How could YOU be using Social Media?
October 6, 2009 by Rebekah King · Leave a Comment
Here at ReBiz Works we’re all aflutter at today’s article in the LA Times (read it here) on small business use of social media. If you are wondering how your biz could be using social media, take a look:
They are not the only small business to miss the potential that social media has to build sales, says Rebekah King, principal of ReBiz Works in Irvine, a one-person shop that specializes in social media marketing and training.
Social media sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and online communication tools, such as Twitter and the content-update utility Ping.fm, could raise TNT’s profile, introduce it to new customers and provide an easy way to keep in front of its growing community. Also, content on social media sites is counted in search-engine results and can move a business higher in result rankings.
To be effective, a business needs a plan.
“Any social-media program has to have a focus, a purpose,” says King, who works with small businesses and advertising agencies. “They want to book more business. Social media can show people who they are and help drive potential customers to their website.”
Check out the article on latimes.com for the full step-by-step program we outlined for TNT Dunk Squad
Social Media Market Research
May 4, 2009 by Rebekah King · Leave a Comment
Not every kind of marketing works for every type of business, so often before beginning a marketing program, our clients will want to conduct market research inside of the social media marketplace.
Our tools allow us to eavesdrop on public conversations inside of twitter, myspace, facebook, and linkedIN, bringing back information like:
- Who are your ideal clients?
- What are your ideal clients talking about?
- Where do they go to have these questions answered?
- How do they want to learn about your product?
And with this information we can then develop a marketing program tailored for your business, to provide the greatest return in the most effective way we can. Often this process will not only provide research, but also sales leads from within the social media environment.
Read a Case Study of Sales Results from Social Media via Twitter
Loic Le Meur (founder of Seesmic) Talks About Product Marketing Online
April 29, 2009 by Rebekah King · Leave a Comment
After catching his talk at the Inbound Marketing Summit 2009 on launching a product in social media, I was lucky enough to get Loic alone for a quick interview. Watch as he gives you 3 tips on launching in the new media age, and I mis-pronounce everything.
You can find Loic Le Meur at www.twitter.com/loic and his product at www.seesmic.com
Social Networking: All Screwed Up
April 24, 2009 by Rebekah King · Leave a Comment
I don’t know about you, but I’m not on my social networking sites 24/7. it’s more like 2/7, because really – I’ve got a business to run! Some people may find this a little contradictory, as I run a social media marketing company, yet we’re always telling people to find balance between the two. If you aren’t working to keep your business growing and gaining clients, then all the social media marketing in the world won’t do you any good.
But, I digress. My tangent is distracting us all for the point of today’s rant.
Pointless, cheezy, salesy, uninvited emails via facebook.
I recently received this from someone in one of my groups:
When Britains Got Talent start Susan Boyle took the stage in front of the three judges, it was all the audience could do to stop themselves from laughing. In front of them stood a 47 year old woman with an unpolished appearance who was certain to humiliate herself in front of millions. Then she did something extraordinary. She sang “I Dreamed a Dream” from the West End musical Les Misérables so beautifully that she received a standing ovation and is the talk of the UK. Her audition which has since been put on Youtube has received tens of millions of views. Read more
Tracking Twitter: Big Brands Using Social Media
March 29, 2009 by Rebekah King · 1 Comment
I just found a great new tool for keeping tabs on the brands using social media, it’s called Tracking Twitter and you can check it out at http://trackingtwitter.com/brands. Why would you want to though?
1. Look for your contemporaries
I get asked nearly every day “why would I want to use twitter?” which is kind of silly, because no one person can tell someone they’ve just met what social media tool will appropriately connect them to their consumer. I don’t know you – I don’t know what you sell and I don’t know how you sell it. I don’t know the things that will kill you online: like being lazy, or having terrible customer service (when your csr hangs up on them you can bet they’ll twitter you about it), or having a terrible product. These are all things my clients and I talk about, and find the best course of action. Of course you probably want to see what your competition, kindred companies, and clients are doing – so a tool like Tracking Twitter makes that very doable. I am sure I’ll be using it to watch brands grow in their strategy, and see what their results are once these profiles have been active long enough to gain measureable results.
2. Learn what works Read more
LinkedIn’s Latest Updates: Email addresses go private
March 23, 2009 by Rebekah King · Leave a Comment
Just a quick heads-up for all you LinkedIN users:
Sending Announcements
In response to overwhelming demand from group managers, we have created the ability for you to send group announcements directly from your LinkedIn group to your members, via email. Your announcement will also automatically be posted as a discussion within the group so members can comment on it together.As membership in LinkedIn groups continues to explode, we hear increasing concerns from our members about how their privacy is protected. Now that we have the Announcement feature, and in response to these concerns, we have removed the ability to download or view member email addresses.
RSS Feeds into Groups
Posting news items into groups has become very popular in the past couple months. So we’ve made it even easier for you to spark discussions around news and other Web content by enabling you to add RSS and Atom feeds to your group. You can pick up RSS and Atom feeds from your favorite sites around the web. News items from your feed will automatically show up under the News tab.
Managing Job-Focused Discussions
Group managers now have full control over whether to enable the jobs discussion capabilities within your group. The jobs area enables members to discuss job opportunities in these difficult economic times without cluttering the main conversation, and like all discussions it’s free.
LinkedIN’s made all email addresses private in groups – good for the group member but not so good for the group owner, especially if you were merging that group into your newsletter databases. The other thing we’re missing is the geographic management – I’ve got a colleague who has one group for her entire association – regardless of chapter preference – so now we’ll all get eachother’s notices… because she can no longer filter “only orange county” like she could in her email marketing platform. As is the case with upgrades, once they start they rarely stop, so I’m sure we’ll see more over the next few weeks…
Rebekah
Social Media and Customer Loyalty: The Skinny
January 30, 2009 by Rebekah King · Leave a Comment
Typically I frown on simply ‘reposting’ articles, but this one is so good it’s my exception to the rule this month:
Deepening Customer Loyalty Through Social Media by Aaron Strout
When was the last time you said to yourself: “Wow, I’d recommend this product or service to a friend”? Within the last month? Six months? If you have to think about this question, you’ve already made my point. Over the last 50 years, outsourced manufacturing, poor customer service and an overall commoditization of products and services have served to erode consumers’ affections for most brands.
While the idea of diminished customer loyalty may be disheartening–after all, if customers aren’t loyal, they don’t rave about your brand to other customers and they certainly can’t be tricked into forking over a greater share of their wallet–all hope is not lost. In fact, smart brands like Dell, Ford and Sears are starting to see increases in brand affinity as a result of their social endeavors. Read more
Transparency: Circuit City Admits They (did) Stink @ Customer Service
January 9, 2009 by Rebekah King · Leave a Comment
I ran across this new ad today on youtube:
You can also follow them on Twitter (465 friends at time of writing this blog) and become a fan of their new I Wear Read 4U campaign on facebook… Let’s see how it does over the next few months.
Big Brand Missing the Bullseye – Create an Identity for Your Brand
December 14, 2008 by Rebekah King · Leave a Comment
While catching up on my reading this morning, I came across this article from the new york times on challenges faced by some advertisers on social media platforms. The story focuses on Proctor & Gamble’s use of facebook ads. Apparently, they’ve been having some difficulties:
Ted McConnell, manager of interactive marketing and innovation at P.& G., said, “I really don’t want to buy any more banner ads in Facebook.” His remarks were offered as his personal reflections, not the official position of his employer, and were available on the Web in a podcast of the talk
I read about half of this article before I went on a mission: searching to see if I’ve somehow missed a trend shift (rip van winkle style sleeping for a 100 years?) and facebook became a dead medium. Thankfully after scanning through over 2000 articles on my google reader archives I find no such horrid news… So I return to my original thought – it’s P&G’s marketing approach that is ineffective, not Facebook itself. Read more
Measuring Social Media: Making Impressions into Money
October 21, 2008 by Rebekah King · Leave a Comment
While doing my morning reading I stumbled upon a great question:
Are clicks and impressions still the standard for online advertising success?
As a publisher, are clicks and impressions still the standard for online advertising success? If not, what are you attaching every dollar to? Social media platforms like Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter allow you to spread a message quickly to a captive audience, but what good are 20,000 friends and one million video views if there is no direct dollar amount associated to it? An impression and a click are tied to a dollar, but if you’re not using these as the benchmark then what good is your inventory?
So are clicks and impressions still the standard, or can you convince your CFO that having friends is more profitable?
I’m finding more often that this is a common question, as the traditional marketing methods give way to the more interactive and social mediums. It can all be very confusing (I know, I’ve inspired many MANY headaches), but there are some simple things to know which may clear this confusion up. Read more
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