Ideas on how to engage customers from Dr Michael Lu

With brands busy beavering away on social media activity, precious little thought is being devoted to how sustainable their strategies are. And the reality is that while their social media strategies may be scalable, the vast majority are certainly not sustainable. That was the message from Dr Michael Wu of Lithium and author of The Science of Social II). This post summarises his advice from different conferences. He challenged attendees of the London show to think beyond the existing social media thinking. Necessary because spikes in social activity such as Views and Likes only ever equate to a 'tiny blip' that doesn’t last long from a financial perspective. Successful brands must adapt a strategy that is both sustainable and scalable, he explained. But there is a problem with this... 'Not many people think about sustainability,' he told…

In order to run a successful social media campaign, your offline activity matters as much as your online activity.

Whilst businesses find it relatively easy to set up social media channels, they struggle with the next step, attracting followers. And it’s not just small businesses that find it a challenge. Even major brand names have Facebook and Twitter pages that struggle to get their fan numbers beyond double figures! In this, the first in a series of posts, I'll explain some practical approaches to gain more interaction on you social channels. If you want to understand the difference between those who attract fans and those who don’t, take a quick look around you next time you travel to the shops. Look at the number of advertising billboards that include social media references. Then look at the packaging of some of the products you buy and there’s your answer. Many businesses forget to…

5 ways to innovate for the collaborative economy: examples

Social media marketing is increasingly ubiquitous for most brands, and if not, it is on the radar. We are on our way to mass adoption among businesses. Early adopter brands are now focused on social business. I am certainly talking to a lot of companies about how they can bring more of the outside world back into the business, restructure and be more connected to customers, employees and stakeholders. It seems that the eventual evolution of social media is as a communications channel inside and out. As I talk and work with companies, we see a wide range in the level of adoption and innovation in using social media. Our Social Media Innovation S-Curve, similar to the Gartner Hype Cycle, shows the maturity of process and innovation we see in different companies. Where do you lie? …

10 permission marketing principles and campaign examples integrating web, email and social media marketing

It is now nearly 15 years since Seth Godin launched his permission marketing mantra. Yet it remains highly relevant - I still recommend newcomers to online marketing download and read his permission marketing principles.

But how does permission marketing apply today? In this post I show examples of how digital marketers today are applying Permission marketing principles  to their email marketing and social media marketing activities today.

In his book, Godin explains the principles of using permission marketing both in the offline world and online world, but he doesn't describe in detail how to best achieve permission marketing using web and e-mail.

For each of the core principles of permission marketing, I identify, define and illustrate my principles of ‘e-permission marketing’ which show how web,social, e-mail and offline communications can be…

Do your social media plans allow for the latest trends?

This is a very useful SlideShare presentation from We Are Social. Useful before you step into your next round of content or social media marketing planning. It's simple and succinct with important take-aways - 10 of them in fact.

 

Here are our 7 reflections

These are our take-aways, from taking a few minutes to flick through the SlideShare, it's well worth it:

Mobile, mobile, mobile… The penetration, usage and therefore importance of mobile to your marketing is, I feel, still startling. I say it, believe it, agree with it and then each time I see more data the sheer scale shocks me. We talk about mobile and it's importance, but slide 4 really drives that home.People, portable, practical… what a great mantra to build…

Signs that you need an integrated social media strategy...

The CEO wants 'a Facebook', 'a Twitter' and 'a blog'? The reason? Because they saw competitor becoming more active. Sound familiar? This request is perhaps less common than it was 5 years ago, but on the whole there is still a distinct lack of social media marketing strategy with plenty of examples of under-resourced social network pages or poor customer service delivery by social media - a problem when nearly half of adults now use the web to share grievances with brands. The key to social media success is understanding the full scope and impact of social media, defining exactly what you are looking to achieve and then creating an integrated social media strategy to maximise results.  In this blog post, I review some of these issues which are covered in more detail in our Social media marketing strategy – 7 Steps to Success Guide which I…

5 approaches for success in managing social media

Social media certainly isn’t the new kid on the block anymore. And by the end of last year, it was clear that brands were beginning to grow in confidence on the platform, and find their voice. We're seeing maturity in the way that decisions are made about investment in social media and how it's managed. We talked to specialists on approaches for managing social media, these are the trends that they see. 1. Businesses will continue to shift investments away from Facebook and back to on-domain communities. “In 2013, businesses that had previously shifted marketing funds away from their traditional dot-com domain towards Facebook will reverse that trend,” predicts Rob Howard, founder and CTO of Telligent. “Research from Forrester Research, Inc., and other leading analyst firms continues to validate the need for organisations to invest in their own…

Using social media monitoring to evaluate the success of your digital marketing campaigns and reach your goals

When planning your digital marketing strategy or campaigns, you probably have a range of targets and goals for social media in mind that you are hoping to achieve, and that will help you measure your success. But how do you assess whether you are reaching these goals in practice? In this post I will outline the type of goals to consider and tools and techniques to assess success. For example, you might consider one or a combination of the following as goals when approaching integrating social in your business: Increase in followers/fans Increase in requests for information Increase in leads Increase in sales (of a specific product/service, or of everything, or perhaps in a specific market). Social media monitoring allows you to add another string to your bow, so to speak, by allowing you to…

As another new year begins, marketers naturally look to develop their skills and awareness in the areas they are responsible for. For me, social media is a key area and within this, these are the areas that I believe are likely to effect social media marketing effectiveness in 2013. How do you see it?

1. Embrace social search

The launch of Google+ in 2011 and its continued development in 2012 is just one of many signs that traditional search is becoming increasingly influenced by social signals. Whilst great content and effective link building are still the most effective ways of optimising your website for search engines, genuine social media activity is also playing a part, too. Google’s Search Plus Your World, its numerous algorithm updates and the introduction of the Knowledge Graph are yet more signs that quality…

A case study of using social media in higher education

In this post I will give a summary of a detailed analysis of some findings from a brief audit Carlton Jefferis and I have recently carried out when pitching for some social media consultancy for the University of Hertfordshire. I hope you find the insights shared useful and in addition to comments and advice throughout you'll also find some great creative ideas for content which can work in other sectors too.

Multiple audiences, multiple departments, multiple platforms

The first thing we notice is that the University utilises many different social media platforms and within each has multiple accounts to reflect different Schools/Departments. The question is, does this lead to a silo-ed, somewhat inconsistent approach or is it necessary? A University has to juggle messages to multiple audiences - students, prospective students (UK and…