All Marketers are Liars

 

 

Not liars, storytellers

Just to be clear, especially if you're just joining us:
The truth is elusive. No one knows the whole truth about anything. We certainly don't know the truth about the things we buy and recommend and use.
What we do know (and what we talk about) is our story. Our story about why use, recommend or are loyal to you and your products. Our story about the origin and the impact and the utility of what we buy.
Marketing is storytelling.
The story of your product, built into your product. The ad might be part of it, the copy might be part of it, but mostly, your product and your service and your people are all part of the story.
Tell it on purpose.

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LADIES ARE YOU READY?

Do you think you have got what it takes to win the Reference Point Selfie of the Year contest 2014?

Grab the opportunity to win:

Grand prize: 30,000 naira + Brand Ambassador endorsement(Grand Prize)

First runner up: 20,000 naira

Second runner up: 10,000 naira

Entry is free for the first stage. Simply log into your Twitter or Instagram page and upload your selfie with the hash tag “#wild” alongside a preferred means of contact. Those that will qualify for the second stage will be notified and required to pay the sum of 2,000 naira.

Like our facebook page www.facebook.com/referencepoint

The theme for this years contest is #wild

For more details visit www.pointresources.blogspot.com,  or simply send “rpr selfie contest” in a message to us on the following social platform

Bbm: 23139928

E-mail:pointresources@gmail.com

Whatsapp: 07068399394

Proudly sponsored by Reference Point Resources

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Which Social Media Platform Should I Use?

By now you’re completely aware that you need to have some sort of social media presence. After all, the statistics have proven how important social media networks are for a business. Consider the following:

• 8 out of 10 internet users are reached by social media sites and blogs.
• Marketers saw an increase of 74% in website traffic after devoting just 6 hours per week in social media.
• 87% of small businesses claim that social media has helped their business.
• 85% of business-decision makers believe that at least having one social media channel is very important for technology purchase decisions.

But, there’s much more to just creating a Facebook or Pinterest account and expecting success to follow. You actually have to understand which platforms work best for your brand and where your audience spends most of their time. For example, the MTV crowd is more likely to spend time on Vine, while a white-collar professional would be over on LinkedIn. It’s very doubtful that both of those audience would cross paths on one specific social media network.
Besides, it would take more resources than it’s worth to update and perfect all of the social media platforms out there. Instead, just to focus on the couple of networks that can best broadcast your message and raise brand awareness to your targeted market.
That may sound easier said than done. Which is why we put together the following article which the most popular social media platforms and who should use them. As an added bonus, we also included some helpful pieces of advice so that you can master your preferred network and become a social media hero.

Facebook

Everyone had a Facebook account. Literally. Statistics have shown that 93% of all adult users online are on Mark Zuckerberg’s social network. Marketers are also aware of Facebook’s power. According to Hubspot, “74% of all marketers say Facebook is important to their lead generation strategies.”
While there’s no doubt that Facebook has a lot of pull, does that mean it’s the right platform for you? We’re going to go ahead and say yes. As a whole, Facebook remains a popular platform for people to spend time and catch up with friends, family, and even the news. Having a Facebook business page to share a variety of content, like updates, contests or events. Just keep in mind that the most effective Facebook pages aren’t just advertisements 24/7. It should be casual and spark conversations.
Our friend Belle Beth Cooper put together some really useful Facebook statistics over at the Buffer blog you can use as a guide. Here are some of the more important takeaways:

• Posts that contains photos make-up 93% of the most engaging posts.
• Keep your posts under 250 characters.
• Using emoticons can get your post liked 57% more than those without.
• Most engagement occurs towards the end of the week from Wednesday to Friday.
• Posting between 9am and 7pm is acceptable.
• Question posts “get 100% more comments than standard text-based posts.”
• 35% of users participate in contests, 42% like a page in order to get a discount or coupon.

If you’re looking for some inspiration on how to create an effective Facebook page, check out the “20 Best Company Facebook Pages” from Inc.com. Suggestions includes Zappos, Fresh Brothers, Community Coffee, Burt’s Bees, and Bonobos.

Twitter

The 140-word character micro-blogging site has 190 million unique site visitors every month, on top of the close to 650 million registered users. That’s a lot of people who you could potentially convert, which is why everyone should have a Twitter handle. Twitter can be used to continue a conversation and because of its “in the moment” platform it can be used for customer service.
The problem is that there are also 58 million tweets per day. And that’s a lot of competition. So, how can you make the most of this invaluable tool?

• Make sure your tweets are relevant and urgent.
• Show your personality.
• Tweet 2 to 5 times daily.
• Use a tool like Buffer to schedule tweets throughout the day.
• Image links can get 2x the engagement rate.
• 86% of tweets with links will get retweeted.
• Make sure links come from mobile friendly sites.
• Use hashtags to gain 2x more engagement.
• Keep tweets under 100 characters.
• Tweet later in the day while people are commuting.

Want to learn from the pros? Check out the Twitter accounts from Delta, Charmin, WWE, Skittles, American Express, and Taco Bell.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has become the go-to social media platform for professionals. If you run a B2B business, are a recruiter or a job-seeker, you need to be on this platform. And there are numbers to back this claim. There are over 300 million members and 3 million company pages on the service globally. In other words, if you need to post a job or do some research on an employer or employee there’s no better option out there.
However, LinkedIn is all about growing your professional network. This is why you need to have a complete profile and make sure your contacts are appropriate and professional. You’ll need these contacts, along with the people you already know, to get introduced to second and third-degree connections. If done correctly you never know who you’ll meet – maybe a potential employee or employers.
While establishing connections is the most important aspect of LinkedIn, it’s also a place where professionals can gain advice, industry insights and exchange ideas. This means that LinkedIn is mainly composed of mature, career-oriented individuals and isn’t as casual as Facebook.
To get the most out of LinkedIn, remember the following:

• Use relevant keywords in your content.
• You should customize your LinkedIn profile URL.
• Have a link from your website to your LinkedIn profile.
• Keep your page clean and organized.
• The best times to share content: 7:00-8:30am, 5:00-6:00pm
• The worst times to post: Monday and Friday, 9:00am-5:00pm

In December 2013, LinkedIn shared the best company pages of the year. Included in the list were Adobe, AppleOne, Commonwealth Bank, Dell, Four Seasons, HubSpot, Kellogg, Marketplace Home Mortgage, Mashable and NPR. We suggest you look them over.

Google+

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Google+ is that it’s appealing, and useful, for both professionals and people just looking for a casual social media network. The reason this is possible is because you can organize your contacts into circles. This means you could share a funny video with your friends or family without sharing said video with your professional network.
Of course, we already suspect you’re questioning how popular Google’s so-called Facebook competitor really is. As of October 2013, there are 300 million active users per month. And, 53% of users have reported that they’ve had a positive interaction with brands on Google+.
But perhaps the biggest advantage of Google’s social media platform is its affiliation with the world’s most well-known and used search engine in the world. This means that when you link to content on your blog it’s going to give your SEO a major boost. And, no matter what field you’re in, that’s always a major perk. There’s also the fact that you’ll also be tied into a Google network that contains Drive, Maps, and YouTube.
Here are some helpful tips on how to optimize Google+.

• Just like Twitter, you want to use hashtags, preferably 2 or 3 per post.
• You can also use hashtags to keep track of conversation and campaigns; use Explore First to see what’s popular.
• Be specific, this will help reach your targeted audience.
• Find the right headline.
• Google+ is both an image and text platform, make sure to use both.
• Embed Google+ comments onto your blog.
• Look into +Post Ads.
• Best times to post are between 9:00-11:00am; avoid from 6:00pm-7:00am

Despite Google + have a significant increase in users, there’s still a lot of unknowns surrounding the social media outlet. We suggest you review the top 10 Google + pages according to Jeff Bullas. The list features brands ranging from Toyota, Pepsi, H&M and The New York Times.

Instagram

Instagram has an impressive 200 million active users who share 60 million images per day. But, that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. Because this an image and video based platform some fields will benefit more so than others. For example, if you’ve involved in the food, fashion, luxury, or lifestyle industries, then Instagram is a perfect fit.
What makes Instagram an interesting platform is that it can add some much-needed personality to expand brand awareness. This means that even more formal brands can lighten up a bit and show a different side of the business with humorous, lighthearted, or creative content. Furthermore, you can use images to showcase your latest products, give visitors a behind-the-scenes look or announce an upcoming event. There’s also the interaction with visitors by encouraging them to take an image related to your brand for contests or just to establish brand loyalty.
There are also two huge benefits going for Instagram. For one, the use of images in social media is becoming more and more important. This was covered by Jayson DeMers who stated that images can grab the attention of your audience and improve SEO. The other big benefit of being on Instagram is that it’s owned by Facebook, so sharing your Instagram content on Facebook is a snap.
Here are some useful pieces of advice for Instagram use:

• Keep your audience in mind
• Take images that best represent your brand.
• Your photos don’t have to always be professional, that defeats the real-connection
• Make use of both the @ and # symbols.
• Use Followgram to keep track of your stats.
• Best times to post are between 3-5pm during weekdays and on the weekend.

Still looking for some inspiration on how to make the best of Instagram? Go back and read how Michael Kors earned 34,000 followers in the 18 hours after posting the the first Instagram ad. Other brands who are doing Instagram are GoPro, Old Spice, Benefit Cosmetics, HBO’s Girls, and General Electric.

Pinterest

Much like Instagram, Pinterest is a great platform for anyone involved in the food or fashion fields. However, Pinterest has been shown to be an effective platform for travel, design, home decor, and anything related to DIY. The most well-known part of Pinterest is it’s popularity with women, which make up 80% of all users.
If you’re still on the fence about Pinterest, consider the following. It has 70 million users and, compared to other social networks, Pinterest users spend the most amount of money. In fact, they spend nearly double what Facebook users spend and triple what Twitter users spend.
Interaction among Pinterest users is mainly based on ‘repins,’ ‘likes’, and comments that are usually shorter than most other social networks. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun by creating boards and then placing those boards into the right category. This helps users find and create content based on the likes and interests of their audience.
Still interested in giving Pinterest a try? Don’t neglect the following.

• Keywords are an essential part of your pins.
• Don’t forget to include links.
• Attribute images if not your own.
• Word count for pin should be in the 100-200 range.
• Use a shortened URL.
• Best times to pin are on Saturdays, 2:00-4:00pm and 8:00-11:00pm. The worst times are 1:00-7:00am and 5:00-7:00pm.

Pinterest is still relatively new, so you may night be all that familiar with the platform. If you’re looking for how to perfect boards, check out “10 Brilliant Pinterest Board Ideas From Real Brands” by HubSpot. Other brands that have been ruling Pinterest are Lowe’s, Whole Foods, Jetsetter, L.L. Bean  and Better Homes and Gardens.

YouTube

We all know of YouTube, but can you use the video service for social media marketing campaigns? Well, that depends. If you’re offering advice or sharing your expertise, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be creating informational and useful videos for your customers. You could also create teaser trailers or behind-the-scenes footage to give your target audience a little something extra.
However, once you read these YouTube statistics, you may suddenly go out and start making videos for your YouTube channel.

• More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month
• Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube—that’s almost an hour for every person on Earth
• 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
• 80% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US
• YouTube is localized in 61 countries and across 61 languages
• According to Nielsen, YouTube reaches more US adults ages 18-34 than any cable network

Because Google owns YouTube, these videos also do extremely well in search rankings. Which could be a good thing for SEO.
Just remember these tips when jumping on the YouTube bandwagon.

• Add links to your other social networks.
• Grab viewers attention within first 15 seconds.
• Feature a call-to-action by asking viewers to like or subscribe.
• Create content on a frequent basis.
• Make sure that you have relevant and attention-grabbing titles, description and tags.

Some great YouTube channels to spark creativity would be GoPro and TED. You can also see why AdWeek included Playstation, Warner Bros., and Call of Duty  in “The 10 Best Brand Channels on YouTube.”

Vine

One of the most exciting, and fastest growing, social media platforms is Vine. While the 6-second video platform may not have the numbers that Instagram does – around 40 million registered users compared to Instagram’s 200 million – it’s been capturing the minds and attention of brands and viewers for the last year or so.
Here’s some other benefits of using Vine: by 2017, two-thirds of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video, five tweets per second contain a Vine link, and a Vine-branded video is four-times more likely to be seen than a regular branded video.
Still not convincedVine can help your brand? Here’s one great success story. On the first day of Honda’s #WantNewCar Vine campaign, it gained 1,020 new followers. That may not sound incredibly impressive, but compare that to its six-month average of 242 new followers and this is definitely a major push. The Vine campaign also earned Honda 2,292 mentions.
Most brands can use Vine to gain brand awareness or showcase a new product or service, specifically if geared towards a the 18-20 year old demographic. What’s great about this technique is that it’s relatively cheap and allows you to have some fun with your brand. Vine could also be used for contests or customer engagement by asking them to create their video based around your product or service.
Here are some tips for your consideration:

• Be creative.
• Invest in a tripod.
• Make sure your shot is framed.
• Have proper lighting and audio.
• Time your shots.
• Include a clever description.
• Users are most active from 10-11am on Saturdays and Sundays.

Some of the brands that have been getting the most out of the potential of Vine are Oreo, Airbnb, Samsung, Dunkin’ Donuts, and General Electric.

Foursquare and/or Yelp

While not commonly associated with the likes of Facebook or Twitter are platforms like Foursquare and Yelp. There are ideal if you have a physical like a restaurant, bar, coffee shop,  or any other sort of brick-and-mortar store. They could also be used for B2C companies as well.
The power of platforms like Foursquare and Yelp is that they rely on word-of-mouth recommendations from previous customers, as well as discovering local businesses. Word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful tools business owners can build upon since it’s visitors are basing their final purchasing decision based off of reviews.
Foursquare has around 45 million users and has a very strong presence on mobile devices. Foursquare also encourages users to interact with each other and is perfect for helping friends meet up at a specified location. If you’re business is more geared towards the younger, socially active demographic, than it’s a great platform to use.
Yelp is a little more established and boasts a user base of 120 million unique monthly visitors. Yelp reviews also make more appearances on the first page of search results. Yelp may not be as hip as Foursquare, but it’s the better option for a more mature crowd and, according to Marketing Land, “more than two-thirds of their reviews are for non food and beverage establishments.”
When it comes to platforms like Foursquare and Yelp, keep the following in mind:

• Make sure all your business information (hours, location, menu, official website, etc.) is up to date.
• Monitor feedback and respond to concerns.
• Ues the right keywords – this is most important for Yelp.
• Share additional information about your business, such as if reservations are accepted, the parking situation and if you accept credit cards.
• Include images.

Besides essentially receiving some free advertising from these platforms, you can also run campaigns. In the past by teaming up with Foursquare, the History Channel gave away a trip, a New York city steakhouse simply offered a free dessert, guests at Starwood Hotels received points, and Pepsi helped fans score concert tickets.

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5 Laws You’ve Got to Stop Breaking on Social Media

Sometimes you don’t have time to follow all the best practices of inbound marketing. Or maybe your boss or client is standing over your shoulder, giving you instructions, and you don’t have the power or strength to argue anymore.
In these situations, you can be forgiven for abandoning protocol. Just don’t forget the lines that should never, ever be crossed. There’s a big difference between tweeting a link to a helpful article without mentioning the author, for example, and making sure to only post links to pages that are about your brand.

Yes, there are some social media transgressions that have the power to damage your efforts and actually lengthen the distance between where you are now and your marketing goals. These are the ones to watch out for.

Don’t Talk About Yourself Too Much

You are on social media to build awareness of your brand and steer the conversations around it, right? Many marketers think the best way to accomplish this is to post non-stop about their amazing product or service, with a few special deals thrown in, and wait for the sales to roll in.
This tactic won’t work, because, let’s face it, no one cares about you! What they care about is how you can help them solve their problems.
Talk about your audience and what they want. Then tell them how you fit into the picture, but always focusing on the benefits of using your products, rather than the specs and features. When you keep your prospective customers at the center of the conversation, they will have a reason to turn to you instead of the competition.

Be Helpful Instead of Sales-y

Yes, you want to sell your product, but people are not generally hanging out online in order to read ads. What they are looking for is content that captivates them, amuses them and makes them feel like they are in the inside of a cool, branded world. Customers have so many options online and offline, so you need to stand out from the competition.
When you are helpful to potential customers, they’ll form an emotional attachment to your brand and look for your products when the time comes that they are ready to buy.

Remember: Your “Audience” Consists of Real People

Audience is such an overused buzzword that it’s easy to forget that there are actually people behind these screens—people with real problems and needs.
Treat them like you would treat a customer walking into your office, store, or showroom. And just as you don’t try to target every single person who passes by, don’t try to market to the entire Internet at once. Instead, think about who your target audience is in the narrowest sense, and turn them into evangelists for your products.
Stop thinking of your audience in terms of demographics. Pinpoint exactly who your customer is, and market to that specific person, crafting messages intended for individuals. Build relationships with these individuals by hanging out where they hang out, and write content directed towards them and what they care about.
And if you’re using automation tools, make sure not to let them take over the conversation. People can tell the difference between robots engaging with them and people engaging with them.

Don’t Try to be Active on Too Many Channels

The blogs you read about online marketing often extol the virtues of various social media channels and make it seem like you must be active on every single one of them. It makes sense that you might be confused and take a headline like “Why Your Business Should Be on Instagram” too literally.
Of course, taking on too many social networks will cause a major time suck and not have the desired effect. Instead, choose a few channels which your audience frequents and put all your efforts into these and only these.
It’s important to remember that each social media site is a micro-universe of its own, with unique etiquette, community norms, and functionalities. Don’t just post the same exact content a million times on a million networks. Think about how to present your content on each network in a way that’s suited to how and why people use that network, this will make your audience more likely to respond.

Unreasonable Expectations and Incorrect Measurements

There’s probably someone whispering in your ear telling you should have some astronomically high number of followers on each of the social media channels you are active on (and possibly even on the ones you ignore). Not only is this unreasonable—it’s far from the best measurement of success.
What matters is not how many people clicked Like or Follow, or even how many shares a piece of content received. What’s really important is whether metrics like sales, awareness, support response times, or share of relevant conversation are on the rise. If social media efforts are making real impact, then that translates into an upswing in sales.
And some metrics are more helpful for informing the process of refining engagement tactics than they are helpful for proving your activity is helping business. Keep track of which types of posts strike a chord with your audience and what time of day is the best for posting to your followers.
You can set up tracking with a powerful, premium inbound tool suite like HubSpot, but free tools with narrower scope like Google Analytics and Buffer are also useful for tracking and measurement.
But please don’t forget that some ROI is simply not trackable—providing a positive customer experience and turning a disgruntled consumer into a brand evangelist is simply priceless.

Where Do You Draw the Line?

When it comes to social media engagement, some compromises simply won’t fly. Whether it is chasing after bad metrics, spreading yourself too thin, making it all about you, over-automating, or using hard sell tactics, there are plenty of “worst practices” that are way too rampant.
Think something important is missing from this list? Do you see brands posting in other ways that make steam come out of your ears? Leave a comment below!

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7 Must Have Characteristics of a Corporate Brand Ambassador

Today’s competition among brands for a particular niche is really tough and challenging. If this is not addressed properly, you will find yourself in the midst of brand giants that will bury your brand’s popularity. As an SEO professional, you should be able to find ways to deal with this and develop unique ways to stand out among the crowd. A popular solution is through the use of a brand persona. Susan Gunelius said “Your brand is like a person with its own distinct personality”.
As mentioned, the use of brand persona is popular. You have seen Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods associated with many sports brands. Via the phenomenon of transference, the star’s fame and popularity brings goodwill to the brand they are promoting.
So is it a must that your corporate brand ambassador is a celebrity? Definitely not. Your choice can be someone that works for you but he/she must possess these 7 characteristics:

1. Knowledgeable and Innovative in marketing brands

Knowledgeable – Becoming a brand ambassador means that a person is automatically a marketing representative of the company. However, it doesn’t mean that he needs a degree in Marketing. He only needs to understand the market and a brief idea of his role to play. He will then just undergo some training to improve his skills. Know their previous experience in marketing a product. Ask questions during the interview and you will have an idea on how much time is needed for training the person.
Tools – briefly introduce the use of company marketing tools to your brand persona. Show him what he needs to properly market the brand, be it apparels, caps, tumblers, social media etc. He must be familiar with everything he is using to properly carry your brand wherever he goes.
Being innovative –You brand ambassador should be able to develop ways to improve the program with the Project Manager. As he is in the field and sees the day-to-day activities, he is able to identify issues and trends that people embraces. He should be able to make useful suggestions and improvements for the benefit of the brand and consumer engagement.

2. Professional speaker

Ensure that your brand ambassadors are proactively initiating conversation with others in promoting your brand’s product; be it goods or services. He should be comfortable in engaging healthy discussions and be warm in dealing with difficult people.
A perfect example is Lewis Hamilton’s appointment as the global brand ambassador for Petronas Syntium:
“As the brand ambassador, Hamilton will be the face of the company’s range of Petronas Syntium products “He will also participate in a number of Petronas’ global marketing, communications and promotional programs and activities,” Petronas said.
As the brand ambassador, Hamilton is then expected to be dynamic in dealing with people. He must be well informed with the product he is promoting. A good level of awareness over the industry is also very critical. Everything that he says will reflect the company’s stand on issues thus; we cannot discount the need for a diplomatic but at the same time engaging speaker.
A product’s quality and image is being carried by the person representing it. A brand ambassador should not just speak for it; he needs to be the voice of the brand itself. If he does, people will clearly see the connection between him and the brand. A few moments where a speaker cannot introduce the product properly, may mean a lifetime of brand humiliation. The audience will not just lose their interest towards your product but also remember the shame that happened for a long period of time.
Remember that the presentation of your product and brand is being placed on the hands of your brand ambassador. As such, his purpose is to build a connection between your products and your audience through his image. Take note that no matter how great your product is, if it’s not delivered properly to the public, it would be useless as they will not spend time or attention into trying it.

3. Leader

The main purpose of a brand ambassador is to embody the values, the character and the overall image inherent to the brand. He needs to stir up thoughts associated with owning the product. This way, he leads the customers not only to buying the product but also to their self fulfillment associated with possessing it.
Brand ambassadors are experts in speaking for and on behalf of your product. It’s natural for them to emphasize the benefits in a persuading manner. They develop good image and perception towards your events that’s why they can be the front people to talk to your guests.

4.Credible

Credibility of your ambassador is very important. You will not get someone with bad record, malicious life style and despicable personality. Normally, customers tend to give a lot of trust to your employees view about your company and its product. It’s because they have lesser stake than the top management. If your staff speak well of your product, it’s a plus to your promotion.
A known and respected authority over a niche like bloggers, small publishers and others gain so much empathy and affection from their audience. That’s why it’s better to have these people for your brand rather than the extremely expensive advertising campaigns.

5. Relationship Builder

Speaking for your brand is one thing, building a solid relationship is another, and the latter is more important. Your ambassador’s face-to-face encounters with your target audience are very significant as these create the opportunity to build a relationship between your customer and your brand. Seize the opportunity by getting the right person to represent the brand.
The best brand ambassadors are those who actually experienced your product. Often, they are the people within your customer base and not your employees. Monitor your brand’s online image. There you will see and identify customers who earnestly promotes your product. Find out the scope of their influence by following their blogs and social media circles.
Your ambassador is not just a display to your events. He needs to experience it to add value to his job. He needs to ensure that the customers are happy and are positively impacted in every event.

6. Team Player

Indeed, brand ambassadors should be high-caliber people. But more than this, they should see themselves as part of the team. They must remove the misconception that they are the sole reason for your sales and popularity. This way, you ensure that your team works harmoniously and all issues prevented.
What exactly is a “brand ambassador”? It ranges from the owner and the board of directors; those who possess the greatest interest in seeing the company and its products succeed, to the employees: those who work to ensure that the very details are covered. These ambassadors need to settle any issues to effectively promote a brand. What’s worse is to see your very employees destroying your brand image.

7. Tech-Adequate

Your ambassadors should be updated to the latest trends that people recognize. Today, people are very much inclined to the use of social media. Therefore, your ambassadors should not be only literate in opening your computer but also passionate in using the social media tools in campaigning for your brand. Let them explore and develop ways to promote your brand worldwide by generating high traffic to sites that promotes your product.
The best example for this is the winner of Daytona’s Digital Race, Danica Patrick and Go Daddy. She understands not only how social media works but also its potential in tapping people worldwide. With over 700,000 followers, she generated so much traffic to Go Daddy’s site by updating the fans of the happenings in the racing including behind-the-scene information and insider interviews with Danica. This then makes Danica not only an image to Go Daddy’s business but also an essential key to driving her own fans to her long time sponsor.

Conclusion

Selecting the right brand ambassador (brand persona) is an essential part of your marketing strategy. You need to maximize this wonderful opportunity n building up your brand. Pick the right person with the right skills. Did you consider having a brand ambassador? Does your brand ambassador exhibit the core values of your company? Remember your ambassador personifies your corporate brand, choose the best image you want to display.

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6 Social Media Trends for 2014 that You Need to Understand

Lets take a look at the social media trends that you need to master under 2014.

1. It’s all about images…

Image-centric networks saw huge success 2013, paving the way for smaller networks to rise and be a force to reckon with (e.g. Instagram & Snapchat).  Larger networks adapted this trend as we saw Facebook, Google and Twitter improve their service and focus more on images.

Image-based content will rule 2014, so it’s time to you to master images, get to know what kind of images engage your followers, and take a closer look at image-centric networks.

2. and videos!

We know that Facebook will introduce sponsored videos this year. We also know that Vine and Instagram videos will get even more attention, and we will probably see the rise of more social networks with better video features. Short videos are coming as the new snapshot, so you need to get your behind behind a camera and learn how to create engaging content. For 2014, creating compelling short videos will be as important as writing in 140 characters.

3. Time to pay up!

As the bigger social networks constantly are tuning their newsfeed algorithms and focusing more on profit, it will be harder for the little guys to reach their audience on social media. It’s time to face a harsh reality: social media is not free anymore, and you need to beef up your social media budget and spend some dollars in order to reach your audience.

4. Finally – TV gets social

I have been waiting for this for years, but I think that 2014 will be the year that TV really gets social. With Facebook introducing more features to their hashtags, Twitter launching TV conversation targeting, and more TV shows including real time tweets in their shows, it’s safe to say that companies will try to use popular TV shows and movies in order to reach a wider audience.

What you need to do: stay updated on viral hashtags, be a part of the discussions about your company, monitor relevant hashtags, and – if all goes well – maybe even hijack a trend or two.

5. Cross-device targeting

We already know that users behave differently depending on the device that they are using (e.g Mobile, Tablet or Desktop). And as we are seeing more usage from mobile and tablet users (one-third of digital media time is now taking place on a smartphone or tablet) you need to make sure that all of your campaigns are cross-device friendly.  The days when you built an Facebook App that only worked for Desktop users are over.

Once you make sure that all your content and all of your campaigns are cross-device friendly (if you havent hard of Responsive design, you need to check it out), it’s time to figure out how your users behave whether they are on a mobile, on a tablet or on a desktop computer.  This will give you insight as to how your product can be better cross-consumed.

6. The blog is the heart of your social media marketing

With all this talk about social networks, we still need to remember that you can create awesome content in your own backyard.  As social shares are becoming a strong SEO inflencer, you need to make sure that your webpage gets shared on the social networks.

The best way to do this is to create a blog where you give your audience an exclusive view in to your company, spread engaging images of your products and clients, and teach your readers about your industry and future trends. Take a closer look at magazines that are great at generating viral content (e.g. Buzzfeed, Viralnova & Upworthy) and take a page from their playbook.

I think that 2014 will be an very exciting year, with awesome campaigns and new features and networks that will inspire you and give you the tools you need to take you and your company to the next level. At Meltwater we will make sure that we track and examine all new trends and continue to give you valuable insights regarding social media and online media monitoring news.

And please, follow us on Facebook or Twitter.  We’ll continue to pay attention to the digital marketing landscape so that we can write about the latest trends on our social media blog and PR blog.

Any social media trends that you would like to add to the blogpost? Feel free to leave a comment!

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Social Media in an Hour a Day (or Less!)

Social media can be a full-time job – for an entire team of people – but most companies don’t have the resources for that. so, today, I’m here to offer some tips to get the most out of your social presence in as little as one hour per day. Here we go!

Block off 30 minutes on your calendar each morning and afternoon

I’m serious. Go to your Outlook or Google calendar right now and create a recurring meeting to spend 30 minutes on social media every weekday morning, and 30 minutes each weekday afternoon. I would suggest you schedule the morning social session as early as possible so that you can listen and respond to chatter that’s happened since your last log in. The afternoon session should be later in the day, so you spread our your log ins, but you may want to schedule this directly after lunch to make sure you don’t forget to do it (we’re creatures of habit).

Check your brand mentions

Spend 5-10 minutes to check your mentions in your morning and afternoon sessions, either through a tool, in the native apps, or through email notifications. This is your opportunity to engage with people who are already engaged with your brand. Answer questions, ask questions, thank people for retweeting and sharing your content, and retweet and share their content. This make take 10 minutes in the morning, when you have more to review, and 5 minute in the afternoon, for a total of 15 minutes per day.

Schedule some posts

Spend 20 minutes per day finding great content to post, and scheduling it to go out throughout the day. Follow the 80-20 rule, and post your own content 20% of the time and other people’s content 80% of the time. You may choose to do this all at once – either in the morning to account for the entire day or in the afternoon to cover the following day – or you may prefer to schedule some posts during each of your social media sessions. To curate great content quickly, I would recommend subscribing to your favorite industry blogs an publications via email or social media so there is always quality content at your fingertips.

Make new friends

I was a girl scout, so I hear this and immediately sing, “Make new friends, but keep the oooold, one is silver and the other gold” – and this rings true in the social sphere, as well as IRL (in real life). You should spend 10 minutes each day engaging on social media, which will help you bump up your brand mentions. I use Meltwater Buzz to uncover industry conversations that are taking place and inserting Meltwater into the conversation, offering helpful tips and advice, sharing my personal experience, and offering product information when appropriate. There are many other ways to engage, though, including joining Twitter Chats, reading through social media newsfeeds or lists, live social posting from webinars, etc – so find the way that’s best for you to engage and make it a part of your daily routine. Also make sure to follow/circle/like the people and brands you engage with.

Analyze everything

Spend the next 15 minutes of each day analyzing your social media efforts. You should be experimenting with what time you post, what kinds of content you post, and what gets you the most engagement – so make sure you take the time to understand what’s working, and what isn’t. Make sure that you’re getting a return on your time investment: if you spend equal amounts of time on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google Plus, but don’t see results from Twitter and Google Plus, focus more of your time on the networks where it really matters.
There you have it: social media in an hour a day. If you find that you have less time, make sure you don’t skimp on checking your brand mentions and engaging. Posting content is secondary, you can always analyze your social presence next week – it’s much more important to keep the social in social media!

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9 Ways to Improve Social Media Shares of your Content

Content marketing combines the creation of valuable content with social media marketing and search engine optimization . It helps companies drive new leads, establish industry credibility, and stay top of mind with existing and potential clients.
Social media plays a large role in content marketing as one of the key distribution vehicles for content. In addition to advertising and email marketing, social media shares of content via sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr and other platforms allows good content to spread: the modern version of word-of-mouth marketing.
With that said, the spread of content via social media doesn’t have to be left to chance. There are specific things that companies and organizations can do to either encourage (or inadvertently discourage) the social sharing of content.
Here are nine ways to increase shares of your great content in social media. If your content is not getting shared, use this as a checklist to see where your efforts may be falling down.

1) Choose Topics People Care About

Not all topics are created equal, so you need to develop a sense for what your topics your audience really cares about. Some ways to do that include looking at search keyword volumes (e.g. via Google Adwords or various keyword tools), asking sales what customers always ask about, or seeing what consistently gets shared and commented on on your blog, competitor’s blogs and in social media in general (see this deep dive about business blog topics).

2) Rewrite That Headline!

I hate to say it but 99% of business blog post headlines are accurate but extremely dull. “Why Your Company Should Use Encrypted Storage Solutions” may describe what’s in the post clearly, but is not that compelling. Here are a couple of twists on the same content, with new headlines to increase interest, curiosity and share-ability: “5 Reasons Hackers Love Current Data Storage Solutions” or “Traditional Data Storage + Your Corporate Secrets = Serious Risk”. You may be able to come up with better, but the point is to intrigue the audience who sees this headline in social media or on your blog.

3) Make Posts More “Skimmable”

Many industry influencers stay top of mind with their social media followers by curating valuable, unique or interesting content. In fact, they often won’t read whole posts before they share. If your post is not designed in a way that makes it easy to quickly grasp the key points, they won’t bother to skim it or share it. In addition, many of your regular readers don’t have time to dig into large blocks of text. Think bold headers and key points (2-3 sentences) for each versus dense paragraphs.

4) Don’t Skimp on Pictures or Graphics

In addition to skimmable posts, pictures are a very important element for increasing social shares. Sites like Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest usually feature the main picture from your post. The visual elements are critical to getting attention for your post in social media, to communicating the key message, and often can make or break the social sharing of a post. Don’t spend time on a great post and take 2 seconds to pick a very boring and generic picture or graphic. Worse yet is to completely skip pictures. Take the extra time and find a unique style of graphics or pictures that works for your company and your social sharing will grow (and yes, you can use stock photography but don’t always go for the obvious).

5) Improve Ease of Sharing

Supermarkets make it easy to buy impulse purchases like candy and magazines by positioning them strategically at the check-out line. If you want people to share your posts, you need to position social share buttons right where any reader (or skimmer) will find them. I typically like to put them at the top or on the side (scrolling with the content) so they’re hard to miss.

6) Prime the Pump

This refers to the fact that many companies will create content, have share buttons visible (with counts of shares), and the posts will have a measly 0 or 1 shares. Are you telling me that you can’t muster more than 1 share across your whole company for that content? Having only a couple of shares per post communicates a lack of interest from both the company and readers. Having at least a few shares per post shows that there’s some interest and makes other people more likely to share it themselves. Encourage the authors and others in the company to prime the sharing pump.

7) Build Your Social Foundation

In order to maximize sharing of your content, it helps if you have a large set of followers on one or more social platforms that make sense for your brand. Each real (not paid for) connection, follower or fan can have 10′s, 100′s, 1000′s, 100,000′s (you get the point) of followers themselves. With great content optimized for sharing, you can potentially reap 100′s of shares of your content from your own social base and their connections.

8) Don’t Be Selfish!

Don’t expect people to be jumping over each other to share your content if you’ve never lifted a finger (or clicked your trackpad) to comment on, like or share other people’s content. By building up some online goodwill, you’ll increase interaction with your content, including shares. Don’t forget to help others spread their great content well before you ask people to share your content!

9) Connect with Current Events or Memes

Connecting topics that your readers care about with current events is a great way to create a relevant and interesting post. People love to share a new angle on a current topic or a creative addition to recent Meme. See some examples here: Big Data and the Superbowl, Justin Bieber and South by Southwest (SXSW) (coming up again soon). To connect with current topics in your content, you have to move fast or plan ahead!

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5 Ways Your Business Blog Can Attract (or Repel) Readers

In Japan, the symbolic Maneki Neko (“beckoning cat”) is believed to attract good fortune and success for businesses.
Providing great content via your company’s blog is an important way to attract online visitors to your company’s website, which is one key to business success in today’s world. Having valuable content is also an important way to entice visitors to stay longer on your site, to learn more about your company, to educate (and entertain) them, to establish your company as an authority on industry topics, and to encourage readers to share your content .
Having worked with companies of all sizes across a variety of industries, I’ve found one key issue that often impedes a successful content marketing strategy.
What is it? It’s that content produced by companies is often focused on what the company wants to communicate out and not what the prospects want (or need) to learn about.

Companies can’t generate genuine reader interest and produce good (or great) content until they fundamentally change their perspective from internally-focused to customer-focused.

In addition, companies need to align with the target market’s preferences in terms of types of content and how it’s delivered.
Not sure if your content is Customer-focused enough? Here’s a quick checklist to get you started:

1) Does Your Content Address Your Prospect’s Pain Points?

No, introducing version 3.0 of your product and all of its features doesn’t count. Do you directly address your prospect’s pain points with an article like one of the following?
- How to Write a Living Will That Works (without breaking the bank)
- 5 Ways Doctors Can Market on Social Media (and tools to use)
- Step-by-step Instructions for Ceating an Explainer Video for Your Software Product
- 4 Resources For Finding the Right Retirement Home for Mom/Dad

2) Is Your Content More Interesting to Employees Than Readers?

If employees will be more interested in the content than 99% of your website visitors, then you’re probably too internally-focused.
Example of content that will not compel shares or interest from readers: Posts about your company BBQ, your company’s move to a new building, a customer case study with just summary information of the project, or the introduction of a new employee.
Example of content focused on you that may be interesting: How wine is made (with pictures or video), thought leadership from your CEO or VP of Marketing that presents a unique point of view about trends in the industry, or your products being used in a unique way (e.g. Lowes doing Vine videos of tools exploding like fireworks for the 4th of July (via the Content Marketing Institute)).

3) Does Your Educational Content Just Tease?

When helping your readers in a specific area, do you provide enough information to move forward? You don’t have to teach everything (or cannibalize your products or services), but readers want to get enough detail to be able to do at least one new thing. In addition, telling people what to do, but not telling them the tools needed or where to get them can be just as frustrating. Ask yourself, is your article teasing or is there enough to move forward in one area?

4) Does It Require Advanced Industry Knowledge?

If your audience includes newbies or people just learning about your industry, extremely advanced topics or industry lingo may severely limit your audience. If your target audience is very advanced users, then these posts on advanced topics focused on industry insiders may be just what you need. Understand the audience that you’re trying to address and make sure your content matches their level of understanding.

5) Is Your Content Easy To Digest? (Think Like a Magazine Editor)

If your content contains big blocks of dry text without any headers, bullets, pictures, graphics or video, then it’s about as interesting as the old school textbooks that were designed to pass information without any muss, fuss or frills. People like content that includes pictures, graphs, charts, graphics, video, bullet points, lists, and bite-sized content mixed with occasionally longer pieces. Think of magazines like Inc., Wired, Popular Mechanics or People Magazine and how they deliver content. Think of your blog as the part of your website that’s more like a magazine than a textbook, press release or product brochure. If you don’t, you’re probably turning off potential readers.

So, Is Your Content Customer-Focused?

Is your content internally-focused or is it focused on what your prospects and customers find valuable? Are you delivering it in a way that appeals to your audience? Is your content waving them goodbye or beckoning them?
Let me know in the comments and feel free to share your favorite ways that companies either attract or repel readers.

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Is the Nexus of PR and Social Media Found in Content Strategy?

Content Strategy, PR & Social Media: the Holy Trinity of Brand Marketing

Your content strategy is, at its core, a messaging platform.  That platform should ideally dictate both your social media and PR programs: after all, the main difference between social media and PR at this point is simply one of channel.  Whereas PR looks for earned media in traditional media outlets – newspapers, magazines, television – social media looks for earned media on social media outlets, which is to say the personal Facebook page or Twitter stream of an individual.
The line between PR and social media has been getting incredibly blurry over the past 8 years, and that line continues to blur as we marketers look at brand advocates and online influencer strategy and try to determine where the line is between PR and social media.  The advent of content marketing has arisen in parallel with content curation tools being the trend for the everyman, and that trend is our signal as marketers: our content strategy needs to identify influencers and spur engagement, regardless of channel.  Your Mom is being trained by vanity and conversion metrics that are the same metrics we social media marketers have been using for years to measure our social media ROI.  This means that we are in a new age of influencer marketing, and it’s one that rolls up pretty neatly under a solid content strategy.
My PR colleague Marc Cowlin and I have long been talking about the convergence of social media and PR as marketing disciplines; at a foundational level, both disciplines have the same basic program structure.  That groovy little infographic that fronts the post sums that up.
What makes PR more powerful than social media is, quite simply, reach: media outlets like the New York Times have a lot of eyeballs for us.  But what makes social media more powerful than PR is the share: by spurring engagement on a social channel, there is an infinite number of people that can be reached by your content.  In a perfect PR program, the actual article that was written is then shared on a social channel, leading to increasing return; and in a perfect social media program, a reporter decides to share or write an article about your campaign.

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Social Media & Public Relations: Which is Which?

PR has always been a social channel.  The holy grail of “earned media,” which means the mention of your brand in a traditional media source like a newspaper or magazine, was considered to be so meaningful partially because the “impression” metric that media outlets like the New York Times gives you wasn’t just about the number of eyeballs: those eyeballs belong to a person with a mouth, and viral word of mouth is what makes any earned media exponentially powerful.
By the same token, social media is the most public relationship of all: rather than a middleman (i.e. a reporter) espousing the value of your brand to the public, your social media manager is a real-time brand bullhorn talking directly to the public.
PR pros have been talking about the issues and disruption that social media raises for PR since its inception; the move from the traditional PR monologue message to the social media dialogue marketing model was the first sticking point for traditional PR folks, who were accustomed to controlling their message.  Then, we started seeing articles about finding online influencers, brand advocates and the new citizen journalists, which blurred the lines even more.
It’s no surprise, then, that – as social media sites and marketing as a discipline matures, and we debate whether or not the social media manager is dead - we’re seeing PR using social media tactics and channels, and seeing social media marketing managers getting a better handle on staying on-message.  Both disciplines are, at their core, content marketing disciplines: we’re putting content out there into the world to be consumed, and whether it’s on earned or owned media, the power of content marketing is engendering a share that gives your brand more positive impressions among your target social community.
What will the next 5 years hold for Social Media and Public Relations?  Well, my best guess is that we’ll see either dotted lines or a collapse under larger headings like “Brand” or “Content Marketing,” as the marketplace matures and people understand that a channel is a channel, and it’s the larger marketing and business goals that should be the focus.

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Social Media Impact on Public Relations and News | INFOGRAPHIC

We all know social media has had a massive impact on PR and News, but until now I hadn’t seen this impact packaged in a way that truly captures the scale. Social media impact  has been widely reported on, discussed and analyzed over the years. Often these studies focus on how social media impacts kids/students, government, the entertainment industry, business and everything in between. As PR pros each and every one of us should be keenly aware of social media impact on news as it has a direct impact on PR.
A recent infographic, Impact of Social Media on News, published by ING, helps put social media impact into context every PR pro will appreciate. To complete this infographic, ING initiated an international study to analyze social media impact on PR professionals and journalists. The study looks to identify how social media has influenced news and news distribution.

Key Social Media Impact Findings:

• Reliability:
  • Despite low level of reliability, 50% of journalists identify social media as “main source of information” Tweet This!
• Fact Checking
  • 52% of PR pros find that journalists are less likely to contact them to fact check since the emergence of social media Tweet This!
• Rules of Journalism
  • 60% of journalists report that they feel less bound by traditional rules of journalism when using social media Tweet This!
  • 59% of journalists say they feel free to share their personal opinions on social media Tweet This!
• Importance to a journalist’s daily life:
  • 70% of journalists report that social media is important to their daily performance Tweet This!
  • 68% of journalists say they can not operate without social media Tweet This!

And, most staggering of all facts, 56% of journalist report that they feel traditional media has become less important than social media. For more information, and to enjoy a fantastic infographic, see below.

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5 Things You May Not Know About Marketing on Facebook

Marketing on Facebook is a pretty hot topic these days, and since we’ve launched all 7 books in our Facebook for Business series, I figured that today would be a fine day to cover some random Facebook marketing tidbits that I learned while writing these.  Here we go…

1. Facebook Zero Affects the Ever-Declining Organic Reach

Facebook isn’t giving away real estate for free anymore: that earned media is earned, folks.  We wrote a few months back about Facebook’s organic reach throttle possibly being a good thing for brands, in that it will force us marketers to deliver more high-quality content.  What Facebook Zero means is this: if 0% of your followers engage with your Post within the first hour, your Reach will be nil.  Facebook will surface your content to a small subset of “super followers,” and they’ll be the ones to determine whether or not your content is worth showing to other people.

 2. You Know What Your Followers Like – Really

Facebook Graph Search is extremely powerful and allows you to run hyper-targeted searches to see what’s what.  One quick trick is to us Graph Search in interesting ways to find out more about your community.  You can look at what other Pages your followers Like (“Pages liked by users who like Your Page”), what interests your followers have (“Favorite interests of users who like Your Page” ), where our followers been checking in (“Places visited by users who like Your Page and That live in Your City”), and so on.  This can help you with targeted ad spends and content marketing campaigns.  (For more on this, check out this quick book on Facebook Marketing Strategies with Graph Search.)

3. Forget the Likes: It’s All About Newsfeed

After a user has liked your page (or chosen to follow it), the user will most likely never visit your Page again.  According to multiple studies, 90 – 95% of fans never return to a Page after they have liked it.  This means that the biggest (and perhaps only) opportunity you have to influence and engage with your followers is via their Newsfeed – and the only way to get into their Newsfeed is with posts that spur actual engagement.  (For more on how to spur engagement, check out this book on content marketing on Facebook.)

4. Facebook Contests Are More Powerful than They Used to Be

Facebook changed their Promotion guidelines last year, making it a whole lot easier for companies to post promotions and contests on their Facebook Page.  With those changes, and the Facebook Zero considerations, contests are a great way to improve your Reach on Facebook.  (Hey, did we mention that we make a Facebook contest tool?)
Here’s what changed, and why it helps us: we as businesses are now allowed to collect entries by having users comment or like a post and – more importantly – we can finally use Likes as a voting mechanism.
You could, for example, post something like:
“Win a free dinner for two! Like this post and let us know in the comments below why you should win. The comment with the most Likes wins!  Let your friends know and share this post.”
You can’t force users to share your posts as an entry mechanism any more than you can force a purchase to enter a contest, but the “Like” is powerful on its own: the more users who like and comment on your post, the more users you’ll reach via their activity feeds.

5. Negative Feedback Might Mean You Did Something Right

We should all experiment with our Facebook posts to find out what type of content works best for your Page and followers, but remember that sort of experimentation may give us some negative feedback.   To dig into your negative feedback, go to Engagement to see the total number of users who were annoyed enough to click.  Then, click on each post to see what kind of negative feedback that post has received.

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