But once the foundation is in place, what if you want to move up the social media ladder a little quicker? There is a faster path that can be summarized in one word – a concept for those who like to push progress and get to the finish line sooner. It’s something you can begin planning for right away and implement very quickly. Understanding this one word takes regular marketing growth and kicks it into overdrive. When explained properly, you can suddenly see the possibilities for turbo-charging your social media growth and the profits this kind of recognition can fuel.

The word is partnership. This came to mind recently with the announcement by Ford Motor Company would be adding a special focus on social media in their sponsoring partnership with the National Hockey League team the Florida Panthers. Ford recognizes the exponential equation in the social media world and the Twitter, Facebook and WhoSay pages of the Panthers will now be “Powered by Ford.”

But you would be right to wonder if partnerships could work for less well known businesses. After all, it’s unlikely that Ford is about to knock on your door and ask for a partnership. And maybe the Florida Panthers aren’t quite ready to kick Ford to the curb and switch to a partnership with you.

Fortunately, the power of partnership extends well beyond this type of high-level deal. Here is a terrific strategy for propelling your business from ordinary social media participant to a position of marketing dominance.

The key is to find a partner who serves the same target market as you but is not a competitor. This strategy will take a small amount of research and thought. If you are an accountant, perhaps you can forge a partnership with a local bank that serves your target market. If you are a movie theater, you could form a relationship with a nearby restaurant.

There are two important points to keep in mind when establishing this type of relationship. One, you want to make sure that your partner business is one you are comfortable recommending. Obviously, you are tying at least part of your own reputation to the other business when you enter into a relationship. Two, the business you partner with should be able to provide some social media leverage. In other words, you want to scout out other businesses that are consistently active on social media, have a decent number of followers, and are open to a mutually beneficial relationship.

Once a relationship is established, determine some ground rules for cross-promoting each other. As always on social media, you are going to want to avoid blatantly and constantly selling. Even if it is for someone else, this is a no-no. However, it is okay to say nice things about each other, talk about a great promotion, and encourage them to become fans of the others’ business. Just don’t overdo it.

Do you see the potential with partnerships? It is about much more than just getting recommendations or nice comments. It really is about leveraging each other lists, followers, and fans for the benefit of all involved. Form just a few of these strategic partnerships and growth will not be linear, it will be exponential.

Keep in mind that you shouldn’t necessarily limit your partnerships to other businesses. Maybe you promote a non-profit that you support and get a thank you through their social media accounts. Nurtured properly, this could grow into a more formal partnership. Or maybe you belong to a smaller, exclusive networking group and you work together to formalize ways to promote each other using social media.

Start looking for ways to partner, take action, and keep your business growing. If you’ve established partnerships for your business share your experience and the things you’ve learned below. Thanks for your comments!

The post How You Can Climb the Social Media Ladder….Fast appeared first on Marketing Software - Tactical Marketing Labs.

If you’re not, your business is probably not developing as fast as it could be. In the long run, businesses that seriously invest time into “Big Picture” thinking reap incredible rewards in the not-so-distant future. This is why using all available credible information to understand your markets behavior is so valuable. In particular, cracking the code of your audiences’ social media activities is extremely valuable information.

Ideally, you are already tracking your specific social media interactions with your customers, clients, and prospects. But what about a macro-view – something that gives context to your efforts to connect online? Forrester Research, Inc. offers a tool that delivers a somewhat scarce commodity in the world of social media talk: hard data broken down into helpful categories.

To understand the data, you first need to understand the 7 categories Forrester uses to separate social media users based on their behavior. Here are the labels, brief examples of the behavior, and the percentage of each type:

1. Creators – Publish a blog or webpage, create & post a video, write articles or stories and post them (24%)
2. Conversationalists – Update status on social networking site and/or Twitter posts (33%)
3. Critics –Post ratings or reviews, comment on blog posts, interact on forums, contribute or edit to wiki (37%)
4. Collectors – Use RSS feeds, vote for websites online, tag photos or webpages (20%)
5. Joiners – Maintain a profile on social networking site, visit social media sites (59%)
6. Spectators – Read blogs & other online content, watch online videos, listen to podcasts (70%)
7. Inactives – None of the above (17%)

(You’ll note that the categories are not exclusive and therefore add up to greater than 100%. For example, if you are a “Creator,” you likely meet the criteria for all the others except “Inactive”).

It can be eye-opening to think about the percentages for just a moment. Only 17% don’t participate and at least 70% are reading, watching, and listening. A majority are actively participating in some way, even if it is to just maintain a profile. The “forest through the trees” perspective says that this level of participation is astounding when put in the context of how relatively short a time these tools have been available.

As you begin thinking through ways to use the specific data, it is very useful to get comfortable with the categories themselves. While taking someone who only fits the “Spectator” profile to the “Creator” level is likely unrealistic, it is possible to develop ideas to encourage users to jump up a level or two of engagement.  Some “Spectators” might be encouraged to become “Critics” if you end a blog post with a question and a request for comments.  Maybe a “Joiner” could be convinced to become a “Conversationalist” by offering an incentive to post to your company’s Facebook page.

Thinking in terms of levels of engagement will also help you avoid the mistake of assuming  all your efforts should be focused exclusively on those willing to most engage. More engagement is certainly good, but focusing on one category type alone could mean you are turning off significant percentages of your market.

It is recommended that you visit Forrester’s site to be able to break down the demographics and get more specific data. You can do that here. Forrester makes it simple to sort by gender or age cohort (or both). To get access to more specific data and the questions they used to collect the data, consider subscribing to Forrester.

One of the best uses of specific data is knowing where to “fish” online… and what kind of “bait” to use. If your particular market has a high percentage of “Conversationalists” but is low on “Creators,” this should influence how and where you put your social media efforts. It should also influence the methods of social media interaction you encourage.

Using the “Big Picture” data will dictate who you are (or should be) talking to; where you should be talking to them; and how you should be saying it. Businesses that master those areas earn the right to dream big and expect a handsome reward for their efforts.

How are you using social analytics to customize messaging and drive customer behavior?

The post Solving the Social Media Puzzle for Big Picture Profits appeared first on Marketing Software - Tactical Marketing Labs.

Let’s talk about the secrets to leveraging the New Facebook for WordPress Plugin.

1. How to set it up?

It’s really simple. All you need to do is

• log on to your WP website’s Admin Panel
• click on ‘Add New’ under ‘Plugins’
• Type ‘Facebook’ in the ‘Search’ box
• Select the first result that appears and click ‘Install Now’
• Once installation is complete, you will need to click on ‘Activate Plugin’
• The setup lets you create a Facebook application for your webpage
• You will need to insert the generated App ID and Secret into your Facebook plugin to configure it successfully. This is all much easier than it sounds. I installed the plugin and created the application myself in just a few minutes.

 2. How does it work?

Since you have the plugin configured now, let’s discover all that it can do for you.

• Now you can post blogs to your timeline on one page or even multiple pages if you have more. This will add the post and message to the Timeline of each Facebook Page mentioned. They will also appear in the contents of the post
• You can mention Facebook Friends. This will add the post and message to the Timeline of each friend mentioned. They will also appear in the contents of the post.
• Include a personal message with the post on your pages and a different one when mentioning friends.
• You can use Facebook functions like Like, Subscribe and Comment above or below your blog post and even enable a recommendations bar.
• Also, you will need to disable any other sharing plugins or services that you may have while you are using this one;  or else you might end up getting a messy webpage or double-posting your blog which would be extremely frustrating for your readers

3. How would you benefit?

There are a host of reasons this plugin is a must have, including:

• Allow your content to truly go viral by mentioning friends and getting your content in front of your biggest fans.
• With this plugin you can aim for a wider distribution for your website and drive up traffic and engagement.
• With the feature called the Recommendations Bar, user’s can recommend and like your sites content and add it to their Timeline as well.
• Activity Feed Box widget enables you to view your friends’ activity on your website

It is very easy to drag-and-drop your preferred social features to your website’s sidebars. Also, you can publish posts to a blog author’s Timeline by enabling ‘Publish to Author’s timeline’ and modify your app settings to configure publish action, via integration of Open Graph Protocol. With the New Facebook plugin you can incorporate Facebook into your website, as well as go international and access all these features on your mobile device. There’s no coding required for you to go profoundly public in a matter of few simple clicks.

Why wait? Give your customers the most engaging experience possible. If your business needs a freshening up, then the New Facebook for WordPress plugin is your best bet for your company blog. Give your customers & community a chance to interact with your business, easily share your content, and engage with them to strengthen your image and increase brand loyalty.

Are you using this new plugin or others? What do you like or dislike about them? Tell us what you’ve learned and the successes you’ve had while trying it out for yourself below.

If you’re tired of spending too much time with multiple tools and not reaching your potential, sign up for a 60 Day FREE Trial of CriticalMAAS. Manage your reputation, try text message marketing, setup a custom mobile store in a few minutes, leverage email marketing, spruce up your Facebook Page with our Apps, or easily setup a social rewards program for your brand ambassadors. It’s all available with our All-in-One Marketing Software, CriticalMAAS. Don’t wait, this offer is expiring soon.

The post Secrets to Leveraging the New Facebook for WordPress Plugin appeared first on Marketing Software - Tactical Marketing Labs.

Here are seven concrete actions you can take to protect and enhance your brand:

1. Analyze and Prioritize. This step is foundational and it is important not to skip or rush through it. First, make a list of all the places on the web and social media spheres that customers can interact and publicly comment about your business. Once you have a list, analyze it in the following ways:

Which sites or reviews are the most influential for your business or particular industry? Obviously, the answer for a hotel (reviews on booking sites) will be different from a solo-preneur (LinkedIn). The point is to put the list in order from most influential to least in a way that makes sense for your business.

Next, tally up negative versus positive comments and interactions on each. What patterns do you see? What can be exploited and what needs to be corrected?

Finally, define what would be the ideal comment or interaction on each site. Why do this? Once you determine what result would best help your organization, you can begin to channel things in that direction. While you cannot ultimately control comments, you can focus on delivering an experience that will make customers or clients rave about you in very specific ways.

2. Monitoring Mentions. If you haven’t already, set-up Google Alerts for a very basic look any relevant search terms. Besides the obvious (your business name), you should also monitor mentions of products, executives, and even competitors. There are also more in-depth services available that will track social media mentions, review sites, and provide more detailed data (I can think of one in particular). However you choose to monitor mentions, it is important to look at it as more than just data. These are real people interacting with your brand; they just happen to be doing it digitally.

3. Positive Amplification. The natural tendency is to think of reputation management from the defensive posture of protecting your brand from online negativity. There is an old sports expression that is appropriate here: “Sometimes the best defense is a good offense.” Translated to online reputation management, that means thinking of ways to spread positive interactions. One simple idea: take a screen shot of a great review on an independent site. Post this screen shot on your Facebook page and include an enthusiastic thanks for the great comments. This looks less like bragging and more like gratitude.

4. Handling Negativity with a Smile. It is not exactly original to say don’t overreact. But it also happens to be correct. You’re human, so hurtful reviews or negative comments about your business means you want to strike back. And the more unfair you perceive it to be, the harder you want to hit back. Instead, develop a protocol for dealing with negative comments and follow it. This will help you keep the emotion out of it.

One piece of advice that you hear often is to always respond quickly to negativity. That is only half-right. Yes, you should respond in a timely way. But sometimes a negative comment will need some time to be digested and investigated. So yes, acknowledge the negative comment right away but add that you are gathering information and will respond more fully soon. Whenever you do reply, always keep a tone of humility and straightforwardness. Avoid the extremes of groveling or sarcasm.

5. Control the Real Estate. As your business grows, carefully consider buying domain names that could hurt your brand. It is not unheard of for vengeful people to purchase things like [yourbusinessnamehere]sucks.com and other not very witty alterations. Yes, these people need better hobbies, but if your business is getting big enough to be a target, consider spending the very minimal money it takes to control these kind of domains.

Much more importantly, make your SEO efforts as strong as possible. If someone ‘googles’ your brand and the first two pages are all from your site or those friendly to your business, the power of negative comments is marginalized almost to the point of irrelevancy.

6. Google+ and Twitter. These two sites deserve special mention when it comes to managing your online reputation.

There is a truly wide range of opinion about the future of Google+. Well-respected voices, including Guy Kawasaki, believe it is building and will eventually reach its tipping point and become dominant. Others believe it came along too late and is too complicated and call it the next MySpace. For the purposes of reputation management, it doesn’t matter. Be on Google+. If it gets big, you are already there. If it never goes anywhere, it is still helping your SEO right now. And as was just pointed out, controlling your SEO as much as possible goes a long way to protecting your brand.

Twitter is especially important for reputation management. It is arguably the most transparent and easiest interaction tool in all of social media. Because you can share links, photos, and comments easily, and because re-tweeting is so simple, you should use it to the full for the ‘positive amplification’ mentioned above. Twitter is also a forum where customers expect rapid reaction to negative comments.

7. Give to Get. Do you help partner companies build their online reputation? If you have a supplier that goes the extra mile or a client that you particularly value, do you go online and find ways to tell others about it? Plain and simple, you should be doing this. It will not always lead to a reciprocal action, but often it will.

You can also “give to get” by training your staff to ask for good reviews after delivering excellent service. This has to be handled with care. It is a big mistake to give the impression you trade great service for reviews. Instead, develop a handout that allows employees to direct positive customers to a website to leave a review. As the employee gives them the handout, they can say, “We love getting feedback from our customers. If you have time to visit the site listed on this handout and leave us comments, we are appreciative.”

Pulling (and Keeping) It Together

Since the web has infinite nooks and crannies, managing your online image can seem bewildering. Using the structure of these 7 steps will keep you focused on what really matters for growing and maintaining your online reputation.

If you’re tired of paying too much for Reputation Management services sign up for a 60 Day FREE Trial of CriticalMAAS. Manage your reputation, try text message marketing, setup a custom mobile store in less than 15 min, leverage email marketing, spruce up your Facebook Page with our Apps, or easily setup a social rewards program for your brand ambassadors. It’s all available with our All-in-One Marketing Software, CriticalMAAS. Don’t wait, this offer is expiring soon.

The post Seven Reputation Management Ninja Moves to Protect Your Ass appeared first on Marketing Software - Tactical Marketing Labs.

The study provides insight into the thought process of executives regarding social media and it’s value (perceived, realized, or imaginary) in business. Two things seemed especially interesting to me. One, the fact that so few companies are using social media to learn about their customers shows that social media education & training is still under utilized and needed more than ever. Two, fear seems to continue to paralyze executives and businesses based on their assumption (you know what happens when you assume) that employees will say something stupid. The solution is simple, hire the right people, treat them fairly, and give them proper training on how to effectively use social media. Doing the right thing could lead to your employees, their friends and family, and their friends and family (you get the picture) being your greatest brand advocates (ask Zappos if that’s valuable).

Enjoy the article:

A new poll of 400 Canadian business leaders by Queen’s School of Business reveals decidedly mixed feelings about social media. While four in ten (39 per cent) bosses say social media is something they need to use—whether they want to or not —close to an equal number (35 per cent) say they use it heavily because it’s a good opportunity for the business, with the remaining 24 per cent saying it doesn’t add any value. Despite these divisions, a strong majority of executives (72 per cent) are planning to invest the same or more on social media versus last year.

The survey also reveals that many executives worry about how the use of social media by their employees might affect the company’s reputation. For example, the vast majority of executives (91 per cent) agree that employees should be mindful that even when using social media on their own time they are still representing the company.

“What happens on Twitter doesn’t just stay on Twitter,” said Kate Rowbotham, Professor of Human Resource Management, Queen’s School of Business. “People may feel that their participation in social media is personal but the boss doesn’t necessarily agree that your opinions are just your own. We have seen a number of examples of overexposure on social channels by individuals that has had a negative impact on the overall organization.”

The mic is always on

• Close to nine out of ten business leaders (88 per cent) say that participation in social media after hours can potentially have an “extremely positive or negative” impact on the company’s brand.
• One third (34 per cent) disagree with the notion that what their employees do on their own time is their own business.
• Two in ten bosses (22 per cent) feel social media use by employees outside 9-5 should be monitored.
• Over two thirds of executives (68 per cent) report that their organization has policies on the use of social media at work, while two in ten (18 per cent) forbid social media usage at work.

It’s not what your company can do on social media – but what social media can do for your company

Increasing brand awareness is perceived by executives as the top benefit of using social media, mentioned by four in ten (39 per cent) of respondents. Rounding out the top five responses on the number one benefit were: recruiting talent, gaining a deeper understanding of their customers, getting new business/ growth and networking.

“Too many organizations are using social media to amass shallow acquaintances, when the goal should be to develop fewer, more meaningful friendships,” said Neil Bearse, who leads seminars on social media for Queen’s School of Business. “The fact that so few executives say their companies are using social media to get to know their customers suggests that those who do may be enjoying a significant competitive advantage.”

Other thoughts from the corner office

• So much for employee engagement: Only a tiny minority of execs cited retaining top talent (four per cent) or communicating with employees (three per cent) as the top benefit of using social channels.
• Execs are practicing what they preach: Eight in ten execs polled (82 per cent) are personally using social media, with LinkedIn as the clear front runner among the channels.
• Time to update the resume: When considering a new employee, one third of execs view social media experience at least as important as speaking a second language or having international work experience, and one quarter view social media experience as just as important as years of overall experience or industry experience.
• What Boomers can learn from Gen Y: 51 per cent of execs “strongly agree” and a further 28 per cent “agree” that social media is making it harder for older employees to compete in the workforce
• Investing in social media makes cents: Seven in ten execs (72 per cent) report a greater or equal investment in social media efforts this year compared to 2011.

Download a PDF of the findings here.

The post Execs Divided on Value of Social Media, but Keep Spending appeared first on Marketing Software - Tactical Marketing Labs.

The answer to these questions circles back to your vision of your company’s marketing. Do you have a discrete, tactical answer for every different marketing channel OR is there an overarching strategy that guides all your marketing actions? Quite frankly, there are some businesses that use multichannel marketing as an excuse for fragmented and sloppy marketing execution.

image by KROMKRATHOG / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The first key to a good multichannel strategy is to get your organization to think differently: make “insight over information” one of your slogans.

Here is one practical way to get them thinking in that direction. Ask your important staff (which hopefully is all of them!) to look for patterns in customer feedback across all channels.

To help the process, create a simple log sheet to help uncover key patterns. Each log should contain columns to note the channel used for the interaction; type of customer interaction; resolution (a simple positive or negative will do in most cases); and a space for comments. You can also add any other columns that are specifically relevant for your business or particular media format. Using this log helps re-train your organization’s brain power the right way: instead of seeing each customer interaction as a discrete event, your staff begins to look for patterns that can be used to improve customer experience. By tracking channels, you’ll also see other trends emerge that will help you drill down and focus your efforts.

(By the way, recognizing patterns is also helpful in a negative sense: you won’t overreact to isolated incidents that are not really relevant to your overall strategy and execution).

Okay, so insight is great, but what do you do with it? In some cases, creating scripts, or at least guidelines, for particular kinds of customer interactions will be possible. You can also look for ways to broaden messages that were successful on one channel and test it on another. For example, you should be tracking Twitter activity by type of message. So if posting a link to a certain kind of article has consistently led to an uptick in response, you need to be using similar articles in your email newsletter. Another example: if your Pinterest account has a visual that has led to a loads of traffic, that is a graphic that you need to consider using across all your channels on a somewhat regular basis.

So looking for insight and patterns will give you strategies, scripts, and guidelines to transfer successes across channels. But an inevitable question arises when you start talking about using similar, or even identical, content across multiple channels. At what point does this go from being a “smart, stay-on-message” process to a “stale, you’re-being-a-pest” approach?

It can be argued that there is a fine line here, but that is probably a little overblown. If you are going to lean one way, go towards staying on message. Your customers and prospects will tell you by their actions and responses if you are getting stale and as long as you are tracking and measuring, you won’t go too far off course. (Remember also to take off the sales hat regularly, and give them free, valuable content. Valuable content providers are never in danger of being seen as pests).

Setting Specific Goals and Themes

Once you’ve discovered patterns and then made a commitment to stay on message, the final step is to put it altogether in a framework. What follows is a guide to help you get started.

-Have a quarterly marketing theme or offer: Using the data collected, select one basic marketing message that your entire organization can rally around and push forward whenever they see an opportunity. Commit to a certain number of messages in every channel revolving around your theme or offer.

Some examples:

• Twitter – if you send 4 tweets a day, make sure at least one is dedicated to the theme
• YouTube – commit to making at least one video that revolves around the theme
• Email – make your feature articles in your email newsletters cover that subject
• PPC – consider a short, track-able campaign highlighting the theme or offer
• Blog – creatively amplify the message and committing to a certain number of posts on your topic

One word of caution: there is a difference between being consistent and being a “one-note” bore. This is where a commitment to doing a certain percentage of messages in each channel that matches your current marketing theme comes in to play. The variation will actually serve to highlight your message, while the commitment will keep you on track and executing properly.

-Write the scripts: Give your staff (and yourself) the tools they need to be successful. This means providing guidance on interacting with customers and prospects in each particular channel. This can be as simple as providing those who tweet on the company account examples of what works and general themes you want pushed. Or it can be as detailed as a phone or email script for dealing with a particular kind of customer interaction. Consider also creating a blog style guide that includes a list of acceptable topics for posts.

-Friendly Competition: One of the most underutilized assets of most businesses is the creative power of the staff. Many organizations have hardworking and productive people, but these employees are never asked to go beyond their normal tasks and be part of the fun of generating creative marketing ideas. Here are a few ideas for changing that culture by using a little competition:

• For Facebook and/or Pinterest, have a contest to see who can come up with the visual that will garner the most clicks, comments, and Likes.
• For Twitter and/or Google+, give a prize out for who comes up with the best idea for increasing followers or circles.
• If you have front-line staff that has interaction with customers, have a contest among them for that can get the most email or SMS subscribers.

Once you start looking for ways to create fun incentives, you start seeing them everywhere.

Summary: Avoiding Multichannel Chaos

To keep on track with your message and marketing execution, remember to:

1. Analyze and track customer interaction
2. Create your strategy for all your channels around this analysis
3. Commit to a certain number of messages per channel and find creative ways to deliver

CriticalMaaS is coming! Click here to sign-up to be notified upon our public beta launch this Spring. Our Professional Membership starts at only $29 /mo and gets you access to our All-in-One Digital Marketing Software complete with Facebook Apps, Email Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Reputation Monitoring, and more coming soon. Early adopters will receive a 60 Day Free Trial. You can’t afford to wait, your competition may have already signed up!

The post Multichannel Marketing is Not an Excuse for Fragmented and Sloppy Execution appeared first on Marketing Software - Tactical Marketing Labs.

Image by jannoon028 http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2337

Perhaps it’s to be expected that as the tidal wave of social media has hit the shores of the business and marketing world, there have been and continue to be a lot of mistakes in execution. And this is, at least partly, a good thing. Even experienced, technologically savvy business owners and marketers need the freedom to explore new trends and learn from failures.

But there is a right way and wrong way to thinking about social media efforts. The right way succeeds more than it fails, but even more importantly, it is designed to learn from failures. The successful approach can be summed up as the “two-step mindset.” If you are not training yourself in this technique, you can know all the latest social media trends and your marketing efforts will still be seriously under performing.

Let’s take a slightly roundabout way to getting at this concept. Then we’ll take a look at some practical steps you can take to implement this mindset into your business.

First, let’s look at what could be called the “no-step” approach to social media marketing. This means you understand and are good at social media engagement, but you have no overarching strategy for how it is going to lead to more business. The big, successful players in social media are constantly asking themselves what is their purpose for each social media tool they use. In other words, what action do they ultimately want their followers and customers to take?

However, this can lead to the other mistake, what might be called the “one-step” approach. This is taking the old advertising methods and using the new channels of social media to bombard customers with ‘buy now’ messages. In other words, asking your customers to take the ultimate action in one step, before a groundwork of trust and engagement has been established.

The solution is the ‘two-step’ mindset. Step one should be always thought of as engagement and building trust. Engagement is great, but it needs to be thought of as the first step on the journey to another destination. Savvy marketers know that step one is virtually worthless unless you have a strategy for converting that engagement.

Step two is that action you want them to take. This action can vary according to your marketing needs. Many times it is getting the sale. (And, contrary to what you sometimes hear, it is okay to ask for the sale through social media channels). But it can also be getting your content shared, increasing followers or ‘Likes’, etc.

The overarching point is to have specific, well-defined goals for each step and know why you are taking each action. This way, if you fall short of your objectives, that is just data to help you improve, not a random failure from which you learn nothing.

Perhaps you’re nodding your head and agreeing with the two-step mindset, agreeing in principle with the idea. However, you need concrete ideas and real-life examples of how to execute it in your own social media efforts. Here are three practical actions:

1. Pinterest. This is one of the hottest trends in social media and is truly generating some serious traffic and exposure for many businesses. Recent statistics show that its users are among the most engaged on the web: the average user is spending almost 100 minutes per month on the site. If you are not on Pinterest yet, go to their website and request an invitation. (yes, technically you have to be ‘invited’ to join, but they don’t seem to turn anyone down). Once you explore Pinterest and understand the basics, consider holding a contest for your followers.

To put it in terms of the two-step approach, the contest is the first step. Ask your followers to ‘pin’ some visual content using or interacting with your brand in a fresh, exciting way or demonstrating what they love about your product or service. They can enter the contest by creating a pinboard under their own account and then linking it to your pinboard. Give out prizes for the top three and announce the winners across all your social media platforms. That step is where many ordinary marketers would leave it.

But, now imagine taking a second step by sending out all entrants a thank you deal especially for them. You would be taking the engagement and positive feelings and translating it into a nice offer for your loyal brand champions while also increasing your sales.

2. Mobile Stores and Social Media Sharing. If you have a mobile store featuring your product or services, you can think in broader terms than simply immediate sales. (And if you don’t have a mobile store yet, you should probably have that on the ‘to-do’ list).

In this case, step one is a sale AND a social media opportunity. When someone makes a purchase via your mobile store, in their confirmation email send them a message something like this: “Share the purchase you just made with your social media friends and we’ll send you a coupon code for XX% off your next purchase through our mobile store.” Or you could offer them a small free gift as they are checking out if they share it right then.

Any number of ideas could be effective. The point is to see every interaction as a potential step on the path to more sales and profits.

3. SMS Messages. Many businesses that build SMS message lists get tunnel vision and only think about sending out offers or announcements directly related to their own product or service. A good approach is to supplement those type of messages with others. For instance, send out links to high-quality content that your SMS followers would likely appreciate knowing.

How does this fall into the two-step concept? If all your subscribers ever get from you is offer after offer, self-promotion after self-promotion, some of them are going to get turned off and tune out. When you send out a variety of messages, being sure to sometimes send out valuable information to your list for free, it creates the trust and engagement that allow your promotional messages to be heard and trusted.

Those are just three, relatively simple ideas. Once you begin to grasp the power of the two-step mindset, you begin to see the terrific potential of social media and it begins to perform up to and even exceed your expectations.

CriticalMaaS is coming! Click here to sign-up to be notified upon our public beta launch this Spring. Our Professional Membership starts at only $29 /mo and gets you access to our All-in-One Digital Marketing Software complete with Facebook Apps, Email Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Reputation Monitoring, and more coming soon. Early adopters will receive a 60 Day Free Trial. You can’t afford to wait, your competition may have already signed up!

The post Your Social Media Efforts Are Seriously Under Performing If You’re Not Using This Technique appeared first on Marketing Software - Tactical Marketing Labs.

The following are four of the most important digital channels in a good multichannel marketing campaign. Listed with each is information on why each is important, and what it can do for your business.

Multichannel Marketing through Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

Pay per click advertising is one of the most flexible marketing & advertising channels around. It’s a highly effective way to direct traffic to your site for the purposes of lead generation, email list building, and direct sales.

PPC Advertising is an essential part of multi channel marketing. Image by Idea go.

It’s also a really good way to spend a lot of money without having anything to show for it, if you’re not careful! Integrating PPC advertising into your multichannel marketing efforts requires a combination of good ad-writing skills (these can be learned) and good cross channel integrated analytics.

Multichannel Marketing through Mobile Devices

With more users accessing the Web via tablets, smart phones, and other mobile devices every year, mobile marketing in practically inescapable these days. It’s practically essential that you include mobile in your multi channel marketing efforts.

Efforts here include SMS text messages that alert your prospects to your latest product or development, often with a link to your mobile-optimized website. Mobile applications for Android and Apple’s various pods, pads, and phones make a big showing here as well.

Mobile devices exist in a twilight zone of digital marketing. While they do represent their own marketing channel, they also represent a different way to access other channels and media, such as email, social media marketing, pay-per-click, and Internet marketing/Web channels in general, so mobile marketing is a type of multichannel marketing in and of itself.

Multi Channel Marketing through Email Campaigns

Email marketing is another area where cross channel marketing integration efforts are important.

At its best, email marketing offers an extremely high ROI when coupled with a targeted subscriber list.

Generally, you’ll be using PPC, social media, and Web channels to bring those subscribers to your email marketing list. A huge part of multichannel marketing through email is integrating and tracking marketing efforts across channels so that you can find what kinds of efforts bring you the most valuable subscribers from which marketing channels.

Email is another essential part of multi channel marketing. Image by Master isolated images.

Accurate cross channel analytics can help you figure out when it costs you $5 to get a subscriber from Facebook and $25 to get one from PPC ads! In-depth integration and list segmentation can help you figure out, for example, that each PPC subscriber might spend $100 with you over the course of three months, while each Facebook subscriber only spends $20.

Multi Channel Marketing through Social Media

While technically part of the Web, social media has become such a big deal that it would be irresponsible not to give it its own listing. Even though it operates in the medium of the Web (except for when it operates via mobile apps…which it frequently does!), social media represents a marketing channel unto itself.

It’s also here to stay for the foreseeable future. Any responsible multichannel marketing strategy will include social media marketing. A good strategy will also include integrated analytics so that smart operators can see how much of their traffic comes from social media, what that social traffic costs, and what it is worth in the long run.

CriticalMaaS is coming! Click here to sign-up to be notified upon our public beta launch this Spring. Our Professional Membership starts at only $29 /mo and gets you access to our All-in-One Digital Marketing Software complete with Facebook Apps, Email Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Reputation Monitoring, and more coming soon. Early adopters will receive a 60 Day Free Trial. You can’t afford to wait, your competition may have already signed up!

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Here are three of the most common email marketing mistakes, along with explanations of how exactly they hurt you, and what you can do to correct them.

Online Email Marketing Mistake No. 1: Not Split Testing (Enough)

The great thing about online email marketing (and for that matter, mobile email marketing) is that you can easily test one version of a subject line or call-to-action against another, and know within just a few hours which version is best (and should be used in the future).

The only down side is that most of us just don’t do it enough!

With online email marketing, there is literally no reason not to split test! It’s not going to cost you any extra money. And if whoever writes your email sales copy is doing the job right, there should be at least one decent subject line left over after the final piece is ready. So go ahead and split test; you’ll love how it helps out your future email marketing efforts.

Email marketing is absolutely essential for today's businesses. Image by renjith krishnan.

Online Email Marketing Mistake No. 2: Not Integrating with Other Channels

There’s no easy way to say this: Your Internet marketing efforts are leaving money on the table, unless you’re doing your best to integrate all your different online channels with one another. This is a statement that applies to every kind of online marketing you’re doing!

An entire multi channel marketing campaign is outside the scope of this article, but here are just a few ways you can integrate your online email marketing with other aspects of your Internet marketing efforts:

• Put your sign-up form – or at least a link to one – on your business’ Facebook page.
• Use auto-fill to make it easier for Facebook users to sign up for your list. On average, at least half of the people who visit your opt-in page will also be logged in to the world’s largest social media site. (Hint: your opt-in form doesn’t have to be on FB in order to use this auto-fill functionality).
• Put an email opt-in form on the sidebar of your blog at the very top.
• Put an opt-in form – or link to it – on every promotional PDF you give away, post to ScribD, etc.

Online Email Marketing Mistake No. 3: Not Using Integrated Tracking

Failure to use integrated tracking can bite you almost as hard as not integrating your marketing channels with one another. That’s because, even once you’ve integrated your multi channel marketing efforts, you won’t get the full picture if you have to track them 10 different ways.

For that matter, you won’t really get the full picture of how your Internet marketing efforts help (or hurt) you unless you can use a single integrated tracking solution. It’s just too difficult to see how everything fits together when you have to log in to several different accounts that use several different displays and metrics.

A single, multichannel marketing software, however, can finally help you understand where your online email marketing fits into the whole of your online and mobile marketing efforts.

Email Marketing Made Simple

The best way to make email marketing work for you is to integrate it seamlessly with the rest of your marketing. The right software will allow you to carefully track your multi channel marketing campaign so that you can make the best decisions and get a great return on investment from your email marketing efforts.

CriticalMaaS is coming! Click here to sign-up to be notified upon our public beta launch this Spring. Our Professional Membership starts at only $29 /mo and gets you access to our All-in-One Digital Marketing Software complete with Facebook Apps, Email Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Reputation Monitoring, and more coming soon. Early adopters will receive a 60 Day Free Trial. You can’t afford to wait, your competition may have already signed up!

The post Email Marketing: Top Three Mistakes Marketers Make appeared first on Marketing Software - Tactical Marketing Labs.

That’s partly because several different marketing channels exist within a limited amount of media: the Web, email, SMS, and that hazy twilight area of mobile apps. It’s also because many of these marketing channels exist across multiple media simultaneously, which obviously makes integrating and tracking cross channel marketing efforts more complex than ever.

Cross Channel Marketing Problems: A Few Examples

For example, your Facebook and other social media marketing efforts must take into account that prospects could be accessing your stream from a desktop computer’s Web browser, a smart phone’s mobile app, or a tablet that may utilize either or both of these methods.

Another example of this cross channel marketing phenomenon is that while users will see Google pay per click ads regardless of whether they’re using a desktop or a smart phone, you will need to optimize across this channel for two different media.

With so many different moving parts, cross channel marketing can get confusing pretty quickly.

Cross Channel Marketing Must Let You See Which Channels Work Together Best

It could be that Facebook brings in the most responsive subscribers to your email marketing list, while your blog brings in subscribers that are mostly seeking freebies. Or, you may find that pay-per-click advertising delivers a high amount of Web traffic that requests further information, while SMS marketing and remarketing on focused lists brings in prospects who are ravenously ready to buy ASAP!

You can see how complicated this can get. In fact, you’ve probably experienced it yourself when dealing with cross channel marketing. No one can blame you for throwing your hands up in the air after even a little bit of time trying to figure out what it all means.

Cross channel marketing helps you reach your target audience more effectively. Image by kscreationzs.

Good cross channel marketing, by definition, requires that you integrate analytics for a single business across multiple channels, platforms, and media. It’s important to be able to assess your effectiveness on all fronts of your marketing campaign. This is the kind of marketing intelligence that can literally make or break all of your digital marketing efforts.

What Else You can Learn from Integrated Tracking of Cross Channel Marketing

One of the great things about being able to easily take in your entire marketing picture is that you may find a vein of pure gold in the rock of your marketing efforts. Perhaps you have several different profitable channels but most of them give you an average 5:4 ROI that, while nicely profitable, don’t even compare to the one channel you have found (email marketing, for example) that brings back 5:1!

Focusing On One and All Through Cross Channel Marketing

In today’s ever changing world, it can be disastrous to put all of your eggs in one marketing basket. Still, you’d be crazy not to focus most of your time, effort, and money on the most highly profitable channel for your business.

Yet you should always keep an eye on other channels and other media through cross channel marketing. This is true because of their future potential, as well as for the potential traffic they can send to your “gold vein.” Typically, the best way to do this is by using a single Internet marketing software that tracks multiple channels over a variety of digital media.

CriticalMAAS is coming! Click here to sign-up to be notified upon our public beta launch this Spring. Our Professional Membership starts at only $29 /mo and gets you access to our All-in-One Digital Marketing Software complete with Facebook Apps, Email Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Reputation Monitoring, and more coming soon. Early adopters will receive a 60 Day Free Trial. You can’t afford to wait, your competition may have already signed up!

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