Social Media Marketing has several components, and Facebook is just one facet of that. Good Social Media Marketing is goal oriented and incorporates Facebook Pages, Twitter, Blogging / Content creation, Viral Videos, targeted interaction with customers or potential customers online, and ore. There’s no exact blueprint for a successful Social Media Marketing campaign, and there are examples on both ends of the spectrum of great and terrible attempts. Crafting a successful Social Media plan for your business can be a matter of trial and error before you find the mix that works just right for you.

But with Social Media Marketing comes a more inherent ability to target your potential customers in a more specific way than SEM can accomplish.

I realized this first-hand as I was working on Social Media components for a new product. My Google AdWords were driving some traffic, but the keywords that seemed to be driving the most were the more general ones. And it cost me more to get prominent placement for them.

When I followed up to see what those clicks generated in my site, well, it was hit or miss. Many of the viewers were considered bounces and spent no time on the site. I had a higher success rate for the more targeted keywords, but there were MANY fewer searches for those. Essentially, my most successful ads for Google are the ones where people are looking specifically for the niche product I’m selling, and then they’re a more captive audience. But that does nothing to help me elevate the profile of this niche product that might be of great interest to some key demographics, if only they knew about it.

It was back to the age-old marketing challenge of Brand Recognition. I don’t have thousands of dollars to market this product, but the people who have seen it so far have loved it. I wanted to make it seen by those key potential customers without having to pay for views by people outside my target audience.

So first, I created a Facebook page for the product. I included some content from the main site, as well as some content unique to the Facebook page. And then, I placed a Facebook ad. The process was similar to that of Google Ads. You create the text of your ad, indicate where you want it to go, set your bid caps, your daily budget… but then, you set the demographics of the Facebook users you want to target.

You can target by interest, geographic area, gender, age, relationship status, language, education, connections, and more. While you modify your criteria, Facebook provides you with a count of how many members fit that criteria. You instantly know how many people may see your ad and can adjust your demographic requirements to instantly modify that target audience.

Unlike SEM, Facebook users don’t have to search for keywords related to your products. They’ll see the display ad, and if they’re interested, they can click through to your company page (and maybe they’ll even “Like” you).

What did I see when I started my ad? Within hours, I began to see results. You can view your impressions and your click-throughs (as well as your new “Likes”), and using Google Analytics on my main product home page, I was able to track the people coming through from Facebook. On average, they were spending six times longer on the site than my Google AdWords leads, and more than half of them clicked through to my action page.

Not everyone will see such a dramatic difference, and to be sure, some particular (though less searched) Google AdWord keywords did produce similar stickiness. But so far, we’re seeing better value per click for those Facebook ads, and it’s become a valuable part of the advertising for the product. At the very least, it does warrant consideration as you develop your 2011 marketing plan.

Social Media Marketing and Co-Op
We’ve seen many manufacturers careful about adding new media to their co-op programs, and understandably so. As a company who audits hundreds of thousands of claims a year, we’ve seen our share of vague invoices for some new media (and, to be fair, for traditional media, as well) that make it difficult for manufacturers to justify reimbursing for those expenses. At the same time, as the cost effectiveness of many traditional media dwindles (newspaper, for example), new media can offer a great alternative to driving business – if monitored properly.

We advise our manufacturers to consider adding support for these new media to their co-op programs, but to have solid rules behind what documentation is required as a proof of payment and proof of performance. We even internally offer services to many manufacturers to do that placement on behalf of retailers so we can prevent fraud and ensure expenses and invoicing are accurate.

We can help
If you’re a current SMS Manufacturing client and want to know more about incorporating Social Media Marketing support in your program, contact your Account Executive. If SMS does not currently manage your co-op program, click here to send us a message and one of our team members will be in contact with you to discuss your program and how we can help.

If you’re a retailer and want to know more about how SMS can help you with your Social Media Marketing campaigns, click here to contact us and one of our Retailer Media Support Representatives will contact you soon.

How does it work?

Google displays the new Places pages when it predicts that the user is looking for local information, and those listings include address, phone number, customer reviews, and links to your place page.

Previously, results included just the business name, URL, phone number, and the number of reviews available. Searchers had to click on each business listing to find out how many stars the business received in customer reviews and to see details like address and actual review content.

How do you make sure your business shows up?

To start, if you haven’t already, you need to make sure you claim your Google Places page using the following steps.

1.) Do a search for your business. In many cases, it may already show up with a generic places page that has been created automatically by aggregating web content. If it does, under your business name, you’ll see a “Place Page” link. Click it. (If your business doesn’t have a “Place Page” link, go to Google.com/places and click on “List your business” on the right. You may need to create a Google account if you don’t already have one.)

2.) If Google has created a place page for you, you’ll see information about your business, whether it’s near public transportation, a map of its location, reviews, and more. Toward the top of the page, you’ll see two links: “Edit this place” and “Business owner?” (if you see “Owner-verified listing” instead of “Business Owner, you can skip to step 3). Click on “Business owner?” to Edit, Suspect, or Validate your listing. Click on “Edit this listing” to update information about your business. It’s also a good idea to follow the steps to Validate your listing so you can have more control over the content of your Google Maps listing.

If you don’t have a Google-created Places page yet, you’ll want to click on “Add another business” on the Dashboard page and you will be guided through a series of steps to create a validate a page for your business.

3) Once you’ve located or created your page, you’ll want to optimize it. Google doesn’t reveal the specific details on how it ranks the pages in these search results, but Places pages with good information, numerous reviews, and elements like images or videos are likely to help with those rankings.

Short of reviews? Add a review yourself, encourage your friends and fellow business owners to do the same. Even consider running a promotion encouraging customers to provide feedback online. Not only will the feedback be useful for your location ranking, but it will provide valuable feedback to you about your business, too.

And Google seems to constantly add new ways to enhance your content. Consider adding Google tags, which can highlight coupons, videos, and whatever you consider to be most important about your business. Google Boost Ads are being rolled out for select categories in certain cities, with more to be added in coming weeks and months. Those ads allow you to draw attention to your Google Places listings. Google also offers the ability to post to your place page, so if you’re having a sidewalk sale, a book signing, or even just want to highlight news about your business, you can keep your Google Places page an interesting and useful destination for your potential and current customers.

Your Google Places page can also act as a secondary website, and it offers QR tags if you want to share your Place Page with your customers. And on the right rail of your Places page admin screen, Google even shares helpful hints on getting the most out of your page.

Best of all, the service is free (with the exception of Google Tags and Google Boost ads). Optimize your Places page today and make sure your potential customers can find you.

(Find out more about the iPad Wine App).

Each wine has its own dedicated page featuring product information from labels to soil composition or Wine Spectator scores, as well as a Google map satellite view and clickable photos of the vineyard, so customers can truly understand where their wine came from and what the grapes surroundings are.

The venture is somewhat unique for Shared Marketing, in that SMS does not traditionally work within the food industry. That may be changing, as the application has generated a host of other secondary possibilities.
Full Point Of Sale integration, a CRM database for loyal customers and their personal wine preferences will appear in upcoming iterations of The Wine List.

To learn how you can use the application in your restaurant or retail business, send us an email and we’ll contact you with more information.

Both James and Best Buy found themselves in a hard place for completely different reasons and causes, but the impact upon each just goes to show that brands can self-inflict damage in a real hurry by misjudging the audience. Google the term ‘Brian Maupin’ and you’ll get about 1,780,000 results. Seems like a lot. You don’t need to go past the first two to get to the bottom of Best Buy’s problem. After Maupin (a Best Buy employee) created a video mocking a customer looking for the new iPhone, Best Buy decided to shelve Maupin’s career at the electronics giant. (For what its worth, the video is really about how we blindly follow brands and was never intended to be a commentary on Best Buy or its customers). Regardless, a groundswell of sympathy erupted on internet for Maupin and his video which had over 3 million views before being pulled down. So much so that Best Buy backtracked, issued a hasty and somewhat ill-conceived PR release to explain why they let Maupin go, and eventually offered to re-hire him. A classic “David versus Goliath misstep.

James on the other hand, learned that a little hubris can go a long way, and lack thereof can be reason enough for people to burn your jersey and tear down your likeness. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock you know the story of LeBron and his one-hour “Decision special” so there is no need to recount that episode. His defenders will point out that Ad exposure was off the charts for the special (true) and that we’re still talking about it so he’s won the battle for buzz (also true – James literally knocked the World Cup and BP off the news headlines). However more importantly, his jersey sales are now at an all-time low, his image is at an all-time low, and people are questioning the integrity of the league he plays in to the point that the commissioner had to explain with a grave face at his own press conference that perhaps James show was “ill conceived” and  “the advice that he received on this was poor”. Its going to take some time to recover from this and there is no guarantee that he ever will. He might have inadvertently donned the proverbial Black Hat for the foreseeable future.

In short, never underestimate the power of little ripples to turn into large waves and take care not to let your message get lost in the method.

How Friendly is Your Website

The setup of your website is extremely important, not only to the visitors, but to the search engines.  SEO or search engine optimization is all about making your website friendly.  Is it easy to navigate through?  Are appropriate keywords strategically placed throughout your web pages?  Is it clean and fresh?  These are things that the search engine spiders will use to rank your website and should not be overlooked if you want to get to the top of the rankings.

Content is King

The content of your website is what keeps visitors coming back, so you want to provide up to date, good quality content related to your niche market.  The keywords should be used sparingly, but stand out so everyone will know what you are promoting.  The most important thing about content is that it should be original.  No one wants stale content, so; if you are not a good writer, consider outsourcing the task.  There are tons of services that will write content for your web pages at a very reasonable price.  Not only do the search engines love fresh content but also so will your audience.

The Importance of Links

Once a website is up and running it is not seen until it is indexed through the search engine spiders.  These spiders crawl sites and rank them based on the quality of the content and the relevance to the targeted keywords.  Manually submitting your site to the search engines can take weeks, but linking to another quality site will get your site crawled faster.  Since the spiders crawl established sites faster; linking to them will get your site crawled as well.

How do you get linked to other sites?  Contact the webmaster and ask.  Your site should be in a relevant niche but not deemed a threat.  If your content is good, some will agree. Many sites have “Link to Us” pages but the quickest way to get linked to the more established websites is to post comments on their blogs.   Commenting on the content of another blog and inviting them to visit your site will get curiosity seekers to your web pages.  Do not forget to add your URL so they know where to go.  Remember building links it not about the quantity, but the quality of the links.  They should be niche-related to hold any weight with the search engine spiders.

Get Your Site Seen With A Blog

If your website does not change very often, you might want to consider adding a blog.  A blog linked to your website offers fresh content that is updated on a regular basis.  This works well in any niche market and you can offer tips and other information in your niche.  Most blogging platforms are simple and easy to use even for the beginner.

Learning how search engine optimization works is essential for anyone who wants to have a successful website.  What your visitors think about your web pages is only one piece of the pie; what the search engines think about your site should be a bigger concern.