Since the ability to voice your opinions on brands is present, companies must know how and when to properly respond to their consumers. Although a brand may get a handful of praise and positive feedback, they must also know how to handle negative feedback when it strikes. As brands are becoming involved in the social media world, they now have to worry about non-stop customer feedback; both positive and negative.

The existence of these social media sites allow individuals to tell the entire internet world how they feel about a brand, or perhaps a certain experience with it, so companies must be very involved with their online presence. They should know what is being said about them, when, and where. A good tracking device for feedback is Yelp, an online tool that allows you to see what is being said about you and your brand.

It seems negative feedback may not actually be a ‘negative’ thing, rather a way for a brand to improve on what they are doing wrong. Instead of fighting back with negative feedback, brands should embrace it, looking at it as a means of improvement. Smaller companies live/die by customer reviews – so managing negative feedback is imperative to their survival.

Here are some tips on how to handle negative feedback:
-Responding in a timely manner. Take note of different ways to do so: status update/ personal message/ take matters offline?
-Always acknowledge, never deny. “customer is always right”
-Ask questions: where did business go wrong?
-Leave emotion out of responding to negative feedback. Deal with it professionally!
-Monitor your brand
-Always respond promptly to your customers
-Make sure to give them personal attention that shows you care
-Never to take it personally
-Always offer to help
-Genuine conversation! Don’t have a machine respond, as this is very impersonal

How Not to Handle Bad Feedback:

This is an example of how not to respond to negative feedback. Responding to a customer by insulting them is never the right thing to do. A customer is entitled to their opinion and should always have the ability to speak their mind, even if it isn’t the most positive thing about the company.  
How to Handle Negative Feedback:

This is an example of the correct way to handle negative feedback. Apologize for the problem, and lead the unsatisfied customer to further help. You should always attempt to resolve the issue in a calm manner and let the customer know you care about their problem.

Harris survey found that 68% of customers that left negative reviews got a response, and 18% of these people became loyal customers as a result, and made additional purchases from the company. Of the customers that received a response from a company after posting negative feedback about their shopping experience, 33% turned around and posted a positive review, and 34% deleted the original negative review. These numbers may seem insignificant but they’re actually higher than what the hypothesis was for Harris Survey. Imagine having 50% positive reviews, and 50% negative… overall this is a negative image for your brand. But if 34% of those customers deleted their negative feedback and wrote positive reviews this comes out to a total of 84% positive and 16% negative. What a difference!

Respond to feedback online as if you would via a different medium. Ignoring a negative comment is equivalent to sticking your fingers in your ears and saying “la la la” in a customer’s face.  Obviously this is neither professional  nor a practice of good customer service, so why treat an online platform any different than real life situations?

A simple and easy way to prevent negative feedback is to monitor online conversations. Taking notice of when customers are dissatisfied is a way of ‘nipping the problem in the butt’ before the condition is publicized. Don’t wait for the negative feedback – be a step ahead and fix problems before they have a chance to complain on a platform that isn’t just a conversation between consumers.

Be sure to praise constructive criticism. Thanking consumers who help the company by shedding light onto a problem will make them feel important and useful. Taking constructive criticism in a professional way is vital to the response. On the other side of the spectrum, a company must take notice of positive feedback and realize what they’re doing correctly! Taking ownership of both negative and positive feedback helps to create a well-rounded brand identity.

References

6 Ways to Handle Negative Comments on your Art Blog. (n.d.). EmptyEasel.com: Painting Tips, Artist Reviews, Selling Art Online and more. Retrieved from http://emptyeasel.com/2012/02/28/6-ways-to-handle-negative-comments-on-your-art-blog/

7 Tips for Dealing With Criticism of Your Business on Social Media | SBA.gov. (n.d.). The U.S. Small Business Administration | SBA.gov. Retrieved from http://www.sba.gov/community/blogs/7-tips-dealing-with-criticism-your-business-social-media?page=1

Dealing with Negative Feedback on Social Media. (n.d.). Public Relations | PR Company Sydney | WordStorm. Retrieved from http://www.wordstorm.com.au/_blog/WordStorm/post/Dealing_with_Negative_Feedback_on_Social_Media/

how to handle negative feedback « Social Media Management Blog. (n.d.). Social Media Management & Marketing Services. Retrieved from http://www.socialmediamanagement.net/blog/tag/how-to-handle-negative-feedback/

How to Lose Your Customer Base | esther eats | esther fox DOT com. (n.d.). esther fox [DOT] com | rantings and such from a Nikon addict. Retrieved from http://www.estherfox.com/2012/08/blue-belly-bbq-butthurt-bad-customer-service-twitter/

How to Use Sound Reputation Management to Respond to Negative Feedback. (n.d.).Content Marketing Strategy, Research and “How-To” Advice — Content Marketing Institute. Retrieved from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2012/03/use-reputation-management-to-respond-to-negative-feedback/

Jason Falls – EntrepreneurOnFire Business Podcasts. (n.d.). EntrepreneurOnFire Business Podcasts – Daily podcast interviews with today’s most successful Entrepreneurs. Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneuronfire.com/jason-falls-podcast-interview-with-entrepreneur-on-fire/

Managing Social Media Crisis and Negative Feedback | DreamGrow Social Media. (n.d.).DreamGrow Digital – Social media marketing. Retrieved from http://www.dreamgrow.com/managing-social-media-crisis-and-negative-feedback/

Social Media Marketing | Handling Negative Feedback Via Social Media Marketing | JE Consulting Blog. (n.d.). JE-Consulting – Professional Marketing Services for Accountants & Solicitors. Retrieved from http://www.je-consulting.co.uk/blogs/?p=378

                The gaming industry is one of the fastest growing industries in recent years, and there are many ways for someone involved in the industry to use different social platforms to great effect.  The gaming industry has three major companies with home consoles in competition.  They are the Nintendo Wii and Wii U, the Sony PlayStation 3, and the Microsoft Xbox 360, with the PC being an outlier.  Most games are released on the three home consoles, with exclusivity of console releases becoming less and less of a factor as game developers start to realize that they no longer need to segment their market by releasing their games on only one console.

There is a large split in the gaming market currently, however, as there are two types of game developers.  Large game studios such as Bethesda, Bungie, Electronic Arts, etc. create what the community deems Triple “A” games.  These games have large budgets leading the millions, with large teams working on them, and gross millions of dollars in revenue.  On the other hand, developers such as thatgamecompany, Super Giant Games, and Pop Cap Games are considered Independent Developers.  These game are much smaller in scope and scale, budget is much lower, advertising is nowhere near as budgeted, and they will, if successful, typically have a cult following.  The difference in the types of games reaches from gameplay to the marketing plan.

Breaking into the game industry is not limited to game creation.  In fact, there are plenty of ways one can be a part of the gaming industry and participate in social media surrounding the culture.  In social bookmarking, for instance, most of the content being created and shared is user generated or user shared.  Many of the companies that may have originally wrote the articles or have intellectual property rights to the topics being discussed have no hand in how the content is shared when brought to a social bookmarking site.  Therefore, it is just as legitimate to be a fan and participate in the game industry.  Additionally, one can review games that are already out, and many blogs are centered around this very topic.

There are three types of platforms that we plan to cover  in this workshop, and they are Twitter, Blogs, and Social Bookmarks.  Twitter is a service of social sharing where a company or individual can speak to all of their followers in quick, 140 characters or fewer messages about whatever topic they desire.  Twitter is mostly used for quick updates about a company’s game, easy interaction with fans, or quick sharing of interesting content found that relates to the company’s target market.  A blog is the polar opposite of Twitter in the sense that the posts on a blog are long, involved and typically share a large amount of information with their readers.  Blogs are a good way for game developers and others involved in the industry to share their opinions on games overall, or certain tidings in specific games.  Social bookmarking is a separate mechanism in the sense that any type of information can be shared.  From videos, to blog posts, to pictures, social bookmarking is a free for all of relevant information.

Twitter as a platform is great at helping keep your audience up to date.  Different companies do different things, and it depends on who your target audience is going to be and what you want your brand’s personality to be that determines the type of things that you post.  This is the most important aspect of using twitter to help your game development studio, or game oriented business.  Defining your social target and brand personality will dictate whether you talk to your audience very casually with small regard to your actual game, such as the Minecraft creator Notch, or very targeted, so that you only talk about your game, such as 343 Studios.

Here is an example of using your twitter account to talk to your followers as if they are your friends.  Notch is the creator of the wildly successful Minecraft, so he is an independent developer.  As an independent developer, he does not have the corporate image that a company like Microsoft has, and so Notch is able to use twitter in both a personal manner and a professional manner.  Because of this, Notch’s followers are spoken to much more personally than another company.  If you are able to have a connection like this with your customer, and you do not mind having your brand image become a much more personal interaction, modeling your tweets after Notch’s is not a bad way to go.

This is the Nintendo of America twitter account.  Unlike Notch, Nintendo of America focuses only on their products.  They do not interact with their audience directly, and use the Twitter only as a way to talk about new things that are going on.  This is a more rigid way of using your social media platforms, but it has its benefits.  Some fans may not appreciate having their twitter feed filled with personal discussion and thoughts like from Notch.  Nintendo of America gives their followers only the most relevant information of their latest products and services, which many followers may appreciate.  This becomes the major difference between an independent developer and a mainstream company, such as Nintendo of America.  As a company grows, it seems that their Twitter presence becomes more formal and strict with its usage.  However, this again depends on your brand’s personality and your target audience.  If, as a large company, your audience appreciates personal discussion, it may be better to cater to that preference.

As mentioned earlier, blogging is much more involved than Twitter in the content that is shared.  And again, your target audience and brand personality is just as, if not more, important.  With blogging, each post you make must fully represent the personality you have decided for your social media plan.  This is more difficult than for Twitter at times even though Twitter updates are more frequent.  This is because the whole blog post will have to be in the style and tone of each previous post and be consistent with the voice throughout the rest of your social media presence.

Winter Wolves is an example of a blog that is not a developer blog, but is involved in the gaming industry.  It discusses game design concepts in games in a manner that is not about production but theory.  Theory is more long winded then reviews on a game, and so this particular blog will have users that enjoy a more intense read.  For companies, this might not be the best when attracting customers, but if you have a game that is directly relevant to advance community and there is a community surrounding your game that starts game theory discussion, following a model such as Winter Wolves is a viable way to engage your audience.

The Halo Waypoint Blog is a great example of using your blog to get directly relevant information to your customers.  343 Studios will talk about new playlist updates, current competitive advantages, and funny videos that their users have created using the game.  They hold contests for coolest looking picture, funniest caption, etc.  343 Studios knows their audience very well, and it is noticeable in the way that there articles get shared very often.

343 Studios has listened to their fans very well, and they will typically directly address the cocnerns the community is having with their game, Halo 4.  Halo is one of the biggest console games of this generation, and it is important for a company with such a huge following to keep on top of the problems occurring in their fan base.  If they do not, the community’s negative response can become overwhelming.  Their blog does a great job at addressing these issues.

Gamasutra is a great collection of gaming news.  They post articles on jobs, recent game news, and overall current tidings in the video game industry.  Companies are not going to have great responses when trying to copy Gamasutra.  Like many other Social Bookmarks, companies should use these sites to gauge response to their content sharing on areas such as Twitter and Blogging.  These sites are great at collecting gaming news from other sites and in the industry overall, and should be used a resource by companies in quite the same way that other fans and users will use the content.

Reddit is also another social bookmarking site that your company can use as a way to directly interact with your fans.  Reddit is user generated, even the content that is shared is not.  They will find news articles from places like Gamasutra and post them and discuss them on areas that are not your properties.  Because of this, it may be wise to go onto these social bookmarking sites and discuss your properties with these users.  It allows these people to interact with your brand in a more neutral area, which is important to building trust between you and the consumer.

The gaming industry is a varied place when it comes to the types of companies that are present, and on social media, especially, there is no clear cut way to do things.  It depends entirely on your target audience and brand’s personality.  If you are a smaller developer, such as Notch, being more personal is acceptable and possibly needed.  Larger companies will have a more professional approach, such as Nintendo of America’s use of Twitter.  These interactions are of the utmost importance when gaining trust with your customers, and understanding how you fit in with your customer’s expectations can help define who you will be in these social spaces.

Fuad Panjali, Erik Ellingson, Chris Stevens, Julia Reagan, Megan Kremer, Jessica De Nova
Introduction:
In today’s marketing strategy, it is critical to incorporate and utilize social media platforms so you can interact and gain user input. It seems like every couple of weeks there is a new platform coming out that people feel the need to use. It is important to follow a few rules and general strategies when using these platforms. In this post, we will discuss how to get likes and traffic, user participation, what not to do on social media, integrating social media platforms together, partnerships, and customer interaction.

How to get ‘likes’/traffic

Before any other interaction can be done on Facebook, companies must first draw traffic to their page and generate likes. This may seem like a simple task, but as a small local company, creating a presence on Facebook is not that simple.

To begin, the customer has to know that the company is actually present on social media. This can be advertised at the business’s location as well as on their website. The use of QR codes are also great ways to link customer’s with the company page. To make sure there is no confusion, all the social media platforms should display the same message. This includes having the same

MiataLife encouraging participation

purpose, target audience, voice, and pictures. This will ensure that the brand image is portrayed successfully.

After generating traffic to the page, the company should then make sure that they create relevant posts that their target audience can relate with. They should also encourage the customer to post by creating Facebook contests, asking their input and always replying back to them. Customer relationship management is the key to having good interaction between the company and their

customers. Also, getting users to share their content is a great way to get their content across to other people that may not know about their page.

As for the quantity, posts should be done consistently to the point that the company is not getting lost on their customers newsfeed. Over posting is something that will lose followers however, people do not want to be ambushed by irrelevant posts.

Participation
Getting customers to interact and participate with a brand on social media can be a daunting task that is only made more complicated by the substantially different cultures found on each platform.
Participation by customers is typically made easier at least in the beginning by incentivizing participation through the use of the various features that social media offers such as “checking-in” or uploading photos to a brand’s page. An example of a way that a brand could incentivize consumers to participate is to make an offer such as “First x number of people to check in between time y and time z will receive x percent off of their tab” depending on the nature of the business they may be able to offer something that

Mountain Dew voting competition

doesn’t cost the business  either such as “first x number of people that check in tonight will receive a VIP crown to wear for the night” This kind of incentive only works if it is the type of business where such a thing might be looked on as fun such as a bar or a restaurant but not at a funeral home for example.
Another way to get customers to participate through forms of social media that don’t offer photo or check in services may be to hold contests such as Lay’s “Do us a Flavor” Contest where they had consumers make a flavor of Lay’s potato chips and vote on flavors others had made with the top three flavors being produced and sold for a last round of voting.
One thing any brand should be aware of as they work on trying to get consumers to participate through social media is that the anonymity of the internet will always make for those that troll most participation events and attempt to mess with or make fun of the contest.

What not to do on social media

Using social media for marketing is still relatively new for many companies. These companies don’t understand how to properly interact and engage with their clients. Improperly using social media can be just as detrimental as not using social media at all. One mistake companies make, when first using social media is forgetting to learning the culture. Every social media site, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest has their own culture. It’s important for brands to learn the culture and the lingo before engaging. It’s necessary to use the appropriate culture, because people are more likely to respond positively to the brand. For example, Pinterest has a rule that only positive posts and responses are allowed. Many companies use this medium to create connections between the brand and client through common interests, not to sell a product.. A brand would seem rude if they were using this site to solicit their product.

A mistake that many companies do, when using Twitter, is following back every person that follows you. In regards to Twitter it’s more quality over quantity.

One of the biggest problems companies face is how to engage with customers online.  Companies that use Facebook fan pages, have difficulties with getting friends to revisit and interact with their brand. Social media sites are not the location to solicited or sell an item. This often comes off as being pushy, which inhibits a brand–customer relationship. Social media is a platform to improve your already existing relationship with a customer.  When posting on Facebook or Tweeting, make sure content has an image and a conversation point. Think to yourself, does my post take into consideration: people, objectives, strategies, tools and technology. Some brands post arbitrarily throughout the day.  One problem many companies face is using automated Facebook post. Using these can make your brand seem lazy and irrelevant.

American Apparel doing social media wrong

When starting to use Social Media, many brands do not get to know their consumers. Before any companies can benefit from social media, they need to know their audience. It’s important to know what times of day they are online and what sort of content they are interested in.  People “like” brand pages for many different reasons such as, discounts, social and brand affiliation. The best time of day to post on Facebook is between the hours of 8pm-7am. To keep readers engaged, keep post under 80 Characters.

Integration with other social media platforms

Social media has been on the rise since the mid-2000’s and has become an integral part of marketing strategies for companies. Many companies have not placed an emphasis on social media, but because of the importance of engagement with your customers, companies have begun hiring exclusively for social media managers. Whether it is an employee or owner managing social media, they all face the question of how to use different social media platforms together and how to integrate their efforts. There are many strategies for doing this, but we will cover how to use the different platforms together and also using Hootsuite to manage your suite of platforms.
Facebook is typically the go-to site for social media, although it’s a great base, it’s only the start. Facebook is a central hub great for engaging users, sharing photos, promoting your company, as well as spreading the reach of your company. Twitter is great for quick user interaction and gain be a great feedback tool. Instagram is the picture version of Twitter, allowing you to share pictures of your company quickly. Youtube, Tumblr, and Pinterest are also good content sharing platforms. The key is to tie or integrate these platforms together. It is critical to remember that these platforms each have their unique niche, and content on one platform won’t necessarily make sense on another platform. Previously, the mentality was to combine all platforms so that when you posted to one it synced across the others. This is not a good because users want new and fresh content, not duplicate content. So how to do you integrate them together?
To start, make sure your site has all the links/buttons to these sites, as well as “share/like” buttons for Facebook, and “pin” buttons for Pinterest. Next, establish your Facebook presence and Twitter presence. Make sure on every platform you are providing links to your other social media profiles either in the “About Me” section or where ever the platform allows. Now, depending on your content, the next step is all about content marketing and how to use each platform to your advantage. On your Facebook page, you should post videos from Youtube, links to Instagram or Tweets, and direct content to your website. On Twitter, you can post pictures from Instagram, reach a large audience about contents on your Facebook, or post about your Blog. On your Pinterest, you can drop pins for your newsletter, pictures from your website or Facebook, and other visual stimulating imagery for users to share. The more you can engage different users on different platforms the greater your reach.
Finally, if this seems like a daunting task, you can utilize tools like Hootsuite. These dashboards have pricing plans that allow you to login to all your social media platforms. Then, from one dashboard, you can distribute content, arrange and schedule distribution times and content, see user interaction, and many other great analytic tools for managing your content. Sites like this make managing multiple platforms much easier and can be a valuable asset for companies looking to have a better social media control.

Partnerships

A successful brand partnership not only expands both brands target market and broadens reach; it also has the potential to spark innovation in product and business. Partnering with like minded brands also creates new experiences for current customers and future customers by targeting both parties customer base. If done right these strategic partnerships create innovation by offering something new and unexpected, this also creates opportunities for them to achieve brand objectives outside of the individual brands abilities. Combining the resources of both brands can spearhead innovation – resulting in new product concepts, advertising opportunities, and develop forward thinking ideas.

That being said no two brands can have a successful collaboration if their brand personalities don’t align well. Both should have relatively similar ideals and favorability among their customer base. This does not mean brands should solely partner with other brands that offer a common service or product, instead associate your brand with one that is interesting and surprising.  Co-branding with an unexpected partner has the potential to make the brand seem trendier, more distinctive, and more noteworthy.

Another key factor in establishing a successful brand partnership is finding a partner that brings something unique into the mix. A brand partnership is not worth pursuing if both parties do not contribute something that will benefit the other in a symbiotic way. Take for example the partnership between Starbucks and Square. The coffee shop kingpin recently partnered with Square, a company that enables it users to receive payments through an Internet connected smartphone or tablet using a card reader attachment. Square provides an efficient, safe, and customer friendly solution to receiving payments; in turn this positions Starbucks as a tech savvy brand while strengthening their trendy and innovative brand image.

The way a consumer perceives a strategic partnership is vital to its success. The brand must communicate to the consumers why they are working together; this will increase the value of the collaboration and prevent the consumer from coming up with his own conclusions or perceiving it as a negative. Just like people, brands are judge by the company they keep, so they should align themselves with other brands that have growing awareness and have meaningful emotional connections with their customers.

These partnerships should strengthen value proposition, increase media awareness, and bring measurable value to both companies. Strategic partnerships only work if the company has a clear objective for the partnership, this will enable you to better evaluate potential partners and develop a sustainable, long-term relationship with the other brand.

Customer Interaction – Connecting with customers via social media platforms

With so many different social media platforms, it is important to remember that interaction between the company and the customers, is not a one way conversation. Through the use of pictures, statuses, pins, shares, and tweets there are multiple outlets to communicate with customers. Understanding that each platform has its intricacies and benefits is important.
Twitter is a platform that is used for quick and short interactions between customers and companies. This allows for frequent updates and conversations with your customer base. A company can see how a customer in Dallas is enjoying their product as well as a customer in Bangladesh. By having a lot of followers, you can create a tweet and encourage customers to respond and retweet.  The use of hashtags on twitter can generate social trends in favor of your business and the message you are trying to spread. It is important to retweet and respond to tweets directed at you so that customers feel that they are valued and their voices are heard.

Chobani encouraging participation

Chobani retweeting a fan’s compliment

Facebook is the more prominent of all the social media sites. Companies create pages that their customers can “like” and then interact with. Posting pictures and statuses allow for customers to interact and feel like they are a part of the brand. Responding back to customers who comment on these threads is important because creating a dialogue shows that your company listens to the customer and values their input. Also, by creating posts that encourage feedback or questions, the company can get valuable feedback that they can implement into their business strategy. Encouraging users to share photos and share statuses can broaden the reach of your content and help your company garner more attention.

Encouraging customer conversation

There are also other social media platforms that are still growing but do benefit companies. Pinterest is a photo sharing platform that is mainly used by women. Using Pinterest can give your company the best platform to show infographics and educational processes. It also allows for users to upload their own photographs, which many people like to do. Encouraging them to upload their own photographs and share them with the community can increase your reach exponentially. Blogs are another smaller social media platform. Blogs allow for some products to be very visible if your company chooses to send them to bloggers for free. Fostering quid pro quo relationships with bloggers in your market can encourage other people to purchase your products and thus increase your company’s visibility.

TD Bank is not buying search ads to draw traffic to their new Google+ pages.  This content will be used in hyper-locally targets display ads where residents of the Big Apple would see the video for their local bank after clicking on the ad. There is no promise from Google+ and Google about the placement of TD Bank’s Google+ pages but TD Bank is hoping to rank prominently based on the effort being put forth to maintain them.  TD Bank is focusing on making their content more relevant and more interesting that it benefits them from a search perspective.

Currently, the highest ranked Google+ pages are celebrities.  When I think of advertising and social branding, I head straight to Facebook and Twitter.  Google+ is not on my mind.  Hopefully down the road, Google+ will gain awareness and popularity so TD Bank and other companies can use it in a way to boost search and overall social media success.

What do you think about Google+ as a medium for social media advertising and branding?

As time has progressed, marketers have discovered an added bonus to developing social media profiles; popular search engines like Bing, Yahoo, and the almighty Google favor companies with developed, active social media presences. To these search engines, relevance to the user is king, so aside from high-quality website content, social networks have rapidly become a key factor in attaining a high rank on the search engines. Though links that are provided via social media are almost always “no-follow,” well-crafted, engaging social media content has been known to improve the credibility of a brand.

In order to position any brand as an authority within the industry they serve, marketers need to be generating content in the places their audience is listening, with as many links to their profiles as possible, which will then link to our website. In terms of search engine optimization, the more quality, relevant links to your site, the better you will look. In order to make this a reality, you need to use the tools necessary to take you to the next level.

In a recent webinar, Kipp Bodnar of HubSpot outlines 5 Steps to Social Media Success

1.Get the Basics Right

• Build your reach

o Follow, Friend, Connect

• Share lots of links

o “The shelf life of a social media post is 3 hours. You wouldn’t pour a glass of milk, leave it sitting all day, and expect it to still be good; the same is true with social media.”

• Leverage existing contacts

o Mine other existing address books, social media connections, corporate connections

• Email campaigns

o Spread the word to everyone your company has ever come in contact with and ask them to follow your social media profiles

2. Maximize Content Discovery

• Create content

• Share it consistently

• Monitor it diligently

• Prioritize engagement

• Build content calendar

o Create both daily and weekly calendars, plan out the content you want to release, articles you want to share ahead of time

• Build a social “thank you page”

o An automatic message that gets sent out when a new connection is made

3. Create Conversion Ubiquity

• Send out uniform messages across media

• Generate the same calls-to-action throughout

4. Test & Fail Fast

• Set a clear qualitative objective

• Set methodology for gathering data for successful

• Use analytics to determine what campaigns are working, what are not

• Determine course of action to proceed based on analytics results

5. Optimize for Maximum Leads

• Determine traffic and conversion rates

• Conduct tests

• Increase content volume

Although many B2Bs have begun to test the social media waters in the last few years, there is an abundance of opportunity for expansion. Social media is the wave of the future for marketing. Those companies that are able to ride that wave will be the ones that rise to the top, while the others struggle to remain afloat.

Reblogged from tje9885's Blog:

http://mashable.com/2013/01/26/anonymous-hack-government-website-declares-war/

http://www.zdnet.com/anonymous-re-hacks-us-sentencing-site-into-video-game-asteroids-7000010384/

If you have been following the recent news in online happenings, you are most likely familiar with the hacktivist group, Anonymous.  They are a "Legion" as the group's motto claims, fighting for constitutional justice and internet freedom primarily within the United States.  The group has incredible intelligence and their capabilities are even greater.  They have hacked into numerous corporation and organizational websites and social media, they leave threatening messages for any group that has been targeted by them with cryptic promises of oblivion if their demands are not met.  

Read more… 733 more words

The world of online media, branding, networking, and selling is a new world for everyone. There are few written rules and guidelines to follow for creating your brand’s story online, whether it is a personal brand or a company’s brand. In no particular order, here is a list of important ideas to cover when developing your brand’s story for an online setting.

1. Google+

It seems odd that Google alone would make the list; however, looking further into Google+, we discovered the significance and importance behind this seemingly small social network. Google+ has progressively been getting better; as it should, being part of the one of the largest online business communities in the world, Google. Utilizing Google+ for your brand is important because of the SEO factor. Though Google does not come right out and say having a Google+ page will help search engine page ranks, it is an unspoken rule.

An aspect of Google+ that few people understand is that the events on Google+ are all centered around the entire event process not just the event itself. This is an up-and-coming feature in Google+ but we see a lot of benefits to it so far. The events will allow you to promote your personal or company events. Then during the event, guests can post their pictures directly to your company page. There is a lot of room for engagement through Google+ and the events tab is no exception.

Tips for Google +:

• If your company has a newsletter, add your Google+ link to the newsletter. This will allow readers to add you to their circle and keep up with the latest news. This can be used for Bloggers as well.
• Engage with people on other pages, not just your own (this works best for your personal brand). If you are a company, connect and interact with other companies. You never know who is managing their social media and you may find a great company partnership.
• Use Google+ to gain insights on your network or customers.
• Do not be afraid to host a hangout.
• Stay curious and try out the countless features on Google+.

2. Know Your Personality

When you design your personal or company’s brand strategy you should want to match personalities across the platforms. There are some thoughts that a voice can differentiate across platforms but a social network should look uniform to the other social platforms. A person should be able to identify a company’s social networks just based on their brand identity. Profile pictures, cover photos, backgrounds, and background information should all be similar (not necessarily identical) in color, images, shapes, logos, and other brand features.

If you are going to create a brand personality video you need to be consistent across platforms. Another tip we picked up was finding something to make your company shine and seem unique. You do not want to create an informational video about your brand, no one will watch it.

“There is no such thing as a boring product, just boring marketing.”

Finding out your Personality:

• Ask people in your industry what they think of your brand.
• Determine your brand’s voice across your current platforms and determine what your overall voice is. It is crucial to determine your brand’s voice and pick a main one.
• Talk to people around you and determine key words and phrases that are used to describe your brand.

3. Creating your Personality (the 4 aspects of Social Media Brand Voice):

• What will your character/personality be? Are you going to be warm, friendly, inspiring, professional, authoritative, or playful?
• What tone are you going to give your voice? Will it be a personal, humble, honest, direct, clinical, scientific, direct, or honest tone?
• When you do address things, what language will you use on social media? Is it going to be complex, savvy, insider, simple, jargon-filled, fun, whimsical, or serious?
• The most important thing to plan is your purpose. Is your purpose of being on the platform to engage, entertain, delight, amplify your brand, enable, inform, or promote yourself to an audience?

4. Pinterest

Though Pinterest is not for every brand or everyone, it does work for brands that are primarily targeted towards women. Pinterest allows for its users to generate their own brand/image/story through the use of pins and boards. You can tell who a person is (or who their online persona is) through their Pinterest Profile. Pinterest is great for personal branding and company branding because it allows you to get more exposure for your own brand’s stories; as well as, pin other interesting things you see as representative of your brand. Another factor with Pinterest is that you have two chances to grab an audience, catch them with an image that leads to the story or catch them with the tags that lead to the link.

Pinterest is rapidly growing in popularity and is a tool that marketers are just beginning to see and leverage its full potential.

5. Pictures Can Tell the Whole Story

There is a rapidly growing trend in the United States, infographics. Infographics fix a timeless problem for marketers, bloggers, story tellers, researchers, and other detail oriented people, how do you communicate a lot of information into an eye-catching and easy-to-understand way? The amount of information to convey on infographics is virtually limitless. Infographics are extremely important when marketers want to share information on Pinterest. People like visuals and that is an extremely important fact to remember when marketers create a story online.

“An infographic helps to address the short attention span of the casual internet user.”

How to Make an Infographic Story:

• Choose a subject that can be made into bullets, stats, graphs, and visual images.
• Make it related to your brand.
• Link the image to your website.
• Promote your own infographics.
• Do your research and make sure everything is accurate from the facts to the colors.

6. Know What Other Brands are Doing

Checking out your competition is extremely important. You want to make sure that your brand story is different. You can vary your platforms, your colors, your content, your voice, and your image to differentiate yourself. If your competitors are utilizing a mobile app you should look into what a mobile app could offer your brand; however, you do not need to jump on the platform. Every social platform you join needs to serve a purpose and that is where careful planning comes in.

7. Know What You Are Missing

Social media has the power to be reached at anytime of the day, week, or year. It is important to have information that is relevant to your users that they can find at anytime. Think of it this way, as a marketer you need to combine the following things:

• Take your social voice seriously, but not too seriously.
• 24/7
• Social media is the fastest way to reach consumers.

Few companies have utilized the power of the three facts above about social media. When put together campaigns can be memorable and engaging. The best example of this in react weeks was Oreo‘s campaign during the Super Bowl blackout.

“So how did Oreo put their own twist on the lights-out scenario so quickly? Turns out they had a 15-person social media team at the ready to respond to whatever happened online in response to the Super Bowl — whether it was a mind-blowing play or half the lights shutting off. So not only did they have a regular commercial run during the first quarter, they also had copywriters, a strategist, and artists ready to react to any situation in 10 minutes or less.”

Being creative and having teams at the ready is becoming more and more common with the rise of social networks. Joining live coverage of big events is a way for brands to interact and join the conversation. Just as Oreo joined the Super Bowl conversation, any brand can join an event conversation. It is the chance for publicity and a chance to generate viral content.

8. Create an a Platform Strategy

Having a strategy that is specific to your brand and each platform is important for any small business, company, or personal story. Having a strategy raises credibility and trustworthiness. People trust established plans and plans put into action. A brand story can be a symbol of your promise. It allows your users, consumers, buyers, or readers to understand who you are and what the meaning behind your ideas online are.

The best companies in our groups opinions that are utilizing different social networking platforms to their advantage to create engagement and a real online brand personality and story are Nike and Chobani. Both of these companies have created a united and cohesive campaign across all of their online media including their website, official Twitter, Facebook page, and in Chobani’s case Pinterest.

The first way is to change your name on your profile. Whether that is giving yourself a nickname, or having a completely made up name is up to you. Changing your name on Facebook defeats the purpose of Facebook in my opinion. People will not be able to look you up and communicate with you as need be. I just don’t see the point in having a Facebook account if you aren’t going to portray yourself.

Another suggestion in keeping the privacy is changing your age. In the case of if you’re being targeted by an identity thief then yes this would be a reasonable solution. Changing the date or year could potentially keep people from posting Happy Birthday on your wall on your actual birthday, so I guess if you don’t want that, change your birthday on your account.

Make sure that you do not put any credit card numbers in association with your Facebook. There’s plenty of apps out there that allow in app buys with access to a credit card. This one is fairly obvious but a large number of Facebook users often buy items within a Facebook app, which allows for a hacker to have easy access to your card.

To round out the ones that make sense to do, another way is to make sure you don’t post every location you’ve ever been at on Facebook. Tagging yourself in photo’s with the exact location is a good way for someone to know a lot about you and your habits. I don’t use this feature but I know people can let everyone know the exact moment they walk into a location via Facebook post.

These four examples are enough reason to not have Facebook if you actually have to ponder them over. The last way was to deactivate your account, which makes sense if you went through the trouble of the first 6 steps. To me, Facebook is a very public network that should respect privacy, but ultimately won’t do it justice. If you really want privacy, then posting pictures of the night before probably won’t help that cause.

Here’s the complete 7 steps for anyone interested.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/top-ways-protect-privacy-facebook-hacked/story?id=18441060#