6 Keys to Stand Out in Social Marketing – Part 1

social media icons how to stand out

I’m currently live blogging at the Online Marketing Summit (#OMSummit) and am in the first workshop on day 1 called “Stand Out Social Marketing” presented by Mike Lewis, Author of Stand Out Social Marketing.

Here are my notes from the first part of this three hour workshop:

Here are the six stand out strategies that will make you hugely successful in the social space:

1. Pay Attention

Listen to your customers and understand them on an individual basis. Don’t be general. Speak with people and care about them. This shoudl be the heart of your social strategy. It involves paying attention to behaviours and individuals.

Key Concepts: Social Prospecting + Social Scoring

Traditionally….

  • Broadcast messages through multiple channels
  • Collect data and demographically target
  • Open stores in areas of audience concentration
  • Drive people to online or offline purchases

2. Interaction

  • If you are trying to get more people into your extended audience – share photos and videos.
  • If you’re trying to get more passive fans, who are silent observers, ask questions.
  • If you’re trying to get more moderate interactors who are regular engagers, consistency is key.
  • If you are trying to get more active interactors, who are your top fans, make them companions (guest blogger, reward them for shares, give them public props, etc)
  • If your’e trying to get influential interactors, influencers who are active with your brand, you guest post with them.

3. Content

Focus on the needs of your prospects, not the needs of your company. Repurposing content to drive additional interactions – solve someone’s problem.

Promote your content across multiple channels. If you are sharing your content in only one channel such as twitter or facebook and not pushing it in multiple channels in different ways, you are doing yourself a major disservice. Engaging in 3 channels or more significantly increase the chances of shares, views and engagement.

Check out Marketo.com’s website – they do a great job with their social marketing and content development and distribution.

4. Presence

Build and manage your brand persona. It’s hard to humanize your brand if you’re B2B. But create a stand out persona that thrives on interaction and posting distinctive content. Red Bull does a great job with this.

Be on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, etc, but BE CONSISTENT in your messaging. Check out Mashable. They do an outstanding job and engaging on an individual basis.

5. Management

The only way you can have a hugely successful social campaign is to have the right management behind it. Have someone dedicated to these channels. Collaborate and manage internally. Be organized, have a plan, know your voice.

6. Measurement

Social ROMI – Return on Marketing Investment

Overall social marketing contributiosn to the business over time (Usually year over year)

  1. Add all marketing
  2. Determine contribution to results
  3. Calculate ROMI

Social ROMO – Return on Marketign Objective

Specific social merit contributions to customer engagement and sales (usually campaign based and short term).

  1. Calculate Lead Gen
  2. Determine Contribution to Results.