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Ten Social Networking Mistakes to Avoid When Marketing Your Business
Ten Social Networking Mistakes to Avoid When Marketing Your Business
Written by Kate Manning - http://www.jeffbullas.com/?p=18331">View Comments
Categories: Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Networks, Social Networks, twitter
Business owners worldwide are utilizing various social media platforms to promote products and reach out to consumers.
Many companies thrive, thanks to strong web presence. However, some struggle as a result of costly mistakes made during the online marketing process. Thus, before you began marketing your business it is advisable to brush up on your social media skills.
Better yet, read on for a crash course on the ten most common social networking mistakes and how you can avoid making them yourself.
#1. No Clear Social Marketing Strategy
Forbes columnist Pamela Springer notes that many business owners fail to properly budget their resources. “Even though many social media applications are free,” she writes, “they still cost small businesses time – and time equals money.” She suggests a formal online marketing plan, with a clear goal for each step of the process.
#2. The Media is Inconsistent
With a marketing plan in place, every Tweet and Facebook post should be planned in advance to avoid inconsistency. Terri Seymour, of Site Pro News, advises company marketers to draw up a weekly social media schedule—and then follow it. “Choose a couple of the best sites and give them the time and attention they need to work their magic,” she writes.
#3. No one Monitors the Site
BusinessWeek columnist Mike Proulx says inattentive site management can lead to a PR nightmare. Every site on the Internet is vulnerable to hacking viruses and other online malfeasances. As a result, web programmers must remain one step ahead of violators by continuously checking up on all company sites.
#4. The Material isn’t Proofread
“Bad grammar and spelling can make a good page go bad,” Seymour notes. All blogs, posts and tweets should be professional in appearance, even though social media sites are generally informal in nature. Authors should read posts as they are writing them, and have a co-worker look over the copy before it is uploaded online.
#5. Missed Branding Opportunities
Springer notes that most social media sites include multiple fields for profile owners to personify their page—but many business owners leave them blank. “Your company information, logo, and any other links or images on your profile are the sales tools you have to pique a potential customer’s interest in your business,” she writes. “If your profile is half complete it reflects poorly on your company.”
#6. Accounts aren’t Linked
Businesses with multiple sites should install a mechanism to link them together—and connect various users of these sites in the process. Seymour advises business owners to link social sites on their official homepage using widgets. Additionally, posts on the homepage should be automatically uploaded to all social sites simultaneously, rather than one at a time.
#7. Profiles aren’t Claimed
Springer reminds business owners that, whether or not they choose to participate in social media, their sites are part of the public domain. Yelp!, Google Places and other services create company profiles for owners who have not done so themselves—and this is a great opportunity to build web presence. “All of these services give you the option to control what’s shown about your company and how it’s shown,” she says.
#8. Responses aren’t Timely
In the event of bad publicity, Proulx warns that waiting too long can result in further disaster. When businesses err, he says immediate, humble acknowledgment of wrongdoing on social media platforms is the best route to take. “Taking the time to craft a perfect corporate response with layers of bureaucratic approvals will only cause more damage to your brand’s social reputation,” he says.
#9. No “Likes” or “Follows”
Seymour notes these seemingly arbitrary terms are highly relevant in the age of Facebook and Twitter, because they can greatly increase social activity on a business site. Company owners should include a request in their email signature, print a URL on their business cards and post links whenever possible. Many companies offer customer incentives to those who “like” or “follow” them—and these are typically the businesses with the most active sites.
#10. The Scope is Limited
A social media campaign should be continuous, says Proulx, since a cardinal goal of networking is to reach new clientele. Furthermore, new platforms emerge every year, and web users will often cast aside “old-fashioned” brands for those who acclimate to current trends. “While campaigns that have a social media extension may come and go,” he writes, “you must maintain an “always on” approach and outlook.”
Company owners today must contend with all the nuts and bolts associated with social media, for it has become a standard of modern business practices. Brands that embrace the social networking phenomenon are much likelier to draw in new customers—and their money.
However, firmly understanding how various platforms work, what their limitations are and how people use them is a fundamental first step.
Guest Author: Kate Manning didn’t expect to find herself at the intersection of business, marketing, and the Internet, but with sound writing and editing skills, she makes the most of it. She’s worked under others’ supervision and on her own for herself.
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Tags: avoid, Branding, Facebook, followed, Liked, Mistakes, Monitoring, Profiles, Share, Social Media, Social Networks, Subscribe, twitter
These are all good points and I am thinking of them constantly
10 Key Steps to a Successful Social Media Marketing Strategy
I think that if you are online today a social media strategy is a must. In fact it should be written down. Of course there will be changes to the plan as the internet changes so quickly. Check out our site for more facts. http://www.onlineestrategies.com.au/ 
via Jeffbullas's Blog by Jeff Bullas on 12/1/11
Creating a social media marketing strategy for a blog or a business can be simple or it can be complex.
A personal blogger isn’t going to perform a SWOT analysis or dive into detailed market research and create piles of spreadsheets and documents so large that you can’t jump over them.
A social media marketing strategy can be three simple steps.
- See – What is today’s situation
- Think – Define goals and objectives
- Draw – Map a route to achieving the goals
Using these elements as a template maybe all you need to to create a social media marketing strategy.
Is it World Domination?
If you are considering starting a blog or company that is after world domination (for more on this check out Dr Evil from the Movie “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me“) in an industry and niche, then you may want to do some detailed research and analysis.
Once you have determined the focus and direction for your blog whether it be for business or pleasure is to map out a roadmap. This means putting in place some informed and researched planning to maximise the chances of success.
So what are some key steps in putting together a social media marketing strategy for your blog?
Step 1: Establish a Clear Focused Vision
If you are a personal blogger brand and you have clarity on your passion and innate ability, then getting the vision clear is the vital next step in the journey. If you are a business and have not created a vision statement then maybe its time to retire to the boardroom and give the neurons and whiteboard a workout!
A vision statement is an inspirational sentence or two that will keep you focused when uncertainty and temptations to take a different course confront you.
Nike aren’t one of the top sports apparel brands in the world because they have fuzzy thinking. Nike’s vision is short and inspirational.
“To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. If you have a body, you are an athlete”
Focus, motivation and momentum comes from being clear about where you are going.
Step 2: Obtain Commitment from Management
If you are creating a personal blog then that stakeholder meeting will be very short!
If it is a corporate blog then the CEO and Management needs to be on board. It quite often is done without the right people buying in and success is harder to achieve.
In essence it can be an exercise in change management to get the commitment and resources you need.
Some steps to help achieve this are
1. Start with the P&L
Be able to convince the CEO or CFO that it will drive more inquiries, leads and create more sales. In other words provide evidence that resonates with “show us the money!”
2. Get Customers Participating in a Pilot
It can be as simple as a customer writing a review or a comment on a blog post and creating content which increases customer engagement (up to 80% of customers are looking for a review when they come to a website/blog or online store).
The cycle of engagement includes
- Visitors come to the site to read reviews
- More visitors are attracted to the customers content
- Visitors attracted to the customers content become a new customer
- New customer writes a product review
3. Get Employees Participating
How do you keep people following behind as you try to change the company to a social business if they are not involved and engaged?
One method is to apply what is known as the IKEA Effect which states
“Labor undertaken in association with a project – similiar to assembly of Ikea furniture – increases people’s affection for the result of that labor.”
4. Tell Your Stories
This final step gives your employees a pulpit and voice within the organisation to tell their story of how they are assisting in transforming their company to a social business. It could be the product development manager presenting or communicating via a newsletter on how they have taken onboard customer comments and fine tuned products or services that better meet the needs of the market.
Step 3: Perform Research
In your area of interest or industry you need to sit down and do some research, it could be simple to complex but it will provide you with the foundation to identify opportunities to position your blog.
The research could include the following depending on time and resources
- Identifying trends
- Market and competitor analysis …what are the bloggers in your industry doing?
- What are the various key segments in your target market and which one do you want to pursue
- What are they doing well and what could you do better – this will assist you in determining what will make you unique or what is sometimes called your USP (Unique Selling Proposition)
From this you can determine the potential readers, prospects and customer personas
Some questions to ask about your prospects
- What do they read or view?
- What are their problems?
- What social networks do they use
Step 4: Create and Prioritize Goals
It is important to know what you want to achieve. If you are a captain of a ship you need to determine where you are going before leaving harbour.
- Do you want to improve brand recognition
- Capture more inquiries
- Increase sales
- Drive more traffic to the blog
Which are the most important?
Step 5: Create and Design Tactics to Achieve Goals
Once the goals have been determined then you can create the tactics on the platforms where you audience is.
- Drive traffic to a landing page that captures emails and basic customer information
- Increase Facebook likes – putting your brand and content in front of more people in their Facebook news feeds and ticker
- Publish content on your blog and promote it on Facebook and Twitter and Slideshare to position your brand as experts
This is just the tip of the iceberg, there are many different tactics that are only limited by your imagination and creativity. The implementing comes down to resources and how deep are your pockets
Step 6: Determine the Cost and the Budget
This where the priorities determine where you spend your money and what you actually implement.
Some tactics to achieve your goals will be more expensive than others
- Creating a landing page for your blog that is well designed to capture leads could
- Creating a custom welcome tab for your brand on Facebook that drives traffic to your blog
- Paying for a Facebook marketing campaign to increase your Facebook “likes”
Other tactics and tasks can be free and done quickly and easily
- Implementing a Facebook “Like” Social Plugin on your WordPress Blog is easy and free
- Installing a Tweet button for easy sharing
- Placing a Twitter counter button to display social proof
Create priorities for your goals and implement the important ones first in order of priority
Step 7: Resources Purchased and Allocated to Achieve the Goals
Implementing these tactics and building the web assets requires the right resources to be found and bought.
- Money – this doesn’t require any more explanation except you may need to do one of these three! ”Beg” (this is usually not a pretty sight), “Borrow” (this is where that special friend who is a designer or programmer comes into the equation) or Steal (just don’t get caught!)
- People – finding these can be a challenge but if they don’t have all the skills hire “passion” and a “go get attitude”. They can be full time, part time or a consultant/contractor
- Tools – these can be both free and paid. A WordPress template that doesn’t require a designer can be had from about $45. If you require a really in depth social media analytics tool such as Radian 6 or Meltwater Buzz start from about $500 a month
Step 8: Plan and Create Content
Content needs to be created that communicates and tempts your audience to engage with you. If you are aiming at becoming the resource for your industry then in depth articles videos and ebooks are a must
- eBooks
- Videos
- Blog articles
- Facebook updates
Could also include polls, surveys and competitions. In a multimedia world content needs to be in a variety of formats and not just text.
4 Key Media Formats
- Video
- High definition images
- Power Point Presentations on SlideShare
- Audio -Podcasts
More reading: 9 Steps to Compelling Contagious Content
Step 9: Publish and Promote on Social Networks
Creating the content is just the start, marketing your content continuously and consistently is vital!
Building your tribe and networks on Twitter and Facebook should be a priority so that you have a ready made audience when you launch your blog.
Promoting it on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn is a good place to start for B2B’s. If you are targeting a consumer market the Facebook, Twitter and YouTube would need to be seriously considered in your social media network selection.
Organic social media marketing will take time so it is sometimes a good idea to use Paid Social Media marketing on Facebook or LinkedIn to be a catalyst to accelerate your marketing campaign. Just like you would use Google Adwords to accelerate being found online until your organic SEO starts to produce results.
Optimizing your Content
One other important element that should not be forgotten is to optimize your content on your blog and social media networks for “search” and “sharing“.
Search – Write articles using key words and phrases that customers would use to “Google” you. Also if you are publishing images on Flickr, Videos on YouTube and presentations on Slideshare (or any other social media channel) then make sure that you optimise the content by writing a headline, including a description, enter tags (Keywords)
Social – make sure you have social media sharing buttons wherever you have content. You want people to share. Don’t make it hard for customers to share and spread your great content!
Step 10: Measure and Monitor Results
You are not going to get your marketing right every time so you need to measure and monitor your results.
Tools such as “Google Analytics” and “Facebook Insights” can be used to measure and monitor the elements that tell you to ensure you are moving towards your goals
Make changes to what is not working and keep doing the activities that are producing results.
Be patient it will take time as your build your blog traffic and remember your vision and goals.
More Reading
- 8 Great Twitter Tools that will get You Tweeting Like a Pro
- 5 Tools to Measure Your Social Media Success
- 6 Powerful Tools to Find Your Customers on Twitter
- 25 Facebook Marketing Tips to Increase Sales
More Examples Of Plus Integrated Into Local Search Results
Google plus becomoning more entwined with google places. 
via Understanding Google Maps & Local Search by Mike on 11/24/11
Several additional instances of Google Plus integration into local search results have been found by Renan Cesar, a Brazilian search marketer. It has also been brought to my attention by Sebastian Socha that examples are now visible in Germany.
In both of these examples, the images, when clicked, go to an intermediate search result highlighting the appropriate Plus Page with an option to add them to your circle. In the first instance the intermediary result shows a recent post. In both cases the Plus page is correctly identified. The intermediate results page that you are taken to offers a somewhat awkward, beta like experience as it is neither a Plus page or a true search result.
At this point, Plus results for local are only showing in the Places Search, one click away from the main search results and thus less visible then they might be. If these results were to show in the main results, the opportunity to enhance a business listing with a large, juicy logo or image would be irresistible. As it is, this current rollout might convince some additional businesses to try Plus. It certainly seems to be pointing to much more visible exposure of Plus Business Pages.
My recommendation? Claim your Business Place Page to avoid squatting (which is all too easy at the moment), associate it with your website and minimally add a few compelling logos and photos.
On this Places Search example for Cake Box New Jersey you see a correctly integrated profile photo on all of their results from the business’s Google Plus page. The image clicks thru to an intermediary search result of a recent post on their Plus Page:
In second example the Plus page for Manta has been integrated into the organic section of Places search for NEC Store Manhattan.
Related posts:
- What are the implications of the new integrated Local Search results?
- What are the implications for SMBS of Google Integrated Local Search Result Tests?
- Google Continues to Test Integrated Local and Organic Results
Social Media Marketing – 10 Inspiring Infographics
These are great info graphics. 20 Stunning Social Media Statistics Plus Infographic 11 New Twitter Facts, Figures and Growth Statistics plus [INFOGRAPHIC] Past, Present and Future of Blogging: 3 Infographics How Do You Use LinkedIn [INFOGRAPHIC] How Do You Use Twitter [INFOGRAPHIC] 
via Jeffbullas's Blog by Jeff Bullas on 11/27/11
In 2011 social media marketing continued to make its impact on business and brand promotions. Google+ was launched (with an investment of over $500 million in development costs), Twitter became embedded in the new Apple iPhone 4s and Blogging didn’t die.
Facebook soared past 800 million users and Twitter continued its upward trajectory past 200 million members.
The world’s obsession with anything social online has given marketers access to networks that are instant in response, multi-media rich and ever challenging.
Some Social Network Surprises
Some surprising results and unexpected networks and social media platforms have made their mark this year with
- Tumblr now attracting over 90 million unique visitors every month and
- StumbleUpon driving over 50% of all social network traffic.
- YouTube is attracting more than 50% more views than 2010 and threatening traditional TV advertising and marketing
The role of social media in spreading and sharing of content and improving website and blog search engine optimisation has been never more obvious to the professional social media marketer.
Here are some infographics that simplify the presentation of the facts and figures of Facebook, Twittter, LinkedIn, Content and SEO, Tumblr and StumbleUpon and showcase the implications of social media for marketers.
1. The Numbers on Facebook
Via: Online Schools
2. How to Use Twitter
3. Google+
4. YouTube
5. LinkedIn
6. Inbound Marketing
7. StumbleUpon
8. Content Marketing
9. Blogging is Not Dying!
10. Content and SEO
Read More
Image by BirgerKing
