…or more importantly, the way most people seem to be going about it, including me at times.
Social Media is currently being touted as the answer to life, the universe, and everything online, but there is a lot more to it than just hitching a ride.
Lets take a look at some of the things you need to think about before you even contemplate a social media marketing strategy.
- Undefined Goals vs Specific Goals
I would regard the following as fairly undefined goals:-
- I want more customers for my business
- I want to launch this new product with a boom!
- I want more people to read my blog
- I need more links to rank higher
With social media marketing, whilst many items are difficult to determine, if you start out without specific goals, you may well be wasting resources.
Here are some ideas for more specific goals:-
- My business is mainly local, thus I need to target regional specific venues, or vertical venues that might broaden my reach locally.
- My product has a niche focus thus I will target venues frequented by media within my niche aimed at bringing in 20 media mentions in the first wave of my viral marketing campaign.
- I want Danny Sullivan, Rand Fishkin, Barry Schwartz, Robert Scoble to subscribe to my blog – obviously I need to target people in my niche – specific linkerati and influencers.
- Random Activity vs Planned Method of Attack
- Random Stats vs Accountable Statistical Measures
- Random Content vs Planned Content Strategy
- Random Encounters vs Optimized Role Management
- Random Pathways vs Defined Traffic Funnel
- Traffic vs Targeted Traffic
- Topical Linking vs Strategic Linking
- Link to a regular reader in your niche who doesn’t get much traffic
- Link to someone in your niche who has never read your blog
- Promote someone’s niche ranking list to get included
- Included someone in your niche ranking list to get traffic
- Link to like minded dofollow blogs because you get a link from their trackbacks
- Reporter vs News Epicentre
- Self Orientated vs Customer Orientated
Aim for targets within your reach, thus if you don’t have a strong enough hook, don’t try to land a big fish.
Whilst it is possible to become a bridge between online social circles and to target multiple niches simultaneously, it is certainly a lot more time consuming to do successfully.
Defining a single core audience and becoming a thought leader in that single marketplace is ultimately a better long-term strategy than trying to become “all things to all men”.
This one is a hard one to pin down – lots of aspects of social media are extremely difficult to track accurately, especially things like RSS Subscriptions or votes on social voting buttons.
Try monitoring things like open rate in your feed stats, compared to number of comments and the number of links your receive on your blog. Surprisingly they do not always correlate.
One of my most read posts in my RSS Feed on Andybeard.eu has but 2 comments – it is actually quite recent. Conversely my discussions relating to Google’s PageRank updates in October are poor performers in my RSS stats, but bring in a lot of links and traffic.
Plan your content strategy around your previously defined goals, not what is happening in the blogosphere. Look on discussions and events happening outside of your niches as opportunities if they are related to your goals, or can be leveraged.
This is more on the corporate front. When you enter social media marketing channels, there will be a need for 2-way conversation – with customers and clients, members of the press and bloggers, raving fans and detractors in the public eye.
A decision needs to be made on how you will react to different instances, preferably in advance with multiple options and a “plan B”. People do go on holiday, and things will not always go as you plan.
Again an enigma – traffic will be coming in from multiple sources and often they will have different preferences in how they can be treated whilst visiting your website.
If you have ever done PPC advertising with multiple landing pages, think of how that can be applied to Social Media Marketing by offering a different landing page to traffic from different sources.
Ultimately you are looking for people visiting your site who have some value, though that doesn’t necessarily mean direct financial value. A popular stumbler or digg user who likes your content but would not be looking to buy from you would be a good example, or possibly potential link partners in a similar niche.
Even people visiting your site who ultimately just click away on some advertising are valuable, not just with PayPerClick advertising but things like site sponsorships. Bringing value to your site sponsors is also important in brand recognition and traffic.
Think out of the box with your linking
Use tools such as Technorati, Google Blogsearch, Techmeme & Megite to your advantage – use them strategically.
If there is a large conversation about a topic related to your niche, do you want to be a spoke on the wheel or the hub of conversation?
Whilst it might not initially be possible to become a source for explosive stories, it is possible to become an acknowledge filter of the conversation.
Services such as Techmeme and Megite allow you to identify hubs of conversation, and also to identify other bloggers who are also hubs of the conversation. Hubs of conversation are more likely to write followup articles on the same subject, and in general are link friendly, thus if you offer insight along with links to other sources of information, the chances of being brought into the conversation increase.
Techmeme is itself a hub, but has the disadvantage of not offering commentary, and does get criticism for not covering niche bloggers as well as a human.
Social media is just that… social – if your motive for getting involved is purely for personal gain, you are wasting your time.
Social media site users are smart, and opinionated. If they feel they are being manipulated or gamed, they are going to call you out on it, and there can be negative ramifications.
The best way to demonstrate to future subscribers and hopefully customers why they should be reading your content, or doing business with you is to interact with them.
In some lines of work you must be prepared to “move the free line” thus you will be giving far more of yourself than you might initially receive in return.
I will be addressing each of these topics in much greater detail in future posts, but I would love to ask you which aspect of your social media marketing strategy you find most difficult to pin down?
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just a couple of ‘thoughts’:
Random Content vs Planned Content Strategy
it’s so easy to get influenced by “what’s going on now” and go off at a tangent, which can ultimatly water down the intended message…
Random Pathways vs Defined Traffic Funnel
ah, the good old “splatter gun” method of trying to make money that so many blogs seem to employ. just slapping up a few ads that look good isn’t a real strategy for making money, the “funnel” should be planned out first, to make sure it’s as “slippery” as possible!
Of course, I’m guilty of both the above too.
🙂
I subscribed. 😉
Great write-up Andy. I think social media is misunderstood by many people, and thus not utilized correctly. Social media takes time… lots of time. And like you said in point #10, using social media only for personal gain is quite transparent and it will get you nowhere fast. It’s all about community and contribution.
Excellent post Andy!
To answer the question…”which aspect of your social media marketing strategy you find most difficult to pin down?”
For me it is “Reporter vs News Epicentre”. I’m in the acknowledged filter phase.
This is something a lot of bloggers lack the patience to get through. Just like any other aspect of life, you have to pay your dues and earn your name.
this post is definitely one of the best, well written, posts on social media!
Valuable points here for sure. I reduce it to the “ready, aim fire” approach vs. the “ready, fire fire fire” approach, which is applicable accross the board, not just pertaining to SMM or its suck factor.
“Ultimately you are looking for people visiting your site who have some value, though that doesn’t necessarily mean direct financial value.”
This is the #1 misconception I see in onine marketing.
Traffic vs Targeted Traffic
I think this is one of the best points. Too many flip sides to this to really drill it down. Almost any visitor has the potential to bring some type of value. So I support them all 🙂
really s l o w feed pickup. I saw the post referenced in 3 different locations today before I read it in my feed. Just an FYI.
social media has fallen way short of the promise of web 2.0 and become little more than the meta tag stuffing advice of 1999. It’s a shame and I’m thrilled to see someone, SOMEWHERE trying to get the concept across to just BE REAL. Good luck with that.
Happy Birthday BTW. Enjoy it while you’re young 😉
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Good read. I’m looking forward to the future posts in more details on each of the points. Would be even better with examples directed on small businesses 😉
Social Media is a bunch of geeks trying to figure out (via technology) how to communicate with normal humans. It’s like one big farking revenge of the nerds!
If you consider other humans “fish” are you a sociopath?
Ow, you got me. This article could have been titled “Why Alex’s SMM sucks.”
Wow! Sounds like ’10 Points to Win the Battle’. I am looking forward to read the detailed posts on each sub headline. –John
That about covers all those misconceptions about social media – especially the part discussed in “Traffic vs Targeted Traffic”.
Nowadays people just submit articles to sites like Digg in the hopes of getting cash that will never come.
How many references to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy are in that post? I count 3.
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I think the statement ‘social media users are smart, and opinionated’ pretty much sums up why most marketing efforts fail. The users just aren’t as gullible as we pretend they are.
Nice post Andy + one more subscriber 🙂
Andy, I almost had my lawyer call you for infringing on my niche. The title was a powerful one. In fact, tonight or tomorrow, I was going to publish “TechMeme sucks” so something weird must be in the air…
Anyways, I enjoyed your “vs” analysis. And I like your suggestion to give a link to get attention. After all, flattery, at its subtle best, is truly effective.
But you already know that. 😉
Kudos,
Sam
Andy, I completely agree that accountable statistical measures are tough to pin down. I’m looking forward to your future articles on this theme to see you flesh out a balanced methodology for benchmarking/trend tracking in what is really an uphill battle on roller skates.
Tunnel-vision, inexperienced social media marketing sucks. Don’t bother listening to or reading the articles of these marketers.
Lateral thinking, experienced social media marketing doesn’t suck. And when these people hype up SMM, they validate it by their knowledge and successes.
Most difficult to pin down? The perceptions or opinions of social media traffic after they come across your site or offer.
I guess a positive/negative vote or conversion/no conversion means they like or hate it but it would be nice to have more information how they felt your service could be improved.
It’ll all seep in over time I guess.
Social Media Marketing can play wonders if worked strategically. Social networking as the name says is a place where you can network with like minded people. Now when you build a bigger community in these networks, you naturally get a lot of visitors.
I believe traffic is good. Even if it is less targeted. It is better than no traffic at all. I think social networking has proved itself to help many online ventures to market their products successfully. This is one of the reasons why social networking sites are attracting so many users and why they are valued very high.
Aaron, I look on Social media as any kind of venue where some kind of communication takes place, not just social news sites.
As an example blogging for me is a conversation with a specific group of people, some are already listening, and others walking by overhear and join in.
Sam, you don’t have a trademark on controversy 🙂
Maki, I certainly wouldn’t class goal setting as the same as tunnel-vision, and success also depends on how you define it.
I know some very experienced social media marketing professionals who could achieve much better results for their clients.
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Not to be picky, but I’m an English & marketing professor, and fyi, there’s no such word as “orientated”.
I didn’t lump goal-setting with tunnel-vision.. just making a general statement about certain marketers. You know the sort whose only strategy is to spam their IM list/network and get votes in order to get to the Digg/Sphinn frontpage with mediocre content which they think is terrific.
I define success as having met your own or your client’s goals. As for doing better, we all could always do better for ourselves or our clients in every scenario. I’m only saying that quality marketers walk their talk.
The hype is there to sell consultancy and if they can do what they promised, it’s all good.
Susan that is being picky, and according to the Oxford dictionary, and as I am British that is the spelling I grew up with so is sometimes hard to shake, I am correct in my usage.
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/oriented
I am sure there are other mistakes, living as an expat for 14 years is detrimental to language skills but fortunately this isn’t a master’s thesis.
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I hear you, this is what i thought about social media, quality traffic – is a big issue in social media marketing.
I don’t need traffic, I need traffic that stick around.
Susan be Picky ! Anyone who writes as well as Andy should also be chastised for using ” Sucks !”
in a headline ! He writes a beautiful deck and article and kills it with a useless headline ! It turns me off when talent s wasted ! No offense Andy I expect more when I am a fan of someone !
Marshal you can’t please everyone which is in itself a lesson.
I don’t think I have ever minced words, and even though I did ask a question at the end, it wasn’t a “What do you think?”, I was more looking for specific information.
The title was picked because
1. It creates a reaction
2. My “Why Blogs Suck” post on andybeard.eu had the highest open rate of any post I have written on that blog, over 90%
3. I wanted to present a list to start a series of thoughts and topics for discussion
4. I wanted some useful anchor text that sites couldn’t resist using.
It will be interesting to see what the final tally is, but I expect open rate to be in the top 10% on my blog, and reasonably high here. We don’t have enough subscribers yet to make statistical comparisons here other than things like the number of links, comments and Sphinns.
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It’s so easy to get distracted as you roam the blogosphere. Thank you for this reminder to be more strategic and less reactionary!
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1. Traffic vs Targeted Traffic
This is a challenge because the demographics of social media users are changing daily.
2. Random Encounters vs Optimized Role Management
Love this. It’s the difference between content versus copy; whereby content is writing to tell a story and copy is written to sell a product.
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Andy, loved your post.
I really liked the part about being specific with your goals. With everything in life, the more specific you get the more focus and power is available to you. Keep up the good work.
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I just blogged about this article, but noticed you may have a mis-spelling.
Not sure if Epicentre is maybe a french or alternate english spelling of that word that I am not familiar with, but in my spell check it ends with ‘er’
Great article btw, got a lot out of it, and only make mention of the spelling thing in hopes of giving a good first impression to anyone that follows.
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Brett I would love to think that that is the primary way to spell it, but the population of the US is greater than the UK, and I am not 100% sure how the rest of the World spell things but Wikipedia suggests that “re” is used throughout the commonwealth.
Whilst I hate referring to Wikipedia for things, it does take a lot less time.
UK vs US spelling
But of course as it is Wikipedia don’t trust it 😉 –
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