Frequently Asked Questions
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social Media Marketing is driving large amounts of traffic to your website and business through social media channels. It is a very powerful strategy that will bring you more clients and customers. Of all of the website marketing methods, there are none that are as effective in bringing you the traffic results for as low of a cost.
People that don’t realize the power and effectiveness of the Social Media generally fall into three categories:
- Those who don’t know much or anything about social media
- Those who are interested but don’t know how to use social media
- And those who don’t believe in the value that a social media strategy can bring to any site or business.
Point I – Links = Better Search Engine Rankings.
“Authority” – Authority sites are those that have a large number of links pointing to them from other trusted websites. It is like getting endorsements to your product or service. Search engines “trust” these sites more because with links comes credibility. If you optimize your backlinks (links pointing to your website and structure your website properly, you will begin to rank in the search engines’ indices. This will bring search engine visitors to your site to explore your offering.
Do it often
Building links often enough will increase your traffic obtained through search engines. This will expose more people to what you are offering and will ultimately bring you more business. Why is search traffic more powerful than traditional advertising? Because the person who finds you through a search is looking for what you offer. They are a warm lead from the start because they have sought after what you offer. It is like walking into a shoe store looking for shoes.
Small business owners with newer websites often find it difficult to get their sites ranked with the search engines. They don’t know how to build their websites properly and they don’t know how to go about building effective links through trusted channels. They can flounder in their efforts for a while until finally giving up on web marketing all together.
Point II – Primary and Secondary Traffic – Building a community of support
Some will claim that traffic coming from social sites is “useless” and doesn’t bring you real clients. This is shown by the notoriously high bounce rate from sites like Digg where visitors may come, read your article, and leave immediately. Certainly, as a secondary source of traffic, they might be correct.
But make no mistake. Traffic of any sort will help you to bring in more primary traffic. Links and visits from trusted sites indicate to the search engine that your site is worth checking out. Plus, you will develop a following for your product or service through these means. Social sites may drive useless traffic, but so do search engines at times. Think of how often you have searched for something only to hit the “Back” button almost immediately. It happens. What is important, however, is that your site is being seen. From there, we want to create compelling content to beef up your “time-on-site” average and ultimately your “authority.”
By becoming an authority on a subject, you quickly will realize higher rankings on the Search Engines, further establishing your authority. Think of the snowball rolling downhill, gathering snow. We want to try to add more snow through the use of Social Media Marketing to that your snowball rolls faster and gets bigger more quickly than your competition’s snowballs.
Secondary traffic builds your brand
Secondary traffic that comes from the social media network is brand building. More people will see your brand and your name more often. This will help to put you in their mind when they think of your product or service. Secondary traffic will be easily able to find you because you will have a social “connection” with them through various channels. By knowing what you do, longer term, they will know who to turn to first when they need your offering.
Social channels are unique in their ability to keep people connected. How many of your high-school colleagues have you been able to reconnect with through Facebook or LinkedIn? Probably lots. Most of them did not know that you sell (fill in the blank) product or service. Now they do. They know you and what you do simply through a connection on a site. Very powerful.
Your social pages are a place where you can deliver your messages as reminders to your followers and friends of what you do. The larger your network, the more people hear your message. Our goal is to extend your reaches through this medium.
You could stick with traditional link exchanges, search advertising or purchasing banner ads or editorial ads, so why bother setting up social media as a marketing channel for your website or business?
Social Media Marketing Reasons:
- Your build your brand naturally rather than through advertising. I don’t know about you, but I cannot stand commercials. I purchased a TiVo specifically so that I could avoid the hassle of watching them during my favorite TV shows. Brand building through commercial means is way more expensive and takes a lot longer.
- Social media is a great source of web traffic. By taking advantage of the network building possibilities of sites like Facebook, Twitter and others, you will see your web traffic increase. That increase in traffic will indicate to search engines that your site is worth ranking. The search engine spiders will pay more attention to your site and rank it more highly.
- Social Media Marketing is low-cost with very high returns. If you do-it-yourself, then your costs are your time. (assuming you don’t need a web designer/programmer). For the small business start-up, the benefits should far exceed the cost. We suggest you follow the do-it-yourself method if you simply cannot afford a marketing budget or are working another job while you start your company. If you want the most bang for the buck, however, hire a professional to market for you. the costs are very low and the reward is very high.
- Social Media Marketing compliments your other marketing efforts. Having your message on lots of different social websites along with your own website will be very beneficial to any other efforts that you are making to market yourself, your product or your service. You can use the social media to increase any marketing campaign that you undertake, broadcasting your message to your entire network.
How and why do we target your geographic area?
Geographic targeting is more powerful and more quickly profitable than a nationwide campaign. Let’s say you are a wedding planner in Richmond, VA. As glamorous as it may sound, you aren’t routinely planning weddings in Hawaii. Thus, you don’t really need clients finding you or your service who are not planning a wedding in your geographic area.
By targeting Richmond, VA (in the above example) you are able to more quickly reach your target clients. Thus, you will make more money more quickly.
Can we calculate ROI for specific Social Media Marketing Campaigns?
Marketing campaigns, whether social media or otherwise, are impossible to accurately track with regards to ROI. You can determine more accurately an ROI on all of your marketing efforts by comparing how much you spend on marketing vs. your company’s revenues.
Specifically, if you spend $5,000 annually on marketing and bring in $100,000 in revenues, then you can determine what your ROI is. But defining that ROI to a specific campaign is next to impossible without barraging your client with multiple questions to determine exactly how they found you. Then what price do you puton them if they are a referral from a client who heard about you from Facebook? You can see how complex it can get.
It would be like asking “what was the ROI of putting on your reading glasses today?” Hard to quantify, but without them, you would not be able to see and thus work.
So how can we measure the effectiveness if we cannot easily determine ROI?
- Historical traffic patterns: By watching traffic patterns, we can quickly determine whether we are getting more or less traffic after running certain campaigns.
- Network participation: Did your social network comment on your campaign. Did they message you after you ran a certain article. Did your sales go up
- Link Love: How many people linked to your article, video or content after you posted through your social network channels?
- Subscribers: Do you now have more subscribers because you are producing content that is worthy of subscription. How many page, video or content views did you receive? Do you have more fans or followers now?
- Unmeasurable factors: there are many unmeasurables that come into play as well. These are more of a feeling that you get by reading the comments that are written back to you from your offerings.
What monetary value can be placed on getting another fan on Facebook, or a follower on Twitter? It is not easily determined, but it is worth something. That fan on Facebook has friends who will see that they have become your fan. Those friends may be looking for what you offer. That follower on Twitter might have 300 followers themselves. You make a post and it shows up on their home page feed, exposing hundreds of people to your service. How much is that worth? A sale perhaps. Another long term client.
Just like being at a baseball game with another parent and talking about the great deal you just got on your new (fill in the blank), it is very difficult to figure out what a referral from your network is worth.
What are your goals? What are you trying to get done? These are the key questions to ask as you enter into any marketing campaign.
Though it is tough to quantify and measure the effectiveness of a Social Media Marketing campaign, it is very worth doing. The buzz that is created among your followers alone is worth the time and effort.
What can we take from this?
- Know where you want to be
- Start out small
- Track results
- Figure out what visitors are doing on your site
- Report frequently
Here’s another look at how to measure ROI for social media marketing:
Plan your budget in ADVANCE!
Too often, this critical step is skipped as a cost/time saving method. This is not a good idea. If you start a marketing campaign, assign dollars to it, get the idea approved by the CFO or COO (if applicable) in advance and then write your ads and copy.
Strategic goal setting
Along the path of your goals, you should set benchmarks or smaller goals. Like, I would like 100 fans on Facebook by the 3rd of July. These goals will help you realize the larger goals of gaining clients. The more fans you have, the more they will see your updates and so on.
Metrics and effectiveness tracking
The advanced tracking methods provided us by Google Analytics give us the ability to track metrics such as time spent on site, page views per session, repeat visits, and even click-throughs. These can indicate activity from the result of content marketing. Marketers with ecommerce capabilities can measure the ultimate behavior, transaction, and the role content plays on cross-sell, up-sell, and retention, amongst other metrics.
How to move forward
There are two keys to measurement when it comes to our marketing campaigns.
- Measurement is about planning.
- Measurement is about learning and growing your campaign
Do I have to sign a contract for 6 months or a year?
There is no contract and you may cancel at any time. The subscription is month to month. The set up fee, however, is never refundable. Because of the up front work we do and the time involved, we cannot refund the set-up costs. If you would like to cancel, simply contact us.
How do I cancel services?
To terminate service, just contact us
How long does it take to get my accounts set up and running?
It usually takes about one week to set up, however some clients take longer to get us the information we need to access their social accounts.
Is the Social Media Marketing program supposed to be an overnight success for me?
Social Media Marketing takes time to see a return on your investment. It is not meant to be an overnight success. Our plan, however, is that we should see some very positive results within about 60 days. Some markets are more competitive than others and require more time investment. Other clients have had poorly designed websites that don’t lend themselves to SEO.
As you establish your authority on a particular subject, you will find that your rankings will increase quietly and steadily. Your competition will never notice your climb.
Do I need to personally maintain my sites?
It is up to you how much you contribute to the program. Some clients want heavy involvement, others would rather have us do it all. Either way is great with us.
I have some new content. Should I post it or have you do it for me?
It certainly is not a problem for you to post your own content. However, this service is included in the monthly fee and we will check that content for keywords, correct titles and other factors prior to posting it.
Should I cancel my Google Adwords account?
Whether you cancel Google AdWords or not is completely up to you and your business model. I know that there is still a very strong place for AdWords and we would not want to suggest anything that would hurt your current business.
Any other questions?
Please contact us with other questions.