Practices such as inbound search marketing rely on the fact that certain individuals or businesses will be searching for specific things using data indexers like traditional search engines such as Google.  A potential prospect will type in either single or multiple (long tail) keywords that will describe the thing they are looking for and rely on the search engines to return results and prioritise them in a way that matches with their query and the results are ordered in terms of their relevancy.

Search Marketing By Design

Websites, and the inbound campaigns that support them are therefore designed to prioritise a website in the search results for a given keyword or set of keywords using search marketing.  The higher your website ranks for keywords more closely matched to your ideal prospects the better the traffic you will receive to your website and in return the more likely your traffic is to convert if your site and its content has been designed to engage them correctly.

If you don’t select the right keywords, ones that match prospects with products and services and also converts them into either a lead or customer having done some testing, it will be very tough to generate results in the short term and the long run.

SEO for the most part is based on fundamental principles, however search engine algorithms (the maths behind how search engines determine relevancy and priority) do change over time, so it may not be considered an exact science.  Many of the important factors though such as architecture, structure, link building and content still make up the fundamental building blocks and with good measurement and analysis of traffic and conversions you start to close the loop and get a good idea of what does and doesn’t work and where to focus your time and money.

The basics of obtaining search results can be outsourced to a search professional, however for true effectiveness it involves many things such as content, design, linking and analysis which should be done with a more “holistic” approach as each component is interrelated and real results will happen much quicker and be more effective only when all the factors are compounded together.

A package that provides a framework for getting everything done and involves the customers if they wish to be as well as delivering the associated services which will be essential to making the campaign deliver results can save time and money.

So how does this approach of pulling in, or attracting prospects to you, compare to a Social Media campaign ?

Social Media Marketing Through Engagement

It might be worth asking what a social media marketing campaign actually is and the steps involved in engagement.

If you believe (like me) that marketing is about building relationships then to be effective you have to start listening to your market fist and identifying opportunities for social media marketing engagement.

Far to often I see people jumping on keywords or running with messages that they believe are worthwhile pursuing (typically wrapped around their business as a supplier) when in actual fact they are disconnected from what is actually going on outside in the real world from their prospects and customers.

A great way of getting connected to the conversation going on in your market place is to use the same research you did to build a keyword list for traffic generation and turn it into a conversation filter using RSS or alert services.

By building a conversation filter you can see what people are saying about your business, products, services, industry, competitors and where questions are coming from and how they are structured in the social media hinterland.

This “ear to the ground” approach will point you in the direction of where you should be engaging in useful conversations and your job is now simple, to join the conversation constructively and add value or be prepared to stand for something that you can clearly demonstrate to others in a discussion and accept that you may not be immediately accepted.

Traffic should appear as a result of your conversations, and as a direct result of your knowledge or skill in influencing outcomes.  It is certainly not the time or place to be selling directly to people, but to provide persuasive content and even arguments like those seen in debating forums, which is what social media marketing is really about, engagement.

You are not there to please everybody and even if you are polite and constructive, some people may take offence or even attack you for your beliefs that run contrary to theirs, but they will be in the minority and its is something that you must be prepared for and get used too.

Search Marketing And Social Media Marketing Comparisons

SEO is certainly a more technical approach for actually driving traffic, however the on-site engagement does require the same skills as the upfront engagement in social media which is a clear understanding of your market, what they want and how you can help them.

Social media is a lot like sales in that its all about communication, exchanging views and ideas with many new people and learning more about them and your market at the same time and evolving your approach.

In some ways its actually harder to outsource a social media campaign by itself because of the implied product, service and market knowledge required to engage effectively, however by working in partnership with your digital marketing company using a framework or systems based approach you can tie the whole thing neatly together.

It may even be possible to find specialists with a wealth of knowledge in your market that provide outsourced marketing services like search or social media and you can significantly increase your reach by partnering with them as they can get engaged directly with your audience as can your own team.

So is one better than the other ? are there crossovers and parallels ? does the traditional outsourced model work ?

Social media marketing and search marketing both rely on a clear understanding of what keywords trigger interest or engagement and their job is to pull people closer to you. For people willing to engage using social media, who ask questions on focused portals or forums, you should engage with them there, but you need to have a service / sales mentality that actually helps people and brings them closer to you not drives them away.

Likewise if your customer is researching and is looking for specific things then your website should be there to provide them with what they are looking for and begin the relationship building process until they are ready to engage with you on a more personal or one to one basis.

So, what are your thoughts on search marketing or social media marketing, how are you integrating them ? what works best for you ? do you think that there is more myth than substance in social media marketing versus search marketing ?

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Right now either businesses are spending a ton of marketing desperately trying to generate leads any which way they can or they’ve stopped marketing all together.

Either way its not going to be good for your business, but there are ways to get your message to market that are low cost and performance based and that is the only place where you should be spending time and money right now.

Pay-Per-Click / Pay-Per-Lead – Only serve adverts in areas that you can compete and satisfy (especially if you’re a local business) and use the Google optimizer to pay only for conversions (lead that take action) not just leads.

Email – DON’T SEND OUT BLAST EMAILS, instead working with a publication in your niche and have a mail with an incentive sent out to that audience which has opted in to receive communications and ensure that the replies (from readers) go back to you and follow up each lead with the promised incentive. Always try and run a test first and negotiate the price you pay.

Newsletters – the same can be done with newsletters as with email. You’re looking to advertise (the right way) in relevant and niche based newsletters (typically email ezines) where people can respond directly to you.

Article Marketing – DON’T GENERATE TONS OF USELESS ARTICLES JUST FOR BACK-LINKS, instead write articles for printed publications or on-line sites in your niche where you can help the audience and offer an incentive to generate interest.

Social Media – DON’T RELY ON THIS AS A BIG MONEY GENERATOR, instead see it as being over rated for business building (for most businesses), but realise that you can use paid advertising on sites like Facebook which do convert well using the same principals as email and newsletter marketing.

Snail Mail – Yep, it is not dead and still works (the right way) and it’s the best way of creating deeper relationships as its seen as a closer touch (more personal and human) than its digital counter parts so blend it into your marketing strategy.

Your content should be used to engage, facilitate, nurture and educate so be careful that you don’t start “selling” too early or you may just burn those leads.

Most of all be very targeted and measure your results and avoid megaphone mud slinging sales and marketing approaches.

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Just being in a position to “listen” or watch the conversations unfold can be very eye opening and you begin to get a feel for what people are saying, doing and why.

It’s always been said that people buy from people and social media IS the real time marketing equivalent of that as people prefer to read and listen to opinions about products and services from fellow consumers and peers which is great if you have a business with the resources and capacity to create that presence and your customers are using social media to discuss what you do for them.

None the less, simple tools like twitter can have an immediate effect with little technical skill or masses of content creation if you are willing to find and connect with people, contribute and share and sometimes the most random connections turn out to be vary valuable.

Instead of just wading in with haste in reply to something or making statements that don’t necessarily reflect your mutually held beliefs and instead of just touting corporate policy, take the time to take the “corporate” out of the conversation and realise that through value, trust and authenticity, which means real people with real views, you can get heard above the crowds and word spreads.

Be open to the truth, no matter how much it hurts

Exposing your business to social media will attract the good and the bad. People will share with you their views and be pretty direct about it. In fact Dell discovered to its horror what customers really thought about its service from Tweets on Twitter and Facebook comments. Dell worked on acknowledging and understanding the problem and find a resolution. The end result was a $6.5m global revenue increase attributed to Twitter alone. Wow!

What’s strange is that people have been complaining to businesses for a long time but the message did not seem to get through, probably because the internal communication systems were even worse than their external ones, so businesses can even benefit from adopting social media methods internally to connect people and teams together and allow them to share their voice and to do away with the old draconian structures. Almost like an ordered chaos.

Don’t just spend blindly, engage and create (mash up)

When times are tough and you are either faced with a recession or limited marketing funds, channels like social media can become even more important as there is a very low, if not almost zero direct cost of entry, just your time and effort (which has indirect costs of course).

It’s easy to see what your efforts bring as you can monitor traffic to your site and see what activity occurs and conversions such as people taking a defined action like downloading something.

Free tools like google analytics are a good place to start if you have a limited or zero budget and you should start small and grow you activity gradually, and remember to keep at it and be consistent.

Let real people, with real personalities share your values

To make social media work you need the right people who are impassioned about using social media and yes that could be you the owner if you are a small business. If it’s new to you then there will be a bit of a learning curve, but start with the simple platforms like Twitter and go from there into either your own blog or use established networking and social media sites such as Facebook, or for business eCademy.

ComCast in the US has done a great job of putting a real personality in touch with its marketing as it actually offers friendly Twitter customer support with real staff along with their profile and photo of the person instead of the company logo. This makes for a very friendly and personal interface, just the sort of open customer contact point that can create shared value.

Think before you communicate, ask does my response reflect the above points

I’m sure like me you’ve written the odd email and hit the send button, then realised that if you had waited for your feelings to settle down a little and leave the room you would have had more clarity and probably would have replied in a different way avoiding upsetting or offending somebody in the process which was not the real intention of your response, just the knee-jerk reaction we all naturally suffer from.

In one extreme case a representative from Ryan Air waded into a Twitter conversation giving them the “big I am” corporate cold shoulder which as you can imagine was not well received. Soon after the Tweets were pulled and I’m sure somebody had their legs slapped or indeed fingers removed (joke btw).

Be willing to test, and be willing to focus where you meet your market

Its easy to get caught up in all this stuff and be everywhere and get nowhere. I’ve got accounts all over the place, some of which I gradually learn to use and build, some of which I have focused on more because I could see better potential, others just languish. There is nothing wrong with that.

However it is impossible to be everywhere, touch every conversation and have worthwhile exchanges so you need to find what’s right for you and spend time communicating with your audiences in that place, developing your presence and what values you will be sharing.

Whether you realise it or not every business these days is being discussed on the web, like it or not, so you may as well take part and learn from it.

Find your own social media voice

In the beginning you may struggle to find your own voice in all of this, but like all good musical artists or painters and writers you start by reusing what you aspire to be and in doing that, and exploring it and pushing boundaries you begin to define who your are and what your relationship with your world is and your own voice will find itself.

There are a ton of gurus and experts out there saying it has to be like this or like that, the bottom line though is its different for everybody so step into the playground and find your own place, in your own way.

It might be worth giving giving some thought to why your voice should be there in the first place and I found these interesting points on escaping mediocrity. Its like doing some market research on the conversations currently taking place in your market to understand how yours might fit in.

1. How are they talking about this niche?
2. Are they speaking in broad theoretical terms or very tactical terms?
3. What’s their personality?
4. What needs are being unmet?
5. Is my voice needed?

Still unsure about social media marketing

A survey entitled ‘How Do Small to Medium Businesses Market Themselves?’ from Daryl Willcox Publishing has revealed that 27% of those questioned used social media platforms such as blogging, Twitter, Facebook and online forums as part of their marketing activity. More interesting facts can be found on UtalkMarketing.

I thought you might appreciate this nice piece of work which illustrates the point nicely.

What part of social media do you need to do better ?

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