Driving Revenue with Social Media

September 4, 2013 1:50 pm // Author: David Moceri

This article will help you to understand how to generate revenue using social media.

Let’s start with some statistics about social media:

43% of US marketers have found a customer through LinkedIn (source: A Sales Guy Consulting
Facebook will account for 13% of worldwide mobile ad revenue in 2013 (source: L2)
50% of technology companies have acquired a customer through Twitter (source: Hubspot)
25% of consumers who complain about products on Facebook or Twitter expect a response withing 1 hour (source: American Express OPEN Forum)
70% of brands have presences on Google+, up 4% from Q4 2012 (source: Simply Measured)
90% of US online specialty retailers use Pinterest, up from 81% in 2012 (source: L2)

With all that being true, there are STILL some business owners that think:
“No one is going to buy our product on Facebook! Our average order is WAY too expensive.”

If you’re going to pay a consultant, marketing company or team member to market to potential customers on those networks, wanting that marketing to translate into real dollars and cents is a reasonable expectation. Driving and measuring revenue with social media can be done by any business. Here’s how in 3 steps:

Step 1: Build a community of consumers

You might be thinking: “Okay, great. I’ve heard this a million times before.” The difference is, we’ll show you how to do it:

Don’t be Afraid to be Social

Many marketers claim that you should stay away from social networks until you have a marketing plan in place and execution strategy. I disagree. I do understand the concept and hesitation relating to this outdated claim, but claiming your social presences on the web is the first step to be taken, with or without a marketing strategy. Even if you don’t plan on being active on these social networks right away, you’ll still have them claimed and under your control when you’re. Source

Here’s a perfect example:

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Donald Trump was too late to the party when claiming his Twitter profile. Anyone can make a Twitter profile with any name. The same goes for Facebook domains. For example, someone could have claimed the Facebook page: www.facebook.com/apple before Apple Inc. did. Luckily for Apple, they were the first to the party. However, not everyone is so lucky.

I suggest claiming your profiles and domains as soon as possible.

Keep the Means of Public Communication Open

“Consumers like to share their experiences and engage with brands. One of the biggest fears business owners have when deciding whether or not to “be social” is that they are giving their customers a chance to be vocal and even worse, share a negative experience for others to see.” Source

This is not a bad thing! First of all, your customers (audience) are sharing their experience with you on YOUR page (the one that you have control over). Secondly, this gives the business owner or designated controller an opportunity to discover and pinpoint common problems (complaints) so that the necessary changes towards resolving these issues can be taken, which will prevent further complaints around this issue. Lastly, keeping this public communication open gives you the opportunity to address these issues publicly. If there’s a problem or complaint and you’re willing to take efforts to fix it, customers will be happy. Previously, this was less effective because the only person who knew the efforts you were taking was the person making the complaint. Now, you can broadcast this conversation to your followers and potential customers. This is online reputation management 101. Source

Build a Community with a Combination of Great Content & Engagement

What makes the best kind of content? Whether it’s a commercial, a trade show or a Facebook post, the best kinds of content is the kind that people continue talking about after reading, watching or listening. Find out where your market is talking about your content and engage with them. Creating this content is easier said than done. It’s important to have creative minds generating content that is going to spark and fuel conversation and increase its shareability. Doing this will help populate a community, increase brand awareness and turn them into brand advocates.

Turn Your Community Into Brand Advocates

You’re only partway done. Once you’ve started to build a community, you need to get them talking. Here’s a concept from social media conference in Buffalo, NY:

“Give your customers so many positive experiences and engagements that they feel guilty leaving your company for someone else’s.” Source

Continuously generating great content, whether it’s a blog post, video tutorial, white paper, etc., will increase the likelihood of your audience sharing your content, referencing your content, recommending your brand and most importantly, coming back for more. Provide a product/service and content worth talking about and sharing, actively engage with your audience and I can almost guarantee they will think twice before leaving you for someone else. Source

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Continue delivering great content to your audience, engaging with them and giving them reasons to talk about your brand. Recognize the importance of building a community and you will be well on your way to a successful social media marketing campaign. Source

Create search-optimized content for those consumers

I’m sure you’ve heard of SEO before, but just in case you haven’t here’s a quick description from Wikipedia:

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine‘s “natural” or un-paid (“organic“) search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search,[1] news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.

Similarly to SEO, Facebook uses EdgeRank. The difference between SEO and EdgeRank is that EdgeRank sorts and organizes content that’s posted on Facebook, whereas SEO sorts and organizes content posted on the web.

seo1

You can pull much of the definition over to social media (search-optimized content). Instead of affecting the visibility of a website/webpage, you’re affecting the visibility of your content. Why does this matter? Because your Facebook page isn’t the only page that your customer likes! Look at the image below:

seo2 Image Source

The average American Facebook user likes 70 pages. Those 70 pages are most likely posting content just like you are. Not to mention their friends that are also posting and commenting. You’re competing with other Facebook pages and their friends.

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Image Source

Here’s how to get started search optimizing your content:

Determine your most relevant keywords

Get started making a list of keywords that you want to target. http://www.entrepreneur.com suggests this method:

Use the free Google Adwords Keyword Research tool. Here’s how to use it:

Log in to your Google Account.
Deselect “Broad” on the left.
Select “[exact]” on the left.
Enter keywords that you think might be searched for. We like to do three to 10 searches to find those with the largest search volumes.
Select Search.
Check the keywords using the “Ad Group Ideas” tab and the “Keyword Ideas” tab. Both allow you to view different variations on the words you initially put in — by theme or group and via one full list. The keywords displayed in the list should be surrounded by brackets. If they aren’t, you likely skipped the second and third steps above. This process helps you discover additional keyword variations that you might otherwise not consider.
Select one or two similar keywords. Few content pieces can be optimized well for many keywords, so you need to narrow it down. Keyword selections should take into consideration data points, such as search volume, relevance to the page and site content, and the likelihood that your page will be able to rank for the term (keyword competitiveness).

Example:

Say you’re selling women’s clothing. Just off the top of my head, here are some keywords you may want to think about using:

Women’s clothing
Women’s dresses
Women’s shoes
Women’s fashion

Know where to use your keywords
Now that you have your list of keywords, it’s time to start thinking about where they need to go in your content so that it will be optimized for high search rankings. Start with the article title. Keywords within article titles tell users (readers) and search engines what the piece is about. Entrepreneur Magazine says: “When people link to articles, they often use the title, which will increase the chances that your targeted keywords get in the hyperlink to your article.”

It’s also important to use your keywords in the body of the article about 3-5 times. In order to make the content sound natural, use variations of the keyword(s).

Create share-worthy content

You know how to create keywords and you know where to put them. Now it’s time to write that awesome content for the keywords that you want ranked. “This content should be distinctive, insightful or humorous so your audience will want to share it with other people in their networks.” ~Entrepreneur Magazine

The most common types of socialized content are:

Useful. Consider a list of statistics, an in-depth resource or guide, or a how-to article. Also consider multiple types of media, such as text, graphics and videos.
Funny. People often think of funny as videos or stories, but it can also mean a cartoon, which can be outsourced minimal cost. If you don’t feel especially humorous, get your friends together and brainstorm.
Lists. Interesting lists of things can become viral. The challenge is creating a list that people will actually want to share. It needs to have shock value, laughs or the “I want that!” reaction.
Infographics. Illustrating data or advice in a visual format has become a popular way to attract links. You can hire a graphic designer to help you present information in a visually appealing way. Also, there are many free and paid tools that help arrange and visualize data. If you don’t have the budget for a designer or the graphics skills to do it yourself, a free infographic tool is Infogr.am.

Source

Start determining which type of content to share by looking at the social media profiles of those who influence your target market. There you can see what they’re tweeting/retweeting, what they like, what they’re sharing and blogging about.

“…do research on the internet and in social networks to find out what others have written on those topics. Your goal is to “one up” them all. This doesn’t mean just merging other people’s information. You need to provide added value.” ~Entrepreneur Magazine

Promote your content

You want to develop your online network so that your followers will retweet, like and blog about your content. Try to build genuine relationships with those who could influence your target audience. The more people share your article and link to it from their website or blog, the higher your search engine rankings will be. When all of your SEO and social marketing efforts come together, they can take your brand to the next level. ~Entrepreneur Magazine

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