Small Business Social Media Marketing – sometimes quality means more than quantity

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Adam Weitner

There is little debate about the power of inbound social media marketing. Major brands are benefitting from massive online audiences that not only find them on their own, but are attentive in listening to the brand’s messaging. What’s more, much like ambassadors, many of these “audience” members often share brand messages with their own networks – spreading these messages even further, while adding a little third-party credibility, too.

I think we can all agree, online marketing programs can, and often do, deliver massive results that generate leads and result in business.

A common misconception, however, is that these programs must reach large numbers of people to be considered successful. Ford Motor Company has been very successful in its online initiatives, and indeed has some impressive numbers to back that statement up. Social media site Mashable did a small case study on one of Ford’s most recent campaigns which was aimed at raising awareness and buzz around the 2012 Focus – check out the case study; the numbers speak for themselves.

Does this tell us then that businesses need to attract millions of viewers to their YouTube channel, or thousands of visitors daily to their blog to be successful? In my opinion, the answer is no.

Organizations that deal in things with less mass appeal than things like cars, or technology, for example, are seeing huge increases in business leads, with a fraction of the online audience that big brands like Ford have. The key for them isn’t the size of their audience, but rather who is actively watching/reading/listening. Niche market businesses can, in fact, see great success through inbound marketing, if done right. Good content and an SEO strategy are the main ingredients, but that’s another topic entirely.

If I asked you if a small fencing company in the town of Littleton, MA would benefit from a blog would you answer yes?

Louis E. Page is a small, family owned and operated fencing company that has had a great deal of success through its blog – experiencing an increase in sales leads of 850 percent since its launch. Yes, 850 percent! This example is a bit old now (from 2009), but it’s still a great example of how a niche market, small business can benefit from an online marketing strategy, without attracting hundreds of thousands of readers to its blog and viewers to its videos. If anything, this is even truer now in 2011 as more people get online and turn to blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the likes for information.

Do you know of a niche-market business that has benefitted from an online marketing strategy? If so, please share in the comments!

Locating online influencers – part one: where to begin

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Adam Weitner

How can an organization begin looking for influencers online?

Before you can dive in to an online influencer outreach program you obviously need to figure out who is influential and where they hang out online. Customers and potential customers read blogs and take part in discussions online every day, and online influencers are writing those blogs, and leading those conversations. If you can find out which blogs, and where these discussions are happening, you can begin to seek out, and build a list of online influencers.

For now, we will focus on finding potential online influencers and compiling a list.

Step 1 – identify keywords:
Since customers and potential customers will be actively seeking information, they will be searching for content based on keywords that are related to what they want to find. For example, your company produces and sells tablet computers – people who are interested in buying a tablet, or learning more about tablets will search the internet for more information. They will search for things such as “tablet computers 2011”, for example.

To determine which keywords related to your product type are the most commonly used, you can use a tool like the Google AdWords “Get keywords ideas” Tool. Once you’ve populated a list of popular search terms that are related, you can make a note of the most commonly used ones (between 5 and 7 should be plenty), which will come in handy in the following steps.

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Step 2 – locate bloggers:
Now that you have identified the keywords that your customers and potential customers are using to find their information, you can search for blogs that contain those keywords and begin building a list.

A handy, accurate tool for doing this is also a Google property (oh how I love Google), called Google Blog Search. It works much the same way as any other Google search, but focuses on blog results only. You can search for both blogs and blog posts, or just one or the other. The advanced search function allows you to really narrow things down, if a broad search is turning up too many results.

Technorati is also a great tool for finding blogs, so be sure to check there as well to make sure you don’t overlook any major players.

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Step 3 – find discussions already taking place
Forums are great for finding influencers as many of them will take part in online discussions as a means of driving traffic to their blog. Yet another Google tool (are you surprised?), you can use the same keywords identified in step 1 to search Google, then simply click on the “Discussions” tab on the left sidebar of the results screen.

Another place that hosts a ton of discussion that can in-turn lead you to influencers isTwitter. Try using Twitter Search with those same keywords to see if any discussion is taking place there. Though this will involve more digging than any of the other steps thus far, it can pay off large if you find one or two big influencers there.

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Building your potential influencer list
Throughout steps 2 and 3, you should be compiling a list. I use Excel for this, but any charting tool or contact database you are comfortable with will be just fine. One thing to note with regards to your list is which information you should capture. Below is a basic example of the type of info I usually capture in a potential influencer list:

Once you’ve pulled together a solid list of potential influencers you can begin to determine which will become a part of your outreach and rank them based on a number of variants. Next post will get further in to that, and teach you exactly just how to rank them and make educated decisions, maximizing efficiency. Your final list will host even more detail on each of the influencers and their online spaces than what is shown in the chart above – stay tuned!

Some other resources for locating influencers online:

Blog search engines you can use to help identify your influencers:

Other places to look for influencers:

A few tools that can help locate and grade influencers, but as I’ve mentioned before, these should be used with caution:

Thank you for reading and be sure to add your thoughts on locating online influencers in the comments!

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Business blogging with personality, tip# 2: Pass the pen

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Adam Weitner

A great way to add some personality to your corporate blog is to have multiple people writing and sharing stories – through their own points-of-view.

Start by figuring out who the “thought leaders” (yea I know, it’s an aging term) are in your organization – these are the people that readers will care most to hear from (aside from the corporate heads, of course). A thought leader may be a manager of a certain division within your company – someone who has worked in their sector for 10+ years, and ideally is already known and respected within their industry.

Of course, your organization’s thought leaders aren’t the only people that you should have contributing to your corporate blog. Your junior staff may very well have some leading-edge, game changing ideas too, so be sure to give them a chance to write and share their thoughts as well.

Once you’ve determined who you would like to have contributing to the blog, present them with the opportunity to write a weekly, monthly, bi-annual (whatever the case may be that best suits your needs) blog post. Allow them to write in their own words, and editing must only be for grammatical and spelling errors – do not alter their message.

If your blog features regular posts from various members of your staff, personality will automatically be “injected” through the different ideas and points-of-view that each of them present. If done right, your blog may even become a resource for people interested in learning more about your industry, and can lead to new business opportunities. It will drive traffic to your website, that I can guarantee.

It will also help retain readers and keep them coming back to your blog, as people will enjoy learning from multiple writers. So go ahead and pass the pen!

Thank you for reading and be sure to add your own blogging tips for businesses and other thoughts in the comments!