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Facebook, Facebook apps, Google Alerts, Marketing, Offsite social media optimization, Social media, Social Media Optimization, SocialAppsHQ, Twitter
Social Media has now become prevalent in every part of our life. Even Burson-Marsteller’s Global Social Media Check-Up study shows that most of the global fortunes 100 are taking social media seriously these days. Companies are adapting rapidly to new platforms like Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.
However there are many SMB’s which are still struggling over how to use social media and its optimization. In our previous blog, we talked about “How to think social?” and also covered the ways of doing onsite-social media optimization. In continuation, we will like to focus on Offsite-Social Media Optimization as part of your holistic Social Media Marketing Plan. Key ingredients for offsite activity include –
- Create a presence on platforms that matter- Make sure that you are present on all social media platforms that matter like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest etc.
Here are the few stats highlighted in the Burson-Marsteller’s Global Social Media Check-Up Study that you must know, in order to realize where social media has reached now-
- The Fortune Global 100 were mentioned a total of 10,400,132 times online in one month.
- Companies are adapting rapidly to new platforms. Google Plus pages for businesses were launched in November, and by February 2012, nearly half (48%) of Fortune Global 100 companies already had a presence on the platform. Pinterest, an online content-sharing pinboard service, remains an invite-only platform. Still, 25 percent of Fortune Global 100 companies have a Pinterest account.
- Engagement is becoming second nature to companies. Seventy-nine percent of corporate accounts on Twitter attempt to engage with other users by retweeting and using @mentions.
- Multiple accounts on social media platforms allow companies to target audiences by geography, topic or service.
You can check out these stats here in the slideshow –
- Create a clear business metric that you can track- Create an overall strategy that defines your key business metric and target audience. E.g. we recently ran a campaign for Harley Davidson Brazil focused on driving leads for test drives generated 40 leads for 450( also generated 500 likes). Getting registrations for test drives was their key metric and their target audience was affluent consumers with interest in biking.
Here’s the screenshot which will give you an idea-
- Promote your content everywhere- Companies are creating original content to share across all platforms and accounts. This includes activities like-
- Submission of your press releases in top press release directories.
- Positioning of your content in PRWEB’s network of thousands of bloggers, journalist, and subscribers.
- Submission of your articles to hundreds of top article directories like Ezine Articles
- Social bookmarking on popular sites like delicious
- Promotion and distribution of your podcasts and videos to top audio & video sites
Here’s the screen shot of the article published at KillerStartups.com that you can leverage too-
- Grow your Twitter follower & Facebook fan base- The larger your follower/fan base, the more expansive your reach will become across the social networks. Twitter has exploded as a platform in the past two years with growing approaching 700%.
You can use Twitter tools like Twellow to find relevant users based on keywords found in their Twitter bios, as well as seeking top Twitter influencers. Users with a large “following” base are more likely to follow you back, than users who are only “following” a few accounts. Responding to mentions and RTs with a simple call-to-action, like “Enjoying our content. Follow us for more updates,” is an effective approach to encouraging others to follow you
In case of Facebook, you can go for Facebook Ad campaign that encourages users to “Like” your page and therefore will increase your fan base. Promotions and contest are a great way to quickly grow your fan base. Check out the Photo contest by Reethi resort beach-
- Connect your social media channels with websites- Consider your social media channels as an extension of your website. You can inter-connect your Facebook page with Twitter, LinkedIn, blog etc in order to post same message across the platforms. This will increase your outreach among the users.
For example, India against Corruption community has creatively connected their Facebook page with Twitter account by using Tweet App in order to increase outreach among the users.
- Engage and Promote through your profiles to achieve desired business metric – Get engage with your fans by asking questions, polls, discussions, uploading images and asking users to “like” & share it. Each corporate Facebook page has an average of 6,101 people talking about it & 70% of corporate pages are responding to comments on their walls and timelines.
- Listening & Monitoring- Finally at end of the day, you should always track what your customers are saying about your brand/product/services and follow/engage with them online or, offline. You can monitor your performance by using free social media monitoring tools like Radian6, Google Alerts, Google trends, Social Mention, Alterian SM2, and Addictomatic etc.
Here’s the screenshot of Google Alerts, which you can leverage too-
Social Media is now an integral part of any company’s marketing and communications strategies. Companies are now devising better ways for managing social media marketing. Don’t delay anymore and get in action now!
Cheers
SocialAppsHQ