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Social Media Marketing & Community Management Study Guide #11May 17 2010 – May 22 2010Social Media Marketing

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Social media success is inherently slow, not fast. Progress is measuredincrementally over time, not immediately over lunch. Rarely are accumulations thebest data points. Number of people who “like” you on Facebook. Number of Twitterfollowers. Number of blog comments. All of these are diagnostic metrics. What youinstead want to emphasize are important customer behaviors, and how thosebehaviors change over time. (Source:Convince and Convert)

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The most powerful way sales people can be using social media is to listen—listen tothe market, listen to customers, listen to competition, even listen to their owncompany. Tools like Twitter, Blogs, even company sites on Facebook and LinkedIncan give the sales people tremendous insight about what’s going on in theircustomers’ industries, in their customers’ companies, and in the industry. Theyprovide great insight into what people are saying about our own companies andcompetition. Leveraging social media is critical for all sales people in beinginformed and competitive. (Source:Customer Think)

Community Management

How do you keep people engaged and returning?

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Take a stance on something, be tribal, topical and have ideas that encouragediscussion

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It has to be said (again) – create great content. It’s a little cliche, but content is king(so long as you market it), consider, games polls and quizzes to create talkingpoints and keep the site “alive”

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Ensure you place content outside of your site on other people’s blogs or networkswhere users might be interested in what you have to say. Give away any brandedapps or tools that may add value as well – it will drive traffic back to you

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At a risk of being old-school – email – it’s the unsung hero to keep people informedand prompt them when they must check back in – of course you have to havesomething worth telling or you’ll have the opposite effect!

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Customise the experience for your users based on preferences and previousbehaviour (Source:Smart Insights)

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Do you really need to market to strangers? Sure, common sense might tell us. Howelse can you build your business and expand your market? But marketing tostrangers can be expensive and less effective than focusing on the core of true fansyour business or organization already has. Those fans in turn tell their friends whowill be much easier for them than for you to win over. (Source:Seth Godin)

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Once you figure out what is helpful to your community, you can package the contentin any which way to test ease of use and resonance. Videos, blogs, "how to"tutorials, new product/service information, there are many ways to teach what youknow and ways to learn from your customer preferences. Whatever you do, buildmeasurement into it. Find a way to track it, calculate its value towards outcomes,and incorporate it in what you do next. (Source:Conversation Agent)

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Generation Benz, the original community, was launched because as Stauble puts it,"Generation Y is the next big wave."The 580 members age 16 to 33 were qualifiedby age and "propensity to luxury" via a questionnaire. Only 64 percent of them areMercedes drivers. The older boomer community are all Mercedes drivers. Anastonishing 70 percent of them regularly log on to MercedesBenzAdvisors.com.(Source:Econsultancy)

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The overwhelming number of successful communities grew slowly. They began witha few members. Then they attracted a few more members. The creator invitedselect people and groups at a time. They invited people with something tocontribute. They invite people who they specifically wanted to join an onlinecommunity. Others just happened to chance on by. If you’re banking on 10,000active members in your first year, you’re probably going to be disappointed. You’regoing to aim for big press coverage and major victories. You’re going to miss yourexpectations, become depressed (instead of focusing on existing members) andquit. It happens a lot. Don’t bank on rapid growth, ever. (Source:Fever Bee)

Emerging Trends and Technologies

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Counting all of the above countries, Africa’s total penetration rose to an even 3percent in April, with 11,412,240 monthly active users visiting Facebook. Althoughthat seems low, keep in mind that Africa’s overall penetration — for the countriesthat actually allow Facebook — is rising at a faster rate than Asia’s, although thelatter’s contribution in MAU is far higher. (Source:Inside Facebook)Source:eMarketer

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According to a Tweet sent out by former Mahalo developer Chris Finke, AOL isrolling out the beta of a shopping advice portal. Finke said in his Tweet that he wasworking on the project at AOL, which allows you to submit a shopping or product-related question to a public forum, and then other participants can comment andadd a recommendation. (Source:TechCrunch)

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The ² project at Stockholm University is actively exploring different procedures forphysical Foursquare checkins. ² Scanner for Android is the first result of theirlabors and simplifies the checkin process with 2D barcodes (a.k.a. QR codes) thatusers can scan to locate their venue in Foursquare. (Source:Mashable)

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Togetherville.com is a "neighborhood" aimed at kids and their grownups. Unlikesome virtual words aimed at children, Togetherville uses the child's real identity.Anonymity is not allowed. The site encourages parents to create neighborhoods ofthe real people in their child's life to be around their kid as they grow up online. Thefree site, which does not display advertising to children, lets kids play games, watchvideos, and create and share art. (Source:Cnet)

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U.S. online video advertising revenue is on track to surpass $1.3 billion this year,according to a new report from Parks Associates. Steady growth in online videoviewership, combined with the ability to target specific viewers based onpreferences and viewing history is the reason behind the figures. (Source:Web ProNews)Source:eMarketer

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Yell says it's acquiring TrustedPlaces so that, "for the first time, enable consumersto recommend a local business through its Yell.com website", which already has twomillion of its own listings and 399,000 advertisers. (Source:The Guardian)

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Western Europe leads the world in retail e-commerce sales. The UK is the mostmature market, but other countries increasingly contribute to the region’s onlinebuying clout. Europe’s dominance will continue through 2012, according to CollinsStewart, when online retail sales will cross the $200 billion threshold. (Source:eMarketer)