Posted by Patrick Murphy on Wed, Sep 08, 2010
Social Media is not rocket science, but it does take time and advice. Bit for those that are looking for a short cut here are some social media tips to take and put in your back pocket.
Social Media Tip 1: Share your content. Any social media strategy or starting point should be to share your valuable content. The principle is rather than re-inveting the wheel again and again you should look to promote your current articles, videos or anything else that you currently produce, instead of creating new content that is specifically written for social media.
Social Media Tip 2: Look to add something. Companies and brands look at social media as a way to simply promote their content either through Facebook, Twitter or other social media mediums. Yes, it’s a great way to promote new content and what is going on but it can be more than just pushing out content. Maybe a good idea would be ask your social media strategy what value are you adding to social media and the people that are following you.
Social Media Tip 3: Make Friends. It is true that traditional media is changing and continues to push further and seek to improve audience engagement by asking and answering questions. It is human nature to answer questions when asked, so try to start asking questions with each of your posts and see what type of feedback you get.
Social Media Tip 4: You are not an island. Social Media works better if you do promote yourself and your brand. Just like all other business initiatives, social media campaigns or strategies need to be pushed and promoted. Social is and never will be an instant route to brand recognition; social media just doesn’t work that way. As a business you have to put time, effort and investment into building your audience. Look to what you sue already to see how they can be used such as mobile, e-mail and other forms of social media marketing option saved for traditional advertising.
Social Media Tip 5: Measure and measure again. No matter where you are in implementing a social media strategy or starting out, tracking should always be your priority. Without measurement and analytics, you cannot make informed decisions. With the right information you’ll be able to decide what type of content works best on certain social platforms.
So there you have some tips to take and start your own social media strategy.
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Mon, Aug 02, 2010
Michelle Obama picked Villa Padierna in Marbella for her holidays. Villa Padierna has spent the last few weeks preparing for her visit and with rumours that the President Barak Obama will be coming to join his wife during her stay, nothing can be left to chance. Villa Padierna has gone through everything in preparing from resurfacing roads, purchasing new flags and staffing training. How do learn from Villa Padierna and prepare for social media?
Social media is very similar to the hotel Villa Padierna; it is a platform that helps facilitate conversations and social interaction between people. Once you have a sense of what people want to talk about on social media, then your first preparation should be to identify the appropriate people inside your organization to participate.
Michelle Obama picked Villa Padierna because it specialised in what she requires for a relaxing holiday. Similarly people want to have conversations with other people who are experts in their market. For example if you want to focus on marketing, then look to your marketing team to engage in social media. The same goes if you want participate in product development, engineering or package design. Follow Villa Padierna’s example who is picking it best staff to engage Michelle Obama, you should prepare for social media by selecting who are they best people to engage on behave of your company.
Villa Padierna has gone through various security protocols in preparation do the same and make sure that your company also has a social media policy in place that offers guidelines to your staff on the appropriate way to engage in online conversations
Lastly Villa Padierna has a very defined strategy on who would be best to attract to their hotel. Social Media is no different. Social media comprises of many different platforms. Avoid trying to participate in all of them, begin with one or two that seem to make the most sense. Having an engagement strategy will help to determine how much time employees, what will be the focus areas and how to measure success.
By preparing for social media may not get Michelle Obama to drop by but it is a step in the right direction. If you are unsure on how you should prepare for social media then check out SiliconCloud’s social media workshop.
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Fri, Jul 30, 2010
Los Flamingos is somewhere I like to go for a break away from Dublin and it appears that Michelle Obama, The First Lady, also likes the idea of coming here for a break from the White House and Washington. Los Flamingos is built around a Ritz Carton hotel so there is no need for her to camp on my sofa. She will be staying at the Ritz Carlton, Villa Padierna classed as one of the premier luxury hotels in Marbella. Surrounded by the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean, this five star hotel in Marbella will offer Michelle Obama a relaxing retreat where luxurious accommodations, championship golf and a lavish spa give way to awe-inspiring views of the Costa del Sol.
So what has Michelle Obama coming to Los Flamingos got to do with Inbound Marketing? Inbound Marketing is about people finding you either through Google, Social Media or Blogs which depends on you having interesting content. Next week when Michelle Obama is visiting the worlds press will be all focused on Los Flamingos. This will give Los Flamingos a chance to shine and sell itself to the rest of the world. This is not down to adverting but just simply what Los Flamingos has to offer to her and the average tourist which is what Inbound Marketing is. Inbound Marketing is about creating remarkable content and reasons for people to find you.
How do you get the equivalent of Michelle Obama visiting your website? Here are some Inbound Marketing tips for bringing traffic to your website.
1st Inbound Marketing Tip: High quality unique content
2nd Inbound Marketing Tip: Update content regularly
3rd Inbound Marketing Tip: Keyword Research
4th Inbound Marketing Tip: Good SEO
5th Inbound Marketing Tip: Great Page Titles
6th Inbound Marketing Tip: Inviting other people to contribute content. This really is the same as Michelle Obama coming to Los Flamingos. By people contributing is a public vote of confidence of your website, company and brand with the added advantage of generating traffic to your website.
If you are looking for some ideas on how to attract people to your website or how to develop a social media strategy check out the SiliconCloud workshop.
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Mon, Jul 26, 2010
Inbound Marketing and Social Marketing is always changing, there is always something new happening or a brand trying to push the limit further. Recently that task has fallen to Old Spice. In case you are one of the few that have not seen the advert here it is:
Social Media and Inbound Marketing is about building brand awareness and driving business. Did Old Spice manage to achieve goals? There is no doubt that they have increase brand awareness. By looking at Twitter alone the number of tweets has increased dramatically over the last week. Old Spice presence has gone from next nothing to over 1,000 tweets a day.
But what are people saying about Old Spice in social media? The typical conversion appears to range from talking about the guy to the smell of Old Spice. Here are a few of the typical tweets.
“I’m an Old Spice man”
“Did you guys get a picture with the Old Spice guy? Jealous. I may have a man crush on him lol.”
“@OldSpice My wife doesn't like the smell of the super manly Old Spice products, How can i get her to fall in love with Old Spice?”
“The Old Spice man has convinced me. I switched from Axe to Old Spice deodorant.”
Inbound Marketing and Social Media is great at appealing to all markets and demographics. For example the The Old Spice advert is targeted at women. While that may be the case, but if we take as sample text of the conversions online the spilt is 62% male against 38% Female.
Was the Old Spice advert successful, judging by the increased online conversion and that they have managed to reach their target market of males aged between 21 -35 it appears so. But more importantly will it increase revenue?
The answer is a Social Media and Inbound Marketing yes, according to Nielsen. According to them, sales of Old Spice Body Wash—the line touted in the Wieden + Kennedy-created campaign—rose 11 percent over the past 12 months and since the effort broke in February, sales seem to be gaining momentum. Over the past three months, sales jumped 55 percent and in the past month, they rose 107 percent, also per Nielsen.
The success of their social media inbound marketing campaign has seen Old Spice become the No. 1 brand of body wash and anti-perspirant/deodorant in both sales and volume with growth in the high single/double digits according to P&G rep Michael Norton.
Remember that for your social media or inbound marketing campaign that good social media campaigns can take a while to take off but great social media campaigns can have an impact straight away.
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Fri, Jul 23, 2010
Social Media and Twitter is a great source for information but who should you follow? Rather than spending time going through the usual list here are some different names on Twitter to check out. Before I get there, I looked into the social media theme for the week. Social Media is a big conversion topic to help understand what people are talking about we have created a Buzzgraph around Social Media. I looked at the conversations or mentions related to social media and mapped them out.
It is interesting to note that the main topic around social media is promotion and business promotion. The key links around social media are: customer, businesses, network, advertising, brand and market. Does this mean that a large part of social media is used to promote business? Here are a few of the key conversions with people mentioning Social Media.
“the next step would be to build a website around your niche market, optimize your keywords, build quality links and promote your website.”
“check out this blog post about how popular social media is right now and how popular it should be in the future.. 22% of online time spent with social media. 75% of u.s.”
“internet households visited a social networking site in may 2010. 22% of the time spent online is attributed to social networking sites. 55% have at least one or more social networking profiles..”
“social media – social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques.”
So back to whom you should follow on Twitter, below are some people worth checking out:
http://twitter.com/LaPeregrina
http://twitter.com/ClodaghHiggins
http://twitter.com/TWEETSDRAMA
http://twitter.com/jeffbullas
http://twitter.com/johnhaydon
http://twitter.com/ItsCoachNick
These are just 5 different people worth following if you want to pick up something on Social Media. Have a look and come back with who you would recommend to follow?
Posted by Naylla Kassam on Thu, Jul 22, 2010
Facebook announces its 500m mark of active users: the United States having the highest user rate at 127m, Brazil coming in at second with 28.7m users, and the UK at 24.2m users. These numbers only have one place to go and that’s UP. So can you afford not to be on Facebook? Or Twitter? Or any other social media site?
We’ve heard the excuses on why you're not engaging in social media:
- It’s too much noise
- I don’t have the time
- Social Media is not for my business
- I can’t waste my time on social media, I have a business to run
The fact of the matter is that social media drives traffic to your website, generates leads, and generates real customers. If there are 500m users just on one social networking site, I’d seriously ask yourself if you can afford not to be on there in some shape or form.
So rather than dwelling on whether to get involved in social media or not, the best advice I can give is: just do it!
Here are 5 tips to help you get started with social media:
- You have to listen as much as you talk. The only way to be heard is to listen.
- It takes discipline! It’s called “social” media for a reason. Make it part of your daily routine. It didn’t take you long to get in the habit of checking email did it?
- Don’t be a walking billboard. Become a trusted advisor, a valued resource, and a person YOU would want to speak to.
- Do your homework. Don’t keep aiming in the dark – look around you and see what people are saying and who is already successful at this strategy.
- Who’s the message for? Who is your ideal client? Target your message to the people you want to engage with.
Still not convinced? Join us on our free webinar for the Latest Trends in Social Media on July 29, 2010.
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Wed, Jul 21, 2010
I like to find social media tips from different places, as it appears that social media can copy what is going on outside social media. Here are my social media tips that I have picked up from Sex and the City.
1st Social Media tip from Sex and the City: Single is Not a Dirty Word. It is ok be alone in social media because you will not be single for long.
2nd Social Media tip from Sex and the City: It's Okay to Expose All to Your Girlfriends. Try and be open and personal on social media. People engage in social media to engage on a personal basis, if they wanted corporate speak they would read the business pages and not social media.
3rd Social Media tip from Sex and the City: Fate is Not Always Fate. Try not to kid yourself you need a very defined social media strategy to succeed. While social media works it does not come down to fate.
4th Social Media tip from Sex and the City: Sometimes to Be Real You Have to Get Ugly. While social media is about building a network you still need to give your opinion. Sometimes your opinion will not be what people want to hear but once it is in good intentions everything will be ok.
5th Social Media tip from Sex and the City: Be Vulnerable. For social media to work you need to be open and it works best when you are. So at times look to seek advice for other people. Remember social media is a two way street.
6th Social Media tip from Sex and the City: Know When to Kiss Goodbye. With so many social media channels out there at times you might try one that will just will not work for your business. Be prepared to step back and take a hard luck at your social media strategy to see if it working for you.
7th Social Media tip from Sex and the City: Patience and Compromise. Social media will not be an overnight success for your business. It take times and understanding. So be prepared to make mistake and learn on the way.
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Tue, Jul 20, 2010
Social Media in now growing among Irish Politicians. A few weeks ago a politician started to follow me on Twitter. What can social media tell us about the current state of Irish politics and people’s views? I choose the two main parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael to use as a straw poll.
Social Media’s first metric is the number of comments online about each party.
When compared against each other over the last 7 days Fine Gael has 67% of the mentions against Fianna Fail with only 33%.
The majority of Fine Gael’s comments came from the news forums at the beginning of the week focusing on the following keywords:
It is not surprising that for the political parties, online newspapers still provide the great percentage of mentions against any other social media channel. News accounts for around 55% ~ 60% of all mentions. Twitter accounts for only 20% of mentions. In summary Fine Gael is very good at ‘getting mentioned’ in the press. If we look further what can we establish?
Social Media’s next metric is to look at the sentiment of the mentions. Sentiment is calculated using an algorithm to look for positive or negative tone. If we compare the two parties together Fine Gael still has the under hand but with more positive mentions.
It is interesting that during the last 7 days the papers published that Fine Gael received a donation from a top NAMA developer which does not seem to have a majority effect on public sentiment... however, only yesterday the number of tweets increased for Fine Gale claiming that the honeymoon could be over:
In summary measuring online mentions provides us with a valuable insight into public opinion about your brand, company or products. For Fine Gael is appears that they are ahead of the curve.
Posted by Noel Shannon on Mon, Jul 19, 2010
Social media is not like Pepsi, just twist the lid and you have your drink. Social media is more of a cocktail, it takes different elements that may not work together but when mixed creates something that works for you and your company. So many times we see companies jump into social media where they believe that immediate success will come from just being on and engaging with social media will bring brand awareness, new leads and drive revenue. Unfortunately that is one cocktail that does not work nor taste right. Social media is not just about using social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin. Social media success and maybe business success comes down to how you integrate all the parts of the social media marketing mix. By mixing or combining the different parts you can build a solid brand and create a great cocktail using social media. So how do you build your social media cocktail?
Like every cocktail and in this case your social media cocktail it needs a glass. And for social media your glass is the web or the internet which revolves around content and especially your content. Your content can come in many forms - your website, your facebook page, your blog even your pictures on flickr. The principal is to build something real as such a presence online and around the internet.
The next ingredient to add is social media itself. For social media to taste right you need to focus on one element and that is to be real, let your personality come through. And remember that social media is very good at exposing those who talk rubbish. For long term success avoid going cheap and invest in yourself, the rewards will be worth it.
The last ingredient to bring to your social media cocktail is keyword and Google. Google is everywhere online from Linkedin questions to your last tweet is indexed. Use the right keywords to ensure that your cocktail is found online. There is no point have your social media cocktail on the top shelf you need to get your content and social media presence on Google.
In summary take some content, add the right mix of social media and shake with the correct keywords before serving online.
Posted by Noel Shannon on Fri, Jul 16, 2010
Social Media is like the movies; there is a cast (the company), a script (your blogs or tweets etc) and the audience which is you and me. So what can we learn from the movies for social media. A great movie is made great by the cast and the script. Sometimes the script comes up with great one liners that can provide valuable insight into making the most of social media.
1st Social Media Tip from Movie One Liners: "I'll be back." (Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Terminator (1984)) Do not forget to Tweet, to succeed with social media and twitter you have to stay engaged. So how often should you tweet? According to some research the optimal space between business tweets to attract the most clicks is either between 31-60 minutes or if you need more time then 2-3 hours. Tightly packed tweets can send out the wrong image and just don’t appear to attract as much attention as tweets with more space between them. Make the most of social media and remember to re-engage.
2nd Social Media Tip from Movie One Liners: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" (Clark Gable, Gone With the Wind (1939)). Social Media is not about winning friends so when responding on blogs it is ok to disagree. If you realize that the blog post has got something wrong or you just don’t agree with the blog, it is ok to make an “I disagree” comment. Remember that constructive criticisms are not insults but should be viewed as your advice. And if you are going to disagree do not make short comments like “I disagree”, take the time to explain why the thing is wrong and explain how to correct it. Make the most of social media and get your opinion out there.
3rd Social Media Tip from Movie One Liners: "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" (James Cagney, White Heat (1949)) Set your social media goals. Before you embark on any social media marketing campaigns, it is essential that you set your goals and define your prospects or target audience. Without a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and who you want to reach, your social media campaigns will not be focused and your results will be fragmented and weak. Make the most of social media and set your goals.
So there you have it we can pick up social media tips from the movies. Now that you have the tips go and make the most of social media.