2009-03-26
5 Key Factors of a Social Media Plan

Social media marketing is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels. The benefits of social media marketing include website traffic, sales tracking, ad exposure, brand awareness growth, positive brand association, and increase in customer reach. There is no other low-cost promotional method out there that will easily give you large numbers of visitors. For example, companies surveyed indicated they plan to increase budgets for e-mail (83%), online advertising (77%), key word search campaigns (75%), social media (61%) and video advertising (38%) (eMetrics Marketing). More than 65% of companies surveyed said the current state of economy has had no negative impact on overall marketing budgets. Only 15% plan to make cuts in Internet media. Interested in joining in? Here are 5 key factors of a successful social media plan.

1. Useful content
Social media is about educating, not selling, the buyer. It's important to produce useful educational content on an ongoing basis. Limit talking about yourself, at least initially, and provide ways to help others instead. 90% of the reason people come to the Internet initially is for information. Your goal is to be the source of that information. Becoming popular on social news websites like Digg or Reddit will get you a large number of links. A good story can realistically acquire a large number of high quality editorial links, most of which cannot be easily bought. Because social media websites can be leveraged for links and better search rankings, they can greatly increase your site's income potential. For example, you will be able to price ads higher or generate revenue from any paid business models.

2. RSS Feeds
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a group of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works in a standardized format. As an alternative to email, RSS is becoming an increasingly important content delivery channel. Start by identifying the different target audiences that you might want to reach with RSS. You might need to plan for different feeds for each of the target audiences. Possible content type includes: Product feeds, Podcast feeds, News feeds, Articles feeds, Direct communication feeds, E-zine publishing, Autoresponder content, Forum content, Latest downloads. You can provide your subscribers with the ability to precisely select the content they want to receive in your RSS feed. You can also target promotional messages or other content to your individual RSS feed subscribers.

3. Keep an ongoing effort
Social media marketing is a way to connect with your customers, which is an important aspect of social media marketing that companies can often forget in the rush to get something up. Engaging in any type of social marketing is an ongoing commitment. Often, programs are begun but not maintained. One of the worst things a company can do is to fail to keep things up to date. Letting your efforts die off is like abandoning a conversation with your customers. Be prepared to invest the resources that it takes to do the job right and make sure you have a plan to begin with. Create content that answers questions your audience is asking. Drive visitors to your blog and social media content by adding links to these in your email signature, in your website, in your printed material, etc.

4. Use social media to listen to your customers
Customers are constantly blogging, tweeting, posting and chatting on the Web about products, brands and services. Go to search.twitter.com and type in your company name. If you're looking to see what conversations, trends or opportunities are out there that relate to your product, check out blogsearch.google.com.. To discover blogs that feature your company, product or service, or relate to your field or industry, go to technorati.com, an Internet site for searching blogs by topic. Discover the right social media sites to advertise on for your customer. 4 out of 10 consumers have made a purchase based on advertising they saw on a social media site, and 76 percent welcome advertising on social networks.

5. Try to use as many outlets as possible
Don't forget about videos. Video consumption is growing fast. You can create a how-to� or top-tips� video and submit it to YouTube. It has wide reach; you could have millions of people see it. For even wider distribution, you should try tubemogul.com or vidmetrix.com. In generating all content, it's fine to brand with a URL at the end of the video, but avoid direct selling. Keep in mind that humor, controversy and strange content works very well. Subscribe to feeds, and use iGoogle, My Yahoo Web or other favorite RSS readers. Top Social Media Starter Resources include: Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Flickr, Digg, Reddit, Technorati, Secondlife, Meneame, and Newsvine. Make it easy for your customers to bookmark your site, blog posts, etc with their favorite tool (examples are del.icio.us, furl, bummy, ma.gnolia, stumbleupon, and blinklist). User-initiated conversation is gives users the opportunity to create their own declarations or questions, and your opportunity to respond. Try messageboards, forums, and groups sites (i.e. Google Groups, Yahoo! Groups, community sites, etc).