DC Insights

Yelp and Google Places - Use Social Directories to Boost Business

It's good to know great ideas just get better with time (like wine of course). I've been helping clients with their social marketing efforts for over 18 months now, a standard in my mind. It is still on the cutting edge for others – regardless of how easy it is.

A good post by Kevin Stirtz, HERE, touches a bit on why and how a company should focus on social marketing. What is key, especially for small and medium sized businesses, is that this should and can be done with a minimal amount of resources (money and your time) – even if folks in the business are not online personally and socially. I covered this back in February of last year in my blog post, Recognizing Customers as Best Social Marketing Resource.

My clients can integrate a level of social marketing into their month to month activities to really extend their footprint online, the one place a majority of their clients are researching purchase decisions. Social marketing is nothing more than identifying and managing a company's profiles across multiple social directory sites (e.g., Yelp, Google Local). I can give my clients relevant presence on as many as 10 relevant social directory sites.

Some things to consider when thinking through this:

• Start with a universal 'Profile' that one can use to populate and manage the multiple profiles online
• Look for online directory hubs like SUperMedia.com to cover multiple URLs at once
• Don't worry about some less then positive feedback over time - consider having 8 positive and 2 negative reviews versus 10 positive reviews. . . the former is sometimes more compelling

Where things can get really powerful is when my clients start directing happy customers to the sites they want to boost presence on based on traffic patterns - that's how I'm able to give my clients a real edge over the competition.

Have other's had success with this? Want to know more on who and how I've been able to help them?

Another Top 10 for Better Blogging

I'm inspired to write this post after reading other recent "top 10" lists for blogging. . . an online medium that may seem old hat but actually requires tactics to evolve as the web evolves. I had a checklist for blogging and realized I should take the time to update it. While the original form was stronger than George's here, there is always room for improvement. So here's a good checklist for others to start with – by all means personalize it as needed. I'd be interested in knowing what's on your checklist that I missed?

Start with the content:

1. Is my post on topic and is it a concise subject matter: First, is my subject matter concise enough that it can resonate with a specific audience. Then, have I shared a complete thought and does it add value to the reader and overall conversation. In simple terms, is this worth being published?
2. Do I make a Call to Action: Perhaps the most important point, what is the objective of the post and my blog strategy and how does this post facilitate that objective. Do I want to gather information or simply enable a conversation and generate engagement? Does this tie into my blogging editorial calendar? Thanks George for reminding me of this.

Now some basics:

3. Do I have a compelling headline and intro: To improve the chances of being read, does my title pull the audience in and will my intro engage them further? Keep in mind blog summary listings only capture the first 100 or so characters. Make them count.
4. Have I included relevant media and/or visuals: Media is always better for engaging an audience. Video is best, images are good. Or, does you blog cover strategy or a process that can be represented in a compelling diagram? Are there financials involved that can be best illustrated in table format.
5. Is it a professional publication: Before I hit 'Publish', have I checked my spelling and grammar? Do all of my links work?
6. Have I included SEO data: While this won't generate 1000's of readers upon publication, it is a disservice not to include basic SEO elements, including a meta title, description, and key words/tags.

And finally, connect it:

7. Have I connected to the greater conversation: The key is for my post to add to and expand on an already existing conversation online. Have I linked to sourced /cited sites? Are there applicable community conversations that I should reference? Who can benefit from any relevant traffic I can drive through my readership? Can I tweet using a conversation relevant # marks?
8. Is my post integration with my broader strategic presentation: Assuming the post is not standalone from my previous material, have I linked to a previous, applicable blog entry or resources that I uploaded to http://www.slideshare.net/ or other social resource platforms?
9. Have I integration with my broader communication strategy: I want to ensure my post contributes to my overall goals and objectives. To ensure this, I want to integrate with the rest of my presence and material That being said, have I:
   1. Linked to relevant content on my website?
   2. Updated my website with new learning covered in the blog post?
   3. Included a teaser tie-in on my social platform forum (e.g., Facebook wall, LinkedIn status or Group, Merchant Circle account)

And just when you thought you were done:

10. Do I know what's next: My addition to the greater conversation will only gain and maintain relevance through consistency. Do I already know what's next. . . because time catches up faster than anything else. . . so keep on point and be sure to keep blogging (I've got some work to do in this category)!

Now that you've seen my checklist, what additional items do you have on yours?

Thanks goes out to Zubin Kutar for blog thoughts here, George Passwater for another top 10 here, and Josh Catone for the Mashable contribution on 5 business blogging mistakes.

[Quick 11/20/10 Update]  Ran across this post, and thought it necessary to include a not on metrics here.  Be sure to recognize the purpose of your blog and be sure to identify metrics to measure the success of your blogging strategy.  Thanks Jason!

Want to Build a Community around Your Brand – Facebook Advertising

Thought I'd kick off with a post of success. I am running a successful Facebook advertising campaign and am now convinced it's a valuable channel if your customers are using Facebook socially – and A LOT of customers use it socially. There are 3 primary reasons:

1. Flexibility of Ad Space: I say this with AdWords in mind. Use an image and up to 135 characters - plenty of room for play; and an easy pause and play feature helps as you test various ad copies.
2. Breadth of Targeting Options: The power one can derive from the various dimensions is astronomical – one story, someone sent a birthday message to his girlfriend by refining the target market down to her alone – and I believe the story; the demographics reports help with post analysis and testing.
3. and the Primary Reason – Price: If you are aggressive with your bids, actively manage your campaign, and experiment with your approach, you'll be able to derive a very cheap 'action' rate. Now the action and the cost will vary based on your objectives, but for my successful campaign, we're building a community around a future product at less than $2.14 a person

Another thing about the price - some aspects still require trial and error – thankfully at minimal cost. For example, here are two aspects of Facebook ad pricing you'll need to work through (these are directly from Facebook via email correspondence – and up for interpretation):

• The necessary bid for an active ad will be affected by the ad's past performance
• For ads that are reaching their daily budgets, our system will optimize your ad's bid to the minimum amount necessary for delivery that will also continue to use up the daily budget. This ensures that you get as many clicks (or impressions for CPM ads) as possible given your level of spend without needing to continually adjust the bid amount yourself

Couple things to note: A company will have to determine the value - direct, long term, or perceived – in developing a community around a brand, product or service. That should not be assumed. The second thing to consider is general resource allocation. While I've highlighted a low cost to Facebook advertising, there is a require FTE cost to consider. Total resource allocation across marketing should take into account all channels and campaign types.

It's my firm belief that folks will miss out if they don't recognize and utilize Facebook advertising as an inexpensive platform to build community around a brand, product or service. To be able to do this in a space where the customer is already interacting with friends, networks, and family makes it an ideal compliment to a complete marketing channel approach.

Have you tried Facebook advertising for your own company or as an agent? How would you rate your results?