Digital Marketing Consultant

Some of the best users of social media are the people traditionally thought of as the weakest at marketing.  Authors have become experts at using Facebook, and in particular Twitter, to stay in touch with their readers and build their brands.  Neil Gaiman, for example, the British author of American Gods, Coraline and the Sandman comic book series, skips Facebook but maintains a blog on Tumblr and an active Twitter account with more than 1.65 million followers.

He uses his stream to talk about books, to interact with his fans and also to promote the events in which he participates with his wife, performer Amanda Palmer.

It would be great if we could put a figure on the value that sort of activity can bring for a business.

Fortunately, we can.

Gaiman recently tweeted that he had been offered $12,500 from a fast food company to tweet a recommendation to their restaurants.  That valued his followers at around 7.6 cents each.  (He turned the offer down.)

Or rather this offer valued the Twitter contacts as an advertising resource at 7.6 cents each. According to research firm Nielsen, the typical short-term return on an advertising spend is nine cents for every dollar.  That fast food company then was expecting Neil Gaiman’s 1.65 million followers to immediately spend at least $13,625 in their restaurants if Gaiman were to endorse them, valuing them at a little over 8 cents each.

Indirect Endorsements Are Lazy Advertising

But celebrity endorsements like these have limited effect.  They are what ad man hero Don Draper dismissed in Mad Men once as “lazy advertising.”  Neil Gaiman does not tweet about restaurants so the fast chain was hoping that his star power — and most importantly, the trust that his timeline has built with his followers — could translate into some cash.

Presumably if Neil Gaiman were to recommend a book, the result would be far more valuable.  And if he were to start talking about one of his own books, a novel that he was about to release, it would be more valuable still.  

That is where your business’s online presence kicks in.  It is much harder for small or medium-sized business to pick up a following as large as a superstar author’s.   And it is harder to build with corporate customers the same level of trust and personal closeness that Neil Gaiman has managed to build with his fans.

But all of that effort — the tweets and the images, the opinion-sharing and the responding — does have a real value.  

It is something that is easily forgotten as you are doing all of the social media activity that you are supposed to do to build a business.  There’s no immediate return from answering a tweet or posting your opinion about a new product accessory.  There is no sudden rush to your website when you write a comment about a conference you’re attending or a colleague you just met with a great idea.  

But all of that activity continues to build an asset.  It deepens the relationship you have with your followers — and it adds a few numbers to the value of that relationship so that when you’re ready to cash in with a product announcement, you can save more than 8 cents from every follower.

There are several ways digital marketing can give your business a boost.  In today’s economical challenges, most companies could use all the help they can get.

Digital Marketing starts with selecting your target niche and also creating various types of advertisements for your products and services.  Digital Marketing takes you to your customers in the comfort of their home.  

Digital Marketing does not include the more traditional methods of advertisement such as TV, radio or billboard.  The traditional styles of advertisement with TV, Radio and billboard advertisement are limited in their effectiveness in reaching your target market.

One of the benefits of digital marketing is how it creates communication with your customers.  Methods of designing credible digital marketing may be varied depending on the method of delivery (Internet or Phone) and the intended result.

Digital Marketing has the grand advantage of allowing your business to sell world-wide or just in the neighborhood.

THE most important reason for the success of Digital Marketing is that it can be measured for success. You will be able to track who your visitors are, and also where they spend their time. 

Push and pull marketing strategies have been successful in the digital marketing world.  Digital Marketing provides for an interactive marketing approach.  Social media has opened marketing up to be conversational with your target market.

By utilizing the various methods associated with digital marketing many avenues and opportunities for interactive marketing is available.

Digital Marketing allows you the opportunity to establish yourself as the expert in your business field.   Becoming known as an expert will definitely boost your business.

Utilizing marketing techniques that builds credibility with your market highlighting your expertise will go a long way in building your business.  Doesn’t your business deserve the benefits of digital marketing?  Give your business a boost today by implementing a digital marketing strategy for your business.

Socialization on the network is all about connecting with others by a network or a group of people with like interest.  These network places usually are established by joining a membership.  Grid Social Networking is a relatively new social networking company.  So what is it?

The popular social network sites in our world today such as Facebook, Twitter, and Gather (www.gather.com) are some of the most popular sites online today.   People like to connect with other people who have mutual interest and these sites offer an easy way to connect in such a manner.   This type of site has the ability to span across a country and even go beyond country borders across the world to connect people with similar interests.

Grid networking has opened up opportunities for networking outside of these established social networking sites.   One site seems to offer marketing opportunities.  SocialGrid’s (www.socialgrid.com) grid technology goes outside to Google for searching capabilities.  Here is a quote from their site:

For complex searches, we leverage Grid Computing technology, using geographically distributed computers, unified to create a supercomputer for solving data intensive computing applications. Currently, grid computing is used to search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), to find the drug candidates to cure diseases, and to forecast the weather. Looking for people is similar to searching for an intelligent signal from aliens hidden in radio waves from space or searching for a strand of DNA in the human genome. To find the right person, we must find the right matching sequence. SocialGrid Search Engine is cluster of Linux servers designed to scale up to millions of members with minimal cost. This technology will be utilize when membership grows over 100,000 members.

When you sign up for SocialGrid for free, you provide personal information and identify the type of person with whom you want to connect and in what things you are interested.   SocialGrid provides you with a code to be placed on your website home page, blog, etc.  The appearance of the code online is simply a barcode.  Google reads the barcode and finds codes on other people that have matching characteristics with which to connect you.   You don’t have to do anything but let the program and Google search make the connections for you.

This is a great alternative for those individuals who do not care to build a presence online outside of their own blog or website.  Grid networking is a good method to use to connect with people without additional restrictions and maintenance of another online site.  Will Grid networking open up yet another door for marketing in the future?

Or do you think it would be to abuse something?

Reality is, we all do this with our discussions through out the day.  This is marketing. It is with the power of our advice and words which promotes both our businesses and us.  It says a lot about you when you offer advice that works.

Not only does this set you apart as an expert with people but it allows them to see you in a real personable way demonstrating heartfelt interest in them as an individual.   This builds their trust in you and increasing the chances they will consider doing business with you at a later time.

They will also come nearer recommending you to others who may have a need of your services.   They will endorse you as you have already established yourself as a proven expert.

Businesses who obtain the majority of their business by recommendations and referrals do so by their record of doing a good job even when it was simply providing free advice..

By providing a free workshop or giving a talk on a topic, you have knowledge of great ways to establish yourself as an expert.   In doing this, other opportunities can present simply by someone in need of your material on a larger scale may be in attendance and approach you about additional services.  This type of networking can pay off in no time.

Free advice does not have to always be as planned as giving a free workshop.  Perhaps just giving a company advice on how to better serve their customers in a way they have not considered previously.

Just watch what happens when you market yourself by giving awary some good free advice...with a smile.

Here is some free advice: USA Business Trends Report.  You're welcome.

TOP 5 SOCIAL PORTALS

Social Media and PR

Received an Award or Recognition? – PR Checklist

Receiving recognition or being honored with an award for your accomplishments is a great reason to launch a PR campaign as it will guarantee positive coverage. Publicizing the fact that your company and/or product has been recognized will enhance your status. Remember to include these components in your recognition / awards social media press release.

A link to the relevant page on the organization’s website, which issued the award to your company. The page should show that you are listed as an award winner.

A link to the relevant page on your company website or blog highlighting your award with pictures of the award and a brief synopsis of why you received the award.

Links to your company’s social network pages with more details about the award and pictures of your company spokesperson accepting your award (if possible).

Links to share the press release on the social networking and bookmarking sites (Digg, Delicious, Newsvine, reddit, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Google Bookmarks, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn). You can get the bookmarking code to add to your online PR at ShareThis.com.

A link to a podcast testimonial from your company spokesperson commenting on the award and what this means to your company. If possible, it would be beneficial to capture a podcast testimonial from a representative of the organization that issued the award.

A link to a video of your company spokesperson accepting the award, if possible. Alternatively, you can include a video message from a representative from the organization who gave your company the award, commenting on the recognition.

Links to any recent news coverage of the award / recognition. The links can be directly from your press release or from your website.

An RSS link to invite readers to subscribe to regular updates from your company. Or you can include a link to sign up for a newsletter.

A short boilerplate on the organization that issued the award to you can be ordered with a hard-copy of this book if you would like to have the template for this operation.

Personal note: Let me invite you to lunch on line: http://www.squidoo.com/FreeLunchForBusiness

I end each day's segment with this link in case you want to research possibilities: http://bit.ly/WSIDigitalMarketing and http://www.squidoo.com/Website_Audit.

This is the thirty-ninth in a series of articles over several weeks to explain social networking.  Now I am describing each of the five major social portals. Copyright ©2009 by WSI