How to use social mediain your marketing mix

Nick Leech

Content of this talk

Why use social media in your marketing mix?

Pros & cons of using social media as a business.

4P’s of social media marketing& integrated social media.

Getting people to interact with you.

Turning followers into sales & monitoring performance.

Adding a social layer to your website.

Why should social media be part of your marketing mix?

2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 -

200,000,000

400,000,000

600,000,000

800,000,000

1,000,000,000

1,200,000,000

1,400,000,000

Registered users

Facebook Twitter Google+ Pinterest Instagram

Why should social media be part of your marketing mix?

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/29897/21-Captivating-Social-Media-Stats-How-People-Interact-With-Brands-INFOGRAPHIC.aspx

36% of UK consumers use social media to interact with brands

39% of Twitter users have tweeted about a brand

58% of Facebook users have liked a brand

42% of Facebook users have mentioned a brand in a status update

41% of Facebook users have shared video, a link or a story about a brand

Why should social media be part of your marketing mix?How do consumers prefer to get updates from their favorite brands?

What are the Pros & Cons?

One on one relationships with customers

Position yourself as an expert

Distribute offers & deals instantly

Increased sharing & word of mouth potential

Very little direct financial investment

ProsNot a “fire & forget” option

Requires time to be dedicated to it each day

Public airing of any issues (service & technical)

Can lose control of the conversation

Cons

Which social networks should you use?

What do you want to use social media for?Top roles for social within organisations

Social is abrand awareness

channel

Social is amarketing

campaign channel

Social is acontent marketing

channel

Social is aCustomer service

channel

Social is aLead generation

channel

Social is aretention channel

Social is asales channel

Source: econsultancy.com

What do you want to use social media for?

Building a community around my brand

A new customer support channel

Driving sales and referrals

Building closer relationships with customers

& brand advocates

The 4P’s of social media marketing

Integrated social media marketing

Social media action plan1. SMART goals that are aligned to Business drivers

1

2

3

4

Business drivers Goals

• New customers sales• Revenue• Leads• Retention• Customer support• Brand awareness• Build a community

Increase sales by x%Increase revenue by x%Increase sales enquiries by x%Reduce churn by x%Reduce support tickets by x% Increase brand searches in GoogleIncrease forum comments by X/day

What to follow Specific to your company

Industry trends

Keywords

Influencers

Competitors

Channels Purpose Priority

Blog Thought leadership, engagement, linking

Twitter Headlines, engage, sales, service

Facebook Social, community, sharing, discussion

LinkedIn Engagement, networking, recruiting, thought leadership

Goals Social media metric Tools

Increased ARPU Conversion tacking, customer feedback Google Analytics

Brand Awareness # of people reached FB / Twitter Analytics

Community Building # of interactions Social Dashboard

Customer support # of issues addressed Your CRM/ support system

2. Social newsWhat are the trends to

watchto & competitors to

follow?3. The channels to use

How will each channel help you

achieve your goals?

4. Measurement-What social metric

indicates success?

-What tools will you use?

-How will this fit in with your marketing goals?

Heart Internet’s positioning one sheetWhat we want:Our aim is to create a community based around the Heart Internet brand though a single, cohesive and integrated strategy across all channels.

We will provide a personality behind the business, positioning ourselves as web hosting experts, by actively engaging in conversations with our customers and prospective customers, as well as communicating new features, promotions and prizes.

What we don’t want:We must not use social media to open up new support channels nor seek out customers complaining about their current web host to sell our services.

All conversations should be positive and remain on topic and avoid getting in to tit for tat conversations. At no times must we use the mediums purely for a hard sell.

• Instigate discussion and conversations surrounding topics associated with our target audience.

• Share useful links/resources from 3rd party websites.

• Announce new blog posts, features, promotions and prizes.

• Run exclusive campaigns and promotions.

• Personalise Heart Internet with pictures, updates and personal contact.

• Increase engagement with the brand

• Integrate other media (e.g. YouTube, blog etc.)

• Offer exclusive promotions and resources

Twitter Facebook

What makes people want to follow a brand?(Percent of respondents)

Source: http://blog.getsatisfaction.com

Getting people to interact with you

Values

Simple• Retweet positive comments

• New product/ feature announcements

• Reply to all sales enquiries quickly

• Link to case studies & testimonials

• Ask for feedback on what new features & offers they want

Intermediate• Exclusive discount codes & short term offers

• Crowd source deals

• Contact people asking for hosting & domain name recommendations

• Offer an exclusive version of your hosting

Advanced

• Integrate with an affiliate program

• Register domains directly through Twitter (use Twitter & Heart Internet APIs)

• Integrate a shopping cart in to Facebook (e.g.www.payvment.com)

Some things are easy, others take more planning

Monitoring performance

5 categories of socialmedia measurement

Visits, views, followers, fans, subscribers, brand, mentions

Share of voice, sentiment, top influences report (Radian 6)

Clicks, retweets, shares, @replies, DMs,wall posts, comments

Content downloads, webinar attendees,lead generation forms, pitches/proposals

Online sales, phone sales, in-person salesTrack repeat

business and retentionSource: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com

Monitoring performance

Add a social layer to your website

Showcase positive tweets on your website

Is this real? Clearly a real person and tweet

Make it easy to

share

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Thank youNick Leech