Building Your Influence
Building Your Influence
One of the greatest challenges companies face in adjusting to the impact of social media, knowing where to start.
– Simon Mainwaring
To be successful in Internet marketing, mastering social media is imperative. Unfortunately, many organizations do not put the necessary effort into social media. It is not enough to join different social networks and add updates. Like any other method of communication, interactions on social media can help build friendships or alienate people. The goal of social media in marketing is to build a community around the company brand.
You Are Building a Community
There are different types of social media, but each platform provides a chance to build a fully functioning community. Whether using a blog, Facebook, Foursquare, or Twitter, there is a social media platform to suit every group. Building a community requires understanding the brand as well the customer, and you should have a handle on both by now. With this knowledge, you can proceed to build a stable community.
- Choose the appropriate media: Do not overlook smaller platforms that fit your brand. For example, I Like is a platform dedicated to music.
- Make connection simple: Link the different platforms and make following your brand simple with social network aggregation platforms.
- Invite current followers to other platforms: Invite customers who subscribe to your emails to other networks.
- Encourage interaction: Community requires more that communication between the company and the customer. Customers should be able to interact with each other.
- Track the results: Pay attention to customer reaction and interaction. Avoid ineffective techniques and build upon the successful ones.
A Personal Touch
Social media is only effective if you have a personal touch and a personal voice. The voice needs to accurately reflect the brand while engaging the community. The voice may be funny, witty, playful, expert, etc. The social media community should feel that they are communicating with people, not automatons.
Once a voice is established, consider the different methods of delivery that will appeal to your audience. Answering emails, writing informative blogs, and providing status updates are helpful, but they are not the only ways to connect with customers. People enjoy putting a face to a name. Consider the effect different online videos have on brands. For example, Google and Zappos have successfully communicated their culture through online videos. Online chats with CEOs are also popular methods of personalized communication. Regardless of your chosen methods of communication, always be polite, honest, and respectful in your tone.
Brand Champions
Every Brand needs a champion or guardian. Owners or CEOs can become powerful champions who are synonymous with the brand. For example, Steve Jobs represented Apple, and Howard Schultz is the champion of Starbucks. A brand champion is a person who focuses on increasing the equity of the brand by protecting it from negativity and showcasing its strengths. It is not possible, however, for every owner or CEO to have the impact of Steve Jobs. Sometimes it is necessary to find brand champions within the company. In fact, many organizations have Chief Brand Officers.
In the discussion of brand champions, it is important not to overlook your customers. Loyal customers can be your greatest champions in social media. They provide word of mouth advertising that has a unique credibility with the public.
Customers as Champions:
Draft them: Find satisfied customers who fully understand and appreciate your brand.
Interact with them: Thank brand champions for their purchases, surveys, comments, etc. and begin building a closer relationship.
Listen to them: Champions provide excellent feedback and should be used as beta testers. Take their praise and criticism seriously.
Make it Easy to Share
You want customers to share your social media with friends, so it is essential that you make sharing as easy as possible. To increase shares, pay attention to the market and participate in sharing tools that people are more likely to use. For example, Facebook shares far outnumber shares from MySpace. Link the appropriate share buttons across websites, blogs, and other social media that you use. Using every possible share button makes customers search for their platforms, complicating the process. Only use share buttons that are relevant to your customers.
There are several services that allow you to link different social media share buttons. Find the best choice for your organization and place buttons somewhere visible such as a side bar or below the content. The share buttons should be prominent, but they must never distract from the content.
Practical Application
The CEO of Fun Toys decided to create a video blog about the company culture. The videos mainly showed employees playing with toys they were testing. One entry showed the CEO as he was playing a prank on an employee with the new “joke” merchandise. These videos became internet sensations. Links to the video of the prank made their way through Facebook and Twitter. After a week, it had 375,000 views, and company sales increased by 15% as a result.
