When I was little — long before I ever knew advertising was a career — I fell in love with taglines. But I wasn’t the only one, people my age still quote the age old Nike tagline: Just Do It, and (I’m sure I’m dating myself) Kentucky Fried Chicken’s: We Do Chicken Right. The reason people like quoting and making puns out of those now clichés is because even after all those years, those words still ring true.
Just two days ago I sat across from a prospective client of mine who was considering having us build a Social Media program for his restaurant. As he sat through our quick demonstration on how Social Media builds relationships, we were able to educate him on how those relationships turn into restaurant traffic and into dollars and cents for his bottom line. When the meeting was nearly done, I looked the client in the eye and put my own spin on KFC’s iconic gem, “I know it’s a lot of information to digest in one sitting, but if you take nothing else away from this meeting, hear this: If you can’t do it right, don’t do it.”
Do I regret saying it? Absolutely NOT! That’s how passionately I feel about Social Media Marketing. You only get one chance to make a first impression. Don’t waste your chance!
I could see the wheels spinning internally. Although he never said it, I could tell he was thinking what lots of prospective clients do. I know I need a professional Social Media manager, but how can I get it out of the resources I already have? This will take a lot of time. Do I have to hire someone?
Here are some simple do’s and don’ts of Social Media for Business:
DO:
Develop and follow a plan – Just as you wouldn’t approach any other type of Marketing without a plan, don’t approach social media without goals a budget and expected ROI.
Integrate everything – Make every dollar you spend work together to deliver consistent brand positioning and messaging. Say it well and say it often.
Share plans with your team – Be sure that everyone on your team is on the same page.
Invest Time – To ‘do it right’, Social Media requires daily attention. That doesn’t mean full-time attention, but someone should carve out a portion of their day to make your program a success.
Reward the relationship with contests, special offers, etc. – Let’s face it. Customers are doing you a favor by connecting with your business socially. Make it worth their while!
DON’T:
Ignore Social Media – I think it’s obvious to everyone that Social Media is growing and is not going anywhere anytime soon. In 2001, you needed a website. In 2011, you need Social Media.
Launch and Leave – I can’t tell you how many times my colleagues and I see people start a blog or a Facebook page and their last post was 6 months ago. If you don’t use it, your customers will not see it as a viable mode of communication with you.
Expect it grow on it’s own – If you build it, they will not come. Social Media requires implementation of your push strategy.
Impose personal beliefs – There is a place for religion and politics, but that place is not your Social Network.
Forget to make it fun – Relationship building will result in more business, because now customers aren’t buying from the [restaurant]. They have a “friend” in the [restaurant] business.
As for my potential client in the restaurant business, I’d like to tell you he made the right decision and hired Social.Motive to manage his Social Media program, but the jury’s still out on that at the moment. Either way I hope he gets the chance to ‘do it right’ like KFC.
"Drinking Miracle Beer gave me these ripped biceps!"
If your plan is instant gratification, 1,000′s of new sales, people knocking down your door because you are flooding Facebook and Twitter with deals, discounts and retail sales, then you are probably going to be disappointed in the short term. which will ultimately lead to you convincing yourself that Social Media won’t work for you or your business. Tsk, tsk, tsk. This is is the biggest pitfall we’ve encountered among clients looking for the magic retail bullet in a relationship environment.
Let’s cut to the chase and explain what Social Media is and what you can expect from it. First off, it’s not anything like traditional advertising in the sense that we’ve come to know i over the past 100 years. We’re not selling the “sizzle of the steak” any more…you are selling the whole BBQ! The Neuromarketing aspect of traditional advertising; the “Wow, I could have a ultra-buff body too if I drank an ultra-low carb beer!” isn’t a part of Social Media. In fact, Social Media is used to build relationships, share information, educate and entertain. So, taking the same example above and putting it in a social environment like Facebook would go something like this:
“I notice that all of the models you use are in really good shape, do they really drink your beer?”
“They do, actually, but they also exercise and eat a well balanced diet. Many of the people who drink our product use it as a reward system after the meet a weight or exercise goal. If you want to learn more how you can actually lose weight and not have to give up the stuff you like, you can check out our web site for a free 6 week meal and exercise plan at Miraclebeer.com. Feel free to ask us any questions you may have, too!”
“I’ll do that, thanks.”
Bing…bang…boom, you’ve just formed the beginning of a “very beautiful friendship” which you can cultivate as time goes own. They are happy they don’t have to give up beer and at the same time they are losing weight just because you interacted with them the way a Social Media Marketing Platform dictates, you gave them something they needed.
Hey, and guess what, this isn’t just one person you are talking too either, but a whole community of people who look to you for education and guidance…all while drinking your amazing “Miracle Beer”.
Social Media Wonder Kid, Chris Brogan states the the importance of building relationships this way:
Your community is a gift. Loyal connectivity between whatever you represent and the people who are drawn to it is a huge boon that you must nurture and feed. This leads to the business you’re so hoping to attain.
Think about it: would you rather 10,000 dispassionate people swing by, and maybe 50 make a purchase, or would you rather 300 really loyal people stick around, buy from you when the products make sense, and tell their friends how they’re part of something?
Think about this for a second. Regardless what product or service you might be offering, what is more important to you? I think the answer is pretty obvious. Inclusion in a community can do wonders to not just sell your product, but create loyalty almost beyond the brand itself. The environment of social media is quite often the meet and greet before the sale. It’s a chance to include people, to invite them in, to get to know them. And not because they’re a buyer, but because they’re people who’ve expressed an interest, and who might lead to even more sales opportunities.
Questions? Comments? Rebuttals? How do you think Social Media should work? Leave us a comment.
Facebook is constantly creating new apps and features to help business owners. Many business owners are not using these tools to their full potential even though it would help them to increase their bottom line. The latest feature is called “Questions” the feature now shows up as an option in your status update. It allows you to ask questions/polls and get answers in real time. This can be utilized in so many different ways for various types of business. For Example, a restaurant can use it to find out what the special of the month should be; a car dealership could use it to find out where people go to get their cars serviced and why. This tool allows you to not only create real-time interaction with consumers, but enables you to pin-point what area of your business you should be focused on based on what the people want!
Grossman:Oxford Communications decided to test out the functionality and float this question out to our fans:
Within 15 hours, we had engaged 13% of our fanbase and had not only gained votes on answers we had given to the question; we also had fans suggesting (and voting for) new answers, including local couponing sites, LiveTVChat and more. For us, it was an opportunity to enjoy a high level of engagement with our followers, emerge as a thought leader and learn a little all at the same time. VIA{Mashable}
As of right now this is a free feature for all to users whether it is for personal use or for business. So don’t want to see what everyone else is doing. Take advantage of this new engaging tool and come back to let us know what your results were. If you looked on your page and still don’t see the icon just click here to grab it and try it out!
I am in no way saying that only Facebook can help. There are many different social programs out there. Facebook is just one of the many that your business should be involved in. Facebook is one of the #1 social sites in the world. It is undoubtedly #1 in the USA. Check out these reasons why I believe you can not afford to not have a presence on Facebook.
Popularity:
With 100 million US users Facebook leads the pack. That’s 100 million different people that you can reach. Did you know that 50% of your market is on Facebook? You need to be engaging with and building relationships with not only your previous customers but with a piece of that 100 million people pie!
Activity:
It’s one thing to have a lot of users, but it’s another to have active users. Facebook boasts some of the highest usage statistics of the net. In fact, any given day 50% of Facebook users are on. Most users are on at least once per day. – Darren Olander
Time:
Not only are Facebook users logging in each day, but they are spending lots of time there. As a whole, Facebook users spend over 500 billion minutes per month – or 8.33 billion “free” hours. This means that your audience will have all of this time to be exposed to your advertising. - Darren Olander
Influential Friends:
Let’s think about this…. I have 896 friends. I check into Pour House and post it on Facebook letting my 896 friends know where I am and that I am watching a baseball game and got a sweet deal on a beer. 896 friends just saw that, know where I am, know that the Pour House has great beer specials. I become a fan of Classic Chevrolet in Grapevine. It shows up on my wall to 896 people that I became a fan. They share it with their friends, they join the page. The number of impressions is outstanding.
Integration with the web:
During the last year, Facebook has become even more integral to the way people use the Internet as a whole. Facebook Connect has allowed the Facebook experience to become integrated with nearly 80,000 sites. This means Facebook is a central hub for online content. - Darren Olander
Sharing Multimedia:
I have this thing about taking pictures of cars in compromising positions. For instance car wrecks, or bad parking. Facebook allows me to upload that multimedia message in a split second from my phone and share it with my friends. Now, maybe my friends don’t car about the crazy cars that I see but think of all the other things that I could share if I wanted to.
Instant Access to Your Market:
When someone visits your website, you’re not sure who they are – but Facebook gives you an edge. With just a few minutes of searching through Facebook profiles, you can get a good sense of who your followers are and what they are interested in. This can help you plan your future marketing. - Darren Olander
Targeted Advertising:
Beyond starting a group and encouraging fans, you can also use Facebook’s advertising platform to display ads to interested users. Unlike other paid advertising systems, Facebook allows you to target your advertising to people with specific hobbies and interests. This can make your advertising a lot more effective and drive a lot more traffic to your website. - Darren Olander
This has worked great for our clients when it comes to contest time. Just think I am able to target people in Pittsburgh PA that are 18 and up, are not currently fans of Clem’s RV and Trailer Sales, that are male or female, the list is endless of things I can enter. Facebook ads are the quickest and easiest way to get your name out there.
So, as you can see there is no reason why you shouldn’t give it a try. Just a piece of advice though…. Post at least 1 thing to your Facebook everyday so that you remain relevant. Don’t over post though…. You will get hidden in your fans feeds because you have officially annoyed them. Try to stay as non retail as you can. No one cares that you just got a new car on your used lot and it’s dirt cheap. You need to provide your Facebook fans with interesting, engaging, fun information. That’s what they want and that’s what will keep them around.
This, in a nutshell, is the reason why social media is so important in this tough economic climate. You want to make sure you are getting the best deal, so you buy from those you trust. By now you are well aware of the existence of social media and marketing. That being said, if you’ve been avoiding adding social to your marketing plan, you are basically a spectator in the ever changing marketing game. Without a well thought out and consistently maintained program, you are essentially fishing in the same old cove…while the fish are moving into different waters.
So, what does social REALLY do? It gives the ability for you to reach your customers on a personal level and share information, education and entertainment with them. It’s not about online selling…it’s about building relationships. The selling comes later.
Here, check out this video if you are uncertain about the power of social media:
Further, a well maintained social program gives your customers a voice and the ability to directly contact you, share a story, to give praise or even lodge a complaint. All of which you have instant access to and either thank them or do some damage control. Make no mistake, if you get a less than thrilling Facebook post by a fan, you know that you have a problem that needs to be addressed and the rest of your fans can witness your customer service first hand. This drives home the feeling of, “I’ve got someone in the business I know and can trust”. This is the bottom line. The sales and connections you make that are a direct result of social media and marketing prove the belief that “people buy from people, not companies”. Oh sure there is such thing as dealer/distributor loyalty, but I’m willing to bet in almost all of those cases they aren’t buying from the establishment as much as they are buying from a trusted salesman.
In the past, building consumer trust was earned over a longer period of time, through multiple customer meetings/purchases, over the phone, via email, you name it. With a good social media program, you are looking at thousands of daily impressions, the ability to communicate in real time and even advertise for very limited money to a mind boggling number of impressions.
Why anyone who is truly concerned about growing their business and continues to avoid social media is beyond me…but then again, I may as well assume that they are still communicating with smoke signals and carrier pigeons.
“Social Network”, a movie about the founding of Facebook, has won the Golden Globe for best drama. Not only did it win for Best Drama, but it also won for David Fincher’s direction, Aaron Sorkin’s script and the score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. After receiving top honors from critics groups coast to coast, this resounding victory positions the film as the front-runner at the Academy Awards.
It makes an untellable story clear and fascinating. It is said to be impossible to make a movie about a writer, because how can you show him only writing? It must also be impossible to make a movie about a computer programmer, because what is programming but writing in a language few people in the audience know? Yet Fincher and his writer, Aaron Sorkin, are able to explain the Facebook phenomenon in terms we can immediately understand, which is the reason 500 million of us have signed up! Watch the trailer below:
As you can see, you don’t get to 500 million fans without making a few enemies. Mark Zuckerberg’s incredible story of how he became the world’s youngest billionaire is quite compelling. As Roger Ebert descriptively states:
To conceive of Facebook, Zuckerberg needed to know almost nothing about relationships or human nature – and apparently he didn’t. What he needed was the ability to intuit a way to involve the human race in the “Kevin Bacon” game. Remember that Kevin Bacon himself need not know more than a fraction of the people linking through him. Same on Facebook. I probably know 40 of my Facebook friends well, 100 glancingly, 200 by reputation. All the others are friends of friends. I can’t remember the last time I received a Friend Request from anyone I didn’t share at least one “Mutual Friend” with.
Social media uses web-based technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogues. It is a group of Internet-based applications that build on ideological and technological foundations, which allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content – (per Wikipedia).
This modern revolution in communication is a “Fluid” interaction between private friends, as well as the largest corporations to the most common of retail clients. If you personally or your company are not part of this revolution, then you are getting left behind at a never before seen pace. Corporations are now putting a more “personal” and friendly face to their marketing strategies: Blog writing, Twitter followers, Facebook updates and events and traditional web-site marketing.
Keeping up with all of this fast paced change and technology can be impossibly taxing on a small to medium sized business. Here at Social Motive and Wheeler Advertising, we integrate ALL of these practices for our clients by incorporating “traditional” marketing practices with the necessity of modern “social” marketing strategies.
In closing, I would like to recommend “Social Network”, especially if you are not a part of everyday Social Media concepts. Not only is it entertaining and well written, but it also sheds some light on today’s most popular Social Media outlet – Facebook.
- Lance Thorley
Social Media Director
SocialMotive and Wheeler Advertising
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
