Business Marketing Classes Part 4 - Social Media Marketing

Business Marketing Class Part 4

In Business Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing by Mark GuertinLeave a Comment

BUSINESS MARKETING CLASS – PART 4
Social Media Marketing Organic & Paid

Welcome to Business Marketing Class Part 4 – Social Media Marketing Organic & Paid. This week we will be discussing social media marketing. Topics covered will include social media overview & statistics, social media platforms, social media demographics, organic social media marketing, paid social media marketing, best practices, results monitoring and pros and cons.

Social Media Marketing Overview

Social media has created a great deal of buzz in the last few years but you should know that it has been around for a very long time now. Arguably, the first existence was known as “Community Memory” way back in 1973.

One of the very earliest well known social platforms was Myspace and more recently we have witnessed the success of other big names like YouTube, Google Plus, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram etc.

While social media is well versed for personal use it can also be a valuable tool for business marketing. Effective marketing via social media can be accomplished with or without paying for ads. In order to be successful you need to be aware of the various platforms as well as best practices.

Social Media Statistics

“54% of business to consumer (B2C) digital marketers claim to generate revenue from social media as opposed to 39% of business to business (B2B) marketers who claim to generate revenue from social media.”Marketing Charts
“On average, B2B marketers use 6 different social networks with LinkedIn comprising 91%, Twitter 85%, Facebook 81% and YouTube 73%.”Adobe CMO
“In terms of sending the highest quality traffic to your site YouTube is the undisputed king followed by Google Plus, LinkedIn and Twitter.”Venture Beat
“Brand ads on social platforms are among the least trusted form of ads since 68% of USA consumers say they usually or always ignore brand posts on every social network. Additionally, 83% of these same consumers indicate they have had a bad experience with social media marketing.”Business 2 Community
“93% of shoppers’ buying decisions are influenced by social media because 90% trust peer recommendations whereas only 14% trust brand ads.”Socialnomics 2014 Erik Qualman

Social Media Platforms

There are many dozens of social platforms and no two are exactly alike. Also, different social networks can contain different user demographics. This means that you need to pick the best choice(s) for reaching your target audience(s). This will require doing some research so that you can determine where your marketing efforts will be the most productive.

Generally speaking, if your focus is B2B you should immediately have LinkedIn at or near the top of your list. This is because in terms of B2B marketing, LinkedIn produces better lead generation than the next several platforms combined.

In the context of general B2C marketing – platforms such as YouTube, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram are usually worthwhile options. If you are looking for specific B2C niche markets you will need to apply demographic targeting research.

Some examples would be:

  • Target Market – Musicians and/or Music Lovers
  • Target Platforms – YouTube, MySpace, DatPiff, SoundCloud, ReverbNation
  • Target Market – Gaming Enthusiasts
  • Target Platforms – Raptr, GamerDNA, PlayFire
  • Target Market – Online E-Commerce Shoppers
  • Target Platforms – Wanelo, Etsy, Pinterest, Instagram, WeHeartIt

If you would like to do research into any social platforms that you are unfamiliar with refer to the list below.

Social Media Demographics

With so many platforms in existence it won’t be possible to cover the demographics of each of them in the scope of this class. Here are just a few interesting demographics of social media courtesy of the Pew Research Center.

“66% of online male Americans use Facebook while 77% of online female Americans use Facebook.”Pew Research Center
“44% of online women use Pinterest compared to 16% of online men.”Pew Research Center
“55% of online adults ages 18-29 use Instagram as do 47% of African Americans and 38% of Hispanics.”Pew Research Center
“41% of online adults making more than $75K per year use LinkedIn as well as 71% of online adults with some college or advanced college. Only 9% of online adults with a high school diploma or less use LinkedIn.”Pew Research Center
“30% of online adults under the age of 50 use Twitter while only 11% of online adults above the age of 50 use it.”Pew Research Center

What does all this mean? Simply put, you need to know your target market and then pick those social platforms that will give you the best exposure.

  • If you are looking to market hand crocheted quilts then Etsy should be at the top of your list
  • If you need to get in front of college grads making $75K+ use LinkedIn
  • Instagram will be important for you to reach minority communities
  • The best place to reach out to Russians is Odnoklassniki & Vkontakte
  • The best place to reach moms is at Café Mom

Organic Social Media Marketing

Many times a common mistake is made wherein social media marketing is overly focused on repetitive posts for branding and advertisements. As indicated in the stats earlier – this simply does not work.

What does work is to refrain from the above most of the time and focus on engaging and interacting. It is also very productive to work on getting consumers to recommend you or give you positive compliments.

In terms of engaging and interacting, you should not take for granted nor ignore your fan base. If you follow back, like, comment and share their social content you will reap positive benefits. Also, encourage people to give you referrals and positive feedback on social media.

Last but not least, learn how to engage people at a more personal and social level on common interests. Make a point of getting to know a variety of interests within your target market. This could be football, Nascar, recipes you name it. Once you are aware of these interests you can share interesting content on these varied topics. Always avoid repetitive and mechanical auto-posting as this will become obvious and turn off users.

Keep your content in good taste and it has been shown that high quality images, professional infographics and videos are well received. Also, don’t forget to make use of the holidays and tasteful humor.

Paid Social Media Marketing

Paid social media marketing can be a cost effective way to promote branding and sales. The advertising options and pricing can vary by platform but most offer a choice to pay by impressions or clicks.

Currently, YouTube offers great value with video views being obtained for as little as $0.06 each followed by StumbleUpon which can supply landing page visitors for as little as $0.16 each.

Increasing in price we move up the cost scale with Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and finally LinkedIn.

Regardless of which social platform you use for paid marketing you will want to incorporate best advertising practices. This means using good keywords in the title, using good quality graphics and making use of a compelling call to action.

As with any other form of paid marketing you will also want to closely monitor the results and ROI. Nearly all of the social platforms that have advertising capability also offer an analytics dashboard for viewing and analyzing your results.

Paid Social Media Marketing At Facebook

Paid Social Media Marketing At Facebook


Paid Social Media Marketing At Linkedin

Paid Social Media Marketing At Linkedin


Paid Social Media Marketing At Twitter

Paid Social Media Marketing At Twitter

10 Best Practices For Social Media

  • Be polite and be in good taste
  • Engage and reciprocate your fan base
  • Avoid repetitive auto-posting
  • Avoid repetitive branding and ad posting
  • Learn and share on common interests
  • Encourage customers to give positive feedback & referrals
  • Quickly & politely respond to any negative or positive feedback
  • Use images, videos, links, info graphs and humor
  • Integrate your social media on your website with icons and API’s
  • Integrate your social media icons on outgoing emails & letterheads

Social Media Results Monitoring

After you pay a plumber to unclog your drain you go and make sure the clog is gone. If you pay a mechanic to fix your car heater you turn the heater on and make sure it’s working. Strangely enough and often times a lot of social media effort has been done and yet nobody has bothered to monitor the results.

You should always avoid this common mistake so that you can grasp the success or failure of your efforts and then adjust accordingly. Sometimes failure may be indicative of improper techniques. Other times failure may be telling you that a particular platform is not well suited for your target market.

By experimenting and using A/B testing you can usually determine if changing your approach will solve the problem. If this fails then it is probably likely that you should reduce or stop your activity and shift to a different social network.

In order to properly monitor your efforts you should be using any available built in analytics as well as Google Analytics. Built in analytics can provide you with a lot of useful statistics in terms of exposure and user engagement.

Google Analytics can provide other helpful details such as which platform is sending the most traffic, how the traffic flows through your site pages, bounce rates and more.

Organic Social Media Marketing Results Monitoring At Facebook

Organic Social Media Marketing Results Monitoring At Facebook


Paid Social Media Marketing At Facebook

Paid Social Media Marketing At Facebook


Paid Social Media Marketing At Linkedin

Paid Social Media Marketing At Linkedin


Paid Social Media Marketing At Twitter

Paid Social Media Marketing At Twitter


Paid Social Media Marketing Results Monitoring At Linkedin

Paid Social Media Marketing Results Monitoring At Linkedin


Social Media Marketing Results Monitoring At Google Analytics – Traffic Sources

Social Media Marketing Results Monitoring At Google Analytics – Traffic Sources


Social Media Marketing Results Monitoring At Google Analytics – Views/Duration

Social Media Marketing Results Monitoring At Google Analytics – Views/Duration


Social Media Marketing Results Monitoring At Google Analytics – User Flow

Social Media Marketing Results Monitoring At Google Analytics – User Flow


Social Media Marketing Results Monitoring At Google Analytics – Landing Page Stats

Social Media Marketing Results Monitoring At Google Analytics – Landing Page Stats

Social Media Organic & Paid Marketing
Pros & Cons

PROS

  • Can be less expensive than search engine pay per click
  • Can be very effective
  • Builds branding
  • Keeps you in front of interested people
  • Effective on desktop, laptops and mobile
  • Can be personalized
  • Easy to track results

CONS

  • Expensive and/or time consuming to build a large fan base
  • Negative comments & feedback can cause damage
  • Requires substantial ongoing labor to engage your fan base
  • Users may perceive it as spammy or untrustworthy
  • User response may deteriorate over time
  • Knowing and which platforms to make use of
  • Learning the topics of interest for your fan base

Class Directory

  • Week 1: Introductions and Overview

    Member introductions, overview of each class, marketing overview, marketing statistics, marketing trends. Go To Introductions And Overview Class

  • WEEK 2: KEYWORDS

    Keywords defined, keywords history, types of keywords, importance of keywords, keyword research, keyword examples, keyword tools, keyword implementation. Go To Keywords Class

  • WEEK 3: EMAIL MARKETING

    Email marketing overview, mail list generation/acquisition, legalities, best practices, pros & cons, software choices, results monitoring. Go To Email Marketing Class

  • WEEK 4: SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING (ORGANIC & PAID)

    Social media overview, social media platforms, social media demographics, organic social media marketing, paid social media marketing, best practices, results monitoring, pros & cons.

  • WEEK 5: SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (ORGANIC)

    Organic search engine marketing overview, on page seo elements, off page seo elements, local citations, backlinks, penalty avoidance, algorithm updates, webmastering, analytics, pros & cons. Go To Organic Search Engine Marketing Class

  • WEEK 6: SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (PAID)

    Paid search engine marketing overview, search engine choices, types, account setup, account monitoring, results monitoring, non-profit grants, pros & cons. Go To Paid Search Engine Marketing Class

  • WEEK 7: VIDEO MARKETING

    Video marketing overview, best practices, video production, video marketing channels, pros & cons. Go To Video Marketing Class

  • WEEK 8: TRADITIONAL MARKETING

    Traditional marketing overview, print advertising, radio advertising, television advertising, direct mail marketing, billboard advertising, hosting seminars and workshops, attending trade shows, networking group participation, door to door selling, pros & cons. Go To Traditional Marketing Class. Go To Traditional Marketing Class

Leave a Comment