Develope marketing strategy

 


Develop a Facebook Marketing Strategy
▪ As of 2012, Facebook has 955 million users monthly.

▪ There are about 852 million log ins to Facebook every day.

▪ Facebook is one of the many sites being accessed daily via mobile, in fact, 54 percent of users access Facebook on mobile devices.


▪ As of 2012, Facebook has 955 million users monthly.

▪ There are about 852 million log ins to Facebook every day.

▪ Facebook is one of the many sites being accessed daily via mobile, in fact, 54 percent of users access Facebook on mobile devices.

Step #1: Define Your Facebook Marketing Goals
Defining your Facebook marketing goals is important for your success.
They may include one or more of the following:

▪ Increasing brand awareness.

▪ Generating sales.

▪ Earning social signals for your site.

▪ Providing customer support.

▪ Increasing customer engagement.

▪ Promoting discounts.

▪ Managing your reputation.

▪ Building a community of loyal fans/customers.

Step #2: Define Your Target Market
Getting to know your consumer demographics can help to focus your social media marketing efforts on Facebook. The visitor demographics on your website probably coincide with the demographics of your Facebook page fans. Check your audience demographics on WooRank.
Step #3: Enhance your Facebook Page
Take advantage of the various features of the new Facebook timeline for brand pages.

▪ Use a Facebook timeline cover photo. A recent eye-tracking study says that a Facebook cover photo grabs more attention for a Facebook page. Change your timeline cover photo according to seasons, holidays, special events or discount promotions. Use your cover photo to tell the story of your brand.

▪ Use your logo as your profile picture.

▪ Highlight the most important post on your timeline and pin it to the top of your brand page. You can do this by clicking on the star icon, found on the top right corner of your Facebook wall post. You can remove the highlight when you choose.

▪ Add timeline apps to your Facebook brand page. 

Step #4: Engage with Your Fans.
Facebook is an informal medium to engage and build relationships with your fans. Anything that you post on your timeline must encourage fans to Like, Share or Comment on your Facebook wall.
Create fan engagement on Facebook in the following ways:

▪ Post regular company updates.

▪ Post industry related updates.

▪ Post high quality images and videos on matters of interest (depending on your customer demographics and other consumer-related data you have collected, as mentioned in Step #2).

▪ Create a poll.

▪ Ask questions relating to an event, season, holiday, or your product or service.

▪ Organize Facebook contests.

▪ Cross-promote offline events or other company marketing on Facebook.

▪ Post staff photographs or event photographs.

▪ Promote your coupons on Facebook.

▪ Support a social cause or collaborate with a charity and encourage fan support.

▪ Use humor, it grabs attention.

▪ You can use your Facebook timeline for customer service. Note: Respond to both negative and positive comments. Solve disputes and let your page visitors or friends know that you are actively taking responsibility for your services on your Facebook page. 

Step #5: Promote Your Facebook Fanpage

▪ Include a Facebook link on all your business-related communications and correspondences.

▪ Include a Facebook icon on your website or any other marketing platform that links to your brand page.

▪ Add Facebook social plugins to content that can be shared on your website, such as a blog page.

▪ Include your Facebook page URL on offline promotional materials, business cards, letterheads or on products at your physical place of business, for example, a menu card in a restaurant.

▪ Create a Facebook ad to promote your page. Feature an attention grabbing image, a call-to-action and a compelling message.

Step #6: Check Facebook Insights
Facebook insights can be accessed by those who have admin access to your page.

▪ You will see an overview graph, as shown below, that indicates your number of posts, people talking about the posts and the weekly reach of these posts.

 

Develop a Twitter Marketing Strategy
▪ 175 million tweets are sent every day.
▪ 20 percent of internet users in the U.S. use Twitter. Of them, eight percent are active daily.
▪ Top Twitter users typically come from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, France, Indonesia, Iran and Ireland. If your business is based in any of these locations then developing a Twitter marketing strategy will likely grow the reach of your brand.
▪ Twitter does not pass link juice but your Twitter mentions benefit you as social signals for your website’s SEO.
Step #1: Know the Followers in Your Niche
Planning a strategy for your brand’s Twitter marketing is easier and better organized when you get to know the followers in your niche. These may be your own brand followers or the followers of your competititors.

Step #2: Gather More Followers
Having a large number of followers on Twitter suggests high authority in your niche. It also helps spread your tweets to a wider audience, thus bringing in more traffic. This may also lead to more sales. 
Here are some ways to gather more Twitter followers:
▪ Create a good first impression: Upload a high quality picture of your logo as the profile picture of your Twitter brand page.
▪ Optimize your Bio: Use the Twitter bio section to describe your brand and add a link to a blog or an external bio, if you have one.
▪ Promote your Twitter Brand Page: Display links to your Twitter brand page in all your emails and offline correspondences.
▪ Cross Promote your Twitter Handle on Other Channels: Mention your Twitter handle in places such as forums, guest blog posts, blog comments and on other social brand pages like Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Google+.
▪ Share Content to Get Retweeted: Share valuable and inspiring content. People might be encouraged to follow you when your content gets retweeted.
▪ Reply Publicly: Reply publicly by using @username in the tweet, or click the option Reply under the tweet. This shows others that you are a social brand. See screenshot below:

▪ Optimize Twitter for Local Business: If you are a local business, mention your location in your Twitter page bio and mention your location with a hashtag (#) in most of your tweets. Follow other local businesses that are not your competitors, such as news sources or charity organizations, and mention them in your tweets when relevant.
▪ Follow Industry Influencers: Follow major influencers in your industry. You can find them using the tools mentioned in Step #1.
▪ Tweet a Comment: Instead of commenting on a blog, tweet about it on Twitter with the mention of the author’s Twitter handle. You can even strike up a conversation with others who mention the author’s name.
▪ Incentives for a Follow or Twitter Mention: Offer discounts or organize contests in return for tweets and retweets with your brand mention, or a Twitter page follow, 

Do not forget to announce the winners in a tweet publicly and always abide by theTwitter Contest rules.
▪ Filter your Followers: Filter your twitter profile with the free tool ManageFlitter. Find out how many users you have followed but are not following you back. If any of these users are unrelated to your niche you can have them removed. This will comparatively increase your number of followers versus the users you follow. Twitter users tend to follow those with a higher number of followers compared to the number of those they follow.

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Step #3: Optimize your Tweets
Plan what and when you will tweet.
The following are some quick tips on tweeting for business:
▪ Plan the number of tweets you want to deliver on a regular basis. Tweeting too much risks looking like spammy behavior, while tweeting inconsistently may make your profile inactive. Once daily is recommended.
▪ Post tweets that are worth sharing. Blog posts, photos, videos, events and company announcements are some of the things that must definitely be tweeted.
▪ Start a conversation or ask a question.
▪ Respond to tweets containing customer feedback, both negative and positive.
▪ Keep your tweets short.
▪ Do not overuse hashtags. Keep it to one or two hashtags per tweet. Check WhatHashTag for hashtag suggestions based on your keywords.
▪ Retweet useful and positive messages for your audience.
▪ Tweet special promotions, offers and discounts.
▪ Make it a routine to tweet a business-related tip to your audience once a week. Highlight online news stories about your brand.
▪ Peak traffic on Twitter is generally from 9 am to 3 pm. Avoid tweeting after 8 pm. It has been found that Tweeting for business is not effective during weekends unless it is a holiday-related tweet. Schedule the time of your tweets accordingly.
▪ Although posting tweets manually is preferred, it may not be possible for all businesses to hire a dedicated social media manager or in-house social media staff. In such cases, use third-party tools to schedule and automate your tweets.
TweetDeck 
HootSuite

Step #4: Measure the Reach of Your Twitter Marketing Strategy

▪ TwitterCounter – This free online tool gives you Twitter statistics on followers and tweeting data for three months prior to your start date. You can even compare your Twitter statistics with two other brands.
▪ Wildfire Social Media Monitor – This is a simple yet effective tool to quickly compare your Twitter performance statistics with two of your competitors.
▪ SocialOomph – This is a free tool that gives you Twitter statistics along with other social media data.

 

Develop a LinkedIn Marketing Strategy
▪ 22.5 million people use LinkedIn.
▪ LinkedIn pages often appear on the first page of branded search results.
▪ It is the largest professional network.
▪ In a recent study of 5000 B2B and B2C companies, LinkedIn was found to create more than double the conversion rates of other popular counterparts, specifically Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn generated 2.74 percent of business leads as compared to 0.77 percent by Facebook and 0.69 percent by Twitter.
▪ LinkedIn shares your company news and updates, product or service updates and also creates career opportunities, which is a feature unique to LinkedIn as it is a professional social network.
▪ LinkedIn has its own company page stats, which give you clear insight into who is visiting your page and what type of actions they are most commonly taking.
▪ LinkedIn, unlike any other popular social network, has a products and services tab that allows you to showcase your products or services and display the number of users recommending them.


Step #1: Set Up Products and Services Tab
Showcase products and services that are relevant to customers on your LinkedIn company page. 
Here are the steps to create a product/services list:
▪ Choose your best selling products or services to showcase on LinkedIn.
▪ Make a list of these, in the order of preference.
▪ Select high quality photographs of the products you will highlight.
▪ Add descriptions, features, sales contacts and special offers for each product/service.
▪ Include your keywords in the descriptions.
You can define up to 30 audience types in this tab and show relevant products and services to target audiences, depending on their demographics, industry, job function, location and company size.
Each audience type can have five relevant products or services assigned to them. You can customize each audience type further by adding a custom video and three display banners.

Step #2: Encourage Followers to Recommend Your Products/Services


Step #3: Improve Engagement on LinkedIn
▪ Post updates regularly. You can base your updates on those you post on your other social media profiles.
▪ Highlight an important update by clicking the ‘Featured Update’ option below a post. This feature is similar to Facebook’s highlighted updates that bring the update to the top of your company page.
▪ Include a link to a relevant page on your website in each post.
▪ Although it is preferable to post updates manually, it may not be possible for all businesses to hire a dedicated social media manager. In such cases, you can use a third-party tool to schedule and automate your LinkedIn updates, such as HootSuite.
▪ Share and comment on other updates relevant to your niche. This will demonstrate your expert status within your LinkedIn network of professionals.
▪ LinkedIn lets you see who has recently viewed your profile/page. Send an invitation to connect to everyone who views your LinkedIn profile.
▪ You can join LinkedIn Groups that are in your niche using your personal profile, not as a company. Start off discussions in these groups on topics relevant to your industry. Encourage your staff to join these groups. This will promote your company page indirectly. You can connect with members of a group by messaging them and you can even message members of a LinkedIn group outside of your first connection. You can also create polls within groups to facilitate engagement.
▪ Share industry news and insights that may prompt a conversation on your company page.
▪ Share your blog topics on LinkedIn.
▪ Integrate share or follow buttons for LinkedIn on your website or blog page.

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Step #4: Check LinkedIn Insights
Measure your LinkedIn marketing strategy by constantly monitoring the data available in the LinkedIn Insights tab.
The data available on LinkedIn Insights includes:
▪ Page visitors.
▪ The most engaging types of content.
▪ Data about your follower community.
▪ The type of followers you attract.
▪ What status updates drive the most traffic to your page and what creates engagement.
Learn more about your page visitors and improve your LinkedIn marketing strategy using this data.

Step #5: Promote Your Company Page
There are many ways for businesses to find your LinkedIn page. You can improve your chances of being found by promoting your page upfront.
Here are some ways to promote your LinkedIn Company page:
▪ Add your Company Page URL to your emails and product/service related communications (both on and offline).
▪ If you are hiring, post jobs on LinkedIn and invite your applicants to visit theCareers tab on your company page.
▪ Set up a LinkedIn Ads campaign to promote your page. Track all visits and leads generated from the campaign and decide if it is valuable enough to continue.

Develop a Google+ Marketing Strategy
▪ Google+ had 250 million users at the end of 2012.create a Google+ account

▪ As a Google product, the updates, content, images and graphics on your Google+ page might feature in search results. This has a direct effect on your brand’s SEO.

▪ Google+ has been integrated with Google Drive, Chrome, Google Reader, Gmail and YouTube. If you are a Gmail user you will observe that when you receive emails the Google+ profile of the sender is featured on the right hand side,

Step #1: Optimize Your Google+ About Section
Google offers four cards to fill in your information on a company page. These are the People, Story, Contact Info, Contact Information and Links.
In Your Circles - Add people to your circles and categorize them into the default categories such as Customers, Following, Team Members, VIPs. 
Have You in Circles - You can opt to show people who have added you to their circles. 
Contact Info - You can choose to give your contact information in the form of phone, mobile, email, fax, pager, chat or address. This information can be made available to public, your circles or a custom audience. 
Tagline – Write 10 words that describe your brand name and includes your main keyword such that it makes sense to readers. 
Introduction – You can add as much information about your company as you want. If your website has important pages, include short descriptions of them and include links. Keep the description short, precise and easy to read. Include keywords wherever applicable. In this section you can also include a call to action with a link to your contact form page on your website, if relevant. Always set thisAbout section to Public.
Website – Include a link to your website. 
Links – Add a link to your blog page, if you have one, as well as links to your other social media company pages.

Step #2: Optimize Google+ Updates for Search
You can add the following items in your Google+ post updates:

▪ Text (no character limits)

▪ Links to other pages.

▪ Images

▪ Videos

▪ Events: Use custom or default themes to provide a Google Map location, date and time for an event.


The following are some tips for Google+ post updates:

▪ Always share your updates publicly. Choosing the Public option ensures it covers anonymous readers on the web as well as people within your circles. This also helps your post updates appear in search results.

▪ Include a title for your post.

▪ +1 your own updates and encourage your staff to do so as well.

▪ +1 your followers’ updates and any industry related updates.

▪ Add a comment to other industry related updates.

▪ Thank those who share your comments by commenting on the re-shared content.

▪ To add bold text use asterisks on either side of the text.

▪ To add italicized text use underscores on either side of the text..

▪ Combine both bold and italics in this manner on either side of the text..

▪ Use a hashtag with keywords in your Google+ post updates like this: #googleposttips. 

▪ Use short URLs in your posts to make them look neat. Use Google's URL Shortener or any other URL shortener available.

▪ Use high quality, relevant images when posting updates, as they grab attention.

▪ Use relevant keywords in your post updates to optimize them for search.

▪ Ask questions in your posts and tag people who usually +1 you or comment. This improves audience engagement.

▪ Share your post on other sites by clicking on the arrow key on the top right corner of the post and choosing Link to post from the drop-down list,

 

Step #3: Organize Hangouts on Air
Google+ gives you the option to start a live, on-air hangout . Your video can be viewed by anyone who has access to your Google+ stream or YouTube account.
If you want to air a live video you can start a Google+ hangout and the video is automatically saved to your YouTube account.
You can host a live hangout to:

▪ Broadcast webinars.

▪ Broadcast slide presentations.

▪ Provide customer Q&As.

▪ Broadcast expert interviews in your industry.

▪ Talk about your business topics in the form of a weekly video blog.

▪ Video conference within the company.

▪ Show new product demonstration videos.

▪ Advertise book launches and giveaways.

▪ Provide free, live coaching, consultation or training videos.

▪ Broadcast troubleshooting videos.

▪ Broadcast an in-house event.

▪ Simply chat with your audience.
The following are steps illustrating how to start a Google+ hangout:

▪ Announce your hangout.

▪ Click on Start a Hangout.

▪ You will be prompted to install a Google Voice and Video Setup plugin.

▪ Run the .exe file on your computer.

▪ Click Join.

▪ Name the Hangout and type names of people you want to invite,

Step #4: Measure Statistics for Your Google+ Page
Google+ has a unique feature known as Ripples. It allows you to view the reach of individual posts on your Google+ Page. This option is available in the drop down menu on the top right corner of posts that have created engagement.