Social Media
Digital Networking > Becoming an Expert
Using Social Media is a form of networking. Your goal is to develop a new referral network and just like in normal or 'human' networking you need to become a reliable and dependable source. You can even become an expert.
In fact, becoming an expert, or go-to source for information is a critical goal of using Social Media for marketing purposes.
Our job is to help you figure out how to use this media, and once using it, how to maximize its impact on your business, and how to minimize the trouble you might encounter. Facebook presents a rich source of developing and maintaining contact with your markets.
Of course, this is marketing, and the goal is to motivate appropriate people with whom you 'network' to become a lead, then a prospect, and finally a client or customer. (It is not appropriate for everybody to become a lead.)
Please be careful to disguinguish between all Social Media work you do. You will probably want to set up new accounts which serve different functions from your personal accounts.
It does take a lot of time and a major risk is becoming too personally invloved and losing your message or almost worse, diluting your message with too much activity.
Social Media Audit
This is a lot like initial keyword research when optimizing for Search Engines. You will need to figure out and locate on-line content which references your line of business. Not an easy job, really, but the heart of this kind of work.
Once the research is completed, you will most likely need to come back to your web site and develop particular pages to support the content you will be marketing for. Like landing pages.
- How we help:
We will do an audit which will identify and benchmark the location of on-line content in reference to your business and we will audit your existing web site content for Social Media Marketing suitability, and create a shortlist of potential Social Media sites for success.
Key Influencers
Key Influencers are your target market or network of which you want to become a part, and even influence yourself. While it appears that the huge markets out there should be an easy target, in fact a smaller network with active participants adding valuable content is key.
Effective use of these influences mean other experts are promoting your company and services. Viral Marketing. Rather than trying to sell a hundred people yourself, join networks where experts will talk about your value to thousands of interested people.
If you think this is hard to figure out, you're right. It's a lot of work and the results are hard to measure, sometimes even to identify. The thing is that this is really how your markets are using new media. Of course web sites are hardly obsolete, and they interact and support social media. But the value of the content on social media sites cannot be ignored.
- How we help:
we will identify appropriate sources where your best content can be woven into the dialogue of the various social media sites and communities. Prepare, recommend, and implement a strategy for reaching key influencers and becoming part of their network. We can also help develop appropriate content.
Digital Assets
Social Media is the next step to Search Engine Optimization. It is new, and to demonstrate just how new, a majority of marketing professionals either overlook or are ignorant of optimizing your assets.
You're digital assets are really all your web based content. In the context of Social Media, you're linking all your content in the conversations, recommendations and general information on the web. Images, PDF's, movies and of course text, are your assets.
Your asstes become part of Search Engine Results. A movie may be of equal or more value on YouTube than on your site itself.
- Graphics: we will help you tag and name and caption these assets and develop tactics for posting on the Internet;
- Video: we help create marketing plans for where to place videos, how to display them on your site as well as Flickr and YouTube, and how to support them with transcripts;
- YouTube: Assets on YouTube can be specificall linked to target pages on your site.
- Explode your Assets: we consult to help you think about multiplying your assets into both different format and placements.
Forums
Remember Forums? Where everybody used to ask questions and join areas of interest?
Forums have not really gone anywhere. They may have been streamlined, and lack of interest has made some obsolete, but they are around, and they still are great areas to get information. And from your perspective, places to demonstrate expertise.
They do require a lot of work. You need to find appropriate places, and you need to to become a player, a go to source for answers.
- How we help:
In truth, there's not much we can do here that you cannot. We can help you search for appropriate forums and more importantly we can help with the writing. Writing is time consuming it and may be in your best interests, since you are trying to gain the perception of expertise, to have your information appear literate and well written.
