Social Media Braindump and My Uncle Bill.

My understanding of social media has grown with the increase of twitter users, facebook profiles and every yahoo! Question ………and answer.

I could talk for hours of SM potential and how engagement with clients offers a revolution in sales and branding, but I wouldn’t have many friends left! Instead I’ll brain dump it here as an offer of gratitude for what is my last post for WMpS.

Commence Braindump!

Internet marketing has come on leaps and bounds in recent years and is proving itself to be as evolutionary as it is powerful. It has blown me away with the level of interaction, customer engagement and branding opportunities available with new web media.

Before I start it is worth noting that B2B businesses love the idea of social media, engagement and communication, giving them the “be nice and friendly” approach that big organizations lust for. Unfortunately, businesses aren’t social! Businesses don’t have friends, they don’t have opinions that matter and as a result businesses do not recommend to other people, thus social media for B2B is simply no better than banging your head against the wall! This therefore gives small businesses the potential to fight above their weight online with effective Social media marketing.

Engaging with potential clients and customers is a lot more beneficial if you are communicating with real people and not social media managers, as they have the opportunity to tell friends, family and will inevitably increase your brand awareness.

OPINION 1 – Social Media is for real people!

Successful social media is a special thing. Real social media is interaction with people, without using automation, sales pitches and discount codes; it is the opportunity to contribute t0 your industry community. It took me a while to realize the potential of social media and how it can be done effectively.  If you are genuine through social media, you can develop your brand reputation and become an authority that people will listen to when they need help, advice or information. Similarly to the real world, we all have friends or family that we could listen to all day, we ask them for their 2 cents and are glad we asked. My Uncles Bill is one of these people!

What does Uncle Bill possess?

• He is honest
• He gives advice
• His opinion is valued
• He communicates well
• He speak to you as individuals
• He doesn’t repeat himself
• And most importantly…………….He didn’t try to sell you something the first time you met him!

If you can create an online profile based on my Uncle Bill, you have a successful brand, people will want to hear what you have to say. If you can give something to the community, people will want to listen.

Uncle Bill is in a fortunate position, he has my trust, respect and I’m keen to hear what he has to say.

If I needed something, new TV, advice on a car, finance advice……anything, and he recommended to be a solution…………..Would I buy it? Of course I would, I’ve got no reason to doubt him, no reason to think he’s lying. Even if I was paying him, I’d still believe he would be doing a good job, giving me a good product etc. This trust can be implemented in social media with great effect.

OPINION 2 – Be my Uncle Bill!

How can this be achieved on Facebook and Twitter et al?

The difference between Facebook and twitter is an interesting area of social media, as they require differing strategies and often prefer different businesses and different ways of interacting.

I’ll start with Facebook!

• Groups, Pages etc can be a great and effective way of collecting your target demographic together. Creating a group and getting people to interact within the group allows them to do their own “lead generation” recommending to friends Become a Fan et al etc.
• Facebook social networks mimic social networks in real life. E.g. the majority of my friends are my age and from where I live, on Facebook this still applies, therefore if you want to target people like me! Get me involved! Similar people have similar interests allowing the organic growth of a group/page to remain of high quality ensuring that your community is a relevant and active group.
• PPC – Facebook allows adverts! Using the PPC element of facebook you can hone your demographic by ASL*, school, workplace, even under interests and common groups. This means that your advert can be shown to the exact demographic you are looking to sell to. This also works wonders for brand awareness. My friends and I like similar things (hence they are my friends!) this means that a large group of us will be aware of the brand even if we don’t click, we will have seen your logo, and brief blurb. If the advert is a good one we’ll click through, also I know exactly what we’d be talking about over a few beers and pork scratching!

…Twitter.

• Twitter has a really active community! Those who tweet, tweet hard.
• You can access anyone! Using RSS feeds of Search results you can see who are talking about, products, industry news, and your brand allowing you to respond quickly to give advice or help (remember my Uncle Bill).
• You can see who people follow and who follow individuals – this allows you to see micro communities developing on twitter and is a perfect place to become an authority.
• Retweets! – You may have a collection of avid followers who in turn have followers. If you produce quality content you can get people retweeting your content. Getting people to recommend your sites to other people is a great way of spreading your brand and reinforcing your position as an industry leader. Plus you could go VIRAL!

OPINION 3 – Group with Facebook – Be an authority on Twitter.

Thank you and Goodnight!

*I haven’t used ASL (Age, Sex, and Location) in years…..honestly.