Social Media Led to Success by Digital Path

Social Media is being integrated with the whole of digital marketing. This is one of the greatest momentums we’re now witnessing as marketers.

One of the greatest examples is Jermiah Owyang’s presentation with Larry Drebes, which unveils recent research that demonstrates the desire and importance of marketers making their websites and social networks work together harmoniously.

Some of these concepts are still in their infancy, so we can all appreciate how Owyang openly refers to “new practices” instead of “best practices.” With this in mind, I’m sharing a model this will help you to approach yourself to social/digital marketing.

Business Intelligence:

This part of the path is to encompass internal and external data collection that should be leveraged to guide your strategy and shape your ideas.

The goal is to interpret the data to uncover what’s working and what’s trending. Practically, this begins with a combination of consumer research, web analytics, and social media research. This is where you can begin to identify opportunities. Also consider the “brand filter” as a means of keeping ideas true to the DNA or character of your brand and this may also include considerations with respect to your resources, history, and customer expectations.

Digital Marketing with Content:

Next approach to the content is digital marketing. There is some natural redundancy here, but this approach to content for digital marketing comes in four flavors. They are as follows:

1. Useful Content: You’ll have to consider and plan for content that is:

· Easy for people to share.

· Data-driven.

· Can extend to multiple networks and platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, mobile, etc.

· Always links to the brand’s position and conviction statements.

2. Content Types: This addresses from where it has comes & what the content does.

· Reviews, testimonials, case studies, personal insights, social proofs.

· Education: Survey data, presentations, infographics, video scribes, FAQs, white papers, how-to, etc…

· Conversion: Promotional offerings, sales and advertising copy.

· Other People’s Content: User-generated content (UGC), community discussions, republished, shared.

3. Short-Term vs. Long-Term: This addresses intentionality and shelf life:

· Brand / Conviction Focused: “Evergreen” content that can be repurposed.

· Supporting Themes: Content with the propensity to attract broad audiences.

· Campaign Focused: Content used to drive specific interactions.

4. Psychological Sharing Motivations: This addresses what it inspires people to share:

· Emotion: The feeling the content has created.

· Information: Content that is new or highly interesting.

· Self Expression: Content that exemplifies our personality to friends.

Methodologies:

This part of the path addresses the digital extension of offline efforts as well as online assets and methodologies to initiate measurable action. This is a natural overlap but whether your company is seeking to develop short-term marketing campaigns or over-arching customer relationship management (CRM) efforts, the objective is to get the following elements working together:

· PR: Integration of media and influencer relations that drive awareness.

· Email: Messaging, segmentation, and lead nurturing.

· Paid Media: Digital, print, & Broadcast.

· Partnerships: Leveraging the established presence & work of others.

· Owned Media: Brand pages, mobile, web, social applications, and private communities.

· Search Visibility: Organic & Social Search Optimization

Engage Yourself in Business:

This part of the path is what should be ultimately fed back into your business intelligence. As Coca-Cola’s marketing team has taught us, “expression trump impression”

The reality with social media, this is where often companies mistakenly focus first. They’ll see some application eye candy on Facebook, lay some cash out for their own branded version of it, then start backing in supporting content and considerations around what might be more relevant as the magic campaign launch date approaches.

Final Touch

Like any other model, it’s very easy to identify what’s missing. You can think of many other elements that could be relevant, also acknowledging potential points of confusion with respect to platforms, descriptions, the linear order of execution, etc.

Friends! Try this; it could be more useful to you in your business.