B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®

B2B Marketing views, news and interviews.

Contact Us

MENUMENU
  • Services
    • Influencer
      • Start Your B2B Influencer Pilot
    • Content
    • Search
  • Insights
    • Blog
    • News
    • Resources
  • Our Work
    • B2B Technology
    • IT Service Management
    • Project Management Software
    • Social Networks
    • Supply Chain
  • About Us
    • Meet the Team
    • Careers
  • Connect

10 Proven Applications For Social Media

TopRank Marketing Editor
TopRank Marketing Editor
Online Marketing, Social Media

social-media-applicationTenured digital marketing professionals have been applying social media for end business and marketing objectives for years. But what is clearly valuable to some is still a mystery to many.

Whether you’re a marketer trying to get buy-in for social media from the top or a small business owner wondering why you should bother, knowing high impact applications of social media are helpful. If you’re looking to build relationships with connected, influential individuals (and what business isn’t?) then it’s no longer a question of if you should engage in social media, rather it’s the how and the why.

If you’re wondering how, a great starting point is viewing TopRank’s social media roadmap presentation. But let’s take a step even further back and consider the why: directed application of social media can accomplish some seriously valuable objectives.

Following are 10 tried and proven applications of social media:

1. Change the conversation in your industry, even if you’re not at the top
The social web is the great equalizer, in that good ideas permeate a niche in as close to a democratic fashion as you can get. Certainly those with a following and a strong reputation can spark whatever conversations they want. But in reality anyone with ideas worth sharing can impact the global conversation. Influence is multi-directional and frequently occurs horizontally or from the bottom up.

2. Reputation management
As noted in our post on B2C Marketing and social media, social media allows you to go direct to consumer with your news. If you’ve got a megaphone to your fans – such as a popular blog read by your entire industry – you can counter pesky rumors floating around about your brand with a simple post backed up with the real facts.

3. Build your tribe
Seth Godin has popularized the notion of having a tribe – aka a following or community – interested in seeing you succeed. Social media does not make this easy, rather it makes it possible at scale if you’re actually worth following.

4. Organic PR generation
As Lee noted in answers to social media questions, TopRank’s blog generates anywhere from 10-20 quality organic PR placements monthly. Some months this can be much higher. By participating as a contributor to the social web and consistently adding value, organic PR is a byproduct. This is possible for your brand too and shifts your PR from the infinite treadmill of push to the natural growth of pull. This strategy is scalable, authentic and let’s you be yourself – what’s not to like?

5. Use social as part of your SEO strategy
At TopRank, we’re big on the SEO and social media intersection. We frequently help clients uncover opportunities embracing the fact that both SEO and social are intrinsically linked. Being white hat SEOs, it’s a crossroads we’re especially fond of.  Social content plays such as linkbait are tactics the engines publicly endorse, the engines thrive on the addition of fresh content and social media participation forges relationships with others likely to link to you as those relationships strengthen.

6. Listen to key stakeholders
The wide array of social media monitoring tools available make listening to the topics you’re interested in a snap. Get the right setup in place and you can have your finger on the pulse of your niche, learn frequently articulated pain points and deliver solutions that truly resonate.

7. Become a David to your industry’s Goliath
Social media lets you tell the stories you want to tell in an unrestricted fashion. If you’re a brand willing to step outside the box, it is possible to position yourself as the David to your industry’s Goliath. And if there is one thing social web users across niches love, it’s an up-and-comer that’s organized around openness and being social.  That was a huge part of Zappos’ strategy and reason for their success.

8. Social proofing
We’ve previously discussed the importance of social proofing and its application as part of your online marketing growth strategy.  Social media allows you to attain directed social proofing for use to accomplish specific business objectives. Whether you want to inspire comments/ratings about a new product and leverage that for marketing materials or share compelling metrics such as the popularity of your community publicly to inspire even more growth, social media application can play a large role in establishing your brand’s social proofing.

9. Attract talented, passionate employees
Participation in social media shows the human side of your company and in time it shows your brand’s true colors. Bearing your company is truly remarkable and communicating that to the world, this will attract attention from quality employees. And with hiring paradoxically harder in a downturn, yet no slowdown in demand for A-list employees, social media can position your brand as a better choice for top talent.

10. Become a media company
In a previous post on influencing the social web we mentioned the fact that every company is now a media company. It’s something many others have noted, a great example being Techdirt. They’ve fully embraced this – their popular blog with more than 600,000 subscribers is easily their launching point for complementary services. Mike Masnick, Techdirt’s CEO recognized this so much he even state it directly: advertising is content, content is advertising.

Conclusion
The 10 potential applications of social media listed above are merely a primer to get you thinking.  There are far more than these 10 – the use of social communications tools are limited only by your creative and technical know-how.

As a marketing professional or business owner, realize that at its core social media is not Twitter, Facebook or any single tool despite what your peers are buzzing about. It’s merely the opening of communications and connections through technology. And the buzzwords, tools or tactics are meaningless without end applications/strategies in mind.

What applications of social media are you applying for your business or marketing objectives?

Comments

  1. gailnelson2000 says

    October 20, 2009 at 12:25 pm

    Great and smart list! Social media a powerful brand builder, customer service channel and lead generator, too.

  2. patrickmurphy says

    October 21, 2009 at 4:02 am

    Point 9 is great, in this market it really is the time to find and attract the talent employees.

  3. noelferguson says

    October 21, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    A useful list for sure. I think SM extends the way the web works the David/Goliath point very nicely.

  4. markallenroberts says

    October 21, 2009 at 2:58 pm

    Great content I plan to share… as a number of the entrepreneurs I serve are being preyed upon by “smores”…social media whores that take big retainers and add no value as I discuss in my blog : http://nosmokeandmirrors.wordpress.com/2009/10/…

    keep the thought leadership coming as it is the only defense against smores.

    Mark Allen Roberts
    http://www.outbsolutions.com

  5. sarahatcarve says

    October 22, 2009 at 7:13 am

    Really useful post Adam, thanks. Another one I've been thinking a lot about lately comes from Chris Brogan's Trust Agents book and dovetails into many of your points but particuarly No 3 and building a tribe – social media offers those *worth* trusting in a specific industry or niche a much more direct path to that influential position than ever before.

  6. angeladenby says

    October 22, 2009 at 8:12 am

    Great article. More companies need to embrace the concept of marketing through social media in order to compete in this competitive market. Tips like these will help to pave the way.

    Angela Denby
    http://www.javasocialnetworking.com

  7. kierann says

    October 22, 2009 at 10:36 am

    Very nice post Adam…
    The fields Social Media is growing very fast. Your post will help the information seekers very much.
    Thanks…

  8. ekeawe says

    October 22, 2009 at 1:55 pm

    Mahalo Neenz for passing this on. It's very useful. Again Knowledge applied is success. Knowledge not applied us useless.

  9. iancutmore says

    October 24, 2009 at 12:22 pm

    Good blog I enjoyed the content!

    Norwich Vacancies

  10. dubaipropertyportal says

    October 26, 2009 at 3:55 am

    mmm key points are really impressive. Does it counts and values the same in Property Business?

  11. prashantmohole says

    October 27, 2009 at 3:37 am

    Great Article.
    Some software solutions for your social media needs are available at real low cost at http://www.nextbee.com. Do take a look.

    Thanks.

  12. dubaipropertyportal says

    October 29, 2009 at 4:30 am

    Many businesses are successfully promoting themselves on social media such as Bayut.com or wholesalepages.co.uk or shopping business portals etc…

    These techniques are truly helping businesses in attracting customers.

  13. fbgfyjuki says

    November 5, 2009 at 12:16 pm

    http://www.ekshoe.com
    Best quality, Best reputation , Best services

    J'ai commandé 10 paires de chaussures nike website.and i re?u 7 jours plus tard, mes chaussures

    Je suis tellement heureux pour les produits i ordre, parce que les chaussures de l'air très bien, mais à des prix fous 39usd.
    est-ce que quelqu'un m'aidera à vérifier le site Web si elles offrent le réel, réel ou non des chaussures.
    Je pense qu'ils sont tomber, parce que le prix est si bon marché,
    mais toute fa?on, et la qualité des chaussures est grand, j'aime bien les chaussures.

    vous pouvez consulter leur site Internet un lien http://www.ekshoe.com

    free shipping
    competitive price
    any size available
    accept the paypal

    Air jordan(1-24)shoes $33

    Nike shox(R4,NZ,OZ,TL1,TL2,TL3) $35
    Handbags(Coach lv fendi d&g) $35
    Tshirts (Polo ,ed hardy,lacoste) $16
    Jean(True Religion,ed hardy,coogi) $30
    Sunglasses(Oakey,coach,gucci,Armaini) $16
    New era cap $15

    Bikini (Ed hardy,polo) $25

    http://www.ekshoe.com/productlist.asp?id=s1 (ED HARDY)
    http://www.ekshoe.com/productlist.asp?id=s11 (JEANS)
    http://www.ekshoe.com/productlist.asp?id=s6 (TSHIRTS)
    http://www.ekshoe.com/productlist.asp?id=s28 (JORDAN SHOES)
    http://www.ekshoe.com/productlist.asp?id=s58 (SANDAL)
    http://www.ekshoe.com/productlist.asp?id=s65 (HANDBAGS)
    http://www.ekshoe.com/productlist.asp?id=s69 (sunglass)
    http://www.ekshoe.com/productlist.asp?id=s5 (bikini)

  14. PlanetWebfoot says

    November 11, 2009 at 8:39 am

    Excellent post! I agree with the notion that companies that are participate more freely in the social networking platforms are giving themselves are real leg up. By actively engaging in the social web it allows for a more organic B2C relationship which in today's marketplace attracts consumers like moths to a flame. Thank you for the terrific information.

  15. Sylwester says

    November 27, 2009 at 9:45 am

    Yery nice article and usefoul thank you for your good work.

  16. chaikq says

    December 2, 2009 at 1:01 pm

    Great post Adam
    Few people confuse Social Media with couple of popular applications that we know all. Social Media is really broad in its nature. And you have shown the way to this open and broad way, Thanks for sharing
    SEO Optimization Blog

  17. mariajoe says

    December 2, 2009 at 11:49 pm

    great tips to share with. SMM is a good way to attract direct traffic from live environment. Through SMM you get highly beneficial buyer's of your niche product.

  18. Federico says

    December 3, 2009 at 12:20 pm

    Adam, thanks for sharing, the article is very interesting. Social media is huge in some countries, but in some others (like Mexico) it is at a very early stage. How could I become an expert to help people and companies in my country take advantage of this new communication channel? How did you become an expert?

  19. GlennaG says

    December 9, 2009 at 12:09 am

    That certainly helped me put some aspects into persepctive – I've been wrapping my mind around how to approach my Social Media integration and this does clarify some of the “why” for me! It's hard when you come from an industry that was tight-lipped! But on my own I am opening up. Thanks

  20. Techdivine says

    December 12, 2009 at 7:05 am

    Hi there

    A Wonderful post and very valuable.

    Thanks

    Keep posting

    Be Well

    Techdivine

  21. Lionjkt says

    December 19, 2009 at 3:54 am

    This post really informatif

  22. Lionjkt says

    December 19, 2009 at 9:54 am

    This post really informatif

LET’S GET SOCIAL

RSS Feed Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Marketing with Intent: The Future of SEO & B2B Search Traffic 2022 B2B Influencer Marketing Research Report Elevate B2B Marketing Podcast

Learn about:

B2B Ignite USA 2023

SUBSCRIBE        

TOPRANK BLOGGING TEAM

TopRank Marketing Blogging Team

 

Optimize

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

SEO Blogs

MARKETING BLOG RECOGNITION

CMI

Copyright © 2023 · TopRank Marketing

Return to top of page