by Miriam Hara | Nov 30, 2012 | Social Media
Social Media Understood: 33 biz-ims you need for social media success
Thinking of making your business social? Not sure what it takes or how to get started. Beneficial to anyone or business with an online presence, Social Media Understood will assist you in your initiatives by leveraging your marketing efforts. Social Media Understood is filled with seasoned advice – this collection of 33 biz-isms gives you practical information to help establish, build and maintain a strong brand-consumer relationship. This is the third release in a series of ebooks by 3H. Social Media Understood, will provide you with a quick and easy reference on the dos and don’ts of getting social right!
• Leverage marketing efforts
• Define communities
• Establish objectives
• Measure impact
What is an ism?
An ism is defined by some as an act of practice, others define it as a doctrine or philosophy… A biz-ism is an ism defined by Canadian marketing veteran Miriam Hara.
This collection of Social Media biz-isms is a wealth of practical information presented in concise, no-nonsense speak from a seasoned perspective.
social media understood
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See Branding Understood ebook See Marketing Understood ebook
by christine | Nov 22, 2012 | Branding, Business Success, Interactive, Social Media
The Social Media skills now required to maintain a good social media reputation has evolved. Most of us (businesses and brands) have our social listening strategy in place, writing content and posting on our social media accounts. So…how is it going? Are you monitoring your accounts, interacting with your followers on each account? If you are, good. We all know that it’s imperative to listen to what your customers have to say… as this will keep your brand honest and transparent.
Does your social media strategy include the necessary social media skills?
Being proactive in your social media accounts has never been more important. With the daily launches of new social media blogs and sites, keeping on top of your brand’s social calendar takes time and resources. Don’t lose faith! These efforts can and will be reap Brand rewards in the end. Engagement with your customers is imperative to keep the “stickiness” on your sites and also loyalty and trust with your brand. More importantly understanding and knowing how to handling both positive and negative feedback properly can be indeed a powerful tool to gain loyalty from your target audience and enhancing their experience with your brand. Keep in mind these steps below to become socially proactive:
1. Proactive and engagement on your social accounts should be your primary measurement of how your brand is doing. Keep an active conversation with your customers, so when and if a problem arises you can respond quickly with a solution
2. Respond Quickly to all Social Media Feedback, especially negative.
3. Don’t script your response. Be human and sensitive… an actual “real” live sensitive caring person (customized responses will go a long way to creating a supportive community online).
4. Support your response with detailed information; again give qualified information to help turn the negative experience into a resolved, positive experience. (We all remember being on the other end of those endless customer automated phone messages…that keep telling us to press the next sequence of number’s to get help, but in the end, it feels like we are on a never ending carousel spinning round and round, and in the end we hang up out of frustration or just get lost in a loop of unhelpful automated annoying computer generated voices.) We want our customers to feel that someone is actually listening and with a positive timely response your customers will probably post a very sincere thank you back and become a loyal customer in the end.
5. Dedicated customer service email and resources are a must. In support to #3, you have to specifically set up for your social media accounts. This will help garner a great customer support service within your social media communities. You should allow for a dedicated resource for these platforms to monitor what’s being talked about online and also join in on the conversation to build strong relationships and provide positive customer experiences.
6. Be Honest and Transparent…this will go a long way for validating that yes we all make mistakes, but lets work together to fix it and make it better by actually listening to what your customers are saying.
7. Be Empathic, stay objective. Look at it from the consumers point of view, have all your facts and as said earlier try to resolve as quickly as possible.
Now to make it all work! Now that you have your social listening strategy, resources, and your social customer service in place you need to add some tools to help you get the edge on your competition by taking charge of your social media and your online presence. You can start with some free resources and or customized packages. No tools work the same, so do your research. This is just a small sampling of links below to get you started:
RSS Feeds, Google Alerts, Track Tweets, Comments and Discussions on fan boards, etc, and Netvibes
Want to know more about social media? Download Social Media Understood here.
Please feel free to add comments, tips, and suggestions; I always like to hear how other people adapt new strategies to their social accounts. And remember be Proactive!
by christine | Nov 19, 2012 | Business Success, Interactive, Social Media
Great, you now have your Facebook, linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest accounts in place. Fingers on the keyboard and ready to write and hit that submit button. Stop! So now what? Well, you may want to hold off on populating all those accounts. Why, you ask? Well, did you prepare a social brief? How do you know if your audience participates on all the accounts you have signed up for? Have you been monitoring their social media activity on different social communities? If you’re not sure, let’s step back a bit …You develop briefs for print, TV, web, and mobile, so don’t forget to write one for social. I know it can be overwhelming, but if you can create a social strategy that will keep you on point, and you have the talent to help you implement your social accounts, you will become a great social listener and your audience will appreciate it too!
We’ve all heard the phrase, “Content is King”, well before content we need to focus on developing that strategy. This will give you the means and ability to make sense of what you are trying to do, what is the purpose of your social media marketing. By creating a social listening strategy you will understand the importance of “really listening”. In social media, listening is your guide through the continuous online conversations taking place on many social media platforms, being alert and one step ahead, will keep your brand strategy fresh and competitive. Focus on these key steps for success:
1. Who is Your Target Audience(s) and which social platforms to use: Once you have determined who your audience is, it’s imperative to focus on where to engage your audience online. As said earlier, don’t just start opening accounts to social platforms that don’t reflect your brand or your target audience. This could have a negative impact on your marketing campaign and diminish your brand. Research where your audience is already active, capture this data and customize your social media accounts to adapt to your audiences’ socializing habits.
2. Identify the influencers: These are the people who follow, share or friend you. They are more important than the actual volume of traffic. Determining who your influencers are will make all the difference in your listening strategy and ultimately how affectively you have captured the information and affectively communicated with your target audience.
3. What are the keywords and trends in your social world: You want to validate the topics and conversations that matter most to your brand and document them as potential keywords. You then need to determine through social listening if these keywords reflect or resemble the “social speak” that your audience is interested in. Keywords should reflect what’s important to your brand. However, you need to compare your word selection to that of what is being used by your audience. Don’t think traditional marketing here, or specific naming conventions used throughout the industry. Look for real words, used by real people. This approach will help you communicate more successfully with your target audience.
So now that you have your social strategy in place and the talent in place. You can now start selecting your accounts and write content. Make sure you keep it up-to-date and current with specific topics that tie into your brand and relate to your social users…use your customer’s speak, not marketing lingo and always keep it fresh. This will keep your brand on target with your audience…You also need to take a pulse on your brand as it stands today, consistently monitoring social sites that talk about your brand, making sure that your online reputation is strong, active and fresh.
Also, keep in mind that socializing on the Internet is not limited to the traditional social media platforms. Don’t forget about the community blogs, forums and posts, these areas all require your focus and interaction keeping up with conversations across the web to maintain a strong brand presence online and off. Keeping up with what your customers are saying about your product or service will keep you informed and honest about your brand. Yes, this is time consuming, but in the end, the best investment for you to apply, and to keep your brand honest and on target.
Now you are ready to get back to your keyboard and write, and make your Brand a “Social” listener.
Let me know how your social listening strategy has worked for you (do’s / don’ts) and links you might want to share with us pertaining to this topic. Thanks for listening.
by Miriam Hara | Nov 17, 2012 | Business Success, Social Media
The Social Media channel is very misunderstood. Businesses and brands alike are all jumping on the social media bandwagon – with little understanding of how it works and how to really leverage their efforts. Couple this with the fact that Social Media is increasingly becoming the most important qualifier for back links and search engine optimization efforts. It’s important for businesses and brands to understand this channel.
So what do marketers and entrepreneurs need to know and do to effectively use this dynamic social media channel? Here are a few dos and don’ts to remember when get you started:
1) Do make a commitment: There’s a difference between just dabbling in Social Media and seriously engaging with it. This isn’t a channel where you can opt-in or opt-out as you go. Think about Social Media like going to the gym: It isn’t just about showing up… you won’t get any results that way. Not only do you have to do it with intention, you must do it consistently and plan to do it routinely. Decide if you are ready for that commitment. (I hope you are!)
Social Media
2) Don’t just do it: Establish your definition of success before you start. I wouldn’t classify Social Media as a new channel anymore, it is now an emerging channel. And regardless of how you perceive it, it’s still a marketing channel. Like all things in marketing, in order for an initiative to be successful, you need to define what success means. Setting goals, articulating what’s important and why it’s necessary is key. Is it followers? Subscribers? Ranking? Engagement? Retweets? Entrants in a contest? Whatever it is – define it or you may be misplacing your energy and effort.
3) Do have a plan… please!: With so many Social Media outlets making their mark in the channel, it’s a real challenge to keep up with the latest and greatest. Even with the proven, tried and tested sites like YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram (the list goes on and on!), it’s hard to keep up. A handy piece of marketing advise that I always adhere to: If you can’t afford to do everything, pick one thing that will garner your brand or business the most return and do that initiative very well.
4) Don’t underestimate what’s involved: You can’t just fit Social Media in! It isn’t a part-time proposition or an additional task for an existing employee – chances are that role is already maxed out. This is a marketing channel that takes a dedicated, consistent approach. You need to add value, contribute, comment and engage. It doesn’t just happen. It takes research, understanding of messaging and proper brand tone and voice. It’s not just about knowing the platforms, it’s about integrating them and working them. If you want to build a community, you need to be social. It isn’t good enough to just say follow me!… you need to build a solid foundation.
5) Do your homework: Niche is where it’s at! Marketing has always been about segmenting and carving out marketing profiles of targets. Until recently, segmenting (or nicheing as I term it) was cumbersome and sometimes expensive. The beauty of Social Media and it’s digital channels is that it allows you to segment down to a minutia difference in characteristics. It can be as local or as global as you need it to be. And if there’s a defining characteristic of a target, believe me, there’s a group, a page, or a forum out there that is a perfect fit. And it there isn’t… well, isn’t that a wonderful opportunity!
All this to say, businesses and brands alike should get out there and get social with mindfulness and intention.
I’d be interested to hear your comments on the dos and don’ts of Social Media. Please share!
Want to know more about social media? Download Social Media Understood here.
by Miriam Hara | Nov 5, 2012 | Branding, Business Success, Social Media
With so much of business communications today being in the written channel, and so much of it being immediate with Social Media, the tone in which a brand communicates with is increasingly important. We all know that so much of what we say really comes down to how we say it. The same choice of words can come across as either complimentary or insulting. Ultimately, it’s all in the delivery.
Deciphering communication tonality in the digital space isn’t easy. The handling and implementation of any social media initiative (especially when it deals with a brand) is fraught with potentially explosive minefields. Brands are complex entities, and as such a brand’s attitude, style and characteristics must be taken into account with every Facebook update, LinkedIn response or blog post.
So how can you make the most of your Brand’s social media initiatives and business communications? By ensuring that you strike the right cord and the proper stance in all your online communications. Here’s how:
- Take a page or two from your marketing plan… truthfully. We all can agree that the social media channel is relatively new, while Marketing is not. Go back to the basics. What makes your brand special to its audience? Look to how your brand communicates in the more classic channels, such as print ads, radio ads or even packaging. If it’s a product, how does the package look? If it’s a service, what does the name and logo represent? If you’ve advertised in community papers or created radio ads, you already have a good basis of understanding of what your tonality should be. Are you casual? Formal? Sophisticated? Friendly? Is your brand body language open, informative and approachable or at arm’s length? Regardless of style, your brand must always be honest, straightforward and truthful.
- Understand your audience. Knowing who your target audience is… well, not enough. Like everything else in branding or business, understanding your audience on a deeper level is essential to your brand’s success. What makes them purchase your brand? What’s their style? Do they enjoy extreme sports? Drive a sports car? Like fishing? Answering these and other questions will allow your brand to connect with its audience and meet their expectations. If your brand needs to put on a suit or dress business casual, then your writing tonality should follow the same line.
- Follow the Brand Guidelines. If your brand doesn’t have any, then you should seriously consider creating them. It use to be that brand guidelines spoke only to the visual treatment of a brand’s logo. (typesetting, font, colour, etc), However today’s guidelines also cover brand voice and brand persona which are very good indicators and references for brand tonality.
- Stay consistent with your brand’s persona. Is you brand premium priced? Made in Europe? American? Canada? Is it an innovative product, or just a better or cheaper version of an existing one? All of these factors play a significant role in determining what your brand’s social media tonality will be.
- Take the lead from your brand’s website. It is important to understand and address the digital channel in its entirety. Your brand’s social media efforts must be an extension of your brand’s website. The tonality for the brand must be holistic. Websites should always be created with a sound understanding of brand voice and brand persona. If this is the way your brand’s site was written, you already have a good foundation for developing your style with posts or blogging.
Your brand’s body language is determined by your brand’s tonality. Make sure you’ve got the right posture to make sure your brand’s success in your social media initiatives.
