Going Social in 2010
By Anthony Schneider
It may not be the "Summer of Love," but 2010 may be the "Year of Share." 2010 will see a lot of social sharing and viral marketing, because online sharing is becoming easier and more commonplace than ever before and because consumers trust each other more than they trust marketers, the media or spokespeople. With the proliferation and broad adoption of social media sites, customers and brand advocates are going social to spread the word about products and services they love, or hate, special offers or cautionary tales they think friends should know about.
As Paul Borgese and Sherrie Madia, authors of The Social Media Survival Guide put it, for marketers the right social networking is a means of "driving sales, meeting and beating the competition, and developing ways to implement essential tools to create immediate engagement with audiences… and generate dramatic bottom-line results."
Make your marketing campaigns social, viral and share-friendly – and you'll expand engagement and reap benefits for your brand, your customers and your bottom line.
- Make social sharing easy: Add links (with familiar icons) to Facebook, Digg, Twitter, Flickr and other social channels within emails and microsites. Our sister company, Group Transmit, facilitates fast, easy social and email sharing. Think about: what are you social-promoting. Do you want users to share your site, your brand or a particular article or product?
- Create a referral marketing platform: Build a platform specifically for referral marketing and social sharing. Use your brand advocates to spread the word and recruit their friends, family and colleagues. A Peersuasion campaign empowers brand advocates to share offers and promotions.
- Tailor forward, social and referral links: Don't rely on your standard "forward to friend" link in email. Rather, build a custom referral link and/or customize the forward link for the individual campaign. Think about different content and specific benefits, rather than simply "forward to a friend." Experiment with placement, design and copy of forward links to avoid subscribers developing a "blindness" to forward and social media links because the links are the same for every campaign.
- Make it open: Don't restrict access to content or referral programs. In order for a message to spread to a maximum number of prospective customers, make content free and accessible to anyone.
- Make it easy: Make all login and sharing processes fast, transparent and easy. You can always ask new opt-ins to share more information (data append) later.
- Gather, understand and use the data: Figure out critical data elements, such as opens, opt-ins, purchase or conversions. Standardize measurement and use those metrics to revise your marketing campaign or plan the next one.
- Get feedback and revise: What worked? What didn't? Ask brand advocates and new subscribers, whether in a post-campaign survey or in emails to customers with whom you have a personal relationship. Use the info to tailor your plan for the next campaign.
Questions? Feedback? Need help developing or implementing your social media strategy? Contact us.
