You’ve heard about social media, you know you want to use social media, you have a budget for social media, but you need to know how to use social media marketing to help achieve your corporate marketing goals.
It’s an intimidating field because it’s so new and you know if a strategy is not clearly mapped out social media marketing initiatives can fail. But you can’t ignore it because you want to stay ahead of competitors, retain clients, manage your brand and monitor your space.
So where do you start? Follow these steps and you’ll be on your way to building a successful social media marketing strategy…
Step 1: Define goals and objectives
Clearly map out your corporation’s goals and objectives.
Is your goal to:
- Generate more brand awareness?
- Interact with prospects?
- Monitor competition?
- Monitor and manage your brand reputation?
- Generate awareness of your company’s services or offerings?
- Attract new employees, investors, partners/vendors?
Step 2: Pinpoint where your audience and potential evangelists are sharing information
Listen to what’s going on in your space and identify the thought leaders and ambassadors. Look at who you are currently communicating with and how, as well as with whom you want to interact. This will help you form a basis for everything else you do with social media tools. Identifying your audience before simply choosing convenient tools will lead to a much more successful social media campaign.
To help identify where/how your customers are sharing and consuming information online. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is my target audience on social networking sites?
- Do they belong to specialized groups?
- Who are they interacting with?
- Which social media channels would be best to use for the type of content you have?
Step 3: Audit Resources
Once you have figured out what you would like to do with social media to achieve your corporate marketing goals, you have three options to execute your campaign: use current staff; hire employee(s); or outsource parts or all of your campaign to an outside vendor. You must consider the following when making your decision:
- Do I have existing content that I can re-purpose?
- Do my internal resources have existing knowledge on the platforms, and technologies needed to execute my campaign. How much is their “ramp up” going to cost my department in staff hours?
- What technology (portals, videos, platforms that enable user generated content, landing pages) do I need to develop? Which of these do I need to outsource?
- What monitoring tools do I have available?
- Who is going to fulfill the different social media marketing roles and responsibilities?
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Step 4: Establish a social media protocol
A corporate social media protocol should be developed and employed to help companies feel comfortable about social media participation. A well-constructed protocol can help companies organize and prioritize goals, designate the individuals that should assume ownership of the brand’s online communications, while simultaneously ensuring that these communications broadcast messages that are consistent across all social media engagements.
To begin establishing a protocol, ask yourself the following questions:
- What information do we want to keep private?
- What kinds of information would we benefit from making public?
- What personal social media use is appropriate? Inappropriate?
- How will we measure which rules are helpful and which are not?
- Who are our quality followers? How can we continually engage them?
- Should we have a set of rules for proactive social media use? Reactive social media use?
- How do we respond to positive engagement versus negative engagement?
Step 5: Start using social media
Now that you determined who you want to communicate with, who is going to accomplish your social media marketing initiatives, and where you want to go with the relationships, you can execute your plan.
Step 6: Measure results
You need to measure and monitor all activity. Be sure that you create mechanisms for feedback and input throughout your process to provide opportunities for your community, staff, etc. to share ideas and LISTEN!
Ask yourself these questions as you evaluate your social media efforts:
- Have your networks grown or changed? How?
- Are there new social media roles to explore?
- What worked?
- What can we do differently?
- What should we eliminate?
- How much time is spent on each social media initiative?
- How is social media changing right now?
- Are we ahead of our competitors?
If you want to use social media marketing in your overall marketing plan, you need a sound strategy. If you don’t have a sound strategy, you risk losing control of your brand, reputation, client base and prospects. If you do have one, you will have a huge advantage over competitors, have the ability to enforce or build a loyal client base, position your thought leaders as experts, develop interactive relationships with prospects, avoid potential pitfalls and have an overall stronger marketing plan.
-AJ Gerritson is Founding Partner and Social Media Strategist at 451 Marketing, a Boston-based communications agency that specializes in social media marketing, public relations, and creative development. For more information, please visit AJ’s LinkedIn Page.
Foursquare is For … NOW!
There’s a new location-based trend in the here-to-stay world of online socializing sites. Sites like Gowalla and Foursquare lead the way about a year ago. Now Yelp (the foodie website) has added a “geo” element too. In the case of Foursquare, they’ve announced two affiliations in the last month that might be game-changers. They are now partnering with the Bravo network and with Zagat!
Stop.
What are you talking about?
Ok. Let’s start all over. In layman’s terms: Foursquare is a combination social network-gps locator-game that encourages one to “check-in” and leave “tips” when one is out and about. So let’s say, you’re going to the movies, or a bar, or a restaurant, or a museum – or anywhere, really – you open up the application and Foursquare will do a search for where you are. (Because it can locate you.) If your location doesn’t come up, you can type it in. Where it gets a bit fun and competitive is that one can become the mayor of a place or get points for checking in more times than anyone else in a given week or in a specific location. And yes, each check-in gets uploaded to your respective status update on Facebook or Twitter or both. If you’re on Facebook or Twitter, you’ve probably seen some updates.
Businesses get a free plug for doing, uh, nothing. But smart businesses – like Tasti D-Lite on the Upper East Side of NYC – have been offering discounts or free product to mayors or to others for just for checking in. This promotes guest visits and loyalty – and what restaurant doesn’t want that?
It’s a great site for cities because you can also see where your Foursquare friends have checked-in – and they may be around the corner. And now you can go join them.
The Green Buzz Agency Blog provides insight for Marketing Decision Makers and other fun people
Here’s an informative video that breaks it down better than I do: How Foursquare helps consumers and businesses: http://slidesha.re/6e1NB0
If I owned a restaurant or a bar, I’d make sure I let all Foursquare types know that any check-in will be honored with a complimentary glass of wine or a draft beer or a dessert. As long as they showed their check-in.
For the record, since Christmas, I’ve been “out” 18 times, checked into 34 places and have been crowned the “Mayor” of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and WordHampton Public Relations. (Um, these two mayoralties are pretty much a joke; I was experimenting with the site. Nonetheless, I AM the mayor of my church and my business. LOL!)
Here’s a brief description of Foursquare’s deal with Bravo taken from Gavin O’Malley at Media Post: “Foursquare offers entertainment brands an opportunity to interact with their customers on both a personal and local level,” said [Foursquare co-founder Dennis] Crowley. “By extending on-air, this partnership also allows us to reach beyond the tech-early-adopter crowd and introduce an entirely new audience to Foursquare.”
Bravo will create on-air spots that drive users to “check in” to Foursquare from various locations across the country that have been featured on Bravo series, as well as venues recommended by Bravo talent.
The network will offer a series of branded “badges” specifically designed around series that include “The Real Housewives,” “The Millionaire Matchmaker,” “Top Chef,” “Top Chef Masters” and “Shear Genius.”
But Foursquare didn’t stop at Bravo. Writing for Mashable.com, Jennifer Van Grove says,
“The New York Times is reporting that Foursquare has signed a deal with trusted restaurant review service Zagat. Zagat’s official Foursquare page is already live and includes official Zagat-rated tips and recommendations that users can add as to-dos to their Foursquare experience.
Zagat is calling the partnership “Foodie Love,” and there’s even a new accompanying foodie badge. Zagat.com is extending the partnership beyond Foursquare and starting a “Meet the Mayor” online interview series that will feature discussions with prominent Foursquare mayors.
Foursquare’s relationship with Zagat is clearly an answer to Yelp’s introduction of check-ins, especially given the trusted and prestigious nature of Zagat content.”
Oh. Foursquare is apparently this close to announcing partnerships with the History Channel, Warner Bros., HBO and Explore Chicago.
Guess it’s time we all started exploring Foursquare, eh?
Steve Haweeli is President at WordHampton Public Relations Inc. Contact Steve directly at steve@wordhampton.com or follow him on twitter @SteveHaweeli
Organizations approach us wanting an online video presence, and typically choose the path of Client Testimonials, Product Demos, or something similar. Those are great choices, but the road less taken to brand loyalty is the Viral Video.
WHY VIRAL VIDEOS?
1. Youth is still the magic demographic for marketers, and news flash, this generation of young people watch way less television than generations before. Millenials are too busy watching videos on YouTube. They typically don’t care who made those videos, or if they have an agenda, as long as the video is entertaining. If your company wants to boost its coolness factor while making a great first impression, then it is hard to ignore the viral video format.
2. They are cheap to produce. At least compared to other formats of online video or television. Weigh the cost of making a slick TV commercial with actors, a set, props, a big crew, and the ad time needed to air it versus twenty-five or so viral videos. Out of that large group of videos maybe you decide six will have a holiday shopping season theme, three a St. Patrick’s Day theme, and so on. This means you make a viral video whenever you want, which leads to the next point.
3. Saturday Night Live, the late night gang (Letterman, Kimmel, Stewart, etc.), The Soup, and South Park are trendsetting shows because their sense of humor is smart, edgy, and most importantly – relevant. They all address topics in today’s news cycle. The typical sitcom or commercial is in the can months prior to airing. That is why Tina Fey’s impersonation of Sarah Palin is buzz worthy and even perception altering, and the plot of Two and a Half Men is not. Your company should harness the same trendsetting power using viral videos.
4. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert discuss complicated issues using a variety of short format videos. Jimmy Kimmel and Joel McHale depend on short format videos in their shows. Why do they rely so heavily on this format? Because sophisticated ideas are easier to digest in video format than in text. Luckily, as you’ll see in the Getting Noticed section, viral video works best in short format.
5. Expanding on point four, it is much easier to create an emotional response with a viral video than text. Unless crafted by a truly gifted writer, text doesn’t make people dance, sing, cry, or laugh the same way a good viral video does.
6. A viral videos is easier on social media eyes than a traditional corporate video. As people relax and look at photos of their friends on Facebook, they aren’t interested in watching serious stuff. They want a short funny viral video that fits in line with their current thought process & attention span. Case in point, NBC has really embraced viral videos. To gain new viewers for one of the best sitcoms on TV, The Office, they create viral videos with its characters in situations that don’t air on the show. New late night host Jimmy Fallon even gears all his segments to play like viral videos, hoping they catch on the following day with an audience that was unable to stay up late enough to see his show.
7. The distribution of viral videos is changing rapidly. You can now watch YouTube from your Tivo. And don’t forget about cell phones. A couple years ago people use to only call each other, take pictures, or listen to music. But, with larger high resolution screens and an easy to install YouTube application, cell phones have evolved into a viral video friendly platform.
8. Corporate product videos have grown because companies can showcase their product without the aide of salespeople. Corporate viral videos should be growing because they can showcase a company’s personality just as easily and quickly.
9. A good viral video is everlasting. If the video is clever and funny today, odds are good it will still be clever and funny 5 or even 25 years from now. Furthermore, your potential audience is huge, and viewers can be watching it half way across the world while your firm’s employees are asleep.
10. If you build a position by making multiple everlasting videos, you become a part of people’s daily routine. For example, the “Will It Blend” series by Blendtec keep its audience coming back regularly to see which object will get get demolished next.
GETTING NOTICED (Non-SEO)
So you are a believer, but aren’t sure what will work. Producing material your audience wants to see is paramount. There is so much competition, boring material will quickly get lost forever. Corporate viral videos need the right mix of great content, execution, and promotion to get noticed. But be careful, you don’t want to shove the video down people’s throats. A major component of a viral video is the feeling people get when they stumble across something unique. They love sharing the feeling from watching that unique video with their friends. So what common factors can be found in the viral videos people share?
Content Rules
1. Funny is king in the world of viral. Lorne Michaels realized the power of the viral video, and let Andy Samberg go crazy with SNL digital shorts. That decision paid off in a big way with hits like “Dick in a Box.”
2. Music (Jonah Rocks), Dancing (Evolution of Dance) and Inspirational (Susan Boyle) are other popular themes.
3. E*Trade provides a good example of unusual juxtaposition: a baby talking and trading stocks. Another example, a cat playing the piano.
4. Which segues into our next rule. Babies & Animals are both great characters for viral videos. The cuter the better. There is a reason Super Bowl commercials are saturated with chimps, babies/young kids, and clydesdales. Commercials and viral videos share a lot in common.
5. People like the anticipation of being scared. Think about the buzz The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity received. Those are two of Hollywood’s biggest rags to riches stories due in large part to the buzz generated prior to release. The thrill of being scared works in viral videos as well. Remember the reaction to UFO’s flying over Haiti?
6. If all else fails, sex sells in any medium. Even boring godaddy.com commercials.
7. If all else still fails, parody a successful video. Long before there was Jersey Shore, there was “My new hair cut.” This video spawned tons of parody videos that back drafted off the original’s success. Many of the parodies themselves got over a million views, including one that has almost 5 million hits!
Execution Rules
8. Short is usually best. TV is very passive and the Internet is not. Viral videos need to capture audience attention immediately. The longer the video runs, the harder it is to keep viewers engaged. Dramatic Chipmunk is only 5 seconds long! This short simple viral video was the core concept in this year’s Carmax Super Bowl ads.
9. You want fans of the video to have the ability to use your material to create their own remix versions. The song that made Tay Zonday an Internet phenom with “Chocolate Rain” was remixed for a new product launch of Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper.
10. I’ve used a lot of examples from TV Commercials primarily because the Super Bowl commercials are fresh in everyone’s head, but remember this is not a flashy TV commercial. You don’t need to make it look like one. Make it look like a gem in the rough. TV Commercials have a lot of edits, transitions, and graphics. Viral videos are sometimes done in one shot on a consumer camera, or at least made to look that way.
11. Hollywood studios overdub or subtitle movies to release around the world. If you have a successful viral video that has universal appeal, translate or subtitle it to increase the size of your online audience.
EXERCISE: Mix and match these 11 rules to get the creative juices flowing: Lets say you are a gum company with a big budget for a viral video. Use rules 1,3, 4, 6 to create a viral video concept with a supermodel chewing gum while balancing an elephant on her pinkie finger in outer space. Oh, and the elephant is chewing gum too of course. Not a cheap viral video, and it doesn’t follow rule 10, but it would certainly generate buzz.
GETTING NOTICED (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is critical. The goal is for your video/content to spread like wildfire to new audiences. Setting up proper SEO gives you the best chance for those new audiences to find your video quickly and easily.
Video SEO is similar to website SEO and the rules listed below apply to all online videos, including viral. If you’re not all that familiar with SEO, check out this article for an overview. Some of these tips are for large organizations, others for small business, and some fit both.
1. Use Clear Titles – Picking the right title gives you an enormous advantage getting noticed, but don’t use misleading phrases like “leaked video” to generate excitement and clicks. It can backfire when your audience feels tricked.
2. Provide an Accurate Description - Include a call to action directing viewers back to your website or possibly to a contest you are throwing in conjunction with your viral video.
3. Choose the Right Keyword Tags – Use Google Adwords for help compiling a complete list.
4. Generate Back Links
a. Email bloggers that relate to your viral video.
b. Submit video to social bookmarking sites. TubeMogul can really help to make this step quick and easy.
The eight most popular social bookmarking websites online: 1. Twitter, 2. Digg, 3. Yahoo Buzz 4. TweetMeme 5. StumleUpon 6. Reddit 7. Technorati, 8. del.icio.us
c. Submit a Press Release. Some good free places to submit Press Releases include: 1888PressReleases, ClickPress, 24-7PressRelease, PRLeap
d. Post the video using your company’s social media presence, like on your company’s Facebook Fan page. Certain social media platforms carry more weight than others. Here is the length of time people watch videos from different sources according to Tubemogul: Twitter 1:58, Facebook 1:14 , and Digg :58.
Highlights from top eight back linked online videos of all time: 1. Susan Boyle Performs on Britain’s Got Talent 2. Rick Astley’s Rick Roll 3. Judson Laipply’s Evolution of Dance 6. Free Hugs Campaign 7. Ok Go Treadmill 8. Michael Jackson’s Thriller
5. Generate Views
a. Do what you can the old fashioned way by emailing friends and family a link to the video. Ask them to help by sending it to their friends or posting it to their Facebook page. You could also include a link to the video in your email signature.
b. If you need more help with views, a paid method might be the right option. Just make sure you know what you’re buying and you’re setting yourself up for a good ROI. YouTube Promoted Videos provides one approach for getting your video in front of more eyes. uSocial can also deliver views, but buyer beware, they may not be the views you want!
Three Viral Videos that had an effect on the 2008 Presidential Election: 1. Will.i.am and Friends’ tribute to Obama “Yes, We Can” 2. The powerful “Dear Mr. Obama” from Joe Cook and team on the war in Iraq 3. “I Got a Crush….On Obama” by, of course, Obama Girl
YOUTUBE SEO
YouTube SEO has similar characteristics to regular video SEO. A proper title, keyword tags, description, and back links are all still important. However there are other factors that contribute to a high ranking in the YouTube search results.
1. The most obvious factor in YouTube SEO is the video’s number of views. But don’t be fooled, the factors below are not far behind in importance.
2. Number of ratings the video has received. The higher the rating, and the more ratings a video receives boost YouTube SEO juice.
3. The number of comments, good or bad. The more lively the discussion under the video is, the more likely people will keep coming back to see if others have posted a comment.
4. How recently the video was submitted. YouTube’s complex algorithms favor new videos in their search results. Take advantage of a new upload, because unless your content is a runaway hit, it’ll get harder and harder to rank high on the list over time.
5. Now we are getting into the areas that are truly overlooked. Is the video uploaded from a YouTube Channel? If so, how many views does the channel itself have? For example, Green Buzz Agency has a channel. If our current viral video with Julia Dales has a lot of hits, then it will increase the SEO for all the other videos in the Green Buzz Agency channel.
6. The number of subscribers to the channel. This indicates that the channel continually posts worthy content and is rewarded by people who have bookmarked the Channel. It is similar to a website’s SEO increasing when its fans bookmark the site in del.icio.us.
7. How active is the owner of the YouTube Channel? YouTube rewards active owners, the more you manage and maintain your channel, the better.
8. How all the other videos in the channel perform in the areas listed above.
GBA is using our current Viral Video featuring Julia Dales to maximize our website & YouTube SEO. Check back in a couple months for a case study on what worked best for us!
BUILDING A LONG-TERM POSITION
The ultimate goal of any company venturing into the world of Viral Video should be to build a long-term position for your brand. Sure, the buzz you generate with a one-hit video is great. But once you’ve invested the time, money and effort into building an audience, you should continue to utilize it. After a couple well-conceived, well-executed videos, your audience will start seeking out your content. Viral Video is no different than any other marketing tactic – the goal is brand loyalty.
There are many other tricks of the trade. If you liked this primer, be sure to come back next month when Green Buzz Agency will have a complete and downloadable guide to Viral Videos featuring more tips, strategies and facts. In the mean time, check in weekly for more Marketing & Video blog posts, and of course new viral videos from Green Buzz Agency!
Tod Plotkin is Principal at Green Buzz Agency. Despite moving to Washington, DC in 1999, he still misses following the Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox on a daily basis. His passion for video production is equaled by his love of peanut butter and jelly. Follow Tod on Twitter @GreenBuzzAgency.
The marketing mavens at GoDaddy.com had their work cut out for them. It’s getting harder and harder to achieve the real Super Bowl prize: having the network reject your ad.
But CBS handed them their touchdown this year, rejecting Lola. In a press release quickly posted on their website, GoDaddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons said, “Of the five commercial concepts we submitted for approval this year, this never would’ve been my pick for the one that would not be approved. This is about a guy who starts an online business and hits the jackpot. I just don’t think ‘Lola’ is offensive, in fact we didn’t see this one coming –were absolutely blindsided!”
Here’s some insight: national marketers do not produce five commercials in the hopes that the network will approve one of them. They shoot five commercials hoping the network will REJECT one of them.
GoDaddy became the second Super Bowl ad declined this year, and the third to stir public debate.
Mancrunch, a dating site catering to gay men, was also rejected. Evidently, the CBS sales department additionally questioned the company’s ability to pay for the ad time, calling into question whether it was ever considered a viable option to air, or if the folks at ManCrunch were hoping for the wave of publicity that accompanies rejection, and the viral activity that follows. Rejection-pioneer PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) enjoyed a viral bonanza when their 2009 spot, Veggie Love, was given a pass by NBC. Other rejects from the class of 2009 included Airborn’s entry, featuring a gratuitous shot of Mickey Rooney’s butt, and a particularly repugnant effort from AshleyMadison.com, a website aimed at promoting extramarital affairs.
This year, many observers were stunned when Focus on the Family, a conservative religious organization that opposes abortion – as well as homosexuality, gambling (including church bingo) and premarital sex – got a green light from CBS for their Super Bowl ad entry, featuring Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow. The spot reportedly tells the story of Tebow’s mother, Pam, whose doctors recommended that she have an abortion while serving as a missionary in the Philippines. Experts have questioned the veracity of the story, pointing to the fact that physicians and midwives who perform abortions in the Philippines face six years in prison, and may have their licenses suspended or revoked, and that women who receive abortions – no matter the reason – may be punished with imprisonment for two to six years. A coalition of more than 30 women’s and advocacy groups have called on CBS to pull the ad.
The Green Buzz Agency Blog provides insight for Marketing Decision Makers and other fun people
Why all the hoopla about commercials in the big game? It may be because the commercials are bigger than the game.
According to recent research from Nielsen on trends and effectiveness of paid Super Bowl advertising, more than half of those who tune in are watching for the commercials, not the game itself. Add in those who are watching primarily for the on-field action, but admit to an interest in the commercials as well, and you’ve got the attention of a significant percentage of the nearly 100 million Super Bowl viewers.
And with Super Bowl ads, viewership translates directly to consumer action. Super Bowl ads can boost the web traffic of the companies that run them, especially in the short term. Among all Super Bowl XLIII advertisers in 2009, overnight web traffic as measured by unique audience grew an average of 63%. Growth in unique audience from January to February 2009 grew an average of 6%.
It’s ironic, though, that the ads that are deemed the most offensive are the ones that generate the most buzz and drive the most web traffic. These are the spots that do the best job of demeaning, insulting, stereotyping and shocking. These are the spots you don’t want your kids to see.
The “Catch-22” for the networks is that by rejecting the ads (and foregoing the $2.5–3 million revenue that each spot generates), they contribute to the viral value. Online news articles and blogs that link to rejected ads generate unparalleled click-through.
The proof point? How many ads did you watch here? I know…me too.
Kim Hennig is an award-winning consumer marketing veteran of well-known brands, including McDonald’s, 1-800-Flowers and Subway. She also conducts social media seminars and facilitates social media workshops for corporations and ad agencies. Kim can be reached at kim@kimhennig.com or @KimHennig on Twitter.
