How do people feel about your business compared to how they feel about your competitors?
What types of emotions are engendered when customers and prospects think about you or your company?
Social media marketing has been around a long time, but it has only recently been experiencing an explosion in participation from around the world. It has definitely gone mainstream, and is now even more important as a tool in your digital marketing strategy.
Many businesses are failing to get a grasp of this new marketing and networking medium, as they lose market share to savvy competitors. This is why it is important that as a business owner, you understand how social media works.
Brands are what people say about you when you’re not in the room, and that room has gotten extremely big and extremely digital.
Being present on search engines and in social media channels when a company’s potential consumer base has an issue or is researching a solution is priority number one. The digital consumer turns to Google or their social network when they have a problem and a company that is present and ready to start helping the consumer is already on there way to the a great start to a relationship.
Commerce + Brands = Evolving Rapidly By / For This Generation
MILLENNIALS
Millennials = Impacting + Evolving Retail…
Grew up during digital era with internet, mobile computing, social media + streaming media on iPhones.
Experiencing time of rising globalization, diversity in race + lifestyle, 9/11, war on terror, mass murder in schools + the Great Recession.
- Globally minded
- Optimistic
- Tolerant
Work Life/Balance
Expanded view on work / life balance including time for community service + self development.
SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT FREE
With all the new algorithms Facebook is applying, your posts are presented to a limited number of fans; therefore you boost a post or create a targeted ad in Facebook Ad Manager.
Your digital brand is visible across multiple channels on a global scale. This 24/7 exposure requires you to keep your marketing messages tied to your brand ideals in an authentic, transparent way. By managing your brand accountability, you can get people to fall in love with your brand and take advantage of the fact that consumers tend to make buying decisions for emotional reasons.
EASY GROWTH IS BEHIND US
The past two decades saw incredible growth with surging global adoption of digital and mobile. Business and communications have been forever disrupted. While the disruption and innovation continues, the days of easy growth are behind us. “New internet users are going to continue to be harder to find,” you told us.
For businesses and brands, this means the competition to win, engage and retain users is going to be far more acute. Whether on mobile or web, the battle lines of engagement are drawn and the stakes are higher than ever.
Each Generation Has Slightly Different Core Values + Expectations…
Shaped by Events that Occur in Their Lifetimes.
GOOGLE & FACEBOOK
Online Advertising = Mobile + Majors + Newcomers Continue to Crank Away.
The full potential for online advertising is far from realized and yet social media advertising is growing. Advertisers and ad agencies are sticking with traditional media even as consumers have shifted their attention to the Internet and mobile devices in particular.
Meeker estimates that advertiser inertia translates to under-spending on mobile to the tune of $22 billion. That’s a profound opportunity for players in the mobile ecosystem. It’s also a profound risk for traditional media. Not to mention newspapers, which, in fact, Meeker doesn’t mention.
USA Internet Advertising Growth = Accelerating, +20% vs. +16% Y/Y…
Owing to Mobile (+66%) vs. Desktop (+5%)
Not long ago social-media marketing was something that brand managers might ask their summer interns to deal with. Today it has become a pillar of the advertising industry. Social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have cultivated vast audiences: 2 billion people worldwide use them, says eMarketer, a research firm. Online advertising of all sorts continues to grow, and within that category, spending on social-media ads has gone from virtually nothing a few years ago to perhaps $20 billion this year.
Such fine-tuned targeting means that the distinction between advertising and e-commerce is becoming blurred. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other platforms are selling ads containing “buy now” buttons, which let users complete a sale on the spot. It is too early to tell how many consumers want such a convenience, but the social platforms foresee a future in which they get paid by advertisers to provide instant-shopping services that make the platforms more useful to their members, and get them to spend more time on them.
RETAILING CHANNELS
Retailing Channels Evolve With Time…
Shaped by Evolution of Technology + Distribution
Physical Retailers are Morphing into Digital Retailers
PRODUCTS BECOME BRANDS…BRANDS BECOME RETAILERS
RETAIL – THE NEW NORMAL
Sources: Mary Meeker and KPCB
WHAT’S WORKING
Marketing Channels Evolve With Time…
Shaped by Evolution of Technology + Media
Brands that actively engage across channels with human beings are working.
Internet-Enabled Retailers / Products / Brands On Rise = Bolstered by
Always-On Connectivity + Hyper-Targeted Marketing + Images + Personalization
The larger message is to make sure you are engaged in the conversation wherever it might be at a certain scale that merits your investment. Get it right and you can end up with evangelists as your employees, for example, according to the Zappos’ methodology everyone that works for you is an ambassador for your brand.
Understanding, listening, and responding can only make your business smarter, so it’s important to maintain a nimble, customer-driven ethos. That is working for a lot of companies.
Marketers have become content publishers at scale. Some have always been great publishers, but it’s a different ecosystem in digital and content flows through it like water – whether it’s shared, liked, +1ed or whatever.
About Blair
Blair Evan Ball is a Social Media Coach and founder of Prepare1, a company that works with businesses, individuals and non-profits. He is a former executive with a Fortune 50 company, and his national division did $1Billion+ in sales annually.
Blair has written three e-books: Facebook for Business Made Easy, Facebook Pages for Business Made Easy, and WordPress Blog Setup Made Easy.
Blair also educates, trains entrepreneurs and business professionals how to amplify their brand, increase revenues, and raise more funds.
The Race is ON! | PREPARE | Get into the Game and WIN!
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