Social Media Forum

Vocus, a developer of cloud-based marketing and PR software, has developed a toolbox to help brands win social media followers and keep them engaged. The work was completed in partnership with five experts on the topic: David Brody, brand sensei and conceptual catalyst (no, we didn’t make this up!) of North Social; Greg Jarboe, president and co-founder of SEO-PR; Neil Schaffer, president of Windmills Marketing; Adam Singer, social media practice director at LEWIS PR; and Scott Stratten, president of Un-Marketing. Here’s our pick of top tips from the Vocus white paper:

Develop a Distinct Personality (Brody)

Give people a true flavor of who you are and what you stand for, and a reason why they should trust you. If you’re considering using a lot of automation to push out updates, think again. You have a phenomenal opportunity to excite, educate and motivate prospective consumers about your product, service or cause. Be interesting using your own brand and content, and don’t be that [person] who sends those forwarded e-mails. I don’t forward joke e-mails unless they’re something I’d be excited to re-tell in person. Apply this same thinking to social media; it’s a messenger of your voice, not just a medium for delivering shortened links.

Manage Expectations (Stratten)

This applies to both the company side and customer side. Make sure people know what they’re going to get out of your Twitter and Facebook account, and when they sign up for your newsletter. If it’s going to be a deal a day, let them know. If it’s going to be an account that’s only monitored 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, let them know. Internally, don’t start promising “Old Spice” videos that get 35 million views. You can’t control word of mouth and you can’t control spread, so be careful how you manage what people expect.

Help People to Help You (Jarboe)

Don’t forget that YouTube is a video-sharing site. When people are done watching your video, they don’t just go home. They have several options. One is to e-mail friends about it. Or they can tweet about it, or share it on their Facebook page. They can imbed it into blog posts. These sharing mechanisms are part of what made the early viral videos successful and it’s still a key component of video success today. Find ways to encourage people to share your video. YouTube offers things like an auto-share feature that will automatically tweet about your video when you upload it. Use it. Reach out to bloggers and let them know you put up a new video they might be interested in embedding. Share!

Use Facebook as an RSS Feed (Singer)

The New York Times uses its Facebook page and an interactive RSS feed for more than one million fans. It’s a great low-touch approach, especially if you don’t want people spending too much time on your Facebook wall. What benefits The New York Times, for example, is when fans follow the links to NYtimes.com. RSS adoption peaked at around 11 percent of the Web. Facebook’s adoption is already higher than that, and it allows people to opt into your content easily.

Get a Branded Shortened URL (Schaffer)

If you look at the tweets I’ve been doing, mine is a wind.mn. It’s actually a domain in Mongolia [that] is also popular in the state of Minnesota. And it brands every tweet I send out. Compared to a bit.ly or an ow.ly or a tinyurl, it stands the chance of getting a little more brand recognition out there. It’s not rocket science to figure out how to buy a domain and send out tweets that have that link, and it doesn’t cost a lot of money to do. But to the average consumer, it looks like an amazing, extremely branded thing.

For a copy of the entire white paper and its 25 Top Tips for Social Media Success, visit www.Vocus.com/wp.


Oct.
2011
Posted in Digital Marketing
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