Secrets of Social Media Marketing
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Question: What is the best way to find blogs that are applicable to your business?
Answer from Paul Gillin: I have half-day seminars that address this question, but I'll try to be succinct! First of all, remember that a blog is simply a way to display information. There is no industry standard definition of a blog, so the only way to identify one is by looking at it. Even the search engines that specialize in blog search don't always get it right.
That said, you should start with search. The blog search tools I use are Google Blog Search, Technorati, IceRocket, Bloglines and Blogpulse. There are others, but I’m less familiar with them. Tip: Use advanced search; it will save you time and better refine your results.
When you find bloggers who look important to you, look in their blogrolls, which are lists of other bloggers that they pay attention to. Blogrolls can usually be found on the home page. This can save you a lot of time because the bloggers have already done the searching for you.
I also recommend searching social bookmarking sites like Delicious and Reddit. People share and comment upon favorite bookmarked pages there. Very often you’ll find sites on social bookmarking services that don’t show up prominently in search engines.
Question: Can you review the different social media for different communication goals?
Answer from Paul Gillin: Chapter 2 of my latest book, Secrets of Social Media Marketing, goes into quite a bit of detail about this, but here’s a synopsis:
- Blogs: Easy, fast and flexible. Think of them as a podium. You’re the speaker and you can say your peace and invite commentary. Blogs are good for telling a story, but not very good for interaction or conversation.
- Podcasts: These are basically audio blogs. They’re very good for communicating a message but have almost zero interactivity. Podcasts are very popular with busy executives who like the efficiency of being able to learn when they can’t read. They’re basically a one-way medium, however.
- Video podcasts: Good for telling a story visually, but people tire of them quickly if the content isn’t compelling. Video podcasts are excellent vehicles for humor or offbeat content. They have almost no interactivity. Think of them as TV commercials that viewers can easily share with each other.
- Social networks: These are great places to listen to ongoing conversations and to gain insight on customers and markets. You can also use them to pose general questions about you market. Don’t be too specific, though; social networks are public forums. Popular topics can yield insight into new product possibilities.
- Private Communities (for example, Communispace and Passenger): These are next-generation focus groups. Usually run by firms that specialize in community management, the members are hand-selected, carefully nurtured and often bound by confidentiality agreements. Private communities are a great way to get advice from a lot of perspectives in a hurry. The downside: high cost
- Microblogs (for example, Twitter and a host of others): Very fast, targeted and responsive, they’re a great way to ask questions and get quick answers or to promote a timely idea or service. Interactivity is excellent, but content is limited to short messages and it’s difficult to integrate multimedia.
- Virtual worlds (for example, Second Life and others): These venues may be good for real-time events, but the software is still too clunky for most people to use. Virtual worlds fare best with techie audiences. They’re unique in that you can observe group dynamics, such as facial expressions and body language. They’re also good for events with a strong visual component.
Question: We run a lodging resort and saw negative comments someone had posted about their experience here on their blog. How do you turn a negative blogger into a positive blogger?
Answer from Paul Gillin: The tactics that work in the physical world also work online: invite feedback, listen, confirm what you heard and offer some kind of relief or explanation. In 80% to 90% of these situations, the naysayers can be neutralized or even turned into advocates with these tactics. Since bloggers can't see their audience, they tend to write in strong terms, sort of like shouting into the wilderness. Once you personalize the interaction, they usually back down. Start by commenting on the blog and also by sending a private e-mail. It may even be worth picking up the phone. The more you humanize the interaction, the quicker you’ll bring them around.
Question: What can millennials best teach us about social networking?
Answer from Paul Gillin: How to take it for granted and infuse it into everyday life. There’s a myth about millenials that the group is completely tuned in to the use of social media tools. In fact, I find that most young people are active users of Facebook, instant messaging and text messaging, but not much else. They don’t blog, rarely listen to podcasts and don’t use Twitter. What’s more, they don’t have much perspective on the value of these tools beyond their usefulness in everyday life. They’ll learn that through experience and training, just like everyone else.
What they are exceptionally good at it is managing relationships online. They don’t have any more close friends than their parents did at the same age, but they have a much larger number of casual acquaintances that they keep alive through occasional and indirect communication. I think that’s something we can all learn from.
Question: Have you found that social media outlets are used by particular age demographics - can it apply to all age ranges?
Answer from Paul Gillin: Nearly all, though there are variations. If you want to go into detail, get Groundswell by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li. Their top-line observations are that the most active users are the under-25 group, but that usage is quite consistent between 25-and 55-year olds. It drops off rather sharply after that. However, there are significant variations by media and industry. For example, under-25s are more include to use instant messaging, text messaging and online video while podcasting and blogging are more popular with an older age group. It’s also interesting that the percentage of people under 25 who prefer instant messaging over e-mail is nearly the exact inverse of people over 25.
Question: How does the "Link:" command work?
Answer from Paul Gillin: In the Google search bar, type “link:www.gillin.com” substituting whatever URL you want. You can also access this command from Google’s advanced search page.
Question: What's the best way to convert your audience to make an actual purchase using social media?
Answer from Paul Gillin: There are many ways to do this, so I'll give you an example of a direct and indirect approach. A direct approach might be to offer a discount coupon to people who join your social network, fill out a form or respond to a contest. Or you might ask people to view a short video to get an access code that they could redeem on a web site. The coupon could be delivered electronically as a thank-you message when visitors submit the form.
An indirect approach might be to set up an informational blog that educates visitors about your company or your area of expertise. You can then surround this educational content with promotions or offers.
Both approaches are effective in different contexts.
Question: How do you reach international audiences? Are the tools you showed just for US consumers?
Answer from Paul Gillin: The Internet does not know national boundaries, so with few exceptions your message can reach across the globe. There is nothing about any of the tools that I covered that should limit you from reaching an international audience. One exception is social networks, which seem to gain more active followings in some companies than in others. Google’s Orkut, for example, has been a nonstarter in the U.S. but has a huge following in Brazil. Cyworld is popular in Korea, while Hi5 has a big Latin American membership. In Japan, Mixi is the largest social network. The Swedes love Lunarstorm, and the Poles take to Grono. I’m not sure why that’s the case, but if you’re trying to reach people on social networks, you need to go where they’re already congregating.
Question: Can you give some examples of seeing the Return on Investment?
Answer from Paul Gillin: That depends on how you're defining "return." Often, businesses look at referrals to a designated landing page, such as a download or order form. You can also track orders back to referring pages or e-mail links. Use unique URLs and/or tracking codes to document where your customers are coming from.
In other cases, however, companies may look for an increase in favorable press coverage or blogger comments as a goal. In that case, tracking an increase in the citations compared to a base point can yield a pretty good idea of the effectiveness of a campaign.
Question: What (if any...!) silver bullet can you use, to encourage your client to create a blog for their company, when they are deathly afraid of negative feedback?
Answer from Paul Gillin: A substantial body of evidence is emerging to support the effectiveness of social media marketing. For example, here's a list of links to archives of successful social media campaigns. A study of the Inc. 500 by University of Massachusetts found that three quarters of the respondents now considers social media to be essential to their marketing efforts. Sites like eMarketer and Marketing Sherpa also have extensive case history and statistical evidence about the value of blogs and other tools.
As I mentioned in the webinar, negative feedback is an overrated problem. Every company has some unhappy customers, and most people understand that that’s part of the landscape. In most cases, critics can be converted to satisfied customers or even fans with a little handholding and special attention. There is overwhelming evidence of that. If a company does have a customer satisfaction problem, however, it is wise to step lightly into new media. Be prepared for negativity and be ready to respond to each and every comment. You'll quickly find that criticism will diminish as you demonstrate you’re listening.
Question: Does social media marketing apply more to medium - larger business than a small business?
Answer from Paul Gillin: In my opinion, small businesses are more active, creative and effective at leveraging social media marketing. There are many reasons for this, including the compelling cost advantages, the speed and responsiveness of small organizations, their willingness to engage directly with individual customers and the accessibility of senior managers. The University of Massachusetts research mentioned above indicates that small businesses are adopting these tools much faster than large ones. In my own presentations and seminars, I consistently find that small companies are more enthusiastic and responsive to the potential of social media than large ones. In fact, large companies tend to excel at finding reasons to AVOID talking to their customers!
Question: What are the best ways to link the Social Marketing directly to increased sales? Our clients are looking for absolute metrics to increase sales.
Answer from Paul Gillin: Make sure the links on any social media channels you use lead back to unique URLs. This can be done through a simple server redirect, which in techie terms is called a 301 redirect. The person who administers your web site should know how to do this. Unique URLs enable you to track which links are referring visitors to a landing page or order form. It's then a simple task to find which of those visits result in orders.
Question: How do you deal with legal issues when blogging and ensuring those reading your blogs do not take what you are saying as legal advice?
Answer from Paul Gillin: Disclaim like crazy. Each page of your site should include a disclaimer and it's a good idea to also disclaim individual content items such as blog entries or videos. However, I don't want to be seen as giving legal advice myself :-). In some regulated industries , even disclaimers may be insufficient. It's a good idea to check with an intellectual-property attorney to understand the issues specific to your business.
Question: When you consider spin-offs after the 53rd week of your initial campaign, is the time frame for the spin-off shortened from the original schedule, or should you count on the same schedule/time requirements?
Answer from Paul Gillin: This refers to my chart about social media campaign cycles, in which I argue that effective campaigns should achieve enough traction within a year to enable the owner to consider spinning off for targeted sites are communities. You should expect to develop traction much more quickly in spun off properties because the audience is already familiar with your content and your value. Very often you will be dividing an audience into two parts, much as a cell divides, but the combined growth of those two parts should be greater than it would have been had you not divided them. In addition, some of your members or participants will continue to be active in both communities, providing an additional boost.
Question: Are there certain phrases or keywords that rise up on the blog list?
Answer from Paul Gillin: Keyword popularity is entirely dependent on the topic. I suggest your goal should not be too dominate the most popular keywords in your market but rather to only keywords the customers will use to find you. One free tool you can use to assess keyword popularity is Google AdWords Keyword Tool. A less useful, but still interesting tool is Google Trends. The Wordtracker Keyword Suggestion tool is another one to look at.
