Book Giveaway: The Zen of Social Media Marketing (2012 Edition)
This week’s MarketingSherpa Book Giveaway features The Zen of Social Media Marketing (2012 Edition) by Shama Hyder, CEO, Marketing Zen Group.
I’ve been reading through this volume for the last several weeks, and I just keep finding new ideas and actionable advice for social media marketers. I thought one point Shama made was particularly interesting:
In this book, I’ll be using the words “customer” and “client” interchangeably to refer to both, because there isn’t much difference between them when it comes to using social media marketing techniques: you can ATTRACT, CONVERT and TRANSFORM both with the same material.
Instead of providing more of what I’ve been enjoying, I decided to call on a much more expert source …
Shama’s 5 takeaways
For MarketingSherpa readers, Shama provided her five main takeaways from this latest edition of her book:
1. The #1 reason people fail at social media marketing is that they don’t have a solid foundation.
They don’t have a brand, and they don’t understand the outcome they provide. Companies focus too much on how they do something versus what it gets their clients. And, they have absolutely no way of differentiating themselves from the competition.
Social media is the ultimate amplifier. If you have a good product or service, it will be amplified until it is perceived as great. If you have a shoddy product to begin with, that will also be amplified.
2. Traffic is nice but should not be the only goal of social media marketing.
Some people out there look at social media marketing only as a means of attracting traffic to their websites. Although traffic is a great goal and easily measurable, it should not be your only goal.
Remember, you can and should use social media to transform as well. It is a great way to share your stories, listen to feedback, and cultivate relationships with potential customers and future partners and vendors.
3. Facebook advertising should be fresh, based on actions, and constantly monitored:
- Change content and creative frequently (about once a week) to keep your ads fresh for viewers who will see them repeatedly.
- The CPC (cost-per-click) method has been much more cost-effective than the CPM (cost-per-thousand) model, which is based on impressions.
- You can share your account activity with colleagues or clients by going to “Ads,” then “Settings,” and adding permissions. Never leave these unattended. This is your money hard at work, so watch your bids, your budget and your overall performance to get the most bang for your buck.
4. The Power of Web Video: Why bother with online video?
In large part, it’s because that vast majority of people, when given the choice, prefer to watch rather than read.
In fact, a 2007 study by the National Endowment for the Arts reports that “on average, Americans aged 15 to 24 spend almost two hours a day watching TV, and only seven minutes of their daily leisure time on reading”. And you can bet that Web video is only further fueling this “watch vs. read” scenario … across all age groups.
5. If you have a Facebook page, keep interaction consistent and high.
This is key to landing in people’s news feeds. A report by PageLever recently showed that most pages only reach 3.5% to 7% of their fans. Why? They don’t show up in their news feed.
Related Resources:
Enter this week’s Book Giveaway for your chance to win one of five copies of Shama’s The Zen of Social Media Marketing (2012 Edition)
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Categories: Social Networking Evangelism Community cost-per-click, CPC, CPM, Facebook, online video, social media marketing, traffic
Great post. I totally agree with the statement about traffic. It is important but shouldn’t be the main goal in social media strategy. Engagement we can gain by being a part of social media will bring traffic sooner or later.