I particularly enjoyed the participation with the audience
and I got some great answers to my questions about how to convert social media
sceptics. So I just thought I would do a quick summary post on what I learnt.
Social media is well social, and it is difficult to get technophobes
and sceptics to listen to the advantages of this fast moving and valuable tool to businesses. Here are some of the best tips I was given and how they can help individuals and businesses get the
most out of social media:
Know what is in it for youMake sure you understand what you niche is and research them online. Twitter has some great advanced search techniques, as well as Google so make use of them to really understand who your target market is, where they are talking and how to engage them. You don’t
need to replace traditional marketing techniques, but simply enhance them.
Followers on Twitter, likes on Facebook and views on YouTube all mean more
traffic to the your website.
Set out your objectives Setting up a twitter account is easy, but knowing why you are doing it and who
you are going to target is more difficult. Do you want to sell more products?
Do you want to build brand awareness? Or just see what other people are saying
about your brand? Make sure you know what you are saying, in what tone and to
who before you jump in and start randomly posting.
Know your stuff Almost anyone can set up and account on these sites, but running them can sometimes
be a little more complex. What might work best for Facebook, might not work on
Twitter so make sure you are educated on how to make the most out of these
sites. If you’re not sure, don’t post. There are a lot of people that are
professionals so turn to them for help.
Don’t be anonymousHaving a good profile on all social networking sites is important. A good profile
picture is essential so people can recognise you / your brand easily. A short
and snappy bio is also vital to let followers and friends know who you are and
what you are about quickly. It will help build your followers and make sure
potential followers can find you easily online.
Be authentic, be the expert, be funnyIts okay getting the followers but keeping them is another matter. It only
takes seconds to unlike something on Facebook, or unfollow on Twitter so make
sure every message counts. Be true to yourself, personal accounts always get more
followers than business style pages. Be the expert in your field, if you cannot
write original content RT or post other peoples – just make sure you give the
credit where it is due. Most importantly keep the tone light! No one wants serious
tweets all the time, so if you find something funny or cute share it!
Want to know more?:
Sue Llewellyn - Social media trainer and Twitter wizz!
RTS Southern - Good Facebook page, better website.
Me - Follower my Twitter to get more related stories by me and other people.
It seems that follow up television adverts are a real trend
right now. In my last post I spoke about the new Lynx Effect advert ‘My AngelGirlfriend’ and how much I loved their new humours advert.
Yeo Valley Organic has also got a really good follow up advertisement to their Yeo Valley Rap also played in the advertising break of the X Factor featuring their band The Churned singing ‘Forever’.
I really love the way they draw on the conventions of boy
bands, and their pop music videos in such a way it’s almost a parody of the
whole X Factor concept. The song is even downloadable with an online campaign to
beat the X Factor winner-to-be Christmas No. 1!
The television ad prompts us to go and look at the YeoValley Facebook page and sing along to appear in the ad break of the final of
the show. The Sing Star style app asks fans to 'Sing in Harmony' to the advert into their webcams
to hit the right notes and achieve high scores. You can compare top scores with
the rest of the UK and your friends on Facebook in a nice interactive package.
I also love the customization on their YouTube channel with even the the
Yeo Valley logo being adapted to mirror/parody the YouTube logo.
Overall this is a really creative integrated marketing
campaign that has got people talking!
I am really enjoying the creative approaches being used to grabbing consumer’s
attention at the moment particularly with mass consumables. I just dread to think how much this cost for a 2 min advert at peek time!