Earlier this year the Loyalty Marketer’s Association released some statistics that answered the question: In 2011, what had the largest positive impact on your customer loyalty/retention efforts? A respectable 27.87% answered “Social Media,” which made it the highest rating, followed by “Customer Analytics” with 25.41%. Interestingly enough, “Rewards Programs” came in third with 24.59%. These numbers emphasize how much people rely on reviews and recommendations and how much they value rewards programs. In that regard, you can use this knowledge to implement a customer loyalty strategy into your social media marketing strategy.

You can use social media for several purposes and building customer loyalty should definitely be part of a basic strategy. Customer loyalty has numerous advantages, the most obvious being repeat business. Secondly, loyal customers are more likely to become passionate brand advocates. If your brand already engages in social media, it’s time to take it to the next level and start building this valuable benefit. Here’s where to start:

-          Develop Rewards Programs: As you can tell from the percentage mentioned earlier, consumers like to receive rewards for their loyalty. It’s a key driver in building loyalty and should be your priority. You can choose from different models, like offering deals and special offers if a customer buys a certain amount of your products in a specific period of time.

-          Encourage interaction: In order for customers to connect with your brand they have to feel that you’re accessible to them. You can reach this goal by interacting with them on your brand’s social networks. This takes time and commitment, but will result in long-lasting relationships. Interaction isn’t limited to responding to comments; you have to take it a step further than what is on the surface. For example, including calls-to-action and return the favor every now and then when a customer includes a call-to-action. Show that you care and equally important, that you listen.

-          Show appreciation: Showing that you care is one thing, but showing customers that you appreciate them, is another. A simple “thank you” would do in most occasions, but offering a free gift to that “special customer” will certainly get you some extra loyalty points.

-          Provide incentives: Give your audience a perfect reason to buy your products become a loyal customer. Emphasize your qualities without overdoing it. Again, offering interesting deals or coupons can influence a consumer’s perception.

-          Excellent customer services: You should use social media to reinforce your customer services. Always stay polite and professional, be apologetic if the situation requires so, and take them seriously. Don’t let your customers have your brand associated with negative feelings, but rather have them think of the pleasant interactions they’ve experienced with your brand. This could make the difference in changing regular customers into loyal customers.

-          Useful content: It’s true, content is still king. If you’re doing all of the above right, yet neglect to provide useful content for your customers, chances are you will lose credibility on the short-term. Every news update you post should have some sort of value for your customer. Of course, notifying the audience of your current campaigns can be somewhat interesting, but customers will want to know what’s in it for them, Answer this question to their satisfaction and you will have immediately increased the chances of gaining loyal customers.

In short, customer loyalty is paired with the relationship you build with them. If there is no relationship or no connection, people will look at your brand as just another brand, and you don’t want this. Providing the (often subconscious) needs of the consumer is the most effective method to start building relationships.

I hope you found these tips useful and if you have any questions or remarks, feel free to leave a comment!

There are many facets to online marketing that you need to cover in order to reach your preset goals. While more traditional companies believe that having an appealing website is enough, others have recognized digital value and have made the appropriate adjustments. If you want to improve and expand your brand’s online presence, but don’t know where to start, I’ll explain the core principles of online marketing.

-          Social media: It cannot be denied, nor can it be ignored: social media is an extremely valuable addition to your online marketing strategy; moreover, it’s cost-effective. Many brands have benefited from successful social media campaigns. The general goals of social media include, but aren’t limited to, building valuable customer relationships, achieving brand loyalty, gaining brand ambassadors, community building, lead generation, promotion, conducting market research, and others. Reason enough to get social, right? Social media requires a separate strategy that is fully integrated in your online marketing strategy.

-          Blogs: For many companies, posting blogs is a way to differentiate from competitors as it adds a personal approach to the expertise you’re expressing. Also, it enables multiple online sharing options, such as social media.

-          Email marketing: Although using email lists for marketing purposes isn’t quite new, it definitely hasn’t lost its effect. It’s an excellent way of keeping your already existing client base informed of your company or industry. And due to the fact that these subscribers have already shown interest in your brand, it’s important to keep focusing on them. Loyal customers equal returning buyers.

-          SEO: Search Engine Optimization is key to online success. Keep in mind that the majority of purchase decisions begin with online searches. This is why you need to fully optimize all web content and become Google’s best friend.

-          Mobile site optimization: Technology has forced companies to create mobile-optimized sites in order to compete in the industry. The mobile market requires more adjustments regarding visuals. You have to consider the fact that mobile users will probably not wait longer than ten seconds for a page to load. Aside from the design, the site’s content should be mobile-optimized as well. The number of smartphone users is growing and this means that the number of people who use their smartphones to make purchasing decisions will also increase. This is a market you can’t ignore, so use it to your advantage.

-          Content creation: For all the factors mentioned above, one thing remains consistent: content is very important. Know your audience so you know who to write for and how to reach them. Make sure that you’re offering information that is useful to your audience and allow them to share your content.

-          Monitoring progress: Use multiple measuring tools to keep track of the progress you’re making. This will inform you of any areas that need to be improved so you can alter your methods.

Overall, I think that if you properly conduct research on all of the online marketing tools mentioned above, you are preparing for a successful online marketing strategy.

Which online marketing tools do you use the most?

If you haven’t already established an online presence, this is your cue. It’s way easier for a business that already has a stable network to promote a new product than it is to build a community from scratch and get people to buy your product. Marketing just doesn’t work that way. It requires thorough market research and analyses and effective methods. The following are some questions that need to be answered prior to the development of strategy:

-          Who is your target group? You can’t target everyone everywhere, so specify your target group and research their behavior.

-          Which social networks do they use? You need to know which networks to focus on and prevent wasting time on networks they don’t use.

-          What is the user activity level on these networks? In some cases, people are leaning more towards Facebook than Twitter, or vice versa. You need to be equally active in order to keep up with your target group.

-          How have other brands used social media for their product launches? Your competitor analysis should include the data on this. You can learn from other brands’ successes and mistakes, so use this knowledge to create a strategy that suits your brand.

-          How can we create buzz prior to the launch? You can also use a more traditional form of buzz-creation, such as email lists. Informing your existing client base about an upcoming product that will be useful for them is just another way of providing information; however, if you add “like us to get a free trial,” you will have instantly created an incentive that could lead to more buzz.

Facebook
Many would agree that having a Facebook Fan Page should be on top of the priority list. It’s very easy to create and the new Timeline design offers more opportunities for brands. For example, you can now tell your story by adding information such as “Milestones” to your page. Also, don’t forget that buzz is easier spread on social media than it is using any other platform, so provide eye-catching content that will trigger consumers’ curiosity. And remember: people love coupons and free gifts! Meet this need and you’ll keep consumers returning to your page.

Twitter
Twitter has rolled out Brand Pages, but only major companies (e.g. Coca-Cola) are able to use it for now. This doesn’t mean you can’t use it for your product launch, in fact, due to the high activity of retweets, your product can get more exposure.

Final Tips
A successful product launch is based on the amount of publicity it gets. Apple did an amazing job preparing the world for the launch of the new iPad. Unfortunately, it’s very unlikely that consumers will wait for hours in line to get your product like they did for the new iPad. But these are some tips that might help you out:

-          Pre-launch period: Make sure you start creating buzz for your product and allow consumers to get familiar with it. Depending on your budget and resources, the pre-launch period’s standard lies around an average of three months.

-          Organize an event: As much as this event is about your product, it should be about your target group. Use this opportunity to interact with them and build relationships. Make sure the event is fun and exciting, and the attendees will not only check-in to your event, but will also share moments and thoughts in their networks—in other words, create more social appearance for your product.

-          Create contests: Everyone wants to be a winner! The important thing is that you make sure the prize is worth competing for.

Have you used social media for your product launch? If so, how did you use it?

Based on Facebook’s presentation, I will explain the new ad options to you. First, instead of the Classic Premium Ads, Facebook will introduce fully-upgraded Premium Ads that are generated from your Fan Page’s content. This means that the following ads are no longer available: Premium Like (Photo & Video), Premium Event (Photo & Video), Video Comment and Premium Poll (Photo & Video). Facebook states that content generated from a brand’s Fan Page will show significantly improved performance. For example, there will be a 40% increase in user engagement, 80% more likely to be remembered and 16% increase in fan rates. Additionally, the Premium Ads increase a user’s purchase intent, according to Facebook.

User engagement can now be established directly via the ads. How? People are now able to directly like the ad or comment on it, without having to visit the actual page. And because this requires less effort, Facebook members are more likely to use this function.

Furthermore, Facebook promises that the ads are “more social for friends of fans,” meaning, if a user that sees your ad has friends who are fans of your page, Facebook will instantly connect social context about those friends. This will lead to a personalized touch of the ad and thus encourage users to engage.

The six upgraded Premium Ad types include: Photo, Video, Question, Status, Event and Link. These ads allow you to create a variety of ads that will appeal to different groups of people. Use multiple types and discover which ones work best for your brand.

Another feature that should get marketers’ attention is the ad called “Offers.” This basically lets brands share special deals, discounts, etc. with Facebook fans. Once the Offer is posted on your Timeline, fans can redeem it and use it the next time they make a purchase. It’s a fact that coupons are successful tools to engage users and drive traffic, so if you’re willing to offer any deals, Facebook enhances the distribution.

Finally, you can use the Reach Generator to make sure that your ad will be seen by 75% of your Page’s fans. Currently, Facebook estimates that the reach is around 16% on average, which makes the Reach Generator a very interesting tool.

The number one social network is doing its best to improve ad services and is likely to continue this ambition in the coming months. So marketers: keep track of Facebook’s ads developments!

Are you using any of the new Facebook ads?

Google has faced a few issues in the past: Facebook’s partnership with rival Bing and Twitter’s decline to renew the search contract. Both networks carry impressive value in social search data and Google has found itself cut off from using this data. Many have argued that Google is now trying to change the game to its own benefits by using search tricks. This concept has actually led to several users deactivating their Google+ profiles.

What does social search actually mean? It’s basically a way for you to find content created by people in your Google+ circles when you’re using the search engine. This content will appear on top of the page as long as you’re logged in to Google+. Content coming from other sources are listed below your social results, and we all know how important it is to rank on Google’s first page. In Google’s words, the new feature allows you to get more personalized content, which is true, but does everyone want that? Social search is set as default, so all Google+ members will experience it at some point in time. You can turn it off, but only after you’ve entered a search and this means your social results would have already appeared on the screen. From my experience, even when I turned it off, it doesn’t change a lot in the search results.

What does social search mean for marketers and SEO experts? It’s pretty simple: the more people circle your company, the more influence you will have on their social search results. This makes “getting circled” one of your top priorities. How do you get circled? The following are a few tips to answer this question:

-          Create valuable content: This is always a must in social media as this pulls people in and encourages them to share it on their own profiles.

-          Use “shared circles”: You can add an entire circle to your own circles this way, thus getting more exposure and increasing the possibility of others adding you to their circles.

-          Profile promotion: Promote your profile in various ways, such as your email signature, newsletter, on your other social accounts, or by encouraging employees to circle your page. Don’t forget to use to the Google+ button on your company’s website or any other online establishment.

-          Interaction: You can share and +1 other users’ content and respond to their posts and comments. Additionally, you can start or join a Google+ Hangout that’s related to your services or products. Once again, this all means more exposure for your page.

-          Circle other experts: It’s always useful to have different sources in the same industry as this will broaden your perspectives and provide you with valuable content

-          Use hashtags:  Google+ uses hashtags in a similar way that Twitter does; your content is easily found if you use these in your posts.

Once you’ve started using these tips, you’ll get the ball rolling and more people will circle you, and by doing so, helping your visibility in social searches. Any social media marketing strategy should include getting circled as a goal.

Whether Google has an evil master plan or not, it doesn’t change the fact that companies should get a Google+ profile ASAP, if they haven’t already. I doubt this will be Google’s last development in terms of social searches, which leaves a lot of speculation for the future.

Are you on Google+? If so, what do you do to get circled?

If you want to develop a policy from scratch, or you just want to make sure you’ve covered the most important aspects, I suggest you keep on reading. When creating a policy, you have to keep in mind that social media is an continuously evolving platform. This is why you need to incorporate periodical updates or refreshment courses for your employees to prevent your policy from becoming outdated. If you’re not sure where to start, you can use the following guidelines to make sure you’re heading in the right direction.

Pre-Training

-          Make sure everyone’s aware of the corporate social media training: Use more ways than your corporate email system to reach your employees. Simple notifications can be put in places like the cafeteria or the restrooms. Keep the notification simple (so people will get less distracted): “Don’t forget the social media training on Monday, April 2^nd!”

-          Make sure the training is based on actual facts: In any organization, you might deal with people who don’t believe in social media. Your job is to not only convince them, but to get their support as well. Provide them with statistics, data and examples of successful social media engagements.

-          Use multiple tools: As part of the training, you need to apply multiple tools to remind people of what they’ve learned until it becomes part of a regular routine. Aside from a presentation, you can set up an online course, so employees can access the training from their home computers.

-          Define your brand’s message: This has more to do with the actual content of the training. Everyone should comprehend the message and maintain its presence.

-          Choose social networks: Explain to your employees why you have chosen to engage in certain social networks so they know what to pay attention to.

-          Define social media: Make sure that you define social media on your terms as this will help your employees get a better understanding of your motivation. Do you consider blog engagement social media? Determine this prior to the training launch.

The Training

-          Listen to feedback: Listen carefully to the feedback of your employees, they might point out an issue you weren’t aware of before; this helps you to improve the policy.

-          Assign a social media management team: Introduce the team you have assigned to manage your social media.

-          Assign a social media customer services team: Social media experts don’t always know how to handle customer services online. The two teams need to collaborate, but also acknowledge their division.

-          Present different scenarios: You can use case studies of companies that have made social media mistakes, how they have dealt with them, and how you think they should have dealt with them.

-          Identify opportunities and goals: Some examples could include “growing your online community” or “optimizing social presence and visibility.” On the long-term, these things can result in lead generation.

-          Provide training on different management levels: Managers need extra training in making the right decisions for the company.

-          Set reasonable rules for employees’ social profiles: This is very important because your employees represent your company. A professional in real life should maintain this image online. However, you also need to consider and respect their right to express a social persona.

A corporate social media policy should be consistent and thorough, yet simple. You don’t want to overload your employees with information. Moreover, people are more likely to remember the training if it’s simple. As mentioned before, it’s important to remind your employees of the policy post-training. Be creative!

Does your company have a social media policy? What tools did you use in your training? I would love to read about it in the comments!

Is Google+ doing social media right? It’s a bit difficult to answer this question before you have determined what “right” is. For the purpose of this blog, I think right should be defined not only as a high number of users, but also user engagement and successful brand campaigns. If Google+ wants to compete with the predominant social network Facebook, it may have to undergo some improvements. Mashable has referred to Google+ as a ghost town and coming from Mashable, that’s quite a hit.

So, for argument’s sake, let’s go with Mashable and agree that Google+ could still use some improvements. The first thing you’ll notice on Google+ is its design. It’s very “Googley” and it resembles Facebook’s design, prior to the Timeline launch. Although keeping the design simple and consistent with the brand is a good thing, it makes the network less appealing to the audience. Google could have a gone a bit more creative on the design while keeping it simple and consistent. Aside from the aesthetics, there are some functional flaws as well:

-          Apps: Google+ doesn’t actively use apps (anymore). This is a major missed opportunity for Google+ as many users on Facebook spend their time playing the games that the Facebook apps have to offer. Google+ did make an attempt to integrate games into the network, but it failed. Some would say this failure is due to a lack of understanding of social networks.

-          Complicated: Google+ is, unlike Facebook, very complicated to understand. Many people (including marketers) have no clue about where to start or what functions could benefit them in any way. It’s relatively easy to understand how the circles work, but what happens next? There are a lot of people who have publicly made negative comments about the usage of Google+. Many of these comments concern the how-to aspect. All new users should probably read a Google+ manual before engaging on the network.

-          Pages can’t add people: This could be one of the most frustrating features of Google+. Why aren’t business pages allowed to add regular users to their circles? A page can only add a person if this person had added the page first, or mentioned the page by using a ‘+’ or ‘@’ sign before the page’s username. Google+ would be a lot more interesting for brands if they had access to other users’ content. And more importantly, it would increase their visibility on the network. Google’s reason for this decision is probably that it wanted people to only receive content of the brands they choose to circle.

-          User activity: As mentioned before, Mashable called the network a ghost town based on its user activity. It’s not very likely that people will actively participate if none of their social contacts are doing the same. The network needs its users to return, instead of creating a profile and never coming back. Google definitely needs to improve in this area.

-          Incentives: The network doesn’t offer successful incentives, other than the fact that it may impact your search engine ranking. This is the most common reason for businesses to create a page on Google+. For regular users, the appeal could lie in the option “HangOuts,” which allows you to basically join a video chat.

If Google+ would work on its appeal, its incentives and moreover, getting users to return, it would be heading the right direction.

Are you on Google+? Do you think it can use some improvements or are you happy with the way it is now?

First, how can you define sentiment marketing? A large part has to do with your emotions. For instance, if you feel a connection to a certain brand you are more likely to purchase its products. Sentiment marketing focuses on attitudes towards a brand, rather than just the words and opinions expressed by the audience. It’s important to be aware of how your target audience responds to your industry, your brand and products. If you recognize the value of this data, you can ultimately use it to the benefit of your brand. As logical as this may sound, many marketers neglect to properly conduct research prior to the development of a marketing strategy.

So how does sentiment marketing relate to social media? Social media has become a unique platform of consumer interactions. Generally, everyone is allowed (and expected) to speak their minds as people have confidence in their peers’ opinions, in other words, active social media users have the power to influence other people. Marketers should realize that emotions and attitudes of social media users are shaping a brand’s social image. Additionally, it directly relates to CRM in the sense that it’s affecting the relationships you build with your audience. On top of this, social media completely supports the distribution of numerous consumer attitudes around the world.

What does this mean for marketers? It means that marketers should monitor and analyze their social status, especially people’s sentiments towards the brand and product. You could assign a team to do this as humans have a better understanding of reading between the lines when they analyze certain comments made in the social world. This team can use tools like Social Standing that show you so-called “sentiment scores” and if necessary, act upon the results. It’s the same for tools like Social Mention and TweetSentiments: both show the social status of your brand and Tweet Sentiment even displays a positive-negative meter, which saves you a bit of analyzing time.

There are also automated sentiment analysis tools available; however, I think it’s best to use a combination of both human resources and automated tools. For the most effective results, the two should complement each other during the analysis process. Also, it’s key to keep track of sentiments in real-time to secure prompt reactions, because you can’t predict what consumers are saying about your brand.

Depending on the positive-negative scores, you need to develop a marketing strategy that takes this data into account. What do you do if the sentiment is more negative than positive? Once again, CRM plays a major role in the decision making.

What will this lead to in the future? To come to a better comprehension of sentiment marketing, you have to include the science of neuromarketing. The two are closely bound and the latter “studies sensorimotor, cognitive and affective response to marketing stimuli,” according to Wikipedia. It basically focuses on the human brain’s responses. Implementing sentiment marketing (supported by neuromarketing) into your brand strategy is very likely to become more common the more marketers realize its advantages.

What do you think? Should sentiment marketing be part of your brand strategy?

Consuming too much information can create cluttered social environments, and the interest lists are here to prevent this by functioning as a curator for Facebook members. What will this new feature mean for Facebook users? And what will it mean to Facebook marketers?

First things first: what are interest lists? Interest lists are basically customized lists created by Facebook users, based on their interests. According to the Telegraph.co.uk, users can subscribe to these lists which allows them to have some sort of overview of the interests and related content. An example of an interest list topic would be politics or recipes. Users can click the “interest” tab on the left side of the page’s navigation bar and find stories related to the list’s topic.

This tab will become available once a member has created a list. TechCrunch stated that if you choose not to create a list yourself, you can subscribe to pre-curated lists instead. Facebook referred to the feature as “a personalized newspaper” that enables particular posts to be separated from the “real life” posts in your news feed. However, if a specific story in one of the interest lists you subscribed to has a high level of user engagement, it might still appear in your news feed.

For Facebook users this means an easier way to organize the content on your profile and furthermore, it allows you to get the information you want. Facebook also lets users follow lists created by a friend, but only if the creator has set the settings to “public.” Even though the feature is quite similar to Twitter’s list, this is the first time that you can add posts from pages, profiles, etc. to a list, and this makes the list a compilation of all content available related to the list’s topic.

Now what does this mean for Facebook marketers? As a marketer, you need to recognize the potential here: you can target people who actually choose to view your content and you can do it at no extra costs. For example, if you’re in the sports industry, your content will be viewed by subscribers to the sports list, which could lead to more traffic to your website and gain online visibility. It also provides useful data about a user’s subscriptions (likes), which is a useful aspect of market research. Furthermore, the time users spend on Facebook can increase and this easily translates into a larger reach of ad exposure.

Overall, the feature is an interesting addition to the Timeline design and it adds value to the user experience. The interest lists may not be the last addition and according to the Huffington Post, it has proven Facebook’s pursuit in gaining more control of the interest graph. Will members use it? That’s the question; and due to the fact that the feature is still in its infancy, you cannot really tell right now. However, it’s fully integrated into the design and the more people have access to it, the more people are likely to use it.

What do you think? How will you use the interest lists?

The benefits of social media for political campaigns are impressive; however, I believe that all politicians should have a social media expert on their side, preventing them from making very public and irreversible mistakes. Do you remember the Anthony Weiner (former democratic congressman) scandal? He sent some so-called “lewd” photos to women on Twitter and thought these messages were private. That was his first mistake. He then claimed his Twitter account was hacked and denied sending any of the pictures, which was strike two. After this whole situation led to a media frenzy, he admitted his mistake, publicly apologized and announced his resignation.

Some would argue that it’s best to wait before you respond to similar allegations and others feel like it’s important to respond in a timely manner, but I think situations like these could be easily prevented. Politicians need to realize social media should never be taken lightly as it carries the power to amplify your message, or seriously damage your career. A well-prepared and thorough social media crisis management strategy would be a wise tip for all politicians engaging in the social world.

So, how transparent can a politician be? Based on the fact that a politician is representing a political party, he or she should always make sure that the content shared has great political value for their (online) supporters. They should address political issues and take credible standpoints if they wish to be taken seriously. Can they share personal information? I think they can and they should as this humanizes them and allows their supporters to identify, and thus build relationships with them. Nevertheless, information that is too private and has no political value whatsoever should not go public. This is another aspect the social media manager can (and should) consult with.

Politicians have recognized the importance of social media engagement and are now competing in a way the audience has never been able to witness before. Social media allows voters to directly respond and communicate with candidates on a very public level, which makes it a lot easier for other voters to follow conversations and discussions and help them shape their opinions and ideas about politicians. All of these tips have potential regarding engagement with constituents:

-          Reach: Social media is available around most part of the world–all you need is reliable internet access with no serious restrictions. There are no state borders on social media; politicians can reach voters all over the country. This also means that people who live outside the U.S. are able to follow them on Twitter or Facebook as well. This can result in global opinions and a possible sense of pressure, although it doesn’t counter the fact that U.S. politicians are targeting U.S. citizens. Nevertheless, having a wide reach increases the chances of content being spread.

-          Cost-effective: This is probably one of the most important benefits of using social media as it generally does not require paid subscriptions for anyone to participate. In that regard, the investment one would have in social media would consist of time and assuring this time is well-spent. One tweet can go viral and can possibly leave a bigger impression with voters than any TV commercial could; this is where the power of social media lies.

-          Generating campaign donations: Getting positive online publicity is also an effective way to gain donations. How? By simply adding a donation button to the networks, politicians enable supporters to easily make an online donation. According to the Washington Post, President Barack Obama raised half a billion dollars using this online method during his campaign, which I believe to be quite remarkable. In his 2012 reelection campaign, he is adding the Square technology to donation methods and this is likely to raise more money for the campaign as it enables iPhone and Android users alike to make donations.

-          Building trust: Building trust is strongly related to the connection politicians create with their voters in a social network. For example, the more a politician tweets on Twitter, the more people will feel like they know the politician and this is ultimately what they aim to gain from voters.

Overall, well-prepared social media strategies are not impossible to develop, especially if a politician has a competent social media team/manager by his side. No new social territories should be entered without proper preparation, as President Obama so well understands when he started hanging out on Google+.  Being prepared and having a solid plan will lower the chances of crossing any socially acceptable lines.

What do you think of politicians using social media? Is it better than traditional campaigns? I would love to read about it in the comments!