Hess Marketing Blog

Uncategorized — Comments Off
01
Feb 12

Why Your Business Should Have A Social Media Policy

Did your mother ever tell you to think before you speak? Have your friends told you to wait a few minutes before sending a heated message to a significant other? How about your teachers telling you to watch what you put on the Internet? You should heed this last piece of advice because our words have a way of coming back to bite us. Once you post something on the Internet, it’s out there for the whole world to see. And unlike the notes you used to pass in school, these words can’t be crumbled up and made to disappear. The concept of social media perpetuating our words is at the center of numerous debates because no one knows how to handle that information. Social networking is still pretty new, and the majority of businesses don’t have policies or rules regarding social media as a business tool, even if it’s already being used in that capacity.

A CNN reporter, Octavia Nasr, used her Twitter account to express her lack of respect for a recently deceased Hezbollah leader. Nasr identified herself as a CNN reporter on her profile, as well as in her username. The public was outraged. Nasr tried to apologize, stating the limited character restrictions (140 characters) led her post to be misinterpreted, but the damage was done and she lost her job. Gilbert Gottfried was the voice of the Aflac duck, but was also publicly fired after he posted offensive tweets in the aftermath of the Japanese Tsunami. While the majority of things Mr. Gottfried says can be construed as offensive, some say he was fired because Aflac was very involved in the aftermath of the tsunami.

These events could have been prevented if there was a social media policy in place for both employers and employees to follow. Businesses can better protect themselves by clearly outlining what material is and is not appropriate to be associated with their brand. A proper policy will also prevent situations where an employee posts something he believes to be harmless, but is considered offensive by his employer.

Finally, businesses should make sure they have a social media policy to comply with the FTC’s guidelines concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising, as they cover a lot of scenarios in the social media realm. As for mixing personal opinions while representing your company, it’s best to keep them separate, at least until you get your own social media policy.

To read the complete guide from the FTC click here : http://ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf

To read the complete Federal Trade Commission Act, click here: http://www.ftc.gov/ogc/FTC_Act_IncorporatingUS_SAFE_WEB_Act.pdf

Tweet This Post

Uncategorized — Comments Off
11
Jan 12

Fast Equity Through Social Media

Not too long ago we told readers about a new trend of businesses using Internet communities to generate advertising ideas and media, or crowdsourcing, and today we would like to introduce you to crowdfunding, an idea that has been directly inspired by crowdsourcing. What crowdfunding is in essence is the practice of a collective group of people pooling their money together to support or fund ideas, efforts, or businesses started by other people, usually over the Internet. Funded projects range from filmmaking and artistry to helping start-ups and small businesses get off the ground; and while some efforts are strictly fundraising, the majority of crowdfunding projects involve the “investor” getting something back in the end. A well know crowdfunding site, Kickstarter.com, funds creative projects through donations with donors receiving rewards such as products or services. Sites like Cameesa and Catwalk Genuis have fans investing and involving themselves in the creation of a designer’s new line in exchange for a share in the profits. Even sites like Crowdcube enable investors to invest small amounts of money in start-ups in exchange for real equity and a chance to build their investment portfolio. There is a new site for every product and every angle but the up and comer everyone is talking about right now is Wahooly. Wahooly is in the business of helping start-ups gain users by offering stakes in the start-ups. However instead of asking for monetary donations, users are asked to promote the start-ups through their social media sites and platforms. The program is designed to appeal to those who are immersed in social media and consider themselves influencers. The process of dividing up equity between users is competition based, so your stake in the company will increase or decrease depending on how hard and often users work to promote their chosen start-ups. Considering the continuing rise in the already overwhelming amount of people that use social media sites, this seems like a great way for start-ups to gain widespread exposure and a great way for people to make money while doing things they were already doing before. Wahooly is a start-up itself and hopes to officially launch in January with 200 startups. Currently they have 41 start-ups on board and a growing base of 16,000 users.

Tweet This Post

Email Marketing- Here to Stay!

We drive the importance of social media an awful lot. Well because it is important and becoming necessary in just about every industry! Although this “buzz word” seems like just that, a buzz word, it truly isn’t. I think you all are getting the idea that in order to drive success in this market, social media networking is imperative.

Even with social media taking over the way we communicate, email still remains a primary source of communication and is equally important as social media in the digital age. Back to the basics- email dates back all the way to the mid-60′s. However, it wasnt until the late-80′s/early 90′s that the general public caught on and began utilizing the new medium. Electronic mail is a natural and perhaps inevitable use of networked communication technology that developed along with the evolution of the internet. Businesses quickly figured out this was a great way to reach customers. It was also less expensive than mailing out advertisements to homes. By 1995 the number of email advertisements sent out that year was more than the number sent out by regular mail. Businesses spend a great deal of money creating email marketing campaigns that won’t be confused with spam.

Email marketing is the newest version of direct marketing. Instead of using the postal system- the traditional direct marketing tool- most of the businesses today opt for sending mass emails to consumers with information of merchandises. Email marketing is a tool for building relationships with both existing and potential customers and has proven to be more cost effective. The Process of direct email marketing is as follows:

Generate Traffic for your website,
Encourage Visitors to sign up for newsletter, etc…
Create and sending promotional email or newsletter,
Genetare sales or more traffic to your website

Now, this being said, there are some rules and guidelines we want you to be aware of to follow in order for email to successfully accomplish these goals.

You want to grab your audience’s attention while being concise, frequent, and visable. The subject line must be eye -catching and interesting; simplicty is the key.
Make it obvious why your sending your message and make it relevant to the consumer. Genreate a plan. Who you will target? Which segments of an industry will be more likely to positively respond to your message? For example, some areas of an email blast may require small changes based on the various consumers you are trying to reach.
Like social media, you must be very careful of how you approach the audience, along with the information you approach them with. You want to lure in your audience with humor, stats, facts, discounts etc…But be careful not to be too forward or overload them with a “sales pitch.”
Be conscious of the day and time in which you are sending your emails. You do not want to send out an email marketing campaign at 9:00am. People first arriving to work and checking their emails are more likely to trash anything that may seem irrelevant. But, after lunch perhaps, when everyone is settling in after break, they will be more likely to filter through and read intriguing emails.
Track your results. There are many ways via the internet to track your open rate (Campaign Monitor is one for example). These types of programs will give you the open rate, the click through rate, bounce rate, and how many remain unopened. This will give you a better idea of what is deemed interesting by your audience and what campaigns to continue with.

Tweet This Post

internet marketing / SEO / Social Media / Uncategorized — Comments Off
04
Feb 11

The Road to Success is Paved With Familiarity

Today’s post comes inspired by this article posted through Technorati.

According to the article by John Egan, brand familiarity is the number one driver of visits to retail sites. It’s no great mystery why this is. If people are talking about your product, people are aware of your product. That’s it. Start a discussion, be responsive, and be an advocator for your product or service. Once people start to recognize your brand name, you’ll see this statistic kick in. Here are a few simple steps to jumpstart the discussion.

Facebook and Twitter are not platforms for creating a sale. They can, however, increase awareness of your product and get people talking about it. It is at this point that your job as a marketer is to become an active part of this discussion.Answer questions customers have, send out interesting tidbits of information you find, do anything you can to be a resource to your subscribers. When it comes to social media, be preemptive about your product but also appropriately responsive.

Selling is a more organic process. People simply don’t click on sidebar ads, or Facebook ads, and go straight to buying your product. When you make your product or service appear organically and tailor the road to purchase with more specific keywords, reflecting increased buyer intent, you make it that much easier for the customer to find and choose your product. In today’s world of Google AdWords and such, this process is a whole lot easier than you might expect.

In some instances you can combine social media with organic marketing to create a community around your product. In other words, make it easy for people to find other people talking about your product. This in turn will encourage discussion about your product, at which point you can jump in and become an active part of the discourse.

Simply put, marketing has evolved. Don’t let your customers think you are trying to shout a message at them as loud as possible until they get it. Let communication be two-way, and eventually your best customers will also be your greatest advocates.

Tweet This Post

internet marketing / SEO / Social Media — 1 comment
21
Jan 11

Going beyond Twitter & Facebook

While Facebook and Twitter are arguably the most significant social media sites for businesses to market themselves, there is a plethora of other social media sites targeting specific niches. With so many marketing venues available and new ones emerging, I find myself asking: are Facebook and Twitter enough?

Facebook is the number one growing social media site, gaining 250 million users in 2010 totaling 600 million users. Morever, Twitter more than doubled its users in 2010, gaining 100 million users, totaling: 175 million. Alth ough Twitter and Facebook are the fastest growing social media sites, there are many others gaining popularity. No business wants to be left in the dust when the next social media site explodes. In addition to utilizing social media sites, there are other necessary ways to gain recognition on the internet.

In order to drive ample traffic and gain SEO for your company website, there are multiple tactics to implement in expanding your internet presence:

Blogging
Email marketing
Search engine optimization
Pay per click
Social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn)
Blogger relations
Online public relations
Viral marketing
Free content (white papers)
Corporate web site

Using these online marketing venues in addition to social media sites are imperative to any company trying to expand their internet presence. Emerging social media sites such as Stumbleupon, Digg, Reddit, LinkedIn, and more, offer specific categories that allow for companies to engage in a more unifying topic. For example, Activerain is a social media site directed towards realtors. While Facebook and Twitter are still necessary, Activerain allows realtors to interact and discuss subjects related to their industry. The majority of social media users may not be aware of Activerain, however, it is pertinent in the real-estate community.

In an age where print, radio and television are becoming passe´as marketing techniques, it is important to utilize as many internet marketing channels as possible. Although Twitter and Facebook have become social media staples to market companies, they are not enough to keep your company looking media savvy.

Tweet This Post

internet marketing / Social Media — Comments Off
11
Jan 11

Quality vs. Quantity – Boosting Your Social Media Ego?

“Consumers are statistics. Customers are people.”

A very firm, true statement that is especially true in social media today. Our numbers-driven culture places such a large emphasis on statistics and averages. We associate high numbers with better results in almost all aspects of life, but there is a large grey area in social media. Can we truly measure success based on the numbers provided in the social world today?

Now “fans” and “followers” on our favorite social networking sites are treated as sets of numbers – numbers that we give a great deal of importance. Are these social media numbers a good indication of what constitutes a successful page? We must remember that marketing is the process in creating awareness and communication, not necessarily selling a product or service. You want to create an image for the audience and promote that image. Social media sites have given us a whole new method of doing this: by interacting with people online and creating “word-of-mouth” marketing.

Of course, having 5,000 Facebook fans or 20,000 follwers on Twitter is a good indication of a successful marketing campaign and how much brand awareness you have created for your business, but is this just a number?

Some have gained their extensive number through diligence, hard work and various marketing efforts. But did you know that there are people that will SELL you followers or fans? Yes, companies that promise X amount of fans per week for a set dollar price exist, and include fbfansupply.com, freelancer.com, and buytwitterfollower.org. These e-marketing companies base their business around enhancing the “numbers” on your social media site, but are these numbers valuable?

When gaining our numbers, we want to make sure those we are following are actually interested and potentially become a customer, sale, or a referral. Numbers are useless if nobody is interested in your product or business. Connect with the right kind of people who will take the interest in your site, comment and interact, and promote your social media sites to actual friends. The best way to do this is through targeted outreach, use influences, and asking existing fans to help promote. Not only will this give them a sense of importance, but will benefit in the long-run. Look at these numbers as actual clients. They are valuable and no longer just a number. Our recommendation is to value quality over quantity. It may not be sexy, but it will be more effective in the long-term and add to the credibility of your brand.

Tweet This Post

internet marketing / Link Baiting / Social Media — 1 comment
05
Jan 11

Link Baiting: Buzz Word or Staple?

Link baiting; a fairly new concept in the Internet world that has caught on and exploded as a successful way to generate and maintain traffic to a website. Link bait, generally anything that is interesting or catchy enough to grab people’s attention, can be extremely effective and bring long-lasting results if done successfully. The goal is to drive traffic through back links to your website, thus increasing traffic. Simple enough, right?

Well some of us are still unclear of how, and if, this concept really works. It is based on the idea of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Internet marketing, including social media. We want to make sure the information we put out there and post for our audience is interesting enough for them to not only click on and read, but to make them visit again for future information. Ultimately, we want loyal “followers” in order to generate visits to your website or blog. People who find your information or “posts” intriguing will likely keep a watch on you in cyber space. You are not making a sale or trying to convince your audience to use your company or purchase your product. SEO and social media is the process of building a relationship and providing information that is useful so that when it is time to make that decision, you are first on a potential customer’s mind.

With link baiting, you are increasing the likelihood that those viewing your posts will visit your website. You want to create a flood of natural one-way links to your site as well as direct traffic.The key is finding highly creative, catchy, and out-of-the-box topics that grab attention and makes viewers want to share it, repost it, link it, etc…in order to create a chain reaction on the web.

We have a few suggestions on how to successfully “link bait” your audience:

Reporting breaking news in your industry is always a must. If you cant be the first with it, research further. There is always more to the story than most know. By emphasizing on detail and digging deeper, you could uncover something that others may have missed and become “the first” with your story.

People want to be educated and always strive to know more. Provide your audience with interesting facts or trivia knowledge in, or outside, your industry. Be a little “out there,” it is a sure bet to grab ones interest and maintain it. Providing a source of valuable information, including odd and random facts, will surely attract a loyal follower.

You must be careful with this one: choose a controversial subject. Nothing stimulates people more than a little disagreement or a topic that others are timid to touch on. Putting something out there that will cause a little stir is sure to be noticed. Be tasteful and unbiased, this allows for conversations to generate and the audience to get involved.

Interviewing and reporting on prominent people in your industry, even locally, is an attention grabber as well. Be the one to discover answers to the qeustions everyone is dying to ask.

Dont be afraid to use some humor. Link websites that have content that are amusing, bringing lightheartedness to topics within your indsutry. Everyone loves a good laugh, or even a smile, throughout the day. This will bring awareness to your sites and establish a “down to earth” sense to the relationship your are buliding through your posts.

These are just a few suggestions in order to succesfully link bait to drive the traffic, directly and indirectly, that will provide results. This “buzz word” is becoming a neccesity in order to use the internet to its full advantage for your business. Use all the resources that are available to you in order to excel in this Internet-driven market.

Tweet This Post

Social Media / Uncategorized — 5 comments
22
Dec 10

What can we expect in 2011?

The movement of social media in our society has exploded over the course of a few short years. If we really think about it, only six years ago Facebook was launched, which was the birth of a new social media phenomenon. Facebook is visited by over 400 million a month and is a means used as an effective marketing tool for businesses. Now there are thousands of social networking sites out there. You can find them based on different niches in order to best suite you or your business. For example, Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace are pretty open to all types of social networking. ActiveRain is popular for real estate agents, 43things is a site targeted to connecting those who have goals they want to accomplish, and there is Flickr that is used to share pictures. While the list can go on and on, most should research which sites are likely to benefit them or their company effectively.

With the New Year approaching, it’s exciting to think about what can be expected in 2011. I took some time and researched what we can expect from social networking in the upcoming year.
First, integrating social media on to specific websites is something companies are beginning to do, and something we will see much more of. The idea of social media marketing was very helpful to those with low budgets and looking for free, valuable marketing. Being “found” online has become essential and these tools have made that possible. Now that we are seeing budgets increase a bit more, some spending will be done to take social media to the next level-enhancing the functionality of these sites directly to the business website.

Email and social media will assimilate. Developing an email database has been a top priority for most businesses and has proven to be a strong strategy. However, as email open rates continue to decline, some marketers are left watching this powerful resource diminish, wondering how they can rejuvenate their audience. Social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter offer a better way to create a more regular and sustainable dialogue with consumers– the trick is to understand how to migrate consumers across from your email database to these platforms.

Also, social networking will be more readily available than ever before. With the smart phones, which have already been a hit, paired with IPods and Android tablets, people will be “reachable” via social networking and the internet. A little intimidating huh? As 2011 begins, the move towards virtualization, mobility, and internet applications at your fingertips at all times, you will have no excuse not to participate in the social media world.

Continue reading →

Tweet This Post

Uncategorized — Comments Off
09
Dec 10

Why Do People Always Want to Separate Social Media and SEO?

Search and Social Media Cameron Chapman recently wrote an article on instantShift.com explaining why we should focus more on social media and less on search engine optimization (SEO). SEO involves techniques that improve your website’s ranking in organic (i.e. unpaid) search listings for Google, Bing and other popular search engines. Chapman writes, “More often than not, people aren’t using search engines to discover new content online. Rather than using Google or Yahoo! to find information on a topic, users are asking their Facebook friends and groups about whatever information they need.” He further explains how people are using social bookmarking sites, blogs and Twitter to research and find new information.

Social media is undoubtedly important for any business looking for an online presence, but social media and SEO aren’t mutually exclusive. SEO encompasses all unpaid methods for improving a website’s visibility and pagerank in search engines. Social media creates back links for your website (a major part of link building and SEO), drives targeted traffic to your business/site, and is mostly free. So in a way, social media is another facet of SEO.

SEO techniques are often used to promote social media accounts. Say you decide to start a Facebook fan page or Twitter account for your business. How are you going to gain fans and followers? Facebook has over 500 million users. Twitter has 190 million users (via TechCrunch). How are new customers that have never heard of your business going to find you? You may be okay if you have enough contacts on social networks, but what if that’s still not enough? Keyword optimization (a huge part of SEO) can help your social account get found on search engines like Google, which became the largest source of online traffic last year. Greater search engine presence brings more people to your Facebook or Twitter page. Businesses should consider an SEO campaign before undertaking social media, so that your business has a recognizable brand that customers will seek out on social media.

Tweet This Post

Social Media / Social Media Optimization — 1 comment
19
Nov 10

Build Links—Build Traffic

As I mentioned in the blog earlier this week, Link-Building is one of the best tactics to gain search engine recognition via increased page rank. Link Building involves intensive work, but the results are unquestionably worth the effort. Picture link building as the coaching staff of your favorite sports team—they will not make the paper’s headlines, but are imperative for success.

What exactly is link building? From the beginning, links are clickable lines of text, that when clicked, escort the user from one website to another. For example, if you click the blue text (link) below, you will be ushered from our blog website to Hess Marketing’s brand new website…Try it! http://www.hessmarketing.com/.

In order to determine page rank, web crawlers (The Search Engine’s imaginary arm) make it a priority to review the links that each website has acquired. i.e. The web crawler will assess who has chosen to place a link to their website, on your page. For example, the web crawler will see Hess Marketing decided to place a link (back to their website) in my blog. You may ask, why does the web crawler asses who has placed links in your website and why is this important? Simple, if a company or website reveals a desire for their site to be recognized in conjunction with you, your site must be reputable. Thus, your website is deemed an excellent option to provide as a search result for their user.

There are two main types of links, one-way and reciprocal links. One-way links are much more powerful because as I mentioned earlier, they reveal a desire for other companies or sites to be recognized in conjunction with you. The second type of link is a reciprocal link (the name comes from the fact that websites can swap link placement on each other’s page). For example, let’s say we made an agreement with Hess Marketing to put links (to our own websites) on each other’s pages, this would be a reciprocal link. Unfortunately, these links are far less powerful because the web crawler recognizes the fact that a mutually beneficial exchange does not attest to the website’s quality, but more to the fact that both websites are trying to market themselves. So, don’t get carried away asking for links from millions of websites. It’s not a game of quantity, it’s a game of quality. Follow these seven steps to unleash your websites full Link Building potential.

a. One-way links (MOST POWERFUL) are accessible from article and directory submissions, social bookmarking, press release distribution, forums, and commenting on other blogs. Remember: A link pointing back to an .edu or .gov website is far more influential than 1000’s of links from free directory submission links.

b. Be sure to use deep links (these link to an internal webpage). For example, an article published on a website rather than the homepage.

c. Reciprocal links are exchanged by companies or websites for their mutual benefit (not as powerful as One-way links because of this exchange).

d. Add Links via embedded content. Ex. Widgets.

e. Viral content will attract links, if you have something interesting or can include a viral link, this will turn heads and links will follow.

f. Content, technology and API licensing- if you provide a service to a company, you can often receive links as part of your compensation.

g. Link reclamation- if you have a bad link, be sure to re-route it to a working link—no one appreciates being sent to a “page not found” screen.

Tweet This Post

Hess Marketing BlogThink It Up!

Why Your Business Should Have A Social Media Policy

Fast Equity Through Social Media

Why Do People Always Want to Separate Social Media and SEO?

Pages

Recent Posts

Blogroll

Archives

Hess Marketing Twitter