Some brands select one social media outlet for their campaigns and do it well. For the most part that outlet is Facebook . Yes, it is a very effective tool for reaching consumers and running campaigns, but let’s not forget about Twitter. To help brands cut through the noise, Twitter has several features that brands can leverage for promotional and engagement campaigns. Here are 5 ways a brand can better leverage Twitter to get loud and reach and engage users.
Amplify your message with Promoted Tweets With promoted tweets brands can buy promotional packages to amplify their messages. Promoted tweets can be targeted to search results or to users’ timelines. Promoting tweets in a search allows brands to reach users when they are searching for specific topic, hashtag or term on Twitter. Much like Google search, they appear at the top of the results page. Promoted tweets to timeline reach a brand’s follower base or users who are like their followers. Why is this important? Like I’ve said before, the life of a tweet is generally only a few seconds. Using promoted tweets, a brand can make sure their message is seen. For example, if a brand is running a contest, one quick tweet might not result in many entries, but promoting that tweet will drive higher levels of engagement.
Get Found by utilizing Promoted Accounts It’s important for a brand to build a strong Twitter follower base that will then share and amplify the brand message. Also paid, promoted accounts appear in search results and within the Who To Follow section – Twitter’s account recommendation engine that suggests accounts to users. Generating awareness, this can be a useful tool for brands that are new to Twitter and want to introduce themselves and brands looking to get more followers. Brands can also promote their accounts if they are running a campaign or if they are celebrating a milestone.
Build Behavioural Habits with Twitter Customs Knowing the Twitter customs and syntax can help a brand integrate itself in the Twitter community. Participating in “Follow Friday” for example can be a part of a brand’s Twitter mandate. Each Friday, Twitter users promote accounts they think their followers should follow. Brands can take part by tweeting #FF of their followers, related accounts, or accounts they find interesting. Before long, and given a brand pushes out interesting content, users will begin including them in Twitter customs. Brands can also create their own customs to engage their followers.
Make the Right First Impression with Enhanced Profiles An enhanced profile page allows brands to visually feature important and interesting content. Similar to Facebook Pages’ Cover Photo, brands can add a 835×90 header to their Twitter profile that could be a logo, image, tagline or any other visual branding. They can also feature their content more prominently by highlighting a tweet at the top of their profile, again similar to Facebook Pages’ Pin functionality. Unfortunately, enhanced profiles are currently only available to a select group of brands.
Make yourself known with Promoted trends
Promoted trends are strategically positioned to amplify the conversation. By promoting a term, a campaign or a hashtag, brands can give Twitter users the opportunity to discover their message quickly and get involved. This can be a great tool for brands that are running contests on Twitter that require users to tweet a specific hashtag to enter.
Has your brand leveraged Twitter and its features to reach and engage users? Were your efforts a success?
Social Media is a wonderful thing… or it can be! It allows for a brand to engage directly with their customers, one on one… in real-time. It has an incredible and indefinable reach potential. With so much going for it, why is it so hard for Corporations to jump on board? Despite all its accolades, measuring the success of social media remains problematic. Determining ROI is difficult to assess simply because the cost of social media is difficult to assess.
The Creative Group recently did a survey, interviewing more than 250 marketing and advertising executives, and determined that 27% of them found measuring results the biggest road block with social media.
There are multiple factors that contribute to the problem:
Results aren’t always instantaneous. Social media is used to raise brand awareness and develop customer relationship over long periods of time.
The value of a “Like” on Facebook can mean different things depending whether or not the customer continues to be engaged after liking a product or page.
Engagement can be positive or negative.
There are ways, however, to determine the success of your social media campaign based on your goals:
Awareness: if you want to measure your brands awareness reach and virality are indicators you want to look for. How many people have seen it and how many have shared it?
Establishing a relationship with customers: if a relationship with customers is your goal you need look at engagement. How many likes and followers do you have? How many people comment and share? Is the discussion positive? Are people retweeting?
Traffic: Are you trying to drive traffic to a website that sells goods through Facebook? If so, you need to look at actions, number of clicks, cost per clicks and link sharing.
Determining your vision of success enables you to know what to look for once you have the data… then you need to turn all that data into information.
Many social networks provide their on analytic services, for example Facebook insights. Facebook insights allows for a brand to track growth in terms of likes, reach and who is talking about the brand. It provides metrics to let you know where each like came from, to allowing you to evaluate media channels and their success. It provides all kinds of different demographic and geographic profiles… which status posts did well, which didn’t. This allows you to assess the type of future posts to add.
If you looking for the success of a social media campaign outside of the platform used, Google Analytics offers conversion services that helps determine the monetary value gained due to visits directed from social media sites. There are also some very comprehensive dashboard platforms that enables for social media integration.
When determining a brand impression, Sysomos has a service that monitors social media conversation and determines how much of it is positive, negative or neutral.
Knowing how to create and define a successful social media campaign can go a long way in building a brand and achieving a high return on investment. To learn more about ROI, read out blog “Brand Building: How to maximize ROI”
These are just a few of the options available to help make sense of social media. How do you measure your social media campaigns?
Web 2.0 takes the concept of Web one step further and makes the platform a network. Instead of just passively absorbing information, users actively create the information and engage with one another. Chances are you are already into Web 2.0…but just don’t know it. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and personal blogs are all examples of Web 2.0.
When using Web 2.0 on Facebook, Twitter or any other social engagement platform there is one golden rule everyone should abide by: Think Before You Tweet(or post). Just because you can say something doesn’t mean you should. Remember, once you put something out on web 2.0, it’s there forever for anyone to see.
When used incorrectly there could be some very negative consequences to Web 2.0 so be careful. The best way to protect yourself is to think before you Tweet (or post) and consider the following before making anything live:
1) does my message have a purpose
2) is this something I would want to read
3) is my statement accurate
4) will this come back to haunt me
Once you know how to avoid the pitfalls of Web 2.0 you can start enjoying its benefits. Here are just a few from a branding perspective:
1. Audience reach: Web 2.0 doesn’t discriminate and anyone, anywhere, with an Internet connection can become engaged with a brand. Terms such a “viral video” or “trending” are often used to signal high engagement. There is unlimited potential when it comes to reach. When a brand tweets, posts or blogs something that resonates with the audience, people will want to share it.
2. Personalized communication: through Web 2.0, brands develop a voice and a personality that speaks with consumers, not just to them. Brands and customers can have an ongoing dialogue that allows for praises, concerns and questions to be addressed directly and instantaneously. Responding to comments directly can establish a positive relationship and a positive relationship can then translate into brand loyalty.
A great example of Web 2.0 would be “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign Old Spice did in 2010. It was a Youtube campaign that lasted three days and became the quickest growing online campaign in history. After just 24 hours there were 6.7 million views on Youtube and grew to 23 million views after 36 hours. [1] That kind of reach and growth wouldn’t have been possible if the campaign started with traditional television commercials. Once the video was posted, Old Spice went one step further to engage with their consumers by posting 187 video responses featuring the star of their campaign.[2]
Now that you know how to use Web 2.0 and have seen what it can do for a brand, how do you plan on integrating it into your next campaign?
The Brand Follower Relationship is the modern day Love Story.
Social media has enabled the breakdown of walls between brands and consumers, so a true relationship can develop packed with emotion, trust and love. No longer can Brands push out their one-way communications to their consumers. Consumers expect to be seen, heard and listened to… in short, acknowledged. They want to be actively involved in the brand story and the conversations; they want to contribute but they need a good reason to do so. It’s not enough to just start a brand page, your brand must regularly engage its social media followers consistently with its <a< span=””> title=”Brand Voice: How to Create It. Build It. Maintain It.” href=”http://www.3h.ca/blog/branding/brand-voice-the-how-to/”>Brand Voice – always exercising new and creative ways to speak to followers… and engage them.
Since each social media platform is different, the way people engage is going to be different as well. Here are a few ways you can engage successfully with followers and keep your Brand Follower relationship strong on Facebook Pages, Twitter and Pinterest.
Facebook Pages
Build momentum: Run contests. Running a contest won’t only increase the number of followers a brand has but it will keep current followers engaged and excited. Keep the buzz and momentum going by asking questions and generating content that revolves around the brand and the contest. Don’t just let the contest live on its on – make a lot of noise about it! Use Facebook ads to reach your demographic profile… and remember to further focus your efforts with the use of psychographics!
Build a following: Get “Likes”. Followers want quick and easy ways to interact with brands. Asking them to “Like” a post is as quick as it gets but it still generates stories and gets the word out. Similar to commenting, when followers “Like” a post, it will show up on their friends’ news feeds giving your post the opportunity to go viral.
Be Authentic: Keep it real. Followers don’t want to be sold to on Facebook.They follow a brand page because they are already sold on that brand and they are most likely already loyal customers. Speak with them not to them and don’t use traditional marketing speak. Finding a voice for your brand, an authentic voice, is essential to successfully engaging followers on Facebook
Twitter
Keep talking: Talk to followers. Follow them back. Retweet them. Listen to them. It’s a sure way to keep them engaged and interested. The lifespan of a tweet is generally a few seconds, making them a thing of the past almost instantly, but if your brand acknowledges a follower’s tweet it adds value and gives them a reason to keep following and engaging with your brand.
Generate excitement:Run contests. Twitter is great for running impromptu contests. It’s a quick and fun way to keep followers on their toes. Offer a free giveaway by asking them to tweet an answer or retweet a tweet or ask them to help you reach a certain follower milestone for a chance to win a prize.
Just ask:Asking followers to retweet, mention or just help get the word out about a brand generally works very well. Communication is key – ask and you shall receive. Again, it’s a simple way but an effective way to engage with a brand and followers arequick to jump on board.
Pinterest
Visual Momentum:Run Contests. Pinterest is a great place to run visual contests. Asking followers to create boards or repin a pin is an effective way to not only get your content out there , gain new followers and of course, to engage with existing followers.
Give control:By allowing followers to create boards on your Pinterest profile, followers feel like they are contributing, again, to the brand story.It’s also a great way for a brand to diversify its content. A brand can also ask followers to share its content on Twitter and Facebook, creating a cross-platform campaign that generates engagement throughout a brand’s social media presence.
Be exclusive: Pinterest is a great for a visual brand to get their followers engaged by giving them exclusive looks into the brand – a “behind-the-scenes”. Think about using Pinterest and the idea of exclusivity to run focus groups. For example, showing followers a product redesign on Pinterest before they see it anywhere else and asking for their input by commenting or repining can show followers and consumers that their input really matters to your brand.
Starting a social media platform can be a significant milestone for a Brand, but it involves more than just opening a new account or starting a new brand page on Facebook. Be sure to develop a holistic strategy and employ all the channels available in social media. Knowing the tactics and using the platform isn’t enough. Plus, like any other valuable relationship, the Brand Follower relationship needs work, passion and communication to endure and remain strong at heart.
Do you have a complete social media strategy with a strong Brand Follower relationship? Share what has worked and what hasn’t for your Brand and your followers.
Is choosing the right tool to create your website a challenge? Depending on your needs and objectives, you could consider a CMS (Content Management System) as it allows you to create, control and manage the content of your web site without any programming knowledge.
There are a variety of open and closed source CMS solutions available for you to choose from. The most common open-sourced options include WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, and closed ones such as Subdreamer, CushyCMS and ExpressionEngine. These tools have a lot of similarities. Hence, it is difficult to decide which one to use.
Here is a summary of the advantages and disadvantages for WordPress, Joomla and Subdreamer.
The core software of WordPress is built by hundreds of community volunteers. Thus, the most prevailing feature of WordPress is that it has thousands of free plug-ins and themes available for users to download.
Key advantages of using WordPress:
– It’s free, helps minimize your cost for start-up business
– Open-source
– It has a huge user database, drives more traffic to your site
– Allows quick and simple integration with other software packages, you can upload content directly to your website with no hassles
– Search engine friendly. I noticed that search engines love WordPress because a lot of websites displaying on the first page of search engines are built with WordPress. This is because WordPress has many outstanding SEO plug-ins available for users to download.
Comparing with the benefits of WordPress, there aren’t many disadvantages for WordPress, if I had to find one, I would say that WordPress has some security issues. Hacking and spamming seemed to exist and there are many unsecured plug-ins that may cause problem to your website, but these issues can be prevented such as disabling the unsecured plug-ins and installing spam prevention tools such as RECAPTCHA.
Joomla is an award-winning CMS. Similar to WordPress, Joomla is good because:
– It’s free and open source
– Has a more simple and user-friendly admin interface than WordPress
– Great for large companies because it allows multiple users to edit the site simultaneously without causing problems
– Supports multi-language sites
Similar to WordPress, Joomla also had many highly customizable themes, templates and web modules available. One of the most prevailing features of Joomla, comparing to WordPress, is that the system itself has lots of readily integrated features (such as polls and user control). There are no additional plug-ins need to be installed, whereas in WordPress, a brand new system only contain the most basic features, all other features have to be added through plug-ins. Hence, I believed that Joomla would be more appropriate for large companies, whereas WordPress would be more suitable for small and medium companies.
Some disadvantages of using Joomla include that it is harder to learn than WordPress and it has less plugins (including free plugins) comparing to WordPress. Making changes on Joomla is not as simple as it is on WordPress because changes often require development support.
Subdreamer is an example of good closed source system that also uses PHP and MySQL database. It is 100% rebrandable, it allows you to white label the CMS. White labeling gives the freedom to re-brand the CMS under your own name. It’s a great way to promote your company. Subdreamer also includes its own discussion forum plugin so that you can integrate your website with forums such as vBulletin, phpBB.
The reason why I list Subdreamer as a solution is because it contains most of the functions open source systems has and it is more reliable and secure than using open-source systems because most of the security issues in the open source system come from the free plug-ins that might contain unknown threats to your website. For Subdreamer, every plug-in is made and under the administrative of the Subdreamer’s development team. Many hacking and spamming from auto-generated programs could be prevented.
A typical Subdreamer CMS cost $99.95 USD. Considering this cost, I assume it will be easier to obtain support when you experience problems since the license purchased also comes with 24-hour real human technical support. However, some of the drawbacks of this system is that it will not be updated as often as the open source system due to its nature of close sourcing, only the developers of Subdreamer can fix the bugs and add features and functionality whereas in a free open source system, everyone could contribute the system.
In the process of selecting a CMS, always remember to a research before you decide to invest time and money in it. The main purpose of a CMS is to create a website that is easy to manage. As long as the CMS fits all of your needs, it will be the right decision.
How much of your brand identity do you own? If you really want to find out, run an online search of your brand and see what comes up. Do all pages that represent your brand belong to your brand? When you run a social media search, what comes up? Do all pages, accounts, profiles that represent your brand belong to you?
With the advent of social media, its become increasingly easy for “brand impostors” to steal the spotlight, especially on Facebook and Twitter – and it doesn’t stop at simple tweets and status updates. Some brand impostors go as far as creating campaigns and strategies, robbing your brand of its authenticity and control. Be aware that there is a big difference between accounts and pages that pay homage to your brand and impostors who act and speak on behalf of your brand. It boils down to owning your name, your voice and your customers and avoiding confusion and even legal issues.
A few examples of brand identity theft have been made quite public. For example, during the 2010 BP oil spill, fake Twitter accounts pretending to be BP PR appeared. Yahoo, Facebook, Aston Martin and AT&T have all been targets as well. Brand mascots haven’t been spared either, Mr.Clean, Chef Boyardee and the Pillsbury Doughboy have all been subjects of fake Twitter accounts.
Facebook is notorious for brand identity theft. Just recently I ran a search for 7-Eleven on Facebook and I found two brand pages: one for 7-Eleven, an official page, with 2.2 million likes and one for 711 with 21,000+ likes. It seems only natural in today’s short cut text messaging vocabulary that some 7-Eleven fans would and could search 7-Eleven by typing in 711 on Facebook. Since the Facebook page also looked like an official page, it has garnered significant likes. So will the real 7-Eleven stand up? Is it fair to assume that this page is an impostor… or was it started by an official brand ambassador and abandoned? Regardless of the story behind the two 7-Eleven Pages, or how and why they both exist, a brand needs to take action and ownership to help avoid confusion and reach their consumers and fans in an official way.
So how does a brand protect itself? Here are a few tips:
Think ahead:Brands must have a strategy and a plan in place to prevent and quickly respond to a brand impostor. Will you make an official announcement about it? Will you go into attack mode? Will you do nothing? Making a strategic action plan to deal with impostors is imperative. Don’t be blindsided.
Secure your name: A good rule of thumb is to secure all URLs, Twitter handles, Facebook pages and Facebook URLs that are associated with your brand. Even if you’re not using a specific page or account, it’s good to claim it to help protect your brand. Also, make sure it’s clear that you’re pages are official and verify your account on Twitter, if you can.
Know what’s out there: As I mentioned earlier, keep searching for your brand online on a regular basis. Look for keywords related to your brand or brand name misspellings. If an impostor account exists on a social media site, make sure you report it.
Take control: Some social media sites allow you to take over impostor brand accounts or pages, merging them and their “Likes” with your official page if you consider it important. Maybe fans or followers were not aware they were following an impostor.
Do you take a proactive role in protecting your brand online and on social media from identity theft? Also, go and Google your brand right now. What did you find?
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