The Plain Scoop on Social Media

From the talented minds of Common Craft comes this simple, and engaging explanation of social media marketing today. Simple format – clear and concise message. Enjoy…

Kick Start Your Social Media Campaign

A few of us at SmartBrand have been working hard to establish a way to help our clients create and implement a successful Social Media Marketing (SMM) campaign can prove to be one of the key catalysts in growth for a small to medium sized business. It can increase brand and PR exposure for a fraction of traditional advertising costs and effort, as well as provide larger scale market research and product/service refinement ideas at virtually no extra charge.

Here’s our official first release of that campaign. And as always, we’d certainly welcome your insights and thoughts as they relate to our offerings, and your experiences.

A successful Social Media Marketing (SMM) campaign can prove to be one of the key catalysts in growth for a small to medium sized business. It can increase brand and PR exposure for a fraction of traditional advertising costs and effort, as well as provide larger scale market research and product/service refinement ideas at virtually no extra charge.

The speed in which trends evolve on the internet can often be daunting, but SMM campaigns by large companies can be emulated in whole, or in part, even by very small businesses. It’s not the money. It’s the content marketing mindset that separates success and failure. Big ideas can honestly beat big budgets.

Social media marketing goals will often involve different overall strategies and social media channels. It is possible to market with the aim of achieving all the following benefits; they do complement each other and some results naturally arise when other goals are achieved (e.g. better brand awareness eventually brings links).

SMM Campaign Benefits:

Increased Revenues - New sales opportunities through customer-generated content and brand engagement.

Powerful Customer Relationships – Establish and maintain valuable customer relationships through social media networks that increase brand loyalty, cultivate a network of evangelists, and maintain ongoing dialogue that will help position future marketing and business development initiatives.

Increased Traffic to Site – Increased search engine visibility effectively drives traffic to your site from fast growth channels.

Competitive Market Insight – Valuable data on behaviors and interests which helps you better understand your customers’ needs.

Enhanced Brand Presence – Seed branded messages within existing online conversations to amplify marketing efforts and manage public perception of your brand.

The power of recommendation. – Would you rather buy from an unknown company or from a company that people recommend?

SOCIAL MEDIA SERVICE OFFERINGS:

Social Media Strategy Development – Identify content, brand messages, communities and influencers with the greatest potential for our clients’ social media engagement. Create a roadmap based on marketing strategies and goals to coordinate and execute social media campaigns as a key component of the overall sales and marketing plan.

SMM QuickStart: $500 (one time fee)
➢ Profile background information and data gathering
➢ Strategy Session / Goal Setting (1 hr. in person/teleconference)
➢ Asset Compilation (graphics, broadcast, public relations)
➢ Recommendations (Phased development if required)

Social Media and Blog Launch – Create personal relationships with the influencers and evangelists that have the greatest voice within their online social networks.

BlogStart: $1,500 (one time fee)
➢ Profile background information and data gathering
➢ Strategy Session / Goal Setting (1 hr. in person/teleconference)
➢ Asset Compilation (database mining, graphics, broadcast, public relations)
➢ Installation & Profile Set-up (free platform only)
➢ Content Creation Launch (1st posting only)
➢ Content Creation Schedule Recommendations
➢ Maintenance & Update/Usage Training

Social Media Distribution – Optimize communication placement through blogging, video uploading and sharing, podcasting, webcasting, tagging and social bookmarking to maximize distribution throughout social media networks.

BlogSphere: $500-$1,500/month, 3 month minimum.
➢ Strategy Session / Goal Setting (1 hr. in person/teleconference)
➢ Installation & Profile Set-up (free platform only)
➢ Content Creation & Scheduling – monthly/weekly/daily (goal dependent)
➢ Link SMM Outreach Campaigns with existing Sales & Marketing Strategies
➢ Mobile Media (Twitter 1x day)

SMM Influencer Direct (ID): $500+/month, 3 month minimum
➢ Create and distribute electronic press kit
➢ Develop & distribute content for editors, bloggers, influencers, online columnists, and industries use to disseminate to their users and readers

Campaign Management – Manage clients’ social media initiatives in coordination with your search engine optimization and paid search marketing efforts.

SMM Management: $250+/month, 3 month minimum
➢ Content control, archiving and tracking
➢ Internet marketing strategy coordination
➢ Monthly or weekly reporting of trends, comments and response(s)
➢ Monthly or weekly recommendations to targeted topics/tactics

Brand Development and Strategic Partnerships: Design, development and refinement of affiliate-based influencer programs to build out Clients’ affiliate networks and drive their sales. Price TBD

Brand Strategy & Creative Development: Viral video/webisode production, viral email, promotions and contests, social network design: blogs, and other interactive content recommendations and distributions. Price TBD

Monitoring and Reporting – Combine technology and human insight to provide “buzz” tracking and performance analysis for social media campaign.

SMM Monitoring/Reporting: $150-$500/month, 3 month minimum.
➢ Monthly or weekly content response reporting, archiving and tracking
➢ Monthly or weekly reporting of trends, comments and response(s)

Training - Provide a full training curriculum on how to effectively utilize and integrate social media into future marketing strategies.

SMM Training: $125 hr., 2 hour minimum.
➢ Complete training for corporate staff
➢ Enable channel updates
➢ Determine ongoing reporting mechanisms

Of course, we believe this is a comprehensive, inexpensive approach to establishing a social media marketing campaign for just about any potential target market. That said, we know you may have had experience in these areas that might help guide our efforts – so please feel free to comment on our structure and pricing…we’d really appreciate your thoughts and suggestions!

Social Media Opportunities

Just about anyone in today’s marketing/advertising/pr community can tell you – social media is here to stay, and may very well be the most powerful channel media in today’s marketplace

Creating an accurate list of social media/branding opportunities is impossible, as the exponential growth of services like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (to name just a few) continue to provide new layers of connectivity and interest. However, there are a few major opportunities that each of these channels share, each of which is well worth the investment of time and brand equity development.

Engage Truly Loyal Brand Users

No matter what the topic (product or service), there’s an audience discussing it in detail somewhere…. and if there isn’t, the opportunity to create one is immediate and at virtually no cost. It’s never been easier to reach interested and loyal prospects and users than it is today.

These opportunities are very different than in the past. Advertising basically employs disruptive practices to communicate with its audience – reaching greater extremes with each layer of communication to rise above the clutter of messages bombarding the market every day. Social media provides the opportunity to engage these audiences on a one-to-one basis, without the need to interrupt or disrupt their stream of consciousness.

Building Loyal Relationships

By allowing your audience to build a relationship with your brand on their own schedule, you’ve begun the communication process without having to force your viewpoint, or worse yet, interrupt the audience to literally “cram your perspective down their throat”. Which is more effective, cold-calling sales, or responding to a request for a sales contact?

Through your perspective and a “insider expert”, new traffic to websites and blogs can be generated without relying fully on traditional and digital channels of advertising and marketing. Establishing these channels of information allows the audience to build their own sense of loyalty, at their own pace of acceptance. While that may not reflect in direct sales, it does establish the baseline of loyalty that builds the long-term brand affiliation that will, in fact, impact sales in the long run

Creating A Deeper Basis of Brand Loyalty and Recognition

Through the shift from sending messaging to engaging messaging, brands and their companies can reach out to enable new and old prospects to discuss their brand affinity, and expand that experience through dialog and promotions. Through social media, a brand can create an endless array of way to enhance and sustain the brand experience to customers that voluntarily choose the message – suddenly, communication is now two-ways, and not just a “shout into the void

The Truth and Nothing But The Truth

Ask a company what’s important to them, and if they understand their brand, they’ll tell you that “feedback is king”. Online forms gather a narrow set of criteria when evaluating a brand, but that methodology requires effort from the participant – which can easily lead to skewed (or even frustrated) responses.

Get a response to your company blog, however, and a world of communication opportunities opens both positive and negative comments from customers

The immediacy of tapping into public response at virtually no (or low) cost enables the company brand to adjust to immediate input – allowing for product revisions and offerings to be updated with current, and valid input trends.

Value, Measurement and Refinement

Needless to say, beginning a social media campaign can be a tremendously cost-effective portion of any marketing/advertising/pr campaign. If the budget is in the millions to promote and establish the brand, an investment of $30,00-$300,000 can be the most cost effective, highly measureable arm of the campaign’s arsenal.

Add that to social media’s ability to measure the effectiveness of campaigns and re-shape them for greater impact and effectiveness, and social media then becomes a necessary portion of any comprehensive brand campaign

Next up?

How to take the first steps toward your social media campaign.

A few easy, interesting points to consider as you ramp up.