Using Twitter to reach out to new clients

Twitter can be a fantastic marketing tool to reach out to new clients.

It was reported last year that Twitter had 100 million monthly active users of which 50% logged in every day.  It’s estimated that there are around 250 million tweets a day, which is 150 million more compared to January, 2011. IOS 5 directly integrates info the operating system to allow apps to use Twitter functionally. This has significantly boosted Twitter signup since it launched. It’s clear to see that there is an ocean of opportunity for any company looking to reach out to new potential clients.

I'll be providing tips on how to best penetrate the twitter market.

Select your audience

You should try to limit your scope to the demographic that you are trying to reach. For instance, Wendy’s Cakes would focus their efforts on marketing towards people who enjoy eating cakes. So their goal would be to find people/companies that fit their target audience and to start following them.  The key is to find people that influence your audience. Consider the following:

• Who people are talking to?
• What people are retweeting about?
• And who they ask for advice.

Take a look at about 10 of your followers on Twitter, study their actions in detail and consider the 3 points above.  Once you have identified these factors, you should use similar keywords and terms to your competitors in order to find like-minded people. 

How do they speak

It’s essential to see what people are saying about your company if anything, whether it’s good or bad.  Any feedback is useful feedback; it may be that people are simply asking for advice about your company and the products/service that you sell. The same analysis process should be used for your competitors, look to see if they are jumping in to influence any of these conversations.

Assess how your audience is talking, whether they are formal, informal or it may be that they are blending their language to be both.  It’s good to match the tone of the audience so that they can feel an instant connection with your company.  Look at the links/content that your company is sharing along with the terms and ideas that are getting them excited. Checking out hashtags and other ways that your audience connects with companies is also worthwhile in order to see if they have real traction or if they are spam.

If you struggling to know what to tweet, visit my blog how to use social media to optimise your marketing performance.

Your value on Twitter

Your company should define their objectives for what they want to achieve on Twitter. Is your company on Twitter:

• To improve sales.
• To increase your brand awareness and create a buzz around your company.
• To provide customer service.  This is a common use on Twitter.

 

It would also be useful to work out the worth for each of your followers to see which ones would be more likely to turn into prominent leads.   

Goals to track

Once your Twitter page is in full motion, the next step would be to track your performance. Metrics to consider tracking are ones that capture overall influence such as retweets, blog posts and clicks. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg, there are so many metrics that your company could consider including sales, email sign ups, @messages, direct messages and clicks.

Take a look at this fantastic twitter infographic from Touch agency (August 2011), to help provide you with a better understanding of the market that you are trying to tap into.

If you need help with your Facebook marketing strategy, take a look at my Using Facebook to reach out to new clients’ blog.

Using Facebook to reach out to new clients

Facebook can be a simple yet effective way of reaching out to potential new clients.

Facebook is by far the most popular online brand with 53.5 billion minutes per month spent on the social network in the US alone, according to the Nielson Company. In the UK it was reported last year that almost half the nation was now on Facebook with over 30 million users on the site. Assessing these figures you’d think it would be easy to reach out to new clients by using Facebook to drive your marketing performance…wrong! There are rich business opportunities out there for companies, but only for those that have an effective strategy in place.

It’s always difficult putting a winning strategy together in order to succeed in your business goals and that’s why we are going to offer you a few tips to help you in the right direction.

Getting users to like your page

It’s going to be difficult to attract new clients, if you have no one to like your page. A straightforward tactic to get people to like your page is by simply recommending your page to your personal friends list. If you are an admin on your company page, there is the option on the right side panel to recommend this place for your friends to like. Using this feature is an effective method to increase your brand awareness and the number of likes on your page. The option to recommend your page is available to every admin on the site.

By getting your friends, colleagues, existing fans or customers to like your page is great way to get started, however a lot more has to be done in order to attract further likes on your page. There has to be an incentive for users to click the like button at the top of your page. A tried and tested technique would be to run a competition in order to create a buzz around your brand. In our eyes, the strength of your brand signifies your company’s ethics and values so that people can make a real connection with your company and what you do. If you look around at some of the biggest companies in the world today, they all have CSR teams in place to manage the reputation of their brand. According to Edison Research and Arbitron, 80% of users prefer to connect with brands via Facebook, leaving Twitter behind in a distant second place with a mere 6%.

Let’s say that there was a company called Wendy Cakes and their primary social objective was to increase the number of likes on their Facebook page. A contest for those who liked their page would generate positive interest. Launching a competition to see who can come up with the best new flavour cake to sell-in store with the prize being a box of cakes or cash sum , could be a simple yet effective method of attracting and engaging with new followers.

Interlinking between sites

Facebook may be seen to be the top dog in the social network; however other social platforms are just as important in increasing your social profile. It’s essential to interlink between these sites to communicate with your target audience and to steer an effective multichannel marketing strategy. Steps to be taken, would be to simply post links or create tabs between your main site and other social networks, whether it’s from your homepage or LinkedIn account.

Focusing on Facebook, posting videos from your YouTube account is a fun and informative way to engage with users. Drive users back to your website by posting continuous blog posts to your page. Connecting your Facebook and Twitter accounts, allows for all your tweets to be shown as Facebook status updates to make your Facebook page more current and topical, providing that you update your Twitter page on a regular basis. To do this you can visit the following link, www.facebook.com/twitter.

For tips and advice on how to improve your performance on other social networks visit my blog, Using social media to optimise your online performance.

Spread the message

It’s not all about concentrating your efforts on Facebook; it’s about spreading the message about your company as a whole. Ideas of how this could be done, include:


• A newsletter promotion/email marketing campaign with a link to your website and social media pages.
• Having an email signature, so that every time you send an email there is a link to your website and social media pages.
• Having a link to your website/social media pages on your business cards.
• A link from everyone’s personal page who works for the company to your main site and social media pages.
• Word of mouth. Nothing beats spreading the message about your company than you personally communicating to others how great your company is!

Landing page

Facebook itself has useful features that can help to draw in traffic. The best of them is the option to have a custom landing page on your site. A landing page allows your company to focus on the message that you want to communicate for your audience, whether it’s a new product, a special offer or to simply get people to click on your like button. If you look at Lakeland’s Facebook landing page, click here, there is a clear call to action to get people to like their page, using easy on the eye text and imagery.
 

 

It’s important to make sure that your ‘like box’ is featured prominently. Plenty of traffic should follow if you have a well-designed landing page with clear indicators to a prominently placed ‘like box’. Another useful feature would be to install the WP FB like plugin to your blog posts.

Relevance

It goes without saying that the content on your Facebook page should be relevant to your company and what they do. It’s important to get the right blend of status updates which informs your followers about your latest company activity and latest industry news. You can engage with your competitors by posting useful insights, questions, contests, photos and videos that will make users want to come back for more. For instance on Wendy’s Cakes Facebook page, there could be:


• Questions to engage with their audience…E.g. what’s everyone’s favourite cake??
• Cake pictures.
• Video cake recipes.
• Latest confectionary news.

This is a small sample of content that can be used. It’s important to put your stamp on your content and to make sure that it reflects your company and what you are about. It’s not essential to stick to your industry when using Facebook. It’s good to mix it up with bit of fun and not to be so serious, whether it’s having an update about somebody falling off their office chair or commenting on Lady Gaga’s new haircut, however this should be done in moderation.

Another useful tip to get the conversation going by mentioning your Facebook page in your blog posts and everyday conversation.

Facebook Advertising

The number of companies spending on Facebook ads is increasing at an astounding rate. According to IgnitionOne, Facebook ad spend of all clients grew 281% from Q2 2010 to Q2 2011. Impressively, ad impressions for all clients grew 200%.

Running a target ad campaign using Facebook advertising can help your company to reach out to potential new clients. An example of the success that can be founded via Facebook affiliate marketing can be seen on the site itself by visiting the following page. Advertising on Facebook allows companies to target their exact demographic. For example if Wendy’s Cakes could target their campaign for females aged between 25 and 35 with ‘cakes‘ as one of the activities that they ‘like’.

Monitoring your traffic

Monitoring your traffic and your users’ most popular activities on your page is a good way to keep on top of your Facebook business page. It’s a real chance to carry on optimising the areas where you are performing well and to improve upon sections that aren’t performing so well.

To do this you can track growth using Facebook insights and then use this knowledge to analyse what activities are driving the most growth and duplicate this activity. It’s also useful to take a look at your demographics to see who your most popular is and perhaps target more of your content at this group.

So what have we learnt?

Essentially, we have learnt that Facebook can be an immensely powerful tool if used in the right way to attain new followers and potential business. Essential tips to accomplish include:

• Getting users to like your page.
• Interlinking between your sites.
• Spreading the word about your Facebook page.
• Having a landing page.
• Staying relevant to your company and industry (most of the time!).
• Perhaps dabbling into Facebook advertising to see if it benefits your company (not essential).
• And to monitor your Facebook traffic.

Companies using multichannel marketing to increase their brand power

Multichannel marketing is really taking off with companies looking to increase their profits by communicating their brand across multiple channels and platforms.

QR Codes

The use of QR codes in multi-channel marketing is having a great impact upon how companies are engaging with customers. Starbucks are using QR codes to streamline the way they interact with customers. Instead of waiting in a long line to pay, customers can input pre-loaded card details onto their Starbucks iPhone app to pay more quickly. BestBuy is another company that is effectively using QR codes. Customers can scan product tags in store to see further information about the product that they are interested in. This includes reviews to help customers affirm that the product is right for them and can help drive sales.

Charities are increasingly using QR codes in their online and mobile campaigns. According to a study by Edge Research, 26% of respondents raised more than 25% of funds online. Their research also found that non-for-profit organizations generally agreed that the key benefit for multi-channel marketing was the unification of messages across channels, strengthening their brand and promoting their cause.

During Christmas, Leeds creative based agency ‘Propaganda’ helped homeless charity ‘Simon on the Streets’ with a QR code campaign for those sleeping rough. The agency laid out QR codes printed on cardboard amongst blankets and belongings to replicate homeless conditions. Once scanned by a smartphone or tablet QR reader, users were taken to the Just Giving page to donate money directly to the charity.

For more examples of companies using multi-channel marketing strategies to increase their brand power, click here.

Amazon communicates with clients across multiple channels and platforms.

Amazon in your pocket

The Amazon ‘Price Check’ app can have a great impact upon a user’s shopping experience. Using the barcode scanner allows the user to shop in-store and compare prices directly with Amazon. Commonly, when customers have checked prices and tried out products, they go home and load up their laptops to find better deals. Amazon’s price check lets you do this from their competitors’ shop floor, turning it into an outlet for the company. The ability to save products to your wish list whilst browsing through stores turns virtual shopping into a reality.

The app allows the user to spread the message about the great deals they have just discovered via email, text, Twitter or Facebook. This is a good example of multichannel communication and how Amazon allows the user to easily and quickly spread the word. The online retail giant tightly integrates the web, mobile and social media to provide an effective and purposeful app, providing brand and end user benefit.

According to Internet World Stats, there were approximately 51.5 million internet users in the UK (82% of the population) as of August 2011 with 45% of them accessing the net via their mobile phone (Office for National Statistics). Hawk-like Amazon has seized the opportunity to gain market advantage with their customers having rich devices in their pockets.

Tablet PC vs. PC

With tablet PC sales soaring worldwide and the iPad 3 on its way, I will be looking at whether  tablet pc’s will take over PC’s.

Tablet PC Growth

When Apple announced plans to launch the iPad a couple of years ago, there were those who were unsure of how successful the device would be. Some critics thought that it was neither a PC nor Smartphone and that it had no real use within the market. However, sales for the iPad soared, proving to be a success with the release of the iPad 2 last year and the iPad 3 to be released soon. On the back of the success of the iPad, many companies including Samsung and Toshiba have released their own Tablet PC’s to enter the lucrative market.

 Why is the Tablet PC so successful?

There are a number of reasons for why the iPad is so successful; its main appeal is its approachable touchscreen interface that people universally find easy to use. A study by the NPD Group last year showed that the top three things that consumers have been doing with iPads are surfing the web, writing and checking e-mails and playing games. NPD also found that iPad owners regularly use their devices for social networking, watching videos and reading e-books with their light weight portability making it a real crowd pleaser. This shows that the iPad is a very versatile platform and an ideal means of ‘consuming’ information.

NPD wrote, “While lots of choices and compromises go into the development of any product, especially something as different as the iPad, these results indicate that most consumers are satisfied with their purchase and are increasingly finding ways to interact with their iPad.”

 

Projected Tablet Growth to 2015

 

Gartner researched that Tablet PC’s will be selling 60% as many units as PC’s by 2015. Furthermore, they predict that Apple’s iPad will still have almost half the market by then. Below is a table of Gartner’s sales forecasts from 2010 to 2015:

 

PC Decline

 

Whilst the PC is suffering a decline in sales, tablet PC’s, smartphones and e-readers continue to increase in popularity. It’s a tough marketplace for the PC at this moment of time and they no longer have a monopoly over the marketplace like they used to.  The UK PC market suffered its worst decline is sales for five years in the last quarter of 2011 according to Gartner, a 19.6% decline upon last year. The last quarter of 2011 also saw a decrease in sales by 13. 5% in the professional sector.

 

Other than the increase in the popularity of alternative PC devices, the current economic climate has had just as big an impact on PC sale figures along with the lack of innovation.  Ranjit Atwal, Research Director at Gartner, said:

"The PC has not changed as consumers and users have changed their habits,"

"One thing the PC makers have not done over the last few years is make products that are innovative in terms of compelling features and novel form factors."

 

"There's the need for a fundamental re-think of how we make these gadgets compelling,"

 For more of Ranjit Atwal’s views on PC growth visit, click here.

 PC manufacturers have already tried slashing prices to no avail. The PC market requires innovation more than anything in order to attract consumer interest and to push growth. The only PC platform to have increased its sales figures compared to last year is the Apple Mac, perhaps the most innovative out of all the manufacturers in the table above.

New Hope

There is hope ahead for the PC market with even Gartner predicting that things can only get better, and it’s hoped that major new games with heavily enriched graphics will help to drive upgrades. Ultrabooks released from the end of the last year is also expected to help reignite PC sales figures. The term Ultrabook was provided by Intel for a new generation of portable PC’s featuring their technology, however, it is now being used as a catch-all term for light, thin and ultraportable laptops.

Intel has reported that Ultrabooks have “ultra-capabilities” including greater battery power, instant-on, quick standby and enhanced security features. They also believe that the Ultrabook will be a lighter alternative to tablet devices for those who prefer to work with a full QWERTY keyboard.  To find out about Ultrabooks to be released in 2012 you can click here.

Summary

It’s expected that sales will continue to increase for tablet PC’s in the near future but not at the expense of the PC.  Tablet PC’s are still relatively new and fresh, appealing to the masses.  It’s true to say that the PC has had a tough time of it over the last few years competing with new innovative devices, however there is no doubt that the PC will bounce back in the near future and once again find a place in consumers hearts.It’s expected that sales will continue to increase for tablet PC’s in the near future but not at the expense of the PC.  Tablet PC’s are still relatively new and fresh, appealing to the masses.  It’s true to say that the PC has had a tough time of it over the last few years competing with new innovative devices, however there is no doubt that the PC will bounce back in the near future and once again find a place in consumers hearts.

Burberry Prorsum

Came across this video showing how Burberry has incorporated wonderful and innovative digital methods into the heart of its brand...Cara Delevigne is also extremely hot in this video!!

Using social media to optimise your online marketing performance

Social Media is a great way for companies to drive their marketing activities and to optimise their online performance.

It’s all gone social

Social media has led to a fundamental shift in communication, reshaping the way that companies interact with companies. It’s having a great impact on everyday life and companies are continuing to embrace it in order to increase their online presence, engage with customers and to build business.

It’s a mistaken belief that you can simply setup a Facebook and Twitter account, post a few status updates and then bobs your uncle, customers are flocking to your site to purchase your products/services. Only if it was that easy, the fact of the matter is that it can be very difficult to see though a social media strategy with many underestimating the time and effort required to succeed in the digital space.

We believe that all companies should know the fundamentals when building their social network and that’s why we are going to offer you essential tips for running your prime social channels:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Blog
• YouTube

Facebook

Companies should setup a welcome section for its fan page. This will let people know what they can expect from following your brand. It helps to increase signups, your conversion ratings and your ROI. A great landing page with a clear call to action can help your company to save money on advertising costs.

The more likes and diverse comments that the company gets on an update, the more people’s walls and homepages they are shown on, which in turn gives greater exposure to your company. Facebook is a great way to engage with your audience by posting questions, contests, sharing photos or videos and sharing content that will make someone want to keep coming back to the page. It is a great way to drive interactions with your audience.

Google Plus

Using similar tactics to that of Facebook for Google Plus would be an effective way of increasing your presence on that platform. Google Plus was launched last year to compete with Facebook and remains a relatively new social platform with no set guidelines on how to best optimise your marketing performance using this channel. A few quick tips to get you started are:

• To share your blog info on your profile.
• To use strategic keywords and phrases in your status updates, as Google Plus is more open to searching and will allow you to rank higher in traditional Google searches.
• To write unique engaging content for status updates.
• To upload relevant and captivating pictures/videos.
• To make sure that your profile is open to search.
• To use circles to communicate with potential clients, media and prospects. For example you can create a circle for prospective clients and then provide them with industry news, media, and case studies and so on to suit them.
• To use Google Plus hangouts, where you can chat live on video from your computer or mobile device with up to 10 people.

Twitter

When using Twitter, companies should look to share insightful content around their industry and to engage with smart people on subjects that are most meaningful to the company. It is important to build relationships first and then to promote your content.

Spread links that can be retweeted by your audience, whilst retweeting yourself. If you are wondering how to shorten links so that you have more space to comment, simply visit www.bitly.com enter the URL and your link will be shortened to copy and paste. When tweeting it’s good to include the company’s blog post links but it’s more important to comment on other peoples’ tweets. By promoting others over yourself, the company’s twitter following will grow and there is the chance to engage people whilst driving them back to your blog.

The @ feauture is a good way to reply to your audience when you can. In addition, links should not always be about the organisation’s business topic, it’s good to mix it up by having fun every so often and as a result steady traffic should role in.

Blogging

For many companies blogs are their focal point of their online marketing operation. It is an opportunity for them to establish its identity and directly communicate with those interested in the company’s services. However it’s no longer enough just to write content on a consistent basis. There is so much competition in every niche online nowadays that you have to stand out from the crowd and be unique. To do this it is essential to write compelling content, be an authentic representation within your field and interact with your community as much as possible. Everything you do has to be about the reader in order to serve their needs. Adding media such as pictures and videos can help increase interest in your blog.

It is essential to build up relationships with other bloggers, ways to do this include:

• Content promotion off the blog.
• Commenting on other blogs.
• Quickly responding to comments made on the company’s blog.
• Automatic distribution and syndication.
• Repurposing of content.
• Encouraging social popularity.

These are all ways of building relationships. In the long term after building relationships, there is an opportunity to ask other bloggers to write in return for writing about their products and services.

YouTube

YouTube can be a great way to be entertaining whilst also being informative about your company’s products/services. It’s an effective method of marketing, using your visual creative input rather than relying primarily on written content. Videos on your YouTube channel could include:

• Advice guides for products/services.
• Client testimonials.
• A company background.
• Past, present and future projects.
• Product overview.

After Google, YouTube is the second most popular search engine. It is a useful platform to help build your brand.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn can be a valuable source to network with others in your industry. Essentially, it’s an effective way for working professionals to explore business opportunities with each other. However, LinkedIn can also be a useful source for enticing traffic. Adding links on your LinkedIn profile and email footer can prove to be very effective in building traffic. It would also be positive to post links to social media and blog sites.

To find out how companies are using social media to spearhead their multichannel marketing strategies, visit my multichannel marketing blog.

Here is a great post from the social media top dogs themselves at Mashable, explaining the key behaviours required to succeed in your strategy.

The power of social media

Social media can be a powerful marketing tool for all companies (big and small) and I have the stats to prove it!

I think it’s fair to say that we all know by now that social media is having a major impact on the global marketplace. The social phenomenon is still relatively new with no set marketing rules on how to best optimise your online social performance. Many companies are unsure of what path to take in order to reach consumers. Well, I have some interesting stats that could help to align your social strategy.

Social brand power

Social media is great for companies looking to sell their products/services and for those looking to increase their brand awareness. In the US, it was reported by Edison Research and Arbitron that 80% of social network users preferred to engage with brand on Facebook. Only 6% of users connected to brands using Twitter.

Social mobile power

The number of users accessing social media on their smartphones is growing at a rapid rate. According to comScore analysis, over half of US smartphone owners (50.9%) and 31.7% of European smartphone users accessed Facebook on their device in the three –month period ending June, 2011. Twitter had a smartphone audience of 12.5% in the US and 7.4% in Europe.

Social advice

On average 29% of consumers flock to social networks to seek buying advice according to ROI Research and Performics.

Social budget

SocialMedia Examiner found that seven in ten (71%) of marketers planned to increase their use of search engine optimisation (SEO) in the near future.

46% of social marketers were planning to increase their online efforts.

Social ad spend growth

The number of companies spending on Facebook ads is increasing at an astounding rate. According to IgnitionOne, Facebook ad spend of all clients grew 281% from Q2 2010 to Q2 2011. Impressively, ad impressions for all clients grew 200%.