With the current stampede to get on the social media marketing bandwagon, many companies find themselves surprised by the lack of customer engagement on their newly minted Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or YouTube sites. What happened? If you build it, they will come, right?

Wrong.

Many brands treat social media as one more channel to blast their one-way message at customers. This method worked in the days of TV because you essentially had a captive audience. Their program was interrupted, and they could either get up for some cheese doodles or sit tight and watch your commercial. Social media offers no such advantage. People come to your social media site if they want to, or they don’t come at all so a solid social media marketing strategy is critical to success.

Marketers inevitably develop a case of marketing myopia around their brand. If I get up every morning and go to Widget X Incorporated, then I tend to think about Widget X a lot. And every time there is the slightest bit of news around Widget X, I’m very interested. In most cases, your customers are not nearly so engaged with your product or category as you are.

So what are your customers looking for out of your social media marketing initiatives?  Fun, value, and relevance. A good social media strategy should address these categories.

Fun: Do you have games, videos, funny pictures, or other content that will make people want to come to your page and share what they find with their friends? A successful social media strategy attracts users by entertaining them.

Value: Do you offer coupons, freebies, hold sweepstakes and contests, and provide useful information? Social media thrives on the ‘give something to get something’ idea.

Relevance: Are your pages relevant to your target audience and their lives, and not only to you? Your social media strategy must ensure that your brand is relevant to what you’re offering or your prospects will purchase elsewhere.

AlterSeekers is a brand promotions agency in New York focusing on promotions consulting and planning, web strategy, social media and social media marketing (including Facebook strategy), go to market strategy, and overall strategic planning. For more information see www.alterseekers.com.

WOMMA, the Word Of Mouth Marketing Association, is the author of the Ethics Code of Conduct, known as the WOMMA Code. The Code helps to define best practices, unacceptable practices and baseline rules for word of mouth marketing to help companies define their social media marketing strategy and web strategy.

Why is this of concern to promotional marketers? Because the nature of online promotion strategy is changing: for instance, social media marketing has become the hottest channel in today’s marketing mix, the same way that blogging has become de rigueur as an effective method for brands to interact with consumers. However, a murky area exists when blogs start to promote brands and products. Since blogs have traditionally been viewed as “grassroots” and editorial, it creates a red flag when bloggers are seen as endorsing brands and products. Questions are raised: Is it now advertorial? Is the blogger being paid for his or her endorsement? Is it honest? And has the blogger been transparent about the effort?  In other words, has the blogger blatantly disclosed that he is promoting the brand or product? Companies need to be transparent when integrating blogs as part of their overall online promotion strategy.

In answer to questions like these, the WOMMA Code creates an environment of trust between consumers and marketers. It seeks to prevent unfair, deceptive or misleading marketing practices from occurring in a company’s web strategy.

Similarly, in the social media marketing space, take the example of a Facebook fan page for a brand. Consumers who are fans on Facebook can freely post rave reviews of a product, or openly post complaints; but does it cross the line when the brand itself posts rave reviews, posing as a consumer? The WOMMA Code would clearly point out, “Yes, that is a violation of ethics.” Social media is a resource that is “of the people.” It needs to remain a safe space where consumers feel free to share, and not a venue where companies can misrepresent themselves in the pursuit of the almighty bottom-line using this web strategy. When a brand DOES post on its fan page, it must do so in the most transparent way, with full disclosure.

You can read the entire WOMMA Code at http://womma.org/ethics/code/. Since the WOMMA Code directly affects marketer’s ability to virally share in today’s marketplace, marketers would do well to heed both of these resources in the planning of social media marketing and blogging initiatives.

AlterSeekers is a brand promotions agency in New York focusing on promotions consulting and planning, web strategy, social media marketing (including Facebook strategy), go to market strategy, and overall strategic planning. For more information see AlterSeekers.com.

On May 16, 2007, Google introduced the “Universal Search” system, its most significant algorithm change to date, that included listings from videos and video search engines to its search engine results pages.  The introduction of Universal Search offers a tremendous opportunity to extend your online presence by developing video content and exploring video marketing channels.  In the past, an online promotion would normally consist of a press release and web site announcement, but now with Universal Search it is possible to include video content for your online promotions as well.  So far this year, Google estimates that approximately 38% of keyword searches returned video results in addition to standard text results in its search engine listings.

A recent Forrester blog post mentioned that an optimized and indexed video has a 50 times greater chance of achieving a first page search engine ranking than an optimized text-only page.   Using VSEO (video search engine optimization) practices, you are far more likely to achieve first-page search engine rankings with video than with standard text-based SEO practices alone.

VSEO is an emerging technology so as Universal Search becomes more and more prevalent in the search engines, online promotion marketers are rushing to create more video content and optimize it to achieve search engine performance. Therefore, a solid VSEO strategy is critical to achieving consistent search engine success for your videos.  Below are a few pointers for getting started:

•    Create realistic video marketing goals.  Are you introducing a product? Promoting brand awareness?  Define what success looks like according to your VSEO strategy.
•    Make sure your messaging is clear and concise.  VSEO best practices suggest that the dialog in the video should contain 2-3 of your targeted keywords.
•    Be sure to optimize your video using standard VSEO practices, and embed it on a specific video landing web page that has been optimized using traditional SEO techniques.
•    In addition to hosting your own video, be sure to propagate your video to third party sites such as YouTube, HowCast, and MetaCafe.
•    Track and measure your progress against your VSEO goals. Did you achieve the number of views you had expected? Are your online promotions seeing traffic spikes around the times your release your video content?
•    Be flexible and adjust your VSEO strategy as necessary to move your goals forward.

AlterSeekers is a brand promotions agency in New York focusing on promotions consulting and planning, web strategy, social media marketing (including Facebook strategy), go to market strategy, and overall strategic planning. For more information see AlterSeekers.com.

Twitter is a great social media platform because of its simplicity. But with that simplicity comes the potential for marketers to set up a Twitter page and start tweeting with little regard for good social media strategy. Like other social media platforms, Twitter is about having a conversation and providing value. There is no captive audience for your Twitter posts, and if you’re just another spammer, your customers will stop following you.

How do you know if your social media marketing is serving up nothing but a heaping plate of spam? Two words: common sense.

It’s easy to forget common sense when you’re too caught up in your own brand and have been drinking the social media Kool-Aid. This results in brand tweets like this:

We just redecorated the 3rd floor kitchen at Brand X and it looks great!

Buy Brand X! It’s awesome!

Wow, fantastic. I so don’t care. Try getting in your customers’ heads. What do they want out of your brand and how should that translate to your social media marketing? They want value and they want relevant social media interaction. Here are some good examples from Reebok:

Congratulations to Rio for winning the 2016 Olympic bid – we’ll see you there!

Reminder: take $15 OFF your next of order of $75 or more @ Reebok.com (there are a couple exclusions). Code 15OFF. http://bit.ly/Wka4T

Congratulations to @Reebok athlete @Jones_Drew32 on being named the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Week!

Reebok is providing fun and informative sports tweets that are interesting to the Reebok target market, and valuable discounts on Reebok merchandise as part of their social media marketing. This combination creates value and makes following Reebok worthwhile. How this is best done will look and feel a bit different for each brand, but the key to social media is to create value for your customers.

Happy tweeting!

AlterSeekers is a brand promotions agency in New York focusing on promotions consulting and planning, web strategy, social media marketing (including Facebook strategy), go to market strategy, and overall strategic planning. For more information see AlterSeekers.com.

1. Be clear and transparent with your objectives.

What is the purpose of your product or service’s Facebook page? Do you have a clear and concise facebook strategy? While your ultimate goal may be to win business, your Facebook participation should be focused on activities that support sales instead of expecting your Facebook page to make direct sales. Effective social media marketing conveys clear, consistent messaging.

2. Do not attempt to maintain control over your content.

Instead, welcome Facebook user participation in the form of comments, pictures, videos, feedback and reviews. Water tends to seek its own level, and social media is a powerful equalizing force. Although you may encounter a few ‘trolls’ whose only intention is to convey your brand negatively, if you already have a positive force in the marketplace, your brand champions will quickly step in to defend you. People will inevitably take your information and remold it according to their needs, so encourage creativity whenever possible.

3. Dedicate enough staff to be able to listen effectively.

Interacting with your users and forging relationships within your online community takes a significant time investment. It is very important for your Facebook presence manager(s) to be able to articulate your social media marketing objectives and ensure that your facebook strategy evolves in synch with the growth of your online community.

4. You must give to receive.

A successful facebook strategy gives something of value before expecting to receive anything in return. Offer your community something they want because this encourages community interaction. Your users will keep coming back and will spread your message virally as they tell their friends. Also, the goal of your social media marketing should not be to bring users to your website. Keep your Facebook community on Facebook, because users do not like to leave while they are there.

5. Keep it real.

Facebook social media marketing is not an alternative channel for your traditional interrupt marketing programs. Your facebook users expect a social experience, not a platform for sales solicitations. Imagine being at a party where you are discussing your favorite books or sharing pictures of your children and someone interrupts your conversation with a sales pitch. Your facebook strategy should be to provide information that facilitates sales, not make direct sales.

6. Define how you will measure your ROI.

Whether your facebook strategy includes increased product awareness, cost reductions in support staff, better qualified leads, or a combination of all of the above, you must be able to set and measure your goals to determine the effectiveness of your social media marketing programs.

AlterSeekers is a brand promotions agency in New York focusing on promotions consulting and planning, web strategy, social media marketing (including Facebook strategy), go to market strategy, and overall strategic planning. For more information see AlterSeekers.com.