50 Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing
Social media isn’t always the right tool for the job. Not every company needs a blog. YouTube worked for BlendTec, but it might not work for your company. And yet, there’s something to this. Over the last three days, I’ve spoken to four HUGE brands in America that are considering social media for one project or another, and there are many more out there working on how these tools might integrate into their business needs. Here’s a list of 50 ideas (in no particular order) to help move the conversation along. Note: I mix PR and Marketing. They should get back together again.
Please feel free to share this with others, and reblog it, provided you link back to [chrisbrogan.com] as the source.
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50 Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing
- Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.
- Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.
- For every video project purchased, ensure there’s an embeddable web version for improved sharing.
- Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.
- Create informational podcasts about a product’s overall space, not just the product.
- Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.
- Help companies participate in existing social networks, and build relationships on their turf.
- Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality. (Don’t fabricate this).
- Couple your email newsletter content with additional website content on a blog for improved commenting.
- Build sentiment measurements, and listen to the larger web for how people are talking about your customer.
- Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.
- Download the Social Media Press Release (pdf) and at least see what parts you want to take into your traditional press releases.
- Try out a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts as content marketing and see how they draw.
- Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.
- Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. (Marvel Comics raised my impression of this with their Hulk statue Flickr group).
- Recommend that your staff start personal blogs on their personal interests, and learn first hand what it feels like, including managing comments, wanting promotion, etc.
- Map out an integrated project that incorporates a blog, use of commercial social networks, and a face-to-face event to build leads and drive awareness of a product.
- Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi Data Systems.
- Experiment with the value of live video like uStream.tv and Mogulus, or Qik on a cell phone.
- Attend a conference dealing with social media like New Media Expo, BlogWorld Expo, New Marketing Summit (disclosure: I run this one with CrossTech), and dozens and dozens more. (Email me for a calendar).
- Collect case studies of social media success. Tag them “socialmediacasestudy” in del.icio.us.
- Interview current social media practitioners. Look for bridges between your methods and theirs.
- Explore distribution. Can you reach more potential buyers/users/customers on social networks.
- Don’t forget early social sites like Yahoogroups and Craigslist. They still work remarkably well.
- Search Summize.com for as much data as you can find in Twitter on your product, your competitors, your space.
- Practice delivering quality content on your blogs, such that customers feel educated / equipped / informed.
- Consider the value of hiring a community manager. Could this role improve customer service? Improve customer retention? Promote through word of mouth?
- Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.
- Learn what other free tools might work for community building, like MyBlogLog.
- Ensure you offer the basics on your site, like an email alternative to an RSS subscription. In fact, the more ways you can spread and distribute your content, the better.
- Investigate whether your product sells better by recommendation versus education, and use either wikis and widgets to help recommend, or videos and podcasts for education.
- Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.
- Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.
- Learn how not to ask for 40 pieces of demographic data when giving something away for free. Instead, collect little bits over time. Gently.
- Remember that the people on social networks are all people, have likely been there a while, might know each other, and know that you’re new. Tread gently into new territories. Don’t NOT go. Just go gently.
- Help customers and prospects connect with you simply on your various networks. Consider a Lijit Wijit or other aggregator widget.
- Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.
- Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger.
- Find a bunch of bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and ask them for opinions on your social media projects. See if you can give them a free sneak peek at something, or some other “you’re special” reward for their time and effort (if it’s material, ask them to disclose it).
- Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers. Excellent resource: Susan Getgood.
- Try out shooting video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Don’t throw out text, but try adding video.
- Explore several viewpoints about social media marketing.
- Women are adding lots of value to social media. Get to know the ones making a difference. (And check out BlogHer as an event to explore).
- Experiment with different lengths and forms of video. Is entertaining and funny but brief better than longer but more informative? Don’t stop with one attempt. And try more than one hosting platform to test out features.
- Work with practitioners and media makers to see how they can use their skills to solve your problems. Don’t be afraid to set up pilot programs, instead of diving in head first.
- People power social media. Learn to believe in the value of people. Sounds hippie, but it’s the key.
- Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen.
- Don’t be afraid to fail. Be ready to apologize. Admit when you’ve made a mistake.
- Re-examine who in the organization might benefit from your social media efforts. Help equip them to learn from your project.
- Use the same tools you’re trying out externally for internal uses, if that makes sense, and learn about how this technology empowers your business collaboration, too.
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Consider this a start. You probably could add another 50 tips for marketers and PR professionals to consider by adding to the comments section, or blogging an additional list at your site. I know you’ve got some ideas that I’ve missed. Care to share?
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The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.
Example of a Great PR Pitch
Tom O’Brien took a chance tonight. He decided to send a pitch to a blogger, and see what would happen. And now, I’m going to show Tom (and you) what happened, first by reprinting his letter to me, and then, by commenting on his letter to me.
Tom sent this from his personal account. It was real and human right from the start.
Hi Chris:
As I read your (and lots of other blogs), it’s clear that bloggers don’t like to be blindly pitched by PR Firms. (As a (not prominent) blogger myself, I think I’d welcome the attention – but I digress.)
Tom has led with deference to what a blogger wants (thank you) and then self-deprecation that made me appreciate his point of view. I want to address Tom’s point about attention: sure, we love the attention, and it feeds a small part of our ego if we feel like you’re opening up a new relationship, and not just lobbing a press release at us (or me, at least. Let me say “me.”). Tom made me feel at home with this opening.
So, here’s my own pitch, I hope it isn’t too spammy.
1. MotiveQuest has developed a tool to measure brand advocacy in social media
2. This measure has been proven as a leading indicator of sales.
3. We have just announced it – the Online Promoter ScoreTM
Easy. It’s a list. It’s a numbered list. I love this. Brevity at it’s finest. I didn’t have to wade through a stupid fake newspaper headline and quotes from people I don’t know or care about.
Given the continuous debate about social media metrics around here, I think this is big news. And this is my Social Media Release.
Tom’s right on key here. This is DEFINITELY something we talk about a lot. I spent a little time with an agency today, and that was the key thing we talked about as a sticking point.
If you would like to learn more and perhaps write about this you can:
1. Schedule a brief call with me at MotiveQuest (tobrien@xxxxxxxx.com)
2. Here’s the press release
3. Here’s the Brand Advocacy landing page with the how, what and why of Online Promoter Score
4. Here’s the AdAge article about it: Linking Web Buzz to Mini Sales
5. Here’s my blog post about it Brand Advocacy Matters
6. Here’s our del.icio.us page with lots of articles about brand advocacy and related topics.
Again with the list. This was AWESOME. It felt like choosing off a menu. I felt like I knew immediately what to do with this opportunity.
If you can’t stand to get any more email from me, just let me know and I won’t do this again.
Funny and disarming, and also very very very human.
Lessons Learned
Dear PR Professionals–
Tom did everything right here. He started by identifying with me on a personal level, and letting me know within the first paragraph that he knew my perspective. He went on to tell me why this might be pertinent to me. He went into very brief, simple, bulleted lists, showing me how I could pursue the opportunity to write about this. He finished with a human offer of opting out.
Please try to dissect this further, take it to your labs, and learn from it. Please realize that maybe what’s missing, is a two part process.
- Send me the disarming email with simple-to-digest info first.
- If I respond positively, then see whether I need your big fat press release written as if it’s going to Walt Mossberg’s next article.
Step 1 is the secret sauce here, PR friends. Start by establishing your human side. Connect with me. Give me something really easy to consider.
And THEN see if I want a Step 2.
Is this faster? no. More efficient? no. Best way to do it? I think so.
What do you think?
Note to Social Media Types- Build Your Interfaces
If you’re thinking about a future in social media, build your interfaces. This means, if you’re someone making media, build your text, video, audio, and your entire business with the mindset of how to connect it up to other organizations. Think TechCrunch meets the Washington Post, for instance. Think about how you will share: content, processes, financial back and forths, responsibilities.
Businesses in social media must be modular. Why “must?” Because you’ll miss opportunities. Tether to your own little island and when that rising tide gathers all the boats, you’ll be on the bottom of the new ocean.
And this goes for social media consultants, too. Learn how to be the PR and Marketing and Advertising company’s “go to guy,” not just someone who comes in and shares the word with the uninitiated. Teach how these pieces all go together, and show where YOU fit that experience.
And then, on the same topic, do the same for big businesses. Because if you’re thinking PR and marketing companies will carry on in the exact same way they exist today, think again. They know it. That’s why they’re working to adapt their value statements. That’s why they pay attention in the first place.
Big businesses and little businesses alike are figuring out these tools for their own use. Disaggregated. The same way record labels suddenly woke up to find themselves a little less “necessary,” certain oldschool communications companies will soon find themselves pushed off to the side.
Get modular. Get agile. Get more creative in how you will link to various opportunities.
What’s your take?
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.
Some Differences Between Pitching Mainstream Press and Bloggers
Meet the next generation of people who put stories out on the web. I say “next,” but blogging has been around for years and years. Some of us are making decent money at it, hiring and employing staffs, etc. Those types seem like mainstream press. But they’re not. One difference? We blog based on what drives our passion, plus in the case of some folks, what drives revenue.
Blogs have reach. Blogs don’t have as many barriers to cross before you reach the decision maker. Blogs don’t (always) require a PR agency to help you get access. Blogs always need good content, right? So it seems like a natural thing to just lob stories at a blogger, because more often than not, they’re going to be receptive, will run the bit if it fits their readership (viewership), and everyone wins, right?
Some differences.
Bloggers Often Write From Passion
Lots of us can’t NOT blog. We love what we do. We’re obsessed with getting information out into the world. Desperate to be useful. I’d say that we’re like news junkies, only we’re really interested in how we can contribute to making the news.
Bloggers Have a Bit More Ego Feeding Required
Try to disagree with me on that one, but when I just start rattling bloggers’ names down quickly, I can tell you that there are things you’ll want to do to reach out, and one is to know what makes a certain blogger tick. Want to get into TechCrunch or Mashable? Be sure you’re giving one the exclusive, and pick wisely. Want to get covered by Engadget? Don’t give it to Gizmodo on the same day. Go a few tiers down in blogs and what we want is to know that you know who we are, and what we cover. A pitch about something in my general area isn’t the same as noticing the kinds of things I write about and giving me something that fits.
Bloggers Like Free Prize Inside Experiences
If you want us to write about your software app or your new gizmo, give a few away. Nokia, Nikon, Flip, GM (Saturn), Garmin, and tons of other companies have given out gear on loaner programs (sometimes handled well, and other times handled a bit weirdly). And if it’s not something directly tangible, it’s something like getting invited to a pre-screening of a movie, or to a closed beta of an application, or something else that makes one feel exclusive. Still an ego play, and yet, very effective because once we play with your toys, we’ll be inclined to write about them.
Will we be fair and give opinions on the competitors like an official review site? Not always. Depends who it is, whether that’s part of their bailiwick, and whether they even know how to approach such a thing. I sure don’t. If I’m given something free to mess around with, I disclose it when talking about it, but then, my site isn’t a journalistic effort to review things fairly.
Bloggers Don’t Have To Be Polite
Though I prefer politeness, and try to be polite often (Sorry, Tom), it’s not required. And we don’t always do what you’d wish. It’s a little uncertain sometimes what you’ll get when you send a request to us. Wish it weren’t true, and I would prefer that we be polite more often, but we don’t have to be.
What Twitter Had to Say When I Asked My Friends
(That’s a hint, too. We’re far more networked. We talk to each other. We talk about YOU.)
Pitching ME
First, I have to say that I’m not usually on the lookout for a news story. If you read back through my posts, a great many of them deal with strategy and tactics that people can employ. I read about 1000 news items a day, plus I have a day job that isn’t professional blogging. So, I don’t always need news.
And yet.
If you’ve got something interesting about a new tool, a new way that someone’s using social media to build business or organizational relationships, a sense of what’s interesting to me and want to feed me something, here’s what you might do:
- Be my Twitter friend.
- Have read my last ten blog posts to have a sense of my flavor.
- Give me links, pointers, possibly screenshots, and follow up in about 9 days when I still haven’t managed to get your story out.
- Kindly understand if the story doesn’t fit what I cover (often).
- Realize that I can’t always check out your website.
- Understand that a “social network for ____” (dogs, lawyers, imaginary friends, ex-cons) isn’t really new unless they’re doing something REALLY new.
- Write the first paragraph of your email as if you really did only send it to me (I get it, but pretend, okay?)
While We’re At It
Here’s what I *am* really interested in writing more about, and where you can help me, if you’ve got an interesting story:
- Social media and network use inside the enterprise. (Spoke at Thomson/Reuters and IBM recently and was really impressed in both cases with what they’re already doing).
- Specialized social network applications - things that make a network more valuable, vs just profiles, blogs, pictures, and friends.
- Books about social media, social networks, next-generation PR/marketing, business, etc.
- Business models that aren’t advertising-centric. (For instance, Sermo has a neat model. So does Gimp.TV).
- Mainstream people coming into social media in a realistic and meaningful way.
- Nonprofit and organizational experiences with social media that have made an impact.
- Location-based tools and networking (for instance, I’m digging Yahoo’s Fire Eagle stuff)
- Technology that improves business, that improves personal interfacing with the Internet.
I’m probably forgetting a few of my favorites in there, but let’s start there. If you’re pitching something like THAT, drop me a line. My contact info is in the sidebar. I’m easy to find.
Further Reading
Social media expert, Jason Falls covered an advertising professional’s view on this recently, and that’s worth checking out, too.
Edelman’s superstar, Leah Jones showed us how to talk to bloggers.
Your Thoughts?
Lots of people who come here are PR or marketing professionals, journalists, and the like. What do you think about what I’ve said so far? What are your tales of success with bloggers, or your tales of woe? Bloggers, am I wrong in my starting concepts about what might feel different about bloggers vs mainstream press? I’m eager for your take.
Screen caps made with Skitch
Marketers in a Social Network World
Consider what a marketer’s role is: deliver more customers/clients/purchases. You can talk about education and building community and brand management, but there are really only a few metrics that ultimately will get a marketer noticed:
- Increase in sales.
- Good media coverage.
- Healthy sales/customer pipeline.
Am I right? (I’m not a marketer by trade or experiences. I’m a hack who sometimes gets put in the position of helping people market.)
If so, we have to consider what it’s going to be like for you as a marketer, being told to try out things like Facebook and Twitter and other social networks to do what you’re tasked with doing. One problem is that there are obvious benefits to using online methods to market, and yet, it’s not as easy as just blasting your traditional messages via electronic channels. here are some thoughts.
You’re the Visitor
In some cases, newly arriving marketers are quick to dive in and and get their message heard. They make a few cursory passes around the “neighborhood” and then set to work talking about their product or service. The problem is, even though it feels like this new neighborhood is filled with random people, lots of us know each other, and we don’t know you. We understand the pace, the patter, the social norms of this environment. Coming in and getting down to business is frowned upon in almost all cases.
Get to know some people. It does take a little more time, but the results are better. I know plenty of people who could pitch me their new project without me feeling weird or put out by them. Why? Because we’ve already gone through the effort of getting to know each other. I assume that what they’re pitching will be of interest to me, and I trust that they’ll be straightforward with what they need, while being sensitive to their relationship with me.
In the end, people who pitch me well get what they seek, and I do even more than a “cold call” would expect, because by that point, I feel invested in the outcome because I know and appreciate the person who pitched me.
And when the pitch doesn’t match my interests, no harm no foul. Try doing that with a “cold” dive into a social network and see what you get.
Collaboration and Two Way Roads
We do a lot of collaboration in social media and social networks. Sometimes, it’s about your cause. Other times, it’s about mine. Even the non-marketers are marketing for attention. Make a point of helping out others often. Try to be there when they need you, and Digg their story, chip in the $10, or do whatever else needs doing.
People remember those who help out. And then when the time comes, it’s a little more likely that people will be inclined to help.
Is this “quid pro quo?” Maybe. But it’s very tacit and explicit, and people who are collaborating understand that it’s a give-and-take relationship.
When you come without that kind of investment already built into the community, you have to spend some time sharing and doing what else needs doing, as well.
Shared Value
Marketing is used to the idea of giving something to get something. It’s not very different in the social networks world. Only, really consider the value before making the offer. If you’re marketing something that has a fan base, give ways for people to have access to something (give Sony pictures fans cool games to play, like they did with 30 Days of Night’s vampires game on Facebook). Give people who love your software a badge to place on their site, if they want, but make a value link back to the person displaying such a badge.
In short, in the universe of social networks, it’s not enough to hit people over the head with your message. Instead, the goal shifts towards finding supporters and giving them something of value, on one front.
Wooing Non-Customers
Social networks afford marketers the opportunity to learn lots about people. You can read Facebook profiles and understand what people like, who they know, what they support, etc. This means it’s a great environment to find out about people who aren’t engaged with your product, or who use a competing product.
If you’re a smart company like the guys from Zoho, you have search terms and triggers set up for when people mention their products, and I’m going to bet that they have terms set up on certain competing products, as well. (I’m not singling them out, but I’ve met the Zoho team, and have talked with them online - on my blog plenty of times and also in email - and I think they’re a great example of people paying attention to their non-customer base, as well as those who are already believers).
With this knowledge, you have the chance to build relationships, and offer opportunities for people to try out a product they might not be currently using. Don’t be pushy about it, but by paying good attention to blog posts and profile information and the flow of words on Twitter, a marketer can also find their non-customers identifying themselves over and over again.
Because these social networks capture data that isn’t usually considered - watercooler-like conversations, for instance- you have an opportunity that doesn’t exist in the offline world. How you execute on it is the real question. Will you be ready?
Marketers Can Do Magic on Social Networks
But only smart ones. Those who choose to roll their existing methods onto the web will find themselves writing articles in magazines about how the web is a horrible place to market. For the rest of you (and I mostly mean YOU), this is a great place to start out learning, and then grow into being a transplant to this new community. In no time, you’ll be one of the gang, and hopefully, the metrics that matter most to your organization will be growing in the right ways, by way of your efforts.
The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.
Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.
