequency
Track fan demographics
Send messages to people you’re not connected to
Download albums or print them via online retailers like Snapfish
Interact with people’s statuses without alerting everyone
Go over 140 characters in an update.
For businesses still trying to make sense of Social Media, it takes a little while to “get it”. However, once you do ‘get it’, you can find uses you’ve never considered. With lots of attention and a little elbow grease, sites like Facebook and Twitter can build your business exponentially.
And, in case you’re wondering, here’s the article I was reading:
1. Getting All CIA On Us
“I hate it when women turn into ‘spies’ and go digging into your older posts/pictures trying to find dirt, and then ask you about the women they don’t know. It’s as if they’re trying to catch you in some secret affair! Look, if it’s out there for you/all too see, I’m obviously not hiding anything!” — Mike, 32
2. Making That Duck Face
“I cannot stand when women post thousands of goofy faced pictures — especially that fake puckered lips pose. It’s sooooo fake. Whatever happened to smiling?” — Cameron, 30
3. Opening The Vault
“No one wants to know how closely your life resembles the Jerry Springer show. Keep all those ugly details to yourself, please!” — Daniel, 34
4. Writing Man-Hating Status Updates
“It’s a huge downer when women vent about men in their status updates — how we’re all liars and cheaters. It’s just not true! Cut it out, already!” — Al, 25
5. Posting Self-Portrait Albums
“I find it really lame when a girl has nothing but pictures of herself on her profile. It makes me think she has no friends. It seems kind of pathetic, and seriously vain.” — Raul, 24
6. Doing Premature Relationship Publicity
“This one girl I was hooking up with changed her main profile picture to be a picture of the two of us together. It was way too soon — and I was still dating other girls, who had a lot of questions after that!” — Mike, 27
7. Showing “Artsy” Pictures
“What’s with girls posting pictures of their feet these days? Who wants to see gross toes in a picture of a nice pool or an ocean? It makes zero sense.” — Jesse, 28
Social Media Marketing is important for an business if they want to be successful. I have some tips here that will help you have a more successful social program. These tips will work for any business. Many companies get into social media on their own and aren’t really sure how they should be using it effectively. Just having a Facebook page doesn’t mean you are in social media. Social media marketing is a hourly, daily thing… You have to pay very close attention to what’s going on, on your accounts.
1. UPDATE UPDATE: This should be common sense but you’d be surprised at how many businesses have a Facebook Page or a Twitter profile and don’t update it at all. You should be posting on Facebook at least 1-3 times a day and on Twitter at least 3-6 times a day. I don’t typically post on the weekends unless it’s a holiday that needs to be recognized. If you aren’t active on your account then what makes you think anyone would want to follow you?
2. STOP PITCHING: Don’t pull a Nolan Ryan! Just because people are following you doesn’t mean they want to buy your product today. Social media is about connecting and building relationships so that when the follower is in the market they think of you first. So try not to pitch them every single day.
3. COMMUNICATION IS KEY: There may be a time when you are overloaded with comments, retweets, likes, replies and more. If you can’t take the time to communicate with everyone who is communicating with you then social media may not be the right place for you. It’s so important to communicate with each and every follower or fan that takes the time to communicate with you. You need to show just as much interest in them as they are you.
4. WATCH WHAT YOU SAY: Here’s the thing… What happens on the internet… Stays on the internet. Therefore it is imperative that you choose your words wisely and make sure that even though something may be funny to you, you could be offending someone else. When you are responding or posting a comment just make sure to slow down for a second and think about what you are saying. On that note if you hire someone to help you, you should make sure that you trust them completely and make them 100% aware of what your company is about and what you are striving for.
5. BE CLASSY: There will inevitably be a time when you will have an irate customer on your hands. The truth is you can’t make everybody happy no matter how hard you try. So when you have a situation on your hands with an angry customer who has taken to the internet in a game to smear your name make sure that you handle it with the utmost class. Again, everything that is on the internet becomes public record. Fighting hate with hate will only make your company look worse. If you can make the situation better that is what should be done. Respond to them in a timely fashion, don’t delete their comments but address their comments, apologize, offer to make it right. When your other fans and followers see you taking this approach they will be proud of you. The one and only reason that I have ever deleted a comment is when foul inappropriate language was involved and that rarely happens.
6. LINKING: Whenever you are perusing the internet and find something fun or interesting that is relevant to your business you should share it. Linking creates a web of networks. Link them to your Facebook or your Twitter and tell the whole world why you are posting it.
7. SHARE SHARE SHARE: People love to talk, and tell others about their lives. So it’s only natural that you would want to brag about your business…. and guess what… people love that! I had a client back in February that had a big BBQ for all of his employees. I was invited to attend so I went with my camera and took 100′s of pictures. I uploaded those pictures to Facebook and our Facebook fans loved it. It gave them an opportunity to see what goes on in our lives when we aren’t working. Think about it! On your own personal Facebook profile you share your thoughts, pictures and such so why not on your business page? This will create interaction and interaction is key in social media.
8. TRENDING: Start a trend… Every Friday for one of my clients Classic Chevrolet I post a picture of a Chevrolet and I have a caption contest. At first it started off with just a few captions and maybe a few likes… Now I am up to 50 comments every Friday or more and people wait for me to post the Chevy Caption Craze. It’s genius! Maybe every Monday you post a picture of some drink that your bar makes. Get your followers to guess what’s in it for a free beer that night.
9: WHERE’S YOUR BLOG: There is a lot of hard work that goes into blogging. Trust me I know…. I have 10 clients I blog for plus my own personal blog. I must admit my own personal blog doesn’t get the attention that it needs most of the time. The point is that it’s hard work and you should share it. Link to your blog from your Facebook or Twitter and show your fans and followers that you are writing entertaining, engaging and informative posts for them to read. They will love it. Just make sure that you don’t post about your blog every day. That will drive people insane… So make sure you mix it up.
10. SPREAD THE NEWS: If you have a Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Youtube etc… Tell people about it! No one will ever know that you are in social media if you don’t tell them. I have it on my website, my blog, my Facebook, my business cards, POP in the office. I’m telling you I let everyone and their mama know where they can find me and you should to!
I hope that you really take these suggestions to heart and remember social media is supposed to be fun!! Don’t stress out, don’t over analyze just engage, entertain, inform and by all means make new friends!
If you log on to Twitter at any time you can find thousands of chats with new ones being developed every minute. Chats form so anyone can follow a conversation about a variety of subjects; chats will be formed around a love for an activity, a feeling, a celebrity scandal, or anything else you can think of. Why set up a chat? It is a free and easy way to talk to your consumers, network, and learn about new developments in your industry.
To get the most out of your Twitter chats check out these tips from Mashable:
Be Clear About Your Goals Going Into the Chat
Some say there are already too many Twitter chats. How does creating a new one (as opposed to joining existing ones) help you or your company? When I spoke to creators of successful chats like #wjchat, #blogchat, #smmeasure and #u30pro, they pointed out some powerful benefits of doing it right. For a company, it can position you as a thought leader and grow brand awareness. For an individual it can help you meet people in your industry and grow your personal brand.
Choose a Topic People Care About
How do you know if people care about your chat? They should already be discussing it informally. “It’s better to build a twitter chat around a topic of interest that’s directly related to your brand,” says David Spinks, creator of #u30pro, a Twitter chat for young professionals. “In the end, the participants will still relate the chat back to your brand because you’re the one organizing it.
Be Authentic
“The key to true reach and success is being authentic,” says Robert Hernandez, founder of #wjchat. “#wjchat is something organic and represents a passion shared by others. … If you have a topic you are passionate about, there may be others that are looking to connect with you.” Don’t do it just because you think you’re supposed to. Do it if you are genuinely looking for a way to engage and communicate with a community. Use that passion to stick with the chat when it starts out slow. Spinks says #u30pro’s first chat only had seven people and 150 tweets. Today, their typical chat includes 150 people and 1,200 tweets. Keep engaging and the right people and community should find you.
Bring In Thought Leaders
Don’t be afraid to get others involved, whether you need a partner to develop and plan the chat (#u30pro is operated by a team of four), or great guest “speakers” to help bring in audience. Twitter chats are successful because of the people in them. Do what you can to get great people involved, especially when you’re just starting.
Thank People Who Participate
If people take the time to engage with your chat, take a moment to thank them individually or in the chat itself. Collier has found huge success by following this strategy. “These are your rock stars, and you need to treat them as such,” he said. “That will simply give them more incentive to spread the word, and help you grow your community.”
Bottom Line: Keep your chats fun and interesting to the audience. Do you have any tips or thoughts about Twitter chats? If you need any more tips or assistance we would be happy to help!
Content is key when it comes to your social sites. Whether a reader finds your contest useful, funny, entertaining, boring, or uninteresting can mean the difference in hundreds of fans and impressions. You can make your content funny (and you should), but always make sure the content you choose is relevant to your target audience.
Providing content that people want to read can help increase traffic to your sites and attract and retain a healthy following. Sometimes coming up with fresh and valuable content can be a challenge, but there are a couple of ways/sources you can use to prevent every running out of something new to say.
RSS Reader: Scan It Daily
A great way to get fresh ideas and inspiration is to sign up for a free RSS reader such as Google Reader. Then use the Google Blogs search option and search blog directory sites such as Technorati and Blogcatalog for blogs that are relevant to your product or service. When you find what you’re looking for, simply subscribe by clicking on the RSS feed and adding it to your reader.
Organize your feeds into folders and sort by category for easy scanning; you can combine topics you find in your industry’s blogs with your own commentary to create posts that stand on their own.
Make Every Employee a Marketer
Encourage employees to contribute to your blog by writing posts on a topic of interest in your industry. Ask your customer service and sales teams about their most frequently asked questions, then have them write blog posts about the solutions. Creating a simple blog template for employees to use can be a great tool to eliminate any objections to writing a post.
Forums
If social media has a grandfather, its name is Grandpa Forum. These open and free discussions are a fantastic way to find out what’s going on in your niche. A simple search on Google for “<your topic> + forum” will yield thousands of results.
Crowdsource
Post a social networking status or blog asking your audience for content topics and suggestions. Online survey and polling tools can be invaluable resources for collecting and prioritizing these ideas in an organized way. Embedding a survey or poll directly into your website or blog engages your audience in real time, and lets their voices be heard. You can also launch a survey or poll directly in Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn asking for feedback.
Google News
Want to keep your content relevant to current events and hot topics in the media? Sure you do. Google News aggregates headlines from news sources worldwide, groups similar stories together and displays them according to each reader’s personalized interests.
Simply search for keywords related to your industry and click on the news. Scanning the results will immediately provide you with headlines to tie your topic to what’s happening in the world.
Frankenblogging
“A Day In The Life” is one of the Beatles’ most influential songs and it came together with two seemingly unrelated bits, one written by John, the other by Paul. This is a perfect example of how bringing together two distinct segments written independently of one another can spawn greatness.
Like most bloggers, you probably have a growing number of half-written posts. The idea here is to find a common theme or link between two of them and combine. For example, I took a half-written post about identifying influencers, combined it with another half-written post about using Twitter lists, and came up with a fabulous post about finding influencers on Twitter and following them efficiently using Twitter lists.
Earlier today I looked over one of my clients’ (a local trade show) analytics and felt fairly good about what I saw. After about 8 months of working with them, there are about 1,300 Twitter followers, 500 Facebook fans and thousands of blog views every month. Because this client receives a good amount of interaction on every medium and has been proven to gain new customers from their Social Media program, I didn’t think there was any cause for alarm… Boy was I wrong!?!
I learned they were not at all impressed with what their social network was doing for them. Despite the new business, positive buzz and relationships built with new and existing customers, they felt they should have “thousands of fans” by now! Needless to say, this way a complete departure from the social media goals we’d set months ago. Somehow, amidst a change in leadership, the goals had been changed without consideration for the business they were in, their competitors, their promotional budgets, etc. As a result, there is an almost rabid desire to grow fans and followers just as quickly as a national manufacturer. The problem is large quantities of followers on Twitter, fans on Facebook, and Connections on LinkedIn do not necessarily equate to higher sales conversion rates.
However many business owners who engage in social media spend time striving ONLY for high connection numbers only to feel cheated when the sales do not follow. Especially when organizations like Syncapse and CMB say that 51% and 67% of Facebook and Twitter users respectively were more likely to purchase from a company since becoming a fan/follower. These statistics are accurate, but readers miss one key component — quality.
A quality network is better than one with just a large quantity. They’re connections who:
Have purchased your company products/services in the past.
Have purchased a competitors products/services in the past.
Have never purchased your products/services, but has acknowledged a need for them.
Having connections that fall into on of these categories enables businesses to send targeted messages to their followers. Those same targeted messages are delivered to people actually interested in your products or services. That’s how the lead to conversion process begins!
By investing time to develop campaigns and messages to attract and convert quality connections, you can harness the power of social media.To re-evaluate your social strategy, find out if your company is:
Creating campaigns that give incentives for recommending the site to others who subsequently become customers.
Gaining insights from individuals who are not customers to understand why and/or what can be done to gain them as a customer.
Of course there will be some who will follow you to compare prices or because they like graphics on your Facebook Fan Page or Twitter skin. Take the time to listen to them so that you can provide better products and services to your existing customers. Quality connections will spread the word about your products and services providing your business with more leads. That is the heart of word-of-mouth marketing!
As I sat on the edge of my bed last night, I turned on the tv for the first time in hours. Why? Habit, I guess.
Imagine my surprise when I saw the news about Osama Bin Laden being killed by U.S. special forces. As with any other news, I took to Twitter to validate whether or not this was true.
Just imagine that. Here I am sitting in front of one of the most recognizable news sources on the planet, and I wanted to know if this was trending on Twitter.
I think that says something about this time in our lives and in our country.
Twitter said it recorded the “highest sustained rate of Tweets ever” on Sunday evening, when an average of 3,440 tweets per second were sent between 10:45PM EST and 12:30 AM EST.
The tweets sent per second reached a peak of 5,106 at 11PM EST on Sunday evening. It’s an impressive figure, but one that falls short of the rate recorded during the Japanese earthquake and tsunami (5,530 tweets per second) and New Year’s Eve (6,939 tweets per second).
The Internet traffic spike prompted by Obama’s announcement increased global web traffic by 24 percent, though bin Laden’s death not make Akamai’s list of the top news events, as measured by page views per minute. Sporting events, including the World Cup qualifying match played during a record-setting Wimbledon match, as well as the “Royal Wedding” ranked higher in terms of total page views per minute.
What does it say to you when people flock to Twitter to validate news? To me it says my advertisers should be there too.
Social.Motive is a collaboration of 3 national advertising agencies. Our sole purpose is to provide the very best social media solutions to companies needing assistance in the vast Social Media world.
Here you can read blogs from our Social Media Directors David O'Hearn, Kate Carroll, Michelle Gamradt, and Shalanna Clark.
If you have any questions or suggestions on how we can improve this site feel free to email us at TheSocialMotive@Gmail.com
