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Get More Social in 2017

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twitter-292994_640What would you say about your company’s social media efforts up to now?

If they have been helping you land new business, by all means keep up the efforts.

On the flip side, if your social media efforts have been less than stellar, do you plan to change course in the New Year?

Being a social media dynamo in today’s business world is nothing short of a necessity.

If your business is pushing itself on social media, it stands a good chance of getting noticed. If it is doing little or no social media promotions, the overall results for your brand can be damaging.

With that being the case, do you plan to get more social in 2017?

Social Plans for the New Year

Given there are many benefits and advantages of using social media, are you taking advantage of any and/or all of them?

For starters, social media gives you an opportunity to engage with consumers, something all businesses should jump on.

In today’s business world, more and more companies are dealing remotely with customers.

As more walk-in types of businesses become harder to find, consumers are oftentimes having to deal with automation, computers, and of course ordering goods and services online. With less of a one-on-one touch, businesses and consumers can meet in the world of social media.

By engaging with current and prospective customers on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (there are more out there to look at), you can get the pulse of what people are saying about your brand. You can also help those in need of information and/or solving issues when it comes to your brand or industry.

With that in mind, is it time you put more effort into social media heading into 2017?

If the answer to that question is yes, here are a few pointers to help you:

  • Mission – For starters, clearly define what your mission is with social media. Is it to engage with consumers? Are you only interested in having a social presence because the competition does? Does social media seem like a necessity to keep in touch with the consumer world, seeing what it is saying about your brand? Clearly defining your reasoning for being social in the first place is where you need to begin;
  • Efforts – If you’re a small business, you may feel you don’t have the time and/or resources to devote to social media. That line of thinking can prove very detrimental, so try and avoid it at all costs. Even if you have to outsource your social media efforts to make them work, do it. Having social experts manning your social networking needs is perfectly fine; though make sure you hire someone (or a company) with social media experience. There is much more than just posting a few messages each day or week. You should track and analyze (see more below) where you’re doing well and not so well on various social sites. Also look to see what times prove most opportune to engage in social media.

Always Stay Positive

  • Engagement – Although it can prove tempting to respond in a negative manner to consumer comments on your social pages, don’t do it. Given your online reputation goes a long way in determining how much business you ultimately get, coming across as juvenile and/or nasty in social interactions is bad. For starters, it makes consumers wonder if you truly care about them. Secondly, it gives your competition an opportunity to seize upon, painting you and your brand in a bad light. Find a way to make a negative social interaction turn positive for your business;
  • Results – Last but not least, be sure to gather and understand the results you are getting with social media. To simply post blindly and not know if you’re making inroads or not is not productive. Also use your social sites to survey consumers on different aspects of your business. What do they like? What don’t they like? Are there practices you need to do more of (or for the first time) that you are not presently doing? Lastly, should you be focusing on one or more social sites to get the best results? Knowing where to zero-in on instead of spinning your wheels will benefit you and consumers at the end of the day.

If social media has been a bit of a foreign concept to you up to this point, will that change in 2017?

Photo credit: Pixabay

About the Author: Dave Thomas covers business topics on the web.

 

Is Your Association Providing the Personal Touch?

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Shaking HandsPersonalization is the key to many marketing campaigns today, especially if you’re newer to the business scene and looking to make inroads.

For organizations that don’t offer a product, they may not see the benefits of personalization. However, associations in all industries can utilize personalization to create a more satisfying experience for their members.

Members join associations for all kinds of reasons.

Some use them to leverage connections or to enhance their own image. They may be looking to network or to gain more industry experience.

Your association can find unique ways of interacting with members based on those reasons and on the unique needs they have.

Go Beyond Basic Personalization

As the article, “Why Personalization is so Vital to Your Association” says, many organizations use a basic form of personalization without tapping into the more advanced options. The article discusses using the individual’s name in correspondence, but you can do so much more.

Associations often attract members from various levels.

For example, in an industry association, members may consist of experienced professionals as well as those just starting out. The information a beginner is looking for is going to be different than what an expert in the field needs.

With modern technology tools, it is possible to show custom content to each user. As a result, you can create content that caters to various types of members.

Filtering for Information

Another method of personalization begins with filtering your members based on specific criteria.

Put them in groups with certain groups receiving information or other tools that benefit them. Create opportunities for networking based on their interests.

You can offer courses or send out special invitations based on the various needs of your members.

Instead of waiting to accumulate data over time, most associations have immediate access to more information than the average business that is trying to sell a product or service.

Just by joining your association, you can ascertain certain facts about your members. You will also most likely have them fill out a form that provides you with even more details.

Benefits of Personalization

Personalization benefits you as much as it does your members.

Instead of offering random or generalized information or opportunities, you create custom options that are geared toward a specific group or person.

This degree of personalization creates a more positive interaction between you and the member. They will be more likely to stay with your association and will be more active.

In addition, you will spend less time and money sending out general content to everyone.

Because you have a target audience and are more specific in your approach, you will see better results.

Personalization is not just for businesses in the retail industry.

Every organization can benefit by personal interaction with their members.

Take your association to the next level and discover that your members are getting what they need when you make your interactions with them more personal and satisfying.

Begin today finding out how you can get personal with your members.

Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com

About the Author: Joyce Morse is an author who writes on a variety of topics, including finance and the business world.

The Crucial Differences in Reach, Outreach, and Reaching Out

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Reach?

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Changes, variations, mutations, and interpretations have arisen around business “reach.”

Marketing, I think, can be divided into two eras.

The first, the biggest, the baddest and the most impressive was the era in which marketers were able to reach the unreachable. Ads could be used to interrupt people who weren’t intending to hear from you. PR could be used to get a story to show up on Oprah or in the paper, reaching people who weren’t seeking you out.

Sure, there were exceptions to this model (the Yellow Pages and the classifieds, for example), but generally speaking, the biggest wins for a marketer happened in this arena.

We’re watching it die. — Seth’s Blog, Reaching the Unreachable, May 03, 2007

Reach, as in Circulation

In the world of getting a message out to many people, the word reach has traditional meant “circulation,” how many unique people will receive the message we send out. That number has never been truly quantifiable because …

Basically reach is about broadcasting.

  • Consumption of the message is not guaranteed. We all know about TV and TIVO, and newspapers people don’t buy but read … but perhaps a more interesting example is SETI has been broadcasting active Intersellar messages since the early 1970s. No one knows if any have yet been received, decoded, or understood.

    How do you know anyone is listening?

  • Communication is uncertain. We can’t measure whether the message sent is the one received unless we check. The audience may consume a message other than the intended message. The words carry different meaning in different cultures and for different individuals. Voice, tone, word choice all work together within the context of the receiver’s experience and emotional relationship to the message content. A great example is the effect of the Motrin ad on the Motrin Moms.

    How do you know the audience received the message that you sent?

  • Response is unclear. Once the data requires testing samples, the very act of surveying flattens our understanding of the human response. We lose the singularities that add deeper meaning to what moves individuals to act as they do. The trending line graph that shows your message is having an effect doesn’t explain why that’s so. The particularities and individual responses have been leveled out.

    How do you know for certain that you can repeat the same response?

Reach is NOT the number of people who actually are exposed to and actually consume the message, but rather the number who have the OPPORTUNITY to see or hear the message. It might be described as absolute number (1,284,793 million) Twitters, a metaphor (the population of the state of California) or a portion of demographic (74% of the male population between 18-24).

Whether the reach was effective might be a function of time spent with the message or times exposed to the message.

Reach goes broad and far, but establishes minimal relationship between the sender and individual receivers who can inform the process. Relying solely on reach / circulation will always be shooting in the dark.

It’s naive to confuse the act of reaching to actually touching an unknown someone’s mind and heart.

Blogger Outreach to Spread a Message

In the place where Marketing and PR cross the social media, the term, blogger outreach has come to mean identifying bloggers who reach the same audience you do with your products and enlisting (or pitching) them to talk or blog about your products and services to their communities. Done well blogger outreach has the power of moving a message from one trusted friend who knows many to a group of trusting friends who may tell even more. Done less well it can be someone who is simply broadcasting in a new way.

To my mind, blogger outreach is the art of asking people to evangelize to their networks for you. It’s crucial that such things include three things for the message to come through whole, authentic, and as intended.

  • To ensure the message is consumed, the blogger-brand match has to be true and lasting. An authentic message spreads more quickly and more deeply though trust agents who have a mutual commitment to the brand and its values. Campaigns and contests that go quickly don’t really seal the connection between the audience and the brand. It’s easy for a gift meant as a ‘thank you,” to be turned in to an expectation if it’s delivered in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong way.
    Unsophisticated bloggers with no P&L experience can find the attention heady, competitive, and begin to over-value their input. The act of outreach has to be a relationship — an example of your message in action — not a single date meant to get your message out.

    How do you identify the right partnerships in your “grassroots” blogger outreach efforts? How do you invest in bloggers as partners rather than as channels of distribution?

  • Every outreach interaction has to underscore the credibility of the message. Bloggers are experts at the needs of their communities. Great bloggers have earned their reputation and influence by being filters and standards of visible authenticity. Those bloggers can extend and enhance the power of your message.

    The right bloggers understand the businesses that are a good match for them and their readers in product, service, and philosophy. Tap into their expertise, rather than just a blog post, and you’ll have lasting value and a relationship.

    How do you demonstrate your message by the way you bring partners into your brand?

  • Authentic, relevant experiences inspire messages that communities want to share. Many companies simply hand a product to a blogger and ask for a review. It takes more creative time to develop an experience and a community that connects people around a product, however, those memorable experiences show people how products and services naturally fit into their lives. The time invested in putting things where people need them and use them is appreciated. The Tweet to Drive program that GM is doing in Chicago has fabulous potential for doing just that.

    How do you use all of your creative resources to make your outreach experiences most relevant and authentic?

Leaders are learners who let people participate in building things no one of us could build alone. Don’t just reach out, but bring bloggers into your brand if you want them to understand, own, and protect your message, to stand up for your intentions. Then when a message gets misinterpreted Actively investing time online and off listening to each other and sharing expertise and you will give them reason and opportunity to own, protect, defend what you build.

Reach Out and Touch Someone …

The power of connecting people to people is not a new thing. In 1979, AT&T needed to soften it’s image as a possible monopoly and reconnect with it’s customers in a more human way, Ken, D’Ambrosio, Marshall McLuhan, and N.W. Ayer all contributed to what became the famous “Reach Out and Touch Someone” media campaign. Reach out and touch someone …

Though the AT&T commercial is still broadcast and still the idea of reaching out to touch someone is a great example of what a traditional campaign in as part of an integrated marketing effort might look like today. It shows people connecting because of the experience a product allows.

Reaching out to connect is the goal.

  • Clear messages reach out to connect minds, hearts, and lives. A great message connects minds, touches hearts, and has meaning in people’s lives. It’s about what moves them; not about how we want them to move. Build a message like that and folks will join you.
  • Clear messages get consumed and passed on when they are about the audience. We can grow our businesses by understanding that it has now become easier than ever before to connect. We can to reach out to find great minds who have been where we’re going and invite them to participate in what we’re doing in new and exciting ways that benefit us both.
  • Clear messages reach out to connect through outstanding behavior and satisfying, meaningful experiences — in ones, some, and masses. True relationship one-on-one may not be scalable, but experience, behaviors and values are. We can reach out person by person and throug every action can demonstrate the values we respect to offer outstanding experiences. We can set a standard for what and our customers can count on and expect from us. We can do that in stores, on the phone, via email, in meetings, at trade shows, in all online venues, in every visit off line too.

When we know we’re about growing their business, we listen, use their language, and choose the right tools to meet their goals. Reaching out becomes connecting to their need in a way that lowers the risk and shares the benefits. We raise the goal to something bigger than we could alone.

The crucial differences in reach, outreach, and reaching out are the differences in how well we communicate what we do and how deeply we demonstrate that we do it.

Do you have reach, do outreach, or do you reach out? Do do you all three?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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