6 Ideas to Squeeze More Out of Social Media

Toothpastes are not the only thing you can squeeze dry of.

Yes, everybody’s talking about Facebook, Tweeter, Youtube, Linked-in and Flickr nowadays.  A lot of brands are using them to build relationships with clients, or form communities of their own.  How can we squeeze the max out of them today?  Here are some ideas.

1) Do you think Flickr is just for photography aficionados?  Yes they are, but with smartphones so prevalent nowadays, everybody’s a photographer of some sort.  Ask your fans to share photos on how they use your products, perhaps in creative ways.  Ask them to share their testimonies with other Flickr fans.

2) Research intensively on your brands, your consumers and your competitors.  Use brands.peoplebrowsr.com to find the hottest brands talked about currently.  Seek out discussions related not just to your brands, but to your category, related products and technologies.  This will help to widen your search and find interesting content.

3) Make your videos easily searchable on Youtube.  It’s just like Google.  You need to do optimization to be ranked higher in searches.  Spend more time on titling and tagging your videos, so your consumers can find them.

4) Use the right measurement.  We use to pay big bucks to agencies that measure consumers’ response to our TV ads.  On social media, its a lot more straight forward.  Check how many views you have for Flickr and Youtube.  Check the number of retweets on Twitter.  Check out your Facebook posts’ likes and comments.

5) Be present on the top social media sites.  Twitter, Facebooks, Google+, etc.  The more ways you can be contacted by your potential consumers, the more satisfaction they get from your brand.  Shows that you care and can listen.

6) For Twitter, instead of tweeting what you had for lunch, try promotions for a change.  Give an iPhone away for free if they retweet your tweets to all their friends.  Give discounts and free samples for your followers.  They like these kinds of stuffs.

Advertisement

Social Media’s Impact on Society

Google’s domination is now threatened by the rise of social media. Google has long been the leader, but now Facebook and MySpace allow searches for people and celebrities, and related facts. You can search Digg and Delicious for best articles on a subject.

The influence of social media on our lives is increasing exponentially. Just look at how President Obama used social media to garner votes. Obama had searches three times more than McCain, sealing the victory in his favor. They used social media to decide on the best words to use for their campaigns. Obama involved his voters in his campaign, and this endeared his voters to him.

NBC telecasted a US open golf championship online, and they captured millions of viewers online. This was an experiment for NBC, but it was a step in the right direction. Unlike superbowl or TV ads, online viewing needs new metrics. Online viewership allows more measurable metrics, has a younger audience who don’t mind watching some advertisements, and allows you to collect precious demographic information from your viewers. It is also far more cost effective vs. TV, magazines or outdoor ads.

Facebook is also a boon to advertisers. Now advertisers can advertise to only the ‘singles’, or to those who are fans of certain product category, or to those who have certain purchase patterns. More targeted advertising such as search advertising has overtaken previously hot banner and display ads.

In the future, the winners will be those that can utilize the power of social media well to market their products of great value. The team players will work with society at large to generate massive amounts of referrals. Middlemen and traditional advertising will see the greatest threat to their survival. Let the revolution begin.

PR Through Social Media

Take a look at Skullcandy and what it is doing right. It makes electronic audio products. To engage with its customers, it has widgets, downloadable music, custom artwork, blogs, communities, events and social networks to complement its traditional advertising. You need to communicate with, not just to your consumers.

You can track top websites for references via alexa, compete, technorati and blogpulse websites.

For good social media PR releases, focus on what you would like to read. Don’t worry too much about the traditional structures and formats. Prioritize the news, the story and the supporting facts. Keep it between 400 to 500 words per article.