// BLOG
Social Marketing and Email: A Perfect Combination
December 18, 2012
If you are ignoring email marketing as part of your social media campaign, you are making a big, and potentially costly, mistake. Email marketing is an effective tool to reach your customers with your message, build your brand, and increase your revenue.
From newsletters to e-blasts, there are many advantages to reaching your audience through email:
• You can customize your lists to reach a targeted audience with a specific message, product or offering.
• Through email you can drive additional traffic to your web site and social media pages. It’s not often you will see a marketing email these days that doesn’t invite readers to “like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.”
• By encouraging your audience to forward your message, you increase your potential to reach new prospective customers.
Email marketing is still the most effective way to sell your product. According to mediatrust.com, 66 percent of online Americans reported making a purchase due to an email from a brand (compared to 20 percent via Facebook and 16 percent via text message).
Despite the rise of popularity and use of social media, email is still considered one of the primary ways to get information and stay connected. Although email and social media can be effective in their own right, they are even more powerful when combined into an integrated marketing strategy.
Incorporating email into your social media marketing plan will keep you a step ahead of those who have forgotten the impact of those three important words: “Compose New Message!”
Improving Your Social Presence
November 15, 2012
Many have become familiarized with the Facebook timeline but businesses still have tweaks to make to enhance their pages. These 10 Facebook apps are sure to improve your businesses social presence.
1.Facebook Forum
Give your fans a forum to chat about your company, services and products. These will both increase fan interaction and you will reap the benefits with internal market research.
2.Scribd For Portfolio Sites
The Scribd app makes it easy for you fans to view images, slideshow presentations, PDF’s, documents and any other portfolio items you wish to post.
3.Google Maps
If you rely on ‘walk-in’ traffic use this app to make it easy for your fans to find your storefront and include ‘Google Maps’ in your timeline.
4.Involver RSS For Pages
This app allows your fans to read your blog directly from your Facebook tab in one quick click.
5.The Pinterest App
Add your Pinterest profile to your business page and give your fans insight on all of your great marketing-orientated pins.
6. The Contact Tab
This creates a seamless contact form interface which includes all of your contact information, maps, social icons, URLS and more all in one place.
7.YouTube Video App
If your business has a YouTube feed than it is nothing short of necessary to give your fans access to it – and there’s no easier way than having the video show up across your timeline.
8.Twitter App
Give your Facebook fans some quick tidbits of info from your business – just make sure you don’t link your Twitter and Facebook accounts.
9.FAQ App
Adding this app to your timeline will provide fans with easy access to all of your most important details.
10. Customize
Choose an app that will compliment your business presence! For example if you a re a bookstore trying to promote ebook sales select a app built that will do this for you.
Don’t forget to contact Social Marketing Solutions with all of your marketing needs!
Why We Don’t Use HootSuite
October 19, 2012
We here at Social Marketing Solutions don’t use HootSuite and some people have wondered why that is. We’d like to share our reasons on why we don’t incorporate it into our social media and why we think you shouldn’t either.
- Posts show up via HootSuite which shows your audience you didn’t take the time to check your social networking pages and update them on your own.
- It leaves room for error. There’s a lot of information on social media networks anyway but using HootSuite to check them all instead of individually checking each one may cause you to miss something and that something could be extremely important!
- You’re relying on an outside app to monitor your engagement on pages but that means you’re losing the personal connections.
- You’re forced to use the ow.ly url shorteners. As well as broadcasting to everyone that you are using Hootsuite (which, to be fair, happens with any non-custom url shortener) you can only track any click throughs that have been added from within Hootsuite. This is a real problem, as if like many, you use other services.
- Data won’t appear in Facebook insights. When posting new content to Facebook via Hootsuite, those posts do not track the, likes, shares, and comments that you received in Facebook’s Insights analytical data for that post. The likes, comments and share do exist when viewing from the front end Wall and Feeds, but the “credit” for getting them is not recorded in any way by Insights.
These are just a few of the reasons we prefer to not use HootSuite and instead give our personalized attention to each social media platform we use. Personalized attention is important in today’s marketing world and people want to know that you’re taking the time listen to them.
A Note From Our Intern, Toni Demaio
October 4, 2012
I have been interning for Social Marketing Solutions, LLC for almost a year now and I have loved every second of it. As a journalism major, the experience of writing blogs for companies and businesses has been an experience that will forever help me in my writing future. I am so thankful that Kelly has given me this opportunity (even if it was after much begging) because it is truly advancing my writing skills and abilities in so many ways.
Expanding my Horizons
Working with Social Marketing Solutions has taught me how to successfully write about topics that I am not familiar with. It has turned me into a pro at researching! Understanding how to write for companies that specialize in areas that are beyond my knowledge has helped me to develop researching tools and tips that I can carry out both in my major and career. It has actually been a blessing to write about certain topics that I am unfamiliar with because I know in the future I will not be able to just write about whatever I want. Therefore, getting the experience that I have gotten here has been amazing!
Writing, Writing, and More Writing
Above all, interning with Social Marketing Solutions has allowed me to write more than I ever had before and this is exactly what I needed. Allowing me to write as much as I have has given me the practice and capability of being the writer that I eventually wish to be. I would have never gotten the experience that I need if not for interning here and I am so grateful for that. It will prepare me in the near future when I have a heavy work load and multiple projects to have finished by a certain time.
All in all, the experience on interning with Social Marketing Solutions has great! I love the understanding that I am gaining of what a career in writing will be like. I know that this is helping to successfully graduate from college as a journalism major and eventually help me to obtain an accomplished writing career.
Video: A simple step to enhancing your social media technique
October 2, 2012
Status Updates, Tweets, Pins & Videos?
It seems that new social media platforms are emerging every day. From creating witty statuses on Facebook, creating enticing hash tags on Twitter, and finding fabulous products to Pin, why add video into the mix? The answer is simple: YouTube.
YouTube
Video has become not only necessary but an integral part of using social media to reach your customers. The worldwide video-sharing community, YouTube, is the second largest search engine in the United States with 24 hours of video downloaded every minute.
Selling Point
YouTube is where consumers are doing their shopping. By providing your customer base with something to watch, they are staying on your website longer and are much more likely to buy.
Quality Over Quantity
The quality of the finished product of the video is as equally important as the video’s content. The most effective videos are honest, transparent, real, relevant, educational and authentic.
Hit Your Target
Since this video is for marketing purposes it is crucial that it is targeted. This is easy. First, identify your audience and highlight your product with what it can offer to that group. Second, target specific groups because if you are too broad you will glaze over most people. Finally, understand and relate to the groups’ needs and interests that you are targeting.
Who’s Shooting?
Let’s face it, not all of us can shoot a quality video. Remember trying to watch an old dance recital or soccer game and it’s so shaky you feel like you’re on a rollercoaster? I sure do! This is the time where you need to let the professionals take over. Grey Sky Films Social Marketing Solutions, LLC. and Grey Sky Films have partnered to create enticing and intellectual videos that make an impact. After all, “Helping brands make an IMPACT! one film at a time,” is the film company’s motto. Check out the videos we have produced together!
For more information on Grey Sky Films make sure to visit their website http://www.greyskyfilms.com/ and see what this New Jersey based production company has to offer for your company!
