Speaker: Fritz McDonald, VP of Creative Strategy, Stamats, Inc.
(Sorry, I came in late to the session)
Listen to your audience - how many people asked their audience if they WANTED a Facebook page? A network may be better to a Facebook page - your audience might view it as different. Real time response is always important - people expect it. People will take you more seriously if you respond to them in real time than if you have the best Facebook page ever.
Let them make content - Content is the foundation on which all digital marketing should be build. It’s what they do on the web…they create content and share it. More and more people feel like content belongs to everyone…not just you! Real viral marketing is inspiring people to go out and sell for you. People that are extremely happy with you will become evangelists for you. You want content creators in your network - they will generate a tremendous amount of content and energy. They are influencers. We trust people we meet on social networks over slogans and adds. Only 1-3% of people on any given network are responsible for making things happen on that network. It’s as if you’ve suddenly hired a lot of co-authors. You have to get use to the idea of collaboration…which means you lose control.
Establish measurement criteria - Qualitative measurements like number of conversations, if people are there there talking about you, etc…Sometimes we confuse numbers with quality - don’t just look at the number of fans you have on Facebook. YouTube is not a video channel - it’s a social network. Don’t measure by views…measure by how many conversations people are having about your video or by how many subscribers you have on your network. Put growth and activity together.
Favor relationship and message - Social media has not killed marketing. It takes time - you can’t just throw up a Facebook page. Seed content (Stanford did this on their Facebook page). Content has to both convey the brand and offer value. What else can you offer beyond information?
Make your site social - It might be wiser to start there, rather than jumping off to a different platform. How do you offer your users a way to get involved? Look at Ohio State, Colgate University. Social networking and social media have killed the whole idea of the fold - it’s trained people to scroll.
Become professional - For examples, blogs are professionalized and have strong competition. It’s time to take it to the next level. Don’t just get students to blog about their day. And don’t wall the blogs off behind a portal - Google can’t find it. It’s time to start allocating resources to at least managing. The largest growth happens because of internal management.
Explore other networks - Ning, LinkedIn, Digg, built your own - go beyond Facebook.
Be creative - There’s no excuses not to be. Think about ways to make things happen among people. Enabling conversation is your number one job.
Keep it simple - Instead of trying to be all over the web, focus it in a few places. No one has REALLY done YouTube well yet.
(Did you can the first two points of this presentation? Add them in the comments!)
Thanks for the shoutoutsummary Head of Marketing !!!! The first point focused on participation as a way of learning how to function on the social web and to drive traffic. The second just reaffirmed the necessity of having some kind of strategy, one that doesn’t have to be terribly complicated or overthought, but intentional. Most of the sites you and the other edu.guru social experts talk up have some kind of strategy behind them.
Do not forget about the 80/20 rule with Twitter. Using only 20 % of your time and efforts with self-promotion and marketing your services. The 80% should be used to listen, watch, observe, and network. It is the most powerful tool for learning that I have been a part of in recent times. Enjoy it! and have fun.
Internet Marketing Student
This is great because my son is studying in AMA University in Manila. This a great news to hear that AMA is upgrading their teaching. Thanks for the post!