Heard on the Streets Part 1: How To Do Social Media Marketing
If you’re like us and made the near-cross country trek last week to join the citywide festivities at Internet Week New York, your head was still spinning into the weekend from the abundant content, impassioned speakers and spirited meet-ups that marked the 4th annual Manhattan pilgrimage for thousands of laptop-toting, mobile checking-in, tsotchke-collecting, iced coffee-swilling, sweltering heat suffering, blogging, Tweeting, Facebooking mavens of the digital realm.
While our schedule was jammed from jackhammer-on-10th Avenue sunrise through OMMA Social on Thursday (which we proudly sponsored) to rooftop-party sundown, we had time to take note of certain recurring themes that strike us as shareable. With a heavy nod toward social media promotions, and generous paraphrasing, here are 5 gems on doing social just right, as heard on the streets last week in New York.
(Note: So good was the word-on-the-street that we’ll break it up over two days…)
1
) “…Roll out the welcome mat…”
Not simply because new users are visiting your microsite, reading your Twitter feed or logging on to your Facebook page for the first time should you spend an inordinate amount of time on your landing page . It’s been the rule of the internet for almost two decades, and the same now applies to your social media presence. Carefully design and test any destination page to your sites or microsites. Nail the description on your Twitter home. And on Facebook, invest in great tabs. It may be the difference between a quick bounce and a return visitor, but more important, it’s as much a representation of your brand as your logo, your ad on TV, or your booth at the trade show. See an example in the home tab for Craftsman’s Finding American Treasures photo contest landing tab on Facebook. It’s visually striking, to the point, and an authentic homage to the timeless tool brand.
2) “…Define your audience…”
Know your audience…target your audience…understand your audience…cultivate your audience… You’ve heard it so much that it’s almost cliche. But it could never be more true. Social media is not mass media, despite the opportunity to reach a vast audience. Every component of a social channel can be geared to a carefully defined audience. The narrower the target, the more interactive their response will be. Great promotions- like great brands- don’t try to be all things to all people. This theme comes up repeatedly in a forum like OMMA Social- so much so that we can break it down further:
(part 1): Address an Affinity
Identify the affinities- professional interests, personal passions- that unite your audience and center your social media efforts on them. We are not all drummers even though we all may wish we could channel an inner John Bonham. But percussion & music publishing brands Mapex, Remo, Zildjian, Vic Firth and Alfred didn’t worry about targeting the whole universe when they launched the Drummer of Tomorrow user-generated video contest. They simply targeted the whole universe of drummers with a relevant call-to-action (and extremely relevant prizes). The reaction from the community has been a robust and heart-pounding flood of entries from drummers laying down their beats over the downloadable soundtracks.
(part 2): Multiple Channels for Multiple Audiences
Not all customers share the same perspective. Hopefully they all end up at the same cash register or check out page, but they arrive at your brand
with very different attitudes and motivations. Whichever audiences you are pursuing, interact with them uniquely. Case in point: not only is Mercury Marine’s Mercury Film Festival a well-integrated user-generated video contest microsite (with complimentary coverage on the brand’s homepage) and again, great prizes for entrants; the “celebration of all things marine” also offers a sweepstakes with additional prizes for the voters, the company’s partners and dealers, and even its employees. These other parties- not typically eligible for an open contest- are often the best advocates for spreading the word. Mercury Marine is giving all segments of the audience their due in this contest.
Tune in tomorrow for Part II of Heard on the Streets in New York: How To Do Social Media Marketing
Further reading: SmartBrief just published a follow-up Internet Week / Social Media recap written by Heidi Cohen of Riverside Marketing Strategies.
