Online Marketing Blog

If you run an ecommerce business, chances are your customers – regardless of their age, gender or economic status – are active on social networks and social media sharing sites.

Just consider the statistics from social media monitoring site Pingdom:

• Males and females almost equally use social sites (47% vs. 53%)
• 61% of Facebook users are middle aged or older, with the average age being 37
• 18- to 24-year-olds don’t dominate any particular social networking site; they’re spread out all over

The bottom line: If you aren’t discovering which in social networking channels your customers spend time and include them in your ecommerce marketing mix, you’re probably  missing out on building relationships, community and increasing new customer acquisition through online word of mouth.

It’s a little ironic that I’m writing this post about iPhone apps using WordPress on a Motorola Droid (Devour actually), but it allows me a chance to experience how hard it is to blog, using a tiny tiny tactile keyboard and also finally get this post started.

Ah, back to a full sized Logitech keyboard and mouse. Much better.

Popularized by iPhones, there are apps for just about everything, including tools to help social media marketers on the go. In fact, there are over 100,000 iPhone applications to choose from. Many of those apps are extensions of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Others serve as productivity tools for more efficient social web participation or for content creation.

One of the most trusted sources of marketing research and information is MarketingSherpa. I’ve been a subscriber for many years and always look forward to the reports on Search Marketing, Email Marketing and B2B Marketing. Last year MarketingSherpa started conducting research and publishing a Benchmark Report on social media marketing.

The new Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report (affiliate link) was recently released and I’ve had a few days to take a look and will provide a review for our readers.

As you can expect, this guide is a “meaty” 250 plus pages of research, charts & tables, examples and well written advice. Over 2,000 marketers participated in the survey covering a myriad of topics ranging from strategy to forecasting & budgeting to integration with other marketing channels to specific research on social applications such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs.

If you haven’t already integrated Facebook into your online marketing mix by creating a fan page, consider the most recent staggering Facebook statistics:

• More than 350 million users are active on Facebook
• 50% of active users log in on any given day
• The average user spends 55 minutes a day on Facebook
• More than 1.6 million active Facebook fan pages have been created

With numbers like these — plus the fact that Google is now using social content to help determine the ranking of web pages — it’s difficult to justify not creating a Facebook presence for your brand.

Take the guesswork of Facebook marketing, and follow these 5 tips for making the most of your fan page.

Dan Zarrella, a self-described “social media marketing & viral marketing scientist” lives at the intersection of social marketing and web development.  He’s known for conducting experiments with Twitter, compiling data behind the social web, creating interesting web applications and blogging.  And now, he has released a book.

Dan’s book is called “The Social Media Marketing Book” and is aimed at helping those who are new to social media marketing learn the basics.  The content is well-written and outlined into clear sections.  Those just getting into digital marketing will find it to be a good starting point in their journey.

To learn more about the topics discussed in the book, Dan was nice enough to answer a few questions for Online Marketing Blog readers.

For years, rumors have circulated that email marketing is dying and teenagers the world over have proclaimed email as, “something old people do”.  

Whether you agree or disagree that email has one foot in the grave, many online marketers are finding effective ways to leverage email as part of a social media marketing mix. Integrating email and social media was the topic of discussion at a session during the MIMA Summit last week with Loren McDonald, VP of Industry Releations, SilverPop and Brian Brown, Director of Modern Marketing, ideapark.

Social sharing options embedded in online content have helped increase distribution and reach for thousands of web sites. One of the most common ways email has been used in a social context is “Forward to a Friend”.  However, the tried and true ‘Forward to a Friend’ link has less than .1% CTR, so many marketers have taken it upon themselves to find a new way to circulate content amongst networks.

Social media is fast becoming a standard element in the marketing mix of major consumer brands.  And with good reason: never before has such a creative landscape existed for people and the brands they love to interact, share stories and build relationships – in all directions.

With social media marketing spends predicted to grow at an annual rate of 34% according to a report from Forrester Research, analyst trends support these thoughts.  Yet, not all companies are sold, with many taking a “wait and see” approach as they believe the landscape to be risky and unproven.

Just the opposite is true – waiting may prove the riskiest move of all as brands who wait too long only succeed in yielding ground to agile competitors.  This may prove especially damaging in the B2C space.  When consumers pledge allegiance to favorite brands, they may stick with those brands indefinitely and outright ignore competitors.

How to be successful on the social web? Be useful and helpful to others. Few people epitomize this principle better than veteran internet marketer, Tamar Weinberg.

I remember some of my first interactions with Tamar years ago, involving her making sure I had all my questions answered about something I posted on IM.  Tamar has blogged about search and social media marketing at 10e20, Search Engine Roundtable, Mashable and many other high profile web sites. A prolific and extremely hard working blogger, social media marketer and techie at heart, Tamar is also a “super user” of the social web. That firsthand knowledge of how to listen, engage and promote is clearly evident in her new book, The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web“, published by O’Reilly.

I had nice back and forth with Brian Clark of copyblogger on Twitter last week about direct marketing and social media.  Ultimately it was more an issue of perspective and semantics but there were some great points about the intersection of direct marketing on the social web. I’ve been an advocate for several years as have others in the social media consulting space, that the social web is not a place for direct marketing. In the past I’ve even posted a fairly good comparison of the difference between direct marketing and social media marketing.

Brian’s position via our Twitter discussion was that social media is exactly that, marketing directly to consumers – a great point. My perspective is that social media is no place for direct marketing messages.

Development of a content marketing strategy that speaks to the target audience plays a key role in successful execution of an overall online marketing program. Companies that embrace the social web as part of their marketing mix need to consider the content created within social media channels just as much as corporate web site content.

Whether you communicate to your audience via a blog, Twitter or social networking sites like Facebook, the only true way to build relationships with a growing network is to listen, engage and provide content they find valuable.

When developing a social media content strategy, start by asking questions like: “What does my network find valuable?”.

Numerous companies are losing vast amounts of revenue due to their web sites doing poorly in the search engines.  Web sites that are not easy to find via search miss out on attracting new customers as well as repeat customers that use Google to navigate sites they already know about. Is the same true for web sites that are not social media friendly?

People discover new sites through search, but also through recommendations made via email, word of mouth and through social media content. Making a web site social media friendly will facilitate the saving and sharing of content with others, extending reach and facilitating engagement. 

For Social Media Marketing Services and Training, contact TopRank Online Marketing 1-877-872-6628 .

The benefit from a firm grasp of social media for companies is impossible to ignore. Whether you work in marketing, advertising, public relations or interactive, there are distinct competitive advantages for both individuals and businesses from a better understanding of the social web.

This post provides specific advice from in-house social media marketers including: Dell, Comcast, HP, Wells Fargo, Intel, Best Buy, General Mills, Ford, UPS, Home Depot, Cirque du Soleil and a mix of SMM consultants/agencies: Altimeter Group, Crayon, Ogilvy 360, Future Works, Doe Anderson, New Marketing Labs and others. Advice includes justifying investment in social media strategy, how to decide on tactics and measuring success.