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Connecting the Dots - Building a Community Channel for Social Properties Within Your WebsiteWhen it comes to social media marketing, what isn't hot these days...Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace...the list keeps going. And when considering using these social branding channels, these aren't just another set of marketing toys to play with, remember, these are your brand's identity. And with hundreds of millions of people scouring these sites for information daily, your connection with a potential customer needs to be seamless. One aspect of any social media campaign that should be approached is to connect the dots within your marketing channel. There are a number of brands that dive into social media with a lack of experience in launching within the space. So, let's put on a little scenario. Brand A has product X and creates a Facebook, Twitter and YouTube page. They take the time to pamper the process and create lasting value behind these pages, through effective videos, messaging, images, and interactive content that brings value to the brand. Excellent! Now, next question: How are you sharing this content with your users?
But, what haven't you done yet? Connect the Dots. When building a social media strategy, it is crucial to connect a brand website with external social media properties. There are simple and advanced ways to do this: 1. Place simple calls-to-action on the homepage  This allows users to have a stronger connection to any social properties. A user's relationship with your product hinges on these particular moments. We are opening a door here by allowing users to quickly share and disseminate content across their own personal networks. Allowing this opportunity for a user sets a clear goal for them. First, they are not confused by the 'impostors' that may be lurking on the web. These are the unofficial channels of a product, many of which exist. These channels have unclear and more than often, incorrect information listed - which hurts the brand's reputation in the end. 2. Build an Online Community Channel Within a Channel  This is a bit more work, as it requires building a channel on your website that captures the true meaning of all your social networks. This could include a live twitter feed, a Flickr gallery, calls-to-action that connect your Facebook, MySpace, Blog, etc. This builds a user's confidence about the brand, and removes any falsehoods that might exist in the social space otherwise. By building in this access to the social properties for users, we build the relationship from a more personal connection. We've eliminated the falsehoods that might live within a user's mind, and connect users with accurate and efficient channel sharing capabilities. This stems from an idea called relationship management. Companies often think of how to effectively build awareness to their social channels, grow their fans, followers, friends, etc. This is often part of what is coined a Phase I build-out for any social media program. Included in a Phase I build-out is an integration strategy, and connecting the dots between social properties and a brand website, often done during this phase - is a must-do. I've seen the mistake more than often where brands build-out social channels, but fail to harness the conversation where they already receive the most traffic - their very own website. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about social media or just online marketing general. Labels: Facebook, relationship management, Reputation Management, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter Google Announces a New Way to Manage Your Online IdentityBack in the days before the Internet took off, when you received someone’s contact information, business card, etc., you would use said information to either call, email, or send a letter or card to them. Nowadays, the first thing you do is Google them. To take advantage of this new feature, a user must Google the word “me” and click through from the Google Promotion ad that is currently in position 1 of the sponsored results. This will bring up a simple form including limited contact information, opportunities to link to other social profiles, images from Picasa, and a few generic fields for a user to add a detailed description about him or herself. Google Profiles also allows you to opt-in to have your profile show up in search results. This is not an automatic inclusion, so as to allow people to either essentially have “private” or “public” profiles. While not necessarily optimizing your profile to position 1, Google Profiles tend to show up on the first page of Google’s natural search results. This is a great tractic of natural search engine optimization on your own name.
Google Profiles could become a very powerful reputation management tool. Of course, if someone is typing your name into Google and they see your profile, it will likely only be one of the many links they end up looking at. However, it at least allows you to have a say in what Google returns to searchers; essentially, who Google thinks YOU are. According to Adam Ostrow at Mashable, “This is going to be a welcome addition for lots of people, especially those who aren’t necessarily happy with what links Google has for them on the first page of results.” Google Profiles opens up a whole new realm in the world of controlling your online identity. Now not only can you control sponsored results, but there's an additional level of control for the natural search results as well. Get started! http://lmgtfy.com/?q=me Labels: Google, POV, Reputation Management, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Strategy |
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