Chapter 10 – Social Media April Kemp Southeastern Louisiana University
What is Social Media? Social media=electronic media where participants can produce, publish, control, critique, rank, and interact with online content. Social network=a web-based community designed to promote interaction, discussion, and sharing of content among its users. Social Media becomes the vehicle for connecting marketers with connectors and, more important for connectors to hook up with each other and spread their opinions to the larger community. Goal is to create outstanding content and fostering a community. With sites like Facebook, we can share, listen, respond and educate.
Creating Your Own Social Network Can be used for: Raise awareness Connect events with attendees Inspire and educate Share insight and provide support Share tricks of the trade Create community for customers
Wonderful World of Wikis Wikipedia is the online encyclopedia that anybody can edit; it is responsible for the creation of the term wiki Wiki=a repository for content of any sort that can be edited, added to, or updated by the community of those interested in the subject
Blogs Big and Small Ben McDonnell, Church of the Customer, on why all businesses should blog: Blogs fan the flames of customer evangelism. It humanizes you. They function as an instant feedback mechanism. They compel you to share your knowledge more often. Blogs facilitate the spread of buzz. They allow you to have more simultaneous conversations than would ever be possible in person. Most blog service providers offer good-looking templates to use. They help position you as a knowledgeable expert in your industry.
Blogs (continued) Gretel Going at partner Channel V Media in New York offers the following tips for a blog: Identify your editorial platform and underlying message. Don’t simply talk about yourself. Be prepared to give away what was once considered proprietary information. Identify your buyers’ personas and make sure your message caters to their needs. Make friends with likeminded bloggers. Update regularly. Respond to comments to build a community of active readers. Check your tracking and your key words regularly. Make sure your homepage is accessible from your blog.
Blogosphere & Micro-blogging Blogosphere=a collective term encompassing all blogs and their interconnections. It is the perception that blogs exist together as a connected community (or as a collection of connected communities) or as a social network. Micro-blog=a status update application that logs entries to a common Web site or a multi-user blog with restrictions on entry length. Tweet=an entry onto the micro-blog Twitter
Video Sharing and Podcasts To be MPR, the use of videos and podcasts must be a clear effort to provide information to an audience without an overt sales pitch. Need to be interesting and provocative enough to get passed from consumer to consumer, in other words, go viral. To do this Mark Rogers of Dolcinemia.com suggests: Make your campaign creative, consistent, and cohesive with the brand’s image. Commit to being part of an online conversation and cultivate your network. Create content that can be easily shared and downloaded. Find the hook that will make your message resonate with the target audience. (hook=a creative ploy to garner attention or interest in a subject)
User-generated Content: Bookmark, Review, Rate and Co-Create Bookmarking-allows members to submit their favorite sites to the larger community Ranking & Reviews-online ratings and reviews Co-Create=web content resulting from a collaboration of a firm and one or more consumers
Connecting the Dots of Social Media Social Media creates a unique opportunity Must reach the right audience, through the right channel, at the right time and keep up with the changing social media habits of your target consumers.