Best Times of Day to Use Social Media

May 6, 2012

Social media is 24/7 but your customers/fans/followers are not on each social media platform all the time. So, the question becomes:

When is the best time to reach your customers using social media?

There a many factors that will determine the best time of day to use social media, including the platform you are using (i.e. Facebook or Twitter) and where your customers are located. The infographic below by Kissmetrics explains when the best time is to reach your specific customers.

Science of Social Timing Takeaways:

Over 80% of the U.S. population is located in the central and eastern time zones
Majority of Twitter users are more likely to Retweet after lunch and at the end of the work day. Customers are more likely to see your Tweet if it is scheduled for 5 pm.
Since Twitter is a real-time feed, it is important to Tweet throughout the day. This data suggests Tweeting 1-4 times an hour; however, this can be difficult when first starting social media. I suggest aiming for the following 4 times a day when customers are more likely to check their Twitter feeds:
- Before 9 am
- Lunch time
- Around 5pm (the end of the work day)
- Between 7-8 pm after dinner
Facebook posts can reappear in a customer’s feed as likes & shares increase of a post increase; as such, the time between posts can be greater.
Facebook posts have the most shares & likes during lunch hours and on Saturdays, these are both times when people are relaxed and have more time peruse Facebook.

How often do you Tweet or post on Facebook? Do you think ideal posting times vary by industry? I would love to hear your thoughts, please leave a comment below.

How to Talk-To Your Audience Not At Them

May 3, 2012

Have you ever wondered “Why did my followers like my Facebook page” or “Do I add value to my audience”? Well, even if you haven’t thought about either of those things before I recommend checking out Nick Martin’s post about how to Talk TO your audience instead of AT them. Social media is not meant to be used to shout your message to your audience, it is about talking to them to start a conversation.

The 4 Factors of SEO

May 2, 2012

There is no “one way” to gain the number one spot in search results. Search engines are constantly changing their algorithms, which means companies have to continuously adapt their search engine optimization strategy to meet the needs of both search engines and their customers. Before diving into the ever evolving world of SEO, here is a quick and simple breakdown of the basic factors that influence search results.

URL Factors

Keyword rich URLs – Descriptive words separated by hyphens
Keep URLs short and to the point
Clearly show hierarchy of information on the page (website.com/color/primary-colors/red/)
Site structure (i.e. information architecture)

On-page Factors

Unique and relevant content
Internal linking
Meta descriptions
Title tags
Header tags
Alt tags
Keyword density
Frequent content updates

Off-page Factors

Inbound links from directories and other websites
Google Places pages
Online press releases
Blogs and RSS feeds
XML Sitemap

Social Factors

Likes, retweets, pins, shares, etc.
Ratings
Reviews

Image: KROMKRATHOG / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

WebTrends Webinar Recap: Adapting to your dynamic customer base

May 1, 2012January 2, 20161 Comment

I recently watched the WebTrends webinar “Adapting to Your Dynamic Customer Base” presented by Jeremiah Oqyang and Susan Etlinger of the Altimeter Group, and Justin Kistner from Webtrends. It was a very insightful presentation about what the dynamic customer is, what they expect from you, and how to meet their needs. The following is a recap of the exciting presentation:

In the last few years, there has been a drastic change in consumer behavior. Consumer purchase behavior no longer follows the purchase funnel of

Awareness
Consideration
Intent
Purchase.

Consumer behavior has become more dynamic, and in turn so must business’ marketing strategies. There are three emerging practices in the new dynamic customer journey:

Media Shift
Multiple Screens
New sources of data

These emerging dynamic consumers want to engage with a business through social media, mobile, and websites. The opportunity to reach the new dynamic consumer is found in building brand presence through an integrated campaign. Brands should focus on creating a community using multiple platforms, such as:

Main website
Twitter
Pinterest
Mobile websites
Mobile app
Facebook

In order to reach the emerging dynamic customer, use diff media types, new screens, and new sources of info. Using social media as part of your integrated marketing campaign has become vital because consumer’s now view their peers as experts and trust them most. Mobile apps and websites enable brands to reach consumers at the point of purchase. Mobile and social media campaigns are truly intertwined and show not be considered separate campaigns.

“More than 50% of adults are buying on smartphones today, more than 2/3 have the device in-store, still many aren’t being served.”

In order to track and determine success of a marketing strategy that spans multiple devices and channels, businesses need to determine measurements that will expand into all areas of the digital landscape. The following new measurements have evolved:

Innovation: Collaborating with customers to drive future products and services
Brand health: A measure of attitudes, conversion and behavior toward your brand
Marketing optimization: Improving the effectiveness of marketing programs
Revenue generation: Where and how your company generates revenue
Operational efficiency: Where and how your company reduces expenses
Customers experience: Improving your relationship with customers, and their experience with your brand

One of the biggest challenges for measuring how dynamic customers using an integrated campaign is the inability to track users using multiple devices. While cross domain tracking in social media is available, cross device tracking for mobile is not. (Deciding to view site on a smartphone then on a tablet) There is no single ROI for social media or integrated campaigns, ROI will differ by corporation, divisions, and business objectives.

Have you seen a change in customer purchase behavior? Do you think of yourself as a dynamic customer?

Why Relationship Marketing is Important

April 24, 2012

Check out this great interview with Mari Smith, author of The New Relationship Marketing and Facebook Marketing: An Hour a Day.

In the interview, Mari discusses why relationships are important to businesses (regardless of size or type) and why businesses need to improve their listening skills. She explains that it doesn’t matter if you are a B2B or a B2C business, you should always think of your company as a P2P (people to people).

Relationship marketing involves using multiple medias to communicate with your customer:
– social media
– Blogs
– Email marketing
– Offline marketing

Lessons all companies should learn about relationship marketing:

– Personalize and humanize your brand. Don’t be afraid to humanize your brand even if you are a big or medium size company. Focus on using the first person “I/Me” not “Us”, and using people’s names when replying to customers through social media.
– You do not need to be a big business to do relationship marketing. It is just as important for small businesses to focus on relationship marketing.
– When using Facebook focus on posting great content and having an engagement strategy in place beforehand. Be consistent and don’t get discouraged, it will take a while to for users to become engaged.

Check out the full interview below.

Have you focused on using social media to build relationships with your customers? Have you found other ways to create new relationships or maintain current customer relationships?

5 Companies Rocking Social Media

April 22, 2012January 2, 20162 Comments

Social media has become one of the greatest tools for companies to build relationships with their customers. While some companies are hesitant to use social media because of the inability to control negative comments, others realize that the benefits extremely outweigh the risks.

The infographic below breaks down how 5 companies were able to leverage the best features in social media and are rocking it!

Check out the social media strategies for:

Dell – focused on using social media to listen to what their customer’s wanted
Morton’s Steakhouse – used social media to surprise their customers
Unisys – focused on the resource sharing benefits of social media
KLM – used social media to provide 24/7 customer care
ABC – used social media to promote new shows & enhance the entertainment experience

Check out more about social media strategy creation and the future of social media.

Created by Voltier Digital for ScottMonty.com

How Marketers Will Use Social Media In The Future

April 17, 2012January 2, 2016

Each year the Social Media Examiner publishes the ‘Social Media Industry Report‘. The report is based on interviews with over 3,800 marketers. This year, one of the big questions that they focused on was:

“How will marketers change their future social media activities?”

Overall, marketers plan on increasing their use of social media in the future. However, the tools that they utilize and how much the use each tool will change.

YouTube

YouTube and other video platforms are leading the pack, with 76% of marketers planning on increasing their use of YouTube and/or video marketing in 2012.

Facebook

Not a big surprise, Facebook came in #2 with 92% of marketers planning on using Facebook in 2012 and 72% planning on increasing the activities on top of that. Only 4% of marketers do not plan on using Facebook at all; however, this is most likely due to the industry that their client is in. Clients in industries such as healthcare or manufacturing are less likely to include Facebook in their social media strategy.

I found it very interesting that Facebook is the #1 focus of those just getting started in social media. This makes sense because it is most likely the platform that they are most familiar with. In addition, B2C companies plan on increasing their use of Facebook much more than B2B companies. B2C companies are able to reach in customers more easily using Facebook than B2B companies. However, B2B companies can use Facebook for building and monitoring their online reputation. For more information about how B2B vs. B2C companies use Facebook, check out this infographic.

Twitter

Overall only 69% of marketers plan on increasing their activities on Twitter; however, this increase will most likely be by enterprise level companies and local small businesses. Marketers realize that due to the real time nature, maintaining and monitoring a Twitter account effectively requires a significant time commitment. As such, marketers currently dedicating 21 hours or more per week on social media are more likely to increase their use of Twitter.

Blogging

Blogs are great for driving site traffic and increasing search rankings. Due to the benefits of blogging, it is no surprise that 86% of marketers plan to either continue or increase blogging. Similar to Twitter, blogging requires a significant time commitment to write, edit, and post articles, as well as monitor comments. Due to the necessary time commitment, marketers who are currently dedicating 11 hours or more a week to social media are more likely to increase their blogging efforts.

Google+

The platform that most of us are aware of and probably have an account on, though we probably don’t use it much, is Google+. Some interesting statistics on Google+ usage include:

67% of business plan on increasing their Google+ activities
1 in 5 businesses have no plans on using Google+ in the future
Men are more likely to use & increase usage of Google+
It is the #1 platform that marketers want to learn more about

In 2012 B2B companies are more likely to increase their usage of LinkedIn, while only about 1/2 of B2C companies will increase their usage. As a tool for networking, LinkedIn definitely has more benefits for B2B companies than it does for B2C. B2C companies will most likely use LinkedIn as a tool to increase brand awareness in their industry and search for potential employees.

Photo Sharing

The industry report states that only 60% of marketers even plan on using photo sharing sites such as Pinterest, Instagram, and Flickr. However, I believe that these numbers no longer accurately reflect where usage is going based on:

Rapid growth in the popularity of Pinterest
Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram

I think that there will be a much larger increase in usage, as well as a decrease in the percentage of marketers who have no plans of utilizing photo sharing sites.

Geo-location Services and Daily Deals

Of all the statistics in this section of the report, I found the information on Geo-location services and Daily Deals the most interesting.

Only 23% of marketers plan on increasing their use of geo-location services like FourSquare in 2012. This is particularly interesting since FourSquare just hit their 20 million user mark this week. (Check out more information here)

72% of marketers have NO plans to use daily deals, such as Groupon or LivingSocial. This percentage really surprised me since Groupons were recently very popular. The decrease in usage may be from lack of repeat participation by companies or lack of profitability.

Inbound.org – The Best Source for Inbound Marketing Content

April 12, 2012January 2, 20165 Comments

I recently discovered what might be the best source for quality articles relevant to those in the digital community and probably my new favorite website! Inbound.org is a website designed for the passionate digital community. The purpose of the site is to provide the best and most current online content on all aspects of inbound marketing, including (but definitely not limited to):

Advertising
Blogging
SEO
Social Media

Analytics
Mobile
Email
Entrepreneurship

PR
Web Development
Design
Content

Inbound.org was launched mid February and has been quickly growing in popularity with those passionate about all things digital. The brilliance behind this site came from its founders Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz and Dharmesh Shah of Hubspot. It is kind of like the Reddit or Digg of inbound marketing, but with a MUCH more attractive site design. The simplicity of the site design and structure is perfect for perusing articles. Similar to other social bookmarking websites, Inbound allows users to Upvote their favorite articles. The design of the site has made it very easy for new users to determine how to “Vote” for the articles that they like.

A very intriguing feature of Inbound.org is that registration requires users to have a Twitter account. I really like this feature because if you are truly passionate about social media, web development, SEO, analytics, etc., you should are already have a Twitter account and be active in the digital community.

The 3 Ways To Use Inbound

Hot Articles

The Hot Articles page lists the most popular articles on Inbound.org at that time. Below is a screen shot of what you might see while on the Hot Articles page. I understand that the articles listed are the most popular, however I don’t quite understand the ranking method. Articles are not listed by the number of Upvotes, though it appears that their may be an algorithm that determines the hottest articles based on time of article submission and number of Upvotes.

Incoming Articles

The Incoming Articles page is similar to the Hot Articles page, but it lists the newest submissions in chronological order. Think of it as a Twitter feed of newly submitted articles and you are actually interested in all of the posts!

All the articles listed on Inbound.org are submitted by users. The image to the right is the Share Article screen that users can use to submit articles to Inbound. For the Article Title option, you can either select your own title or a title will be created from the article URL. However, it is almost always best to write your own title because the number of characters displayed in the listings is limited. As a base, I recommend following the standard for SEO best practices and keep the title shorter than 70 characters (including spaces). Keep It Short And Sweet! Since the listings do not include a summary of the article submitted, it is extremely important that the title is intriguing and does not get cut off.

When submitting an interesting article, you are also required to select one of 23 categories that the article falls into. This feature is very helping when searching through the Hot Articles or Incoming Articles lists because the article category is included in the article listing. At this time you can search for a specific topic but it pulls articles from varying categories. The one feature that I hope to see as the site grows is the ability to sort submitted articles by category, and maybe even by hottest or newest articles in a single category.

Inbound.org does a great job bringing together bloggers, marketers, and those passionate about all things digital. It may even become your main news source for industry news. Why spend extra time searching for the newest blog posts and articles that interest you when you have a haven of the best and most interesting articles already available.

WARNING! You may become addicted to this site and spend all free time reading the great article submissions! (I already have!)

Have you been on Inbound.org? Do you think you would use it as a source for industry news?

Social Media Industry Report – 2012

April 10, 2012January 2, 2016

The Social Media Examiner recently published their 4th annual social media marketing industry report. Each year they interview marketers about how they are using social media to grow and promote their businesses.

For the 2012 report, they interviewed over 3,800 marketers to determine:

The top 10 social media questions marketers want answered
The time commitment
The benefits of social media marketing
Commonly used social media services
Social media sites people want to learn more out
How B2B vs. B2C companies use social media
How marketers are using other forms of marketing
Outsourcing of social media management

Benefits of Social Media Marketing

One section of the report that I found most interesting was the benefits of social media section. The top 5 benefits of social media marketing that marketers have seen are:

Increased exposure
Increased traffic
Provided marketplace insight
Generated leads
Developed loyal fans

Below is a graph from the annual report that shows the percent of marketers who have seen specific benefits from using social media marketing.

An interesting change from the 2011 to 2012 report is the percent of marketers who said social media marketing helped to improve search rankings. In 2011 62% of the marketers interviewed said that their search rankings improved, but only 55% of the marketers interviewed in this year’s report saw a benefit. I found this change very interesting since I have experienced improvements in search rankings using social media campaigns in the past. After examining the report further, it appears that those who saw improved search rankings were investing more than 10 hours a week in social media, have at least 3 years experience, or are selling to other businesses (B2B companies). There appears to be a direct correlation between the amount of time invested and experience on search ranking. However, industry is a large factor, as only 50% of businesses who sell to consumers saw a significant increase in their search rankings.

Benefits of Social Media Takeaways:

B2B companies are more likely to grow business partnerships using social media than B2C companies.
Spending 6 hours or more a week on social media shows a significant increase in lead generation.
Small business are more likely to see an increase in lead generation than large companies.
Those with 3 and more years experience managing social media see a significant increase in all the measured benefits compared to those with less experience.
Over a third of all mid-sized and large companies have not seen a reduction in their marketing expenses. This is very interesting, I wonder if social media is seen as an additional marketing effort not a replacement for other marketing at this time.
A not surprising find, social media is great for generating site traffic. 74% of marketers saw increases in site traffic when investing minimum 6 hours a week in social media.
B2B companies use social media for gaining marketplace insight much more than B2C companies.
B2C companies have a much larger increase in their loyal fan base when using social media than B2B companies.
There is a direct correlation between amount of time invested in social media and acquiring loyal fans. More Time Invested = Increase in Loyal Fans

Check out the full 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry report on the Social Media Examiner site.

Interview With the Head of Social Media at Ford (beingyourbrand.com)

The Future of Blogging

April 10, 20122 Comments

What should your focus be for your online marketing strategy? The infographic below breaks down what online medias companies will be using in 2012.

Takeaways 2012

Start or increase blogging – 43% of companies will have active blogs in 2012, up from 39% in 2011
Create an email newsletter – 77% of companies will use email marketing in 2012
Find your next superstar- 57% of companies will use social media to find new employees