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Messaging and its importance in Social Media Marketing

Matthew Arndt — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:07:36 +0000

So yesterday I decided to take a little walk to grab some lunch in downtown Pleasanton by our office. As I was walking, I saw something that caught my eye. It was a sign that read

Pleasanton Main St Brewery Live Beer Nightly Sign

“Main Street Brewery: LIVE BEER NIGHTLY!”. Now this really confused me… “Live Beer”? What is live beer, and how does this restaurant have it nightly? I took a picture, grabbed my lunch, and wondered back to my office.

I knew I had to get to the bottom of this, so I decided to give the Pleasanton Brewery a call. So I looked up their phone number, dialed, and told them I had seen the sign outside and wanted to know the meaning of “live beer”. The girl who answered the phone proceeded to tell me “Oh…we just have beer”. I prodded a little more, “So is there live music nightly as well?”…thinking that possibly they had just drank too much of their own product when making the sign, and actually meant to use the word “Music” instead. She replied, “Oh No, just beer”.

Wow, I’ve never felt more confused, bewildered, or left out in my life (just kidding Pleasanton Brewery). Now, not all of us have an office, storefront, or place to put a sign, but either way, messaging is incredibly important in every form of marketing that we participate in.

The important thing to remember when participating in Social Media Marketing is that if you don’t know your message, or the message is confused, then your message will not be clear on Twitter, Facebook, your Website, Blog…or basically ANYWHERE!

Now, the Pleasanton Main Street Brewery does have a Facebook Group, so I thought I’d include that in case any of you want to join up: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=68808012506

To learn more about Social Media Marketing for Business, click on the red “Free Video Series” button in the top right corner of this page to watch our free video series or give me a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Matthew Arndt, President, Turbo Social Media

USocial: Helping Buy Facebook Friends Since 2009

Zack — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:21:06 +0000

Do you have trouble getting friends and having a large network? Then why not just buy your friends? No we are not talking about joining a fraternity or a sorority (Just kidding Matt. ), we are talking about growing your Facebook friends and fans with the help of USocial.

USocial is on online advertising company that has taken on the role as Network builder. For a mere $654.30, USocial will help get you 5,000 new friends. Companies and Entrepreneurs can hire them to build their network and give the actual user the image of being very popular and having a large group of people to network with.

USocial claims that each of your Facebook friends is worth about $1 per month to your success so in no time you should be turning a profit right? Not to me it does not. Sure this process can get you a lot of friends and followers, but it is missing one key ingredient: Communication. When building a network on your own, you are communicating with each person, they here about you through others, or see your blog posts and think you are interesting and they reach out to you. I personally would not accept a friend request if I did not know the person or I did not think that person could help get me ahead.

When building a Social Network you want to have relationships with these people, if they are just there, they might not do you any good, you want to work with these people, get feedback and help them out with their issues, that is where the money is to be had from your Facebook family. What do you think?

To learn more about Social Media Marketing and Social Networking, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give us a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Director of Operations, Turbo Social Media

Is there ever “too much” social media marketing?

Matthew Arndt — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:58:29 +0000

So, when is enough, enough. How much contact with your network is too much? If you understand that social media marketing works, and have seen great results from it, then the tendency is to push your marketing messages through your network, but is this really the best approach? In this article I am going to explore the appropriate ways to market using social media marketing.

Content Sharing Through Social Media

We’ve often talked about how social media marketing is all about sharing great content. The content is there for many reasons. If you share, then you position yourself or your company as the expert in your industry. You also gain visibility, and have the chance to have your content shared with others participating on the social web. Your goal here should be to find one of the many different way’s of having your visitors subscribing to your updates, via an Email Opt-In, RSS Feed Subscription, having them “follow” your tweets, “friend” you on facebook, or “connect” with LinkedIn.

So, you’ve been successful with your sharing, you’ve built your following, and you’d like to promote an event now…but how?

Well, the usual response is to market directly to your list, by sending messages about it, but this needs to be done delicately. Everyone can understand the power of reaching out to a list of fans, but with social media, this has often been abused. In the marketing world, we do our best to connect with our market, but understanding the idea of giving to gain is the most important thing we can do.

OK, so I have to give, and I don’t want to abuse my list, but I still need them to come, how should I approach this?

Of course you need to send promotions, and that is fine, but there is a proper balance that needs to be respected when marketing through social media. When doing a promotion, its important to share snippits of the content about the topic interspersed with the promotion. Without this content, your followers will view you as a spammer instead of a friend. Your followers want to trust what you are sending them, as well as have confidence in you, so make sure that you don’t over-do your promotion.

How do I know when I’ve overdone my promotion and when I hit my list’s breaking point?

The whole point of marketing with social media is the “pull” effect. My friend Kelly O’Neil, the Marketing to the Affluent head coach from Marketing to Millionaires has told me that if you do your marketing correctly, then business flows to you without overdone promotions, price cuts, or advertising. So you’ll know that your list is sick of it when the interactions on facebook, blogs, and twitter stop, your followers begin to unsubscribe, and business starts slowing down. Its important to interact on a personal level at all times in order to have the maximum benefit from your social media marketing!

To learn more about Social Media Marketing for Business, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give me a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Matthew Arndt, President, Turbo Social Media

What is an Authority Blog and How can it be used?

Matthew Arndt — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:40:10 +0000

As you may or may not know, blogging should be used as the center of your social media strategy. Why? Its simple, the content that you produce and publish on your blog is not only great as a way to share your knowledge, but also the base of all the content that you can share through all of your social networks!

I’ll start out here by explaining what an authority blog is, and how this is different than other blogs. An authority blog is a great way for an expert to share their expertise on a variety of subjects by use of their name as a brand. Sure, many of us have seen blogs (such as this one for instance) where the blog is based on a brand, company, or product, and the purpose of that blog is to teach about that subject. This blog is centered around social media marketing. Other blogs are personal blogs on different subjects such as a food blog or a personal travel blog. These are all centered around the same concept, with the point being to share information on a subject.

So, why would one want to make an “authority blog”? Well, in business, if you are a coach, consultant, or an expert in many fields, then an authority blog gives you the chance to teach on many different topics. The goal here is the same with other business blogs, to educate potential clients, and hopefully get them to opt-in to your RSS feed, Newsletter, or other call-to-action with the end goal to pick up a new client. Authority Blogs are the way to go if you meet the following criteria:

1. You are the authority (or have knowledge to share valuable content on a regular basis)

2. You have multiple disciplines that you are sharing content on (i.e. different market segments and niches)

3. Your followers and industry recognizes your name as an expert

If you meet these criteria, then building an authority blog is the way to go. We just finished a great example of an authority blog, from Catherine Maley, CEO of Cosmetic Image Marketing. You can check out her blog here. Catherine offers a variety of services and products teaching cosmetic surgeons how to effectively market their practices, and her blog will be sharing that content with everyone, as well as being syndicated through her Twitter and Facebook.

To learn more about Social Media Marketing for Business (as well as authority blogs), fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give me a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Matthew Arndt, President, Turbo Social Media

Will Social Media Marketing Work for Every Business?

Matthew Arndt — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:53:01 +0000

It often seems that whenever a new “dominant” type of media emerges, coaches and consultants tell all of their clients about it, agencies begin their pitches, and information marketers start selling it as the magic pill that is going to move your business to the next level. Is social media marketing that new magic pill? Will it work for your business or practice?

When it comes to understanding the “new media” known as social media marketing, there are a few things that will help you understand why this might work or not work.

The first thing is what Seth Godin calls “The Purple Cow”. This concept means, basically, does your product or service push the boundaries of your industry? Are you offering the same thing that everyone else does, or do you have a unique take on your industry that will be making leaps and bounds into the future?

Being unique is very important with social media marketing, but that in and of itself is not enough to determine whether it will work for you. One thing that people tend to misunderstand about the Internet, is the sheer number of people using it, and what they are looking for. On the Internet, people search for very specific things. Whether they are looking for a doctor who treats the chronic condition fibromyalgia in Menomonee Falls, WI or for someone who knows how to fix redwood siding in Sausalito, CA, the new internet consumer wants their information, and they want it now. This is a form of the concept of “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson. Although some people will know to search a general category so they can shop their problem around, it’s those who can be in front of the consumer when its time to make that buying decision that will ultimately succeed.

So now that you have a basic understanding of a “Purple Cow” and “The Long Tail”, it’s also important to understand the power of sharing information and proper education of your visitors. In the early days of the internet, huge efforts were made to “trick” the search engines using so called “Black Hat” techniques. Keywords were stuffed, meta tags altered, gateway pages created in and effort to get to the top of the listings. These days, Google and Yahoo know better, and this is the reason you see great content like blogs, facebook profiles, and article sites showing up in the search results. As you can see, sharing content, especially good content that can get spread throughout the internet, position you as the expert in your field, and build your brand, will generate leads.

To learn more about Social Media Marketing for Business, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give me a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Matthew Arndt, President, Turbo Social Media