But since you are here, we know that you are interested in selling.

So, current social media marketing seems to involve setting up an awesome Facebook page or Twitter account, attracting loads of followers and thereby tonnes of people will hear all about your product or service and naturally buy it. Or that’s the thinking, anyway.

But there’s something missing from this equation, who are you selling to?

Who’s your audience?

It might seem like a really obvious question but until you answer this (or we answer this by analysing your market for you) your social media marketing could easily fall into the ineffective basket.

What I’m getting at is that some companies start from the end-point-of-sale focusing on their wonderful service or product. They want to tell the customer about it, how fabulous it is and exactly why they must buy it but they don’t think enough about who the customers really are and the medium they’re using to reach them. That’s where we come in.

When you know who your customer is, you’ll know how to talk to them.

Let’s look at an example. You manage a hotel in Bali and you want people to come and stay at your hotel. Whilst it is a terrific idea to tell people all about the amazing aspects of your hotel and things that make Bali special, it’s the voice you use depending on the medium you are marketing through, as well as who your customer is that will make your campaign effective.

So… let’s have a look at a few of these mediums….

Webpage – this is where you can provide excellent, in-depth information on your hotel, rooms, guest areas, pool, location and so on. Some of it will be written in an informative manner, other parts will have a more fun vibe. It depends on the customer and what they are wanting to know, right?

Facebook pages – Facebook is a funny thing. To market effectively you really have to decide how you can provide effective snippets that people will enjoy and share. I haven’t met a single person who can resist an amazing photo, so right away with a destination page, I would start there. It creates an instant conversation. Secondly, Facebook fans who have liked a page about a hotel in Bali are probably interested in the area, so small details, interesting facts and loads of ‘what’s on’ style posts and links would work well. Lastly, it’s all about sharing. Let people have a conversation on your Facebook page, generate that extra interest by listening to your customers and joining in with the comments or posts they like.

Twitter – I use Twitter as a foghorn, whereas Facebook is a more personalised zone. Twitter is a way to reach the masses instantly and, if your follower (read potential customer) likes it they may ‘Retweet’ your ‘Tweet’ sending it out to potentially thousands more interested people in the Tweetshpere (read potential customers). Some of the business Tweets I’ve sent have reached a phenomenal audience through Retweets and all for free! If your Tweet matters and speaks to the person who receives it then there is no telling where it may end up and who may click on your site to stay in your hotel (as per our example) just because of this random connection.

Blog – a blog can be so many things. It can explain your business, provide a more personalised approach or create interest in something. For a hotel, blogging about local identities, places to visit, experiences people have had would be a good start. If I was a potential customer coming to stay I’d love to read about the things we could do and what other people thought of them. That’s great marketing because it creates interest.

Your Social Media Marketing is about the voice as much as the message. Generate the vibe by listening to your customers and thinking about what they want to hear and how.

Believe me, I definitely heard him.  I’ve been struggling with this same phenomenon myself for some time now.  Not particularly the few subscribers or the feeling of not doing or achieving anything, but more how do I move forward to achieve something?

And that’s my rub as I guess it is for many online marketers, bloggers or social media enthusiasts.  What really does make an online campaign work?

In the past few weeks I think I’ve learnt a lot about this.

1. Look after your backyard first.  By this I mean exactly what Blog Tyrant was saying, he wasn’t keeping up with his own blog.  I am the same.  I’m so busy improving the status of my clients’ blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and so on that I rarely take care of my own.  Big mistake!

2. Results are important.  Everyone wants to know how you can help them.  Let’s refer to number 1 – if you can’t show results on your own blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube then no amount of pointing to clients’ pages you’ve improved will help.

3. Don’t expect results overnight.  Oh, and don’t expect the results to be X number of increased ‘likes’ or ‘comments’ or ‘followers’ and so on.  Real interaction is what we are looking for.  By looking at impressions, user interaction, where your Tweet has been reTweeted or your blog copied into an online newspaper for example.  This is when the power of social media marketing is really paying off.

So who’s hearing you?

Right now I know that no-one is hearing me.  Sure, this week alone I’ve written web content on contingency trading, sports power bands, translation; blog posts for tourism agencies, apartment buildings and a financial company; Facebook and Twitter posts for at least five organisations but have I written anything for my company for my direct marketing benefit?  

Nope!  So no-one is really hearing me.  And yep, lesson learned, hence this post….

Connect may mean walking into your store to make a purchase, dining at your restaurant, hitting the ‘add to cart’ button or hiring you professionally.

I’ve already mentioned the power of social media marketing, but this is nothing if you don’t have excellent content.

So many would-be marketers add pointless posts to Twitter or Facebook uploading meaningless content that their potential audience largely ignores.

Why?  Because they are not interested, they are not motivated enough to click on your link or like your post.  You are effectively invisible, and after the hours you’ve spent posting, Tweeting and blogging, this can feel like a real kick in the gut.

First step, understand your market.  If you are marketing a tourist destination, Facebook photos or video of the location, blog about interesting facts and things to see and do, provide helpful hints on finding accommodation, cafes, shops, and so on.

If you are marketing a particular brand, perhaps sports wear, provide photos of people competing in these sports, information on upcoming meets or competitions, tips on how to reach peak fitness, useful information on your sports wear and how it can help performance.

Secondly, great content markets something your audience is interested in and tells the truth.  If you blog about how to effectively monitor return on investment (ROI) on online media as part of your marketing campaign, make sure your company can actually do this.

People may choose to utilise your service or buy your product, but if the experience doesn’t add up to the promise in your content then they will quickly disconnect or worse Facebook / blog / Tweet about how bad the experience was!

Lastly, providing unique, interesting content is a great way to utilise the awesome power of social media because people love to share.  Get your name or brand out there, virtually for free, by harnessing this potential

WebDominance offer social media marketing packages, but can also quote independently on writing content for your webpage, blog, e-newsletter, plus articles and brochures for print media.

But, actually, it is possible to measure your ROI (return on investment) for pretty much all types of online marketing you choose to use.  The catch is how you want to measure it.  For most practical minded business people hard proof is the only proof, stats to be exact.

So let’s have a look at where you find these stats

Your website

Sign up for an account with Google Analytics and then ask your web developer to place your unique code into your site.  Do the same for Webmaster Tools.  Both are important and both have different functions.  Let me explain.

 Google Analytics

Used as a tracking tool and free for anyone to use.  Among other things, your business can track traffic and trends, where visitors are coming from, how long they spend on the site, which site content is most interesting, which keywords lead to conversions and where your traffic came from, for example – Facebook link, e-newsletter, organic search and so on.  This information is incredibly valuable and specific.

 Webmaster Tools

Another free, dynamite Google product, Webmaster Tools provides you with data on keywords, your ranking for specific keywords, clicks, impressions and click through rate as well as how the Google bots see your page on the web.

E-newsletters

All email newsletter systems have a tracking component.  This will provide data on how many people received the newsletter, how many opened it and which articles were the most popular as well as general technical information such as which browsers are used the most.

Facebook

Facebook business pages receive weekly stats, which are sent in an email or can be viewed via your page.  These stats include: active users, new likes, user details including age, sex, location, language and post interaction.  Contrary to popular belief, interaction on your page is not based solely on how many ‘likes’ or comments you get, Facebook also tracks post impressions which links to your active users stat and reveals the true interaction and marketing value of your page.

Twitter

There are many programs available to track your Tweets in the Twittersphere.  A favourite of mine is Hootsuite, but I’m sure there are many more, which detail link-though statistics and analytics via individual message or region.

Blogs

All blog publishing applications include some form of analytics.  If your blog does not come with tracking stats then widgets are easily attached which will provide this information.  A blog with WordPress.com, for example, automatically includes stats on most popular post, most active day, referrers, search engine terms and subscribers.

And the other form of monitoring ROI?

Well, let’s face it, social media marketing is all about the discussion, you want people talking about you and your brand in a positive way.  The more people discuss your business, the more possibility of increasing brand awareness and gaining new clients.

So, social media marketing is a means for getting your message out in any way possible.  This is not always measurable as people can be sharing or using your information in ways you are not aware of but are benefiting from.

Social media marketing is, in fact, a conversation and, increasingly a very big conversation, that is important for your business to be a part of.  Not every aspect will be measurable, but every aspect can be targeted.  If your business is not part of the chat, then you’re missing out.

Engage the professionals and get everyone talking about your business and brand 

WebDominance has plans to suit every

business and budget

Contact us today!

A clever combination of blog posts, Facebook and Twitter campaigns can create increased brand exposure and bring interested customers to your business.

But the rise of these ‘cool’ social media sites has resulted in the power of the email newsletter (e-newsletter) being somewhat overlooked.

Traditional post

E-newsletters have proven extremely effective for creating awareness, passing on business information such as specials or new products, and offering incentives that increase the probability of a customer clicking through to your site.

As part of our Platinum package, Web Dominance create, write and send e-newsletters for various clients. No matter which industry is being marketed, the end result is an immediate significant spike in hits on the client’s main website.

The fun thing about social media is that every single post, newsletter, online article or website click through is measurable, but we’ll talk more about this next post.

E-newsletter marketing is very cost-effective and brings results. It is completely non-invasive, if a person doesn’t like receiving the newsletter they signed up for, they can simply unsubscribe.

A powerful tool that grabs your customer’s attention if researched and written correctly, ignore the e-newsletter at your marketing perile!

Take advantage of the Web Dominance marketing expertise and sign-up for one of our excellent Social Media Marketing packages today!

By Susan Guthrie

Everyone is atwitter about Twitter, but what exactly is it?  And, more importantly, how can Twitter help your business?

Put simply, Twitter is short (less than 140 characters) instant messages sent out into the Twitterverse.  You can receive the ‘Tweets’ of people you choose to follow and those who choose to follow you will receive yours.

Of course we’ve all heard stories about celebrities Tweeting what they had for breakfast and that’s cool, there are plenty of people wanting to know this.  But don’t let this apparent triviality put you off using Twitter to market your business.  

Can Twitter really help market my business?

Yes. In fact, Twitter is fast becoming the marketing tool of choice for savvy business owners.  Sales Specialist, Cindy King, was reluctant to use Twitter at first but decided to give it a try after a high-profile colleague suggested it as a good marketing tool.  Within a month King experienced an 800 percent increase in inquiries about her business.

The massive Twitter population provides fantastic potential to get your voice heard, your product advertised and brand awareness accelerated through followers’ lists as well as your own, resulting in a phenomenal advertising reach.

So what should I Tweet?

Business Tweets can supply interesting information and links for clients, promote products, forward great tips or thoughts from other lists you belong to, or even give customers the specials of the day!

Think about it?  If you are the local café and want to let your customers know the specials of the day, what better way than through a daily Tweet?  Instead of having to call or check out your website, a simple Tweet gives your coffee-loving foodie followers all the information they need.  And it takes you and them no time at all…

Use your account to help others and develop a network of marketing information opportunities.  Twitter is a community and it’s about time you joined.  Connect your business to potentially thousands of people in a very short time.  You’re mad if you don’t!

To start your Twitter journey go to twitter.com and sign up!  It’s that easy.

Do you want to know what the funniest thing is when you have a copywriting and social media marketing business?  You never find time to do your own.  Seriously.

Whilst bemoaning this fact to a friend, they actually suggested that I put myself on one of our Web Dominance plans.  Hmmm….sounds like good advice, perhaps the Gold?

But seriously, completing a client’s web content, posts, blogs, Tweets = money earned = ability to pay one’s bills = priority.  This is certainly short-sighted and I realise that moving to our Gold plan will use the beloved social universe to promote our business.

Don’t have time for social marketing?  Join the club!

But don’t despair, take up one of the Web Dominance super cheap plans, I’ve already said we’ll put your business first, right?

However, if you really want to go it alone, here are some time saving tips that we use with all our clients.  Gives them more bang for their buck, so to speak.

1. Recycle

It takes time to write a blog post.  A professional copywriter will search around for the best topic for your business.  It won’t just be a marketing piece, although your keywords and ‘call to actions’ will be subtly and not so subtly woven into the text.

At the end of the process, an interesting post your readers will love and share is created.  Don’t waste it, share it around.  We Facebook, Tweet and place as e-newsletter articles all blog posts.

2. Think before you Facebook or Tweet

I know that you want to get your message out there, but there is a well-known industry fact, if you overdo it people switch off and that’s not good. The second point here is that too many posts in a short period can overshadow the important ones.

Also, let’s talk timing.  If you’re speaking to the business market, Twitter and good ‘ol Facebook deserve your daytime attention.  If it’s a younger market you’re targeting or workers arriving home, then obviously timing your posts for the 7-8pm downtime rush will work better in driving your message home, or at least getting it read!

It is important to regularly Facebook and Tweet.  This will gain you fans and followers and increase your brand awareness.

Just develop a campaign of where and when.

3. Use Google Alerts

Sometimes I’ve had clients say, ‘where did you find that video, photo or news report?’  My secret Facebook and Tweet stash is Google Alerts.  Create a topic by typing in keywords and you’ll find yourself at the forefront of the latest news or events relevant to you and your business.

4. Don’t form an addiction

Social media is fun!  But learn when to switch your computer off, or you will end up like us…no time to run your own business!

Be realistic with your goals and even form a social media marketing plan if you can.

5. Contact the social media addicts at WebDominance

We have plans to suit all businesses at incredibly reasonable rates and we’ve already admitted the social media addict part.  No-one here to save. We’re already long gone….

If you want to develop an effective campaign send us a message and we’ll talk real soon!

Web Dominance – Social Media Marketing for the Masses!

My conclusion?

Even though I have just started a Facebook page for WebDominance and have a mere five people liking it (please also like it), I have decided that this page is very much essential to my business as another forum for active communication promoting an exchange of ideas and brand recognition.

And, anyway, it’s part of the plans I’m promoting.  So, I invite you all to watch and monitor my Facebook growth and discuss the page’s relevance as it metamorphises into a valuable marketing tool and vibrant online community.

But in the meantime, here are 3 reasons why I’m persisting with a business Facebook page.

1. Millions of people are now Facebook users and many will fit within the specific demographic you are targeting. Furthermore, once a person ‘likes’ your business Facebook page then all your posts will appear on their personal page and can be viewed by all their friends.

Let’s say, my five ‘likes’ have 200 friends each (a very conservative estimate, believe me!), then a single post on my page has the potential to be viewed and read by 1000 people.  Not bad, and these valuable connections can only get better.

2.  The reason why modern marketers love social media is that it’s a great way of getting your message out to a mass audience.  If you think about traditional marketing, for example, television or print, any business promotion will be seen only by people in a restricted area; such as a specific country (national network / newspaper / magazine) or region (local network / paper).

Facebook gives you the chance to promote your business to the world via friends and for a much cheaper price!

3. Social media is all about getting people talking about you.  In the modern world information spreads quickly and we want our business message out there, being discussed, commented on, passed on.  There are only a few ways of achieving this without a lot of promotional effort.

Let’s have a look at blogs.  They are great but people have to find them, go to them or subscribe to them. Same with your website.  But Facebook spreads your message the other way, via people ‘seeing’ it and ‘liking’ it, no searching involved.  Now that’s got to be worth the effort of setting up a page.

I’m going to finish with my usual tip.

Make your posts interesting, create a community where people can comment, post and interact, and your Facebook will grow organically.  So, let’s see how I do.

 “For those who believe, no proof is necessary.

For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.”

John & Lyn St Clair Thomas, Eyes of the Beholder

There is no doubt in marketers’ minds that social media marketing is the hottest thing in web marketing right now.  Cheaper than traditional marketing, such as newspapers, television, brochures and so on, the reach of social media is astounding if utilised correctly.

Traditional marketing is driven by information sent to you, the consumer, as input in which you are the passive recipient.  Social media marketing is driven by you, the consumer, and what you have to say about the product as output.  It’s a participatory activity that revolves around people talking, sharing experiences and opinions and everyone joining in.

It’s this potential to pass on your message to a worldwide audience at very minimal cost that has marketers interested.  Become an active part of this online community and the potential for your product to be noticed is increased exponentially.

But business managers want proof and, sometimes, outside the solid evidence of web statistics, it’s difficult to measure actual marketing gains.  What exactly is the ROI?

Let’s have a look at the major players.  Facebook is well documented as driving traffic to connected sites, with Twitter quickly gaining in potential, and Google Analytics can certainly provide referral stats as proof.  In aggregate, Facebook and Twitter actually attract more traffic than Google.  Blogs and e-newsletters gain more focused client attention and should be measurable as a direct spike in traffic to the client’s site on publication.

The question is how do we measure that other potential, the hidden potential of social interaction, spreading your message and getting your product noticed through the social connection, discussion, experience of online media?

The best way to answer this is to give an example and also a few valuable hints.

I recently blogged about a local artist for a tourism client.  The point of this blog was to get people talking about the area from which the artist had drawn inspiration for his beautiful drawings.  Subtly, I was highlighting the culture and beauty of the tourist destination I was marketing.

The blog was placed as a link on my client’s Facebook page as well as other pages connected to our product.  A few days later, the artist was contacted by ABC radio for an interview.  Slightly surprised, he asked how they had heard of him.  “I was tipped off on Facebook came the reply.”

The point I’m getting at is that people had connected to my client’s Facebook in some way, read the article by following the link to my client’s blog and then reposted on their or other people’s Facebook page, thereby reposting links to my client’s site and thinking about the tourist area and product.

Later, this article was picked up from our e-newsletter and reposted via Twitter as part of an online daily newspaper by a company with 4,900 followers.

At every point there were people reading, talking, interacting with a post related to my client, and  thinking about the tourist area we are trying to market.

Social media marketing is not always direct and doesn’t need to be.  If your Facebook, Twitter, blog, newsletter and so on offer no more than direct marketing messages to potential customers then they lack interest and have little potential of being passed on and discussed.

You want people to talk about your product in any way possible.  You want to keep yourself in front of the public in a positive way, generating positive interest.

Of course, all responsible marketers will slip in a direct sell within most posts.  The main reason for the post, tweet is to sell right?  But raising awareness is selling.  It’s branding and selling and the top companies, Coca Cola comes to mind, spend millions doing it.

The good news?  You don’t have to, social media marketing doesn’t cost as much as all those fabulous Coke television ads and massive billboards.

So, here are my tips: maintain a continuous presence, think about all the direct and indirect aspects of your product that will create this presence and monitor everything.  You’ll be surprised where your posts, tweets and, dare I say it, subversive marketing end up!

You want to increase your brand image.  You want to get people talking about you.  You want more clients to click on your site.

Well, Social Media Marketing is the quickest, cheapest, most effective way to achieve your goals, so jump on board!

It’s all about creating a message that will captivate your reader’s attention, promote interest and get passed onto others.  The key is to get people ‘engaged’ and for this to happen you need content that is relevant and compelling, even a little hip if that’s your market!

Even more, you need to consistently get your message out there through all the forums available.  Whether a short facebook update or a longer blog post, get your ideas and products out there for people to view, comment on and, even better, discuss with others.

Any interaction is someone talking about you, your business, your product.  Isn’t that what you want?  It’s all exposure and it’s all marketing.  What’s more, Social Media Marketing adds terrific links to your site.  For free!

Get people chatting, commenting, reading about you.

Sign up for one of our amazing plans today!