Part two in a series of two. Read Part 1 here.
Social media can, and should, change the way you interact with your customers. But few companies can quickly transform their marketing the way a social media might require.
In the interim, integrating social media with existing marketing programs gives your business two valuable propositions: 1) additional support for your traditional marketing programs; 2) opportunities to measure social media effectiveness alongside your other familiar marketing efforts.
In the last installment, we considered how social media fits into your search and web presence marketing. Now we look at integrating social media into e-mail marketing, events and loyalty programs.
Social Media and E-mail
E-mail is the most popular way people share information online. A recent study shows 46 percent of content was shared via e-mail, 33 percent on Facebook and just 6 percent on Twitter.
The sharing picture gets more interesting, though, when looking at “click-throughs” – the number of times people people click on the shared info: 40 percent of clicks come from Twitter, 35 percent from e-mail and 25 percent from Facebook. Visitors coming via e-mail stay longer, visiting 2.95 pages on average. Twitter visitors flit away quickly, only visiting 1.7 pages.
Making that click is so similar between e-mail and social media, that it’s smart to integrate the two:
Social Media and Events
Social media is ideal to promote events, encourage buzz during it, and a way for people to engage afterwards. Services like Twitter are especially useful for “virtualizing” events because of their “happening now” nature.
As you begin to promote your event, announce a “hashtag.” Hashtags evolved on Twitter as a simple way to organize a pubic discussion around a particular topic. To create a hashtag pick a keyword and put the “pound sign” in front of it, like the one for the South by Southwest conference and festival: #sxsw.
Anywhere you post about the event use your hashtag. Tell attendees about your “official” hashtags so they can use and follow it; then watch the conversation emerge and grow. Monitor it by searching on your hashtag – and embed the conversation in your event site using a widget.
Use the same technique to hold “group chats” on Twitter. Pick a time, a hashtag and invite people to participate. Announce the chat through e-mails, social spaces and on your Web site. Bring in a subject matter expert or invite a Q&A session for your customers. Do it regularly and build a following, or make it an “extended session” for your physical event.
The folks at wine retailer Bin Ends combined wine tasting and Twitter to encourage sales. On their Web site they identified the wines they would taste, provided free shipping, promoted the wine expert who would be commenting and invited customers to gather with friends, wine, a laptop and Twitter. The virtual events have proved so successful they now have a dedicated community, Taste Live and they hold virtual tastings on both Facebook and Twitter.
Social Media and Loyalty Programs
Most loyalty programs are in serious need of modernizing. Keeping them high-touch and high-value is key to success.
TastiDlite offers extra rewards for connecting your reward card to your Twitter, Facebook or foursquare account (see below), automatically sharing each “Tatsi experience.”
Foursquare is a location sharing service that’s part game, part city guide and part social networking. People use their mobile phones to “check in” with friends, telling them when they’re at local spots. Each check-in earns users points, and frequent check-ins earn freebies. Merchants actively use foresquare as a way to reward and recognize customers.
Sites like foursquare and mobile technologies are allowing merchants to combine the physical with the virtual, rewarding and supporting customers’ digital lifestyles.
Social media works best as part of a cross-media strategy. A little social media sprinkled in with your traditional marketing can go a long way to getting your business on the digital track.
Social media can, and should, change the way you interact with your customers. But few companies can quickly transform their marketing the way a social media might require.
In the interim, integrating social media with existing marketing programs gives your business two valuable propositions: 1) additional support for your traditional marketing programs; 2) opportunities to measure social media effectiveness alongside your other familiar marketing efforts.
In the last installment, we considered how social media fits into your search and web presence marketing. Now we look at integrating social media into e-mail marketing, events and loyalty programs.
Social Media and E-mail
E-mail is the most popular way people share information online. A recent study shows 46 percent of content was shared via e-mail, 33 percent on Facebook and just 6 percent on Twitter.
The sharing picture gets more interesting, though, when looking at “click-throughs” – the number of times people people click on the shared info: 40 percent of clicks come from Twitter, 35 percent from e-mail and 25 percent from Facebook. Visitors coming via e-mail stay longer, visiting 2.95 pages on average. Twitter visitors flit away quickly, only visiting 1.7 pages.
Making that click is so similar between e-mail and social media, that it’s smart to integrate the two:
- Add a “share” button to your company e-mail messages so people can share instantly in their preferred places.
- Use social media “chicklets” (linked icons) inside your e-mail and on your e-mail-to-web landinpages to encourage social followers.
- Publish your e-mail newsletters on a blog and put those social chicklets there as well.
- Build your e-mail list by adding an e-mail list sign-up widget to your blog, Facebook page, and social profiles.
Social Media and Events
Social media is ideal to promote events, encourage buzz during it, and a way for people to engage afterwards. Services like Twitter are especially useful for “virtualizing” events because of their “happening now” nature.
As you begin to promote your event, announce a “hashtag.” Hashtags evolved on Twitter as a simple way to organize a pubic discussion around a particular topic. To create a hashtag pick a keyword and put the “pound sign” in front of it, like the one for the South by Southwest conference and festival: #sxsw.
Anywhere you post about the event use your hashtag. Tell attendees about your “official” hashtags so they can use and follow it; then watch the conversation emerge and grow. Monitor it by searching on your hashtag – and embed the conversation in your event site using a widget.
Use the same technique to hold “group chats” on Twitter. Pick a time, a hashtag and invite people to participate. Announce the chat through e-mails, social spaces and on your Web site. Bring in a subject matter expert or invite a Q&A session for your customers. Do it regularly and build a following, or make it an “extended session” for your physical event.
The folks at wine retailer Bin Ends combined wine tasting and Twitter to encourage sales. On their Web site they identified the wines they would taste, provided free shipping, promoted the wine expert who would be commenting and invited customers to gather with friends, wine, a laptop and Twitter. The virtual events have proved so successful they now have a dedicated community, Taste Live and they hold virtual tastings on both Facebook and Twitter.
Social Media and Loyalty Programs
Most loyalty programs are in serious need of modernizing. Keeping them high-touch and high-value is key to success.
TastiDlite offers extra rewards for connecting your reward card to your Twitter, Facebook or foursquare account (see below), automatically sharing each “Tatsi experience.”
Foursquare is a location sharing service that’s part game, part city guide and part social networking. People use their mobile phones to “check in” with friends, telling them when they’re at local spots. Each check-in earns users points, and frequent check-ins earn freebies. Merchants actively use foresquare as a way to reward and recognize customers.
Sites like foursquare and mobile technologies are allowing merchants to combine the physical with the virtual, rewarding and supporting customers’ digital lifestyles.
Social media works best as part of a cross-media strategy. A little social media sprinkled in with your traditional marketing can go a long way to getting your business on the digital track.
This post also appeared in Orange County Local News Network.
MMLI on Twitter
This is great, I have been looking for someone to do a live feed at one of my events. I found no one except professional bloggers. So I am now looking to understand the how,when and what I will need to learn to be able to do it myself.
I am a good story teller when I'm talking about something I love and believe in.
Posted by: shirley oneil | 08/08/2010 at 07:36 AM