Why Social Media

19 Feb

Social media isn’t the problem- its the current crop of managers

The current generation of managers (C Levels) are the barrier to Social Media.

And the problem is not social media that has just brought it to a head

There has been lots of traffic over recent months how junior staff are struggling to convince older managers of the benefits of Social Media.

The are stuggle has to come to a head because of Social Media

The C Level Managers today were junior staff in the 1980’s. A time when the whole western world got so wrapped up in down-sizing, right sizing – productivity improvements.

They think, and I should know I went through it too, all about lean and mean – minimum staff to do a job – its all about the productivity per person. To most of them Social Media is idle chatter in fact all chatter is idle.

All Customer Conversations are Idle Chatter

To the C Level Managers today whose careers started in the late 1970’s and 1980’s – any customer conversation is idle chatter. Think about it, have you heard things like this.

Telephone Calls: You spent too long on the customer account call! And by the way what were you talking to them about their kids playing basketball for?

Counter Service: Stop talking to the customers just serve them and move on, time is money.

Now Bring on Social Media

Social media is about engaging with people, actually chatting to them. That is most definitely not going to fly with a productivity mindset manager, especially when the results are hard to prove.

So as BenYoskovitz puts it

Unfortunately, too many mid-level and junior-level employees are forced to spend a disproportionate amount of their time figuring out how to justify things to their bosses ….

Marketing Will Tell Customers

Its not up to YOU to create a relationship with customers – marketing will TELL our customers we want a relationship with them.

Probably a bit harsh that line, but I spent twenty years in Corporate life before joining the excellent world of a Small to Medium business.

But there is an element of truth to it. Corporate marketing departments “control” the public message, including defining the companies relationship with clients. Depending on the value of the client that is.

Measurement is the Key

The 1980’s crop of managers are not dumb, ( well I hope I am not) our careers have been built around measurement. Measuring results is needed to justify decisions. That is just the way we were taught to think. However we all struggle to measure the intangible value of customer conversations (relationship building conversations).

Social media will in time develop the metrics to prove it works. Once it proves it and allowing for some time to change mindsets it will be adopted. And it does work, for example

We dumped google adwords and just use Social Media and our leads went up 83%.

True Customer Relation Building May Become in Vogue

And this may even flow on to the broader area of customer conversations. May be Dale Carnegie’s principals for enhancing relationships may become in vogue again.

Become Genuinely Interested In Other People.
Be A Good Listener. Encourage Others To Talk About Themselves.
Talk In Terms Of The Other Person’s Interests.
Make The Other Person Feel Important — And Do It Sincerely.

Ultimately we will get back to talking to customers either on the phone, in the aisle, at the counter or on facebook etc. Because the proof will emerge that it pays to do so.

For example more companies like us will be able to show themselves and others that Social Media infact time anytime spent on customer conversations works.

Please add your comments!

About Us

HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

Is Social Media the greatest revolution of our time? (francescofederico.net)
Legal Issues and Social Media Use in Organizations (othersidegroup.com)
Twitter and Foursquare Become the New Loyalty Program at Tasti D-Lite (mashable.com)

18 Feb

Is Social Media Marketing Worth the Effort?

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Growth of Social Media is staggering but are the returns worth the effort?

We trailed just using Social Media Marketing for three months. We dropped Adwords all together and found that our sales leads increased by over 80% and our Alexa Web Site ranking went up 1000% in the same period.

But It Does Takes Effort

Effective Social Media marketing does take effort. Why because it involves engaging people, its not about SELL SELL SELL. Its about engagement with interesting content, discussions and even etiquette.

Social Media is just that its social!

Content

People find interesting and informative content appealing. Rarely do they find 100% sales literature appealing. Rather they would rather read or view material that informs, explains or entertains.

Generally blogs provide the interesting content and web sites the more specific sales information. However producing interesting and engaging content articles for your blog does take time and effort. Allowing 3- 4 hours a week to write articles for the blog is reasonable planning guide.

The type of blog articles you write you should be informative, engaging or entertaining not in your face sales. For example, if you are a Party Rental/ Hire Company, write articles about how to plan an event , eg a backyard wedding etc. Or in this case we are writing about social media marketing, not selling our hire and rental business management software that has integrated social media marketing.

One of key point to remember to seed in your key words in to the article. Blogs are also good for using less frequently used words associated with your business as well.

Let People Know About Your Blog Article

This is the social part of social media marketing.

Having written an engaging article you need to let people know about it. This is where Twitter and Facebook really come in to play. However you need to invest time and effort in building up your Twitter and Facebook following. More relevant followers means more people likely to read your post.

However communities take time to build, you need to invest time in listening and responding to what they are saying. That is being a good community member. This can take more than a couple of hours per week probably longer realistically if you are serious.

Effort Versus Return

So let us say you spend four to five hours per week on writing blog content and building your social media following then you need to have a return.

Interestingly Nielson cited that around 17% of time on the internet is now spent on social media.

Cost. The cost of your time is not just the salary on-cost it is also the opportunity cost. That is what else could you have been doing. Also a consideration is your Ad-words spend. Social media may enable you to save this money or at least reduce your spend per month.

Return. The return is dependent on what you objective. For most small to medium sized businesses the primary objective will most often be sales leads. For us it worked, but for your business it may differ.

Our Returns. We found that through this process our Blog (content focused) Unique Visitor rate increased from not much to a few hundred per day. Our web site (product sales focused) increased proportionally leading to an 80% increase in sales leads through the web site.

Key Lessons Learnt

We learnt some critical lessons through our trial, which were:

Have a Plan;
Be Disciplined and above and beyond all else; and
Be Sincere.

We were lucky in that we approached the trial with genuine sincerity in our engagements with our social media community. We went in with the view of genuinely learning from others in our social media community and we have – it has been brilliant.

For us, yes there is a real effort needed but the returns are greater than just an excellent growth in sales leads – we have gained far more from what we have learnt from others.

If you have any similar experiences or even different views please take the time to add your comments – they are most welcome!

About Us

10 Most Common Mistakes in Social Media Marketing and How to Avoid Them (slideshare.net)
Is Anyone Really Listening? Social Media Marketing (freelanceswitch.com)
Poll Result: Most Popular Social Networking Tools for Online … (jonggunlee.tistory.com)
Learning How to Start Out in Social Media Marketing (nichetitans.com)

18 Feb

Why Communicating With Customers Is Now Harder Yet Easier

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Communicating with customers/ prospects is now both easier and yet more difficult!

Easier because there are more channels available to communicate with customers / prospects such as Social Media.

Yet more difficult because customers or prospects have more choices from which to receive communications and more selective in who they invite to send information.

Note: In this article the term customer is used to cover both existing customers and prospects.

Why Is It More Difficult!

Communicating with customers even five years ago was fairly straight forward. You could communicate directly through email, mail or even the telephone. Or you could advertise in the newspaper, yellow pages or if you could afford it Television or Radio.

But all of these are now less effective than five years ago

You may well have your customers address, email or phone number

but are you actually reaching them?

Traditional Mail

This is not new we have all known this for years. Companies are increasingly using electronic means to communicate and invoice and pay bills. For example according to the Washington Post, the US Postal Service has ..

That downward trend is only accelerating. The Postal Service projects a decline of about 10 billion pieces of mail in each of the next two years, going from a high of 213 billion pieces of mail in 2006 to 170 billion projected for 2010.

And nearly half of this is junk mail!

the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) delivered 153.8 billion pieces of mail, of which 43 percent, or 66.4 billion pieces, were junk mail.

Decline of Email

Email is beginning to decline in popularity, as more communication options become available.

In 2003, people spent 46% of their time online using sites which fall into the “communications” category – that is, sites whose core capabilities are email and instant messaging. By 2009, that usage dropped to 27% or a 41% decline in overall use.

May be spam has contributed to the decline in people’s focus on email as a primary source of communication.

In Microsoft’s latest biannual report on the state of computer security, the company says that in the second half of 2008, a full 97.3 percent of email traffic was unwanted spam (or malicious email like phishing attacks and outright viruses).

Tele-Sales Now Seen As Least Effective

Business to Business tele-marketing or sales is also in decline for a number of reasons, not the least of which are changes in the legislation’s around the world governing tele-marketing practises. Many now view out bound tele-marketing as the least effective option.

90% view Telemarketing as at least as effective as their other marketing mediums.

Decline of Yellow Pages/ NewsPapers/ Television

Even these – the stalwarts of advertising for decades are in decline, see previous post Advertising media types

So Where Are Customers Going

Well it appears they are becoming more interested in Social Media. However social media whilst opening up new channels also poses some interesting problems.

It is Discretionary

Yes you can communicate with customers now by using Twitter or Facebook etc. However it is at the customers discretion as to whether they allow you to communicate with them. Either by adding as a Friend on Facebook or Following You on Twitter.

Facebook and Twitter are arguably direct communication social media type but there are more indirect channels.

Common Interest

Many years ago I read the Dale Carnegie Classic – “How to Win Friends and Influence People” . In that book, I remember reading the story of how he (or someone) had tried to make an appointment with a prospect for years – but failed. He then found that they both had a common interest in something. From this he was able to develop a friendship which led to sales.

This can be the same with Social Media!

For example through say Social Book marking sites (eg Digg, Stumble on) you may find that you have common interests in similar articles. Developing relationships this way can lead to either direct sales or them even referring you on to their community or contacts. It also provides a means to commence a discussion leading potentially to being invited to join their discretionary social media sites.

Social Media provides opportunities to engage prospects and customers indirectly, by finding things of common interest.

It Works!

For example, our software is developed for hire and rental companies. One of our major points of difference is integration with the Web and Social Media. We therefore are genuinely interested in both subjects. We write about it (blog posts), we read about it and we comment about it. Through this process we have found similar like minded companies and individuals and built really good communities on Facebook (>350 friends), Twitter (>3000 followers) and also on Digg and Stumble On. It does deliver results for us:

We trailed just using Social Media Marketing for three months. We dropped Adwords all together and found that our sales leads increased by over 80% and our Alex Web Site ranking went up 1000% in the same period. See full post – “Is Social Media Marketing Worth The Effort”

Summary

So yes on one hand their are more ways to communicate with your customers yet at the same time it is more difficult. We are entering a period where increasingly customers are gaining control over who, what, when and how they are communicated with. This will pose a both challenges and opportunities to marketing people for in the future.

Interested in more articles on Social Media and Marketing?

Then follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Networked Blogs or Stumble On

About Us

Google Already Indexing Twitter? (techie-buzz.com)
Facebook Guide For Professionals: How To Succeed In A Networked Economy (allfacebook.com)
What Is Next For Social Media? (regulargeek.com)

04 Feb

Business Need will Drive Creativity in 2010 – Hire Rental Industry

: Image by Saurabh Goswami via Flickr

Necessity is the mother of all invention!

A mantra my father drove in to my head when I was a growing up, not once but repeatedly.

Recently I was reminded of this little childhood memory when reading a recent article by Michael Roth (writes great articles) on Rental Industry Makes Positive Efforts in Midst of Recession .

Michael made the point that companies will be forced to innovate, given the slow recovery. Innovate because they have to.

Great Point But Where To Start To Look For Innovation?

Keeping things basic, there are only three simple things you can ever do in a business:

Increase revenue
Cut Costs or
Reduce Risks

So What Are Some Ideas for Innovation?

Well look towards Social Media and Digital Marketing as a prospective source. There is massive opportunity to be had for creative hire and rental companies in adopting Social Media and related digital marketing.

Why, because overall the industry has been incredibly slow to adopt it.

That’s great for innovators as it means there is massive untapped opportunities out there!

First - Increase Revenue

Social media marketing has been shown to be a great way of increasing sales leads if done properly. A well planned and executed social media strategy ( it’s not hard at all) can really be effective in driving more traffic to your web site, hence your offer.

Articles
Why Social Media is a Natural Channel for Hire and Rental Companies

Aligning Social Media to the Buying Process

Second - Cutting Costs

Social media can be used to cut hire and rental operating costs. For example cutting website development fees by having self web content management embedded in your rental software or hire software. Not only does this cut operating costs it also can improve search engine rankings, through more frequent changes.

Articles
Options for Reducing Costs

Benefits of Supplier Relationship Management for Rental and Hire Companies

Reducing Risk

Reducing business risks can be in part by considering the use of Social Media, for example using YouTube to show clients how to maintain, set up or dis-assemble equipment.

Articles:
How Hire and Rental Companies Can Use YouTube

Safety Instructions Using Social Media

Still Unsure?

We are offering Hire and Rental Companies a free advisory service to discuss how to use Social Media in their business. No obligation etc. Why? Because we dont sell Social Media services – we simple offer our globally recognised skills in Social Media back to the industry. See our press release for more details, click here.

What do we get out of it?

Well we believe that if you begin to use social media and digital marketing effectively, then you will appreciate the value of the integrated social media and digital marketing tools in our hire software and rental software.

For more information Email Us

Use Social Media To Expand Your Business (lazerpromotions.com)
Social Media Infecting Every Aspect of Business (ducttapemarketing.com)

29 Jan

Why Party Hire and Party Rental Companies should be Natural Social Media Marketers

: Image via Wikipedia

We recently completed a two month market research project and found that the vast majority of Party Rental and Party Hire companies are not using Social Media.

This is really odd – given that Social Media is a Natural Fit for Party hire and Party Rental companies.

Social Media is how we now increasingly conceive and plan events and parties….

Well Social Media is how people connect with people socially in a digital world!

Its how they communicate and even plan get together’s, events, parties and even weddings!

AND its not just Gen Y, that use Social Media!

The fastest growing segments are primarily middle aged people and businesses.

Baby Boomers and Seniors are flocking to social media – Stats to Prove it

Primary Marketing Demographic of Party Rental and Party Hire companies is…

And who is the primary market demographic for Party hire and Party Rental companies – Middle Aged people (disposable income, children to be married off, home based entertainers etc) and Businesses (corporate events, client events etc)! The very segment flocking to social media!

Hence why it is so strange!!!

Party and Event rental companies supply equipment and services to people holding events or parties.

As such they want and need to connect with people planning to hold such events or parties.

A primary segment that buys these services and hence they wish to connect to is the middle aged demographic. Why because they are the a major purchasing of such services!

Missing A Golden Marketing Opportunity

Fundamentally Party hire and Party rental companies are missing a golden marketing opportunity.

To take the lead in connecting to these market segments.

So Why is it Not Used?

The research identified that the primary reasons for the failing to use Social Media was not understanding how to use it.

In the next article we explain how to use Social Media at each stage of the buying process of your customers.

Or for more information please contact us Email Us

HireEzy party hire software and party rental software for growing businesses

generation x is now on alltop. thanks, gen x files, guy kawasaki! (jenx67.com)
Different generations, same objectives: Boomers, Gen-X and Gen-Y want the same things at work (newswire.ca)

28 Jan

Look To Small Companies For Social Media Innovation

: Image by apesara via Flickr

Necessity is the mother of innovation – so the adage says!

The tough times create the business circumstances that foster necessity. Businesses are forced to be both more creative and at the same time more brutal in their decision making. Innovative ideas whether:

market solutions,
business models or
technology will be created.

Whilst many of the ideas in this post are applicable across all business sectors, the focus of this article is on the Equipment Hire and Rental market.

Social Media as Basis of Innovation Ideas

The range of ideas that may be implemented can not be predicted. However it can be confidently predicted social media will form the basis of many innovations, around areas such as:

Revenue Improvement: Marketing areas such as lead generation, customer service, customer retention;
Cost Reduction: In marketing budgets by reducing expenditure on traditional marketing methods
Mitigation of Risk: Such as in areas like Product Damages and Safety through use of YouTube, see post.

At the end of this post is a series of examples of how to use each of the major Social marketing tools.

Where to Look for the Innovative Ideas?

Where will the innovation emerge from, large corporations or small rental or hire business?

Let’s look to what has happened over the last thirty years as an indicator of what may happen. Consider this, that since 1980, Corporations have completely lost their monopoly on new ideas. This change in innovation sources ended the era of IP monopolization. We are no longer in the era when “feudal lords” (i.e., a small handful of large “old economy” companies) controlled all the (intellectual) property and those who were without property had no rights. [1]

In 1980, Corporations accounted for 80% of all innovation (research and development outcome), they now account for under 20%. The beneficiaries have been small to medium sized companies who now account for 80% of innovations.

A key trend emerging in the knowledge economy is the change in the sources innovation. Prior to the 1980’s, large corporations dominated US research and development, with over 80% being undertaken by companies with more than 5000 employees. However since 1980, this has completely inverted, with small companies accounting for almost all the growth in R&D. [2]

Hire Rental Industry Innovation

The discussion above may not sound applicable to the Rental and Hire Industry but it is. For example in the 1980’s only the large Corporations could afford the innovation R & D expense of developing computing based management systems. Such rental software or hire software management systems are now powerful and affordable to businesses of all sizes.

Importantly though even more powerful tools such as Social Media are available (in may cases freely) to any business.

Innovation in the use of these tools is not constrained by not having financial resources but more by the extent of the will and imagination of companies.

It is in the area of will that the true constraint may appear. Major Brands have demonstrated in some instances a reluctance to engage in social media for fear of losing control of their brand. This is understandable as the brand is an asset that could well appear on the balance sheet. Hence taking avoiding perceived risks with the brand is understandable. Numerous articles in this subject.

Smaller hire and rental businesses whether though the pressure of necessity or less attachment to a brand are therefore more likely to undertake innovative social marketing ideas.

So if you are looking for new innovative ideas in the equipment hire and rental industry look to the Small business sector rather than corporations – the results may surprise you. Below is a list of how equipment hire and rental can use of each of the main social marketing tools.

About Us

How to Use Social Media Tools

20 Jan

Why Blog's are Effective For Small Businesses

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Research has shown that Small Businesses that blog generate up to 55% more web traffic! Source hubspot market survey:

Specifically, the average company that blogs has:

55% more visitors

97% more inbound links

434% more indexed pages

To read the full article at HubSpot

Why Blogs Work!

One of the basic uses of the Internet is for people to find information. Yes some people know exactly what they want to buy so are searching for company websites that have specific sales information.

However most people are searching for general information regarding a problem or issues or even for ideas. When looking for such information people tend to avoid Sales pitches and seek information sources that are more explanatory or discussion oriented.

This is what a blog can do. It provides small businesses with a tool to provide more informative content, the sort such seekers of information are after. Blogs posts can discuss ideas or problems, paint pictures of potential solutions etc.

Using a fishing analogy, Blogs are like burley in the water they bring the fish in closer to where your hook (your web-site with your specific sales offer) is located. By including a link to your website at the bottom of each post, you can move interested people to your hook. Consider this post as an example, the blog post is informative we don’t mention that we sell business software for hire and rental companies that integrates to blogs. We will at the end of the post with a link to our website for those that are interested.

Example

If you were a party rental or party hire company one of your market segments may be marquee weddings. Hence creating a post on the advantages of or planning of Marquee Weddings can be really useful content, the sort people considering their wedding options may be attracted to read.

Blog Advantages

Blogs that are informative have two great advantages:

More Keywords. Blogs enable more keywords to be used. More keywords means more scope for your site to be discovered by people searching for information. It should be noted that you still need to apply SEO techniques to improve your ranking against each of these key words.
Social Media Content. Blog posts that are informative rather than sales-ish are of greater interest to Social Media communities.

Collectively these can work to improve the volume of traffic coming to your web site.

Women and Blogs

If you market to women directly or indirectly then you should consider this:

.. study found that 42 million women in the United States (roughly 53% of the 79 million adult women in the United States who use the Internet) participate in social media at least weekly. As they spend more time with social media, women are spending correspondingly less time with traditional media: 39% less on newspapers, 36% less time reading magazines, and 30% less time watching TV.

And Blogs are the most influential source of information for women (source: Small Business Trends Article)

Blog Tools and Useful Guides

The most common platform used, and arguably the best, is the Wordpress Blog. One of the great benefits of Wordpress is the extensive range of plug ins developed by the user community.

An extensive list of these has been prepared below:

Essential Plugins For Your Wordpress Blog

10 Wordpress Plugins to Improve Your SEO

Top five blogging mistakes for businesses

Using Wordpress to create a newsletter

About Us

The HireEzy 2.1 business software enables your blog to be integrated into your website and hire management system. For more information or a product demonstration go to our web site www.makinglifeezy.com.au

Follow-Up To The Wordpress Exploit and Tips to Protect Your Blog (centernetworks.com)
More People Are Reading Blogs (When Compared With Last Year) (blogherald.com)

Discussions View Results

07 Jan

A simple business guide to Social Bookmarking

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: Image by Ivan Walsh via Flickr

Social Bookmarking is one one element of a Small to Medium businesses Social Media Marketing plan.

Social Bookmarking can be really good at helping bring more traffic to your site or to add credibility to your articles.

Basic Understanding of Social Bookmarking

When you find a site or on-line article of interest you can bookmark the site in your browser for later reference. But there are limitations with this:

Organizing and Searching

Being forever on the net doing market research, I am always finding sites or web articles that I think I would like to look at later. The problem is that in reality I end up with so many bookmarked pages and a really bad structure for filing them – that I can never find them again.

Some pages I book marked, could well have been filed under market research, hire industry data or even say social media statistics. Trying to remember where I put it became a real brain ache.

Sharing

The next limitation is sharing the articles with other people. Aside from not wanting to download every site or article and waste bandwidth, I want to be easily able to share articles with others. This is achievable using the browser bookmark system but it is cumbersome.

Others Opinions

If I do share an article I would like to track their opinions and how valuable they think the article is. Also how they would categorize the article, ie what keywords would they file it under?

Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking solves these limitations. It enables you to:

Book mark a site or article of interest;
Save the link;
Organise your links by using multiple tags;
Search by for your links by tags;
Include other people publicly saved articles who have used the same tags, hence enriching your search; and
Assess the value of an article based on others people opinions and ratings.

Why you should do it!

It is this last point that offers the real value to a small business.

If you create an article, lets say through your blog, you can submit it to a Social Bookmarking site.

More Readers. The first reason you would submit the article is that it potentially offers the opportunity to attract more readers. The social bookmarking site creates a new link from their site back to your blog, good for in-bound links.

Credibility. Others can read the article and rate it as well as make comments. The credibility of the article is increased the more others rate it well or comment accordingly. Yes there is a risk of the reverse happening as well.

Keywords. Other reading a good article may often tag that article with their own keywords. These tags along with yours are then indexed by search engines. This can be great for the search engine ranking of your article which in turn can flow through to more traffic to your site.

A well done article can be incredibly powerful in increasing traffic to your site!

Managing the Risks

Social bookmarking technology is generally free and easy to use. However whilst the technology is easy to understand the social groups that use may not be.

If you ever changed school can you remember the first day? The way they talked, the terms they used and what they talked about?

If you were smart you just listened for a while until you got use to them and their cultural norms. Hey why risk being labeled a “dork” better to just hang back for a while.

Social Bookmarking groups are exactly the same. Each social bookmarking service, and there are a number of them, seems have its own distinctive culture or informal rules and interests.

Social Bookmarking Services

There are numerous social bookmarking services. But as discussed above it pays to select the right one for you. This article gives a brief summary of each of the top ten and their focus.

Finally

The benefits of social bookmarking for small to medium businesses can be excellent.

But remember it is social by nature, so spend time getting to know the community of followers for your selected social bookmarking service. Watch the types of articles that are most popular and unpopular. Take the time to comment and rate others community members posts. Invest time in becoming known as a good community member and they will reciprocate.

26 Dec

The Risk Facing Social Media

Social Media marketing faces a serious risk to its adoption by business.

Many already question whether it is a fad? And if these risks are not addressed then it could well be perceived as a fad?

The hype that presently surrounds Social Media marketing has many of the hallmarks of the late 1990’s and its hype regarding integrated business systems.

The Chasm

Social Media Marketing has its basis in technology arguably web 2.0 tools. Therefore it is considered that some aspects of Geoffrey Moore’s, Crossing the Chasm (1991) could be applied to Social Media Marketing. (note image source wikipedia)

Early Adopter Stage

In life cycle terms Social Media Marketing for business is very much in its early adopter stage.

Early adopters, like us, are the enthusiasts who see the business potential. To businesses like us, we see the potential of Social Media marketing as a way to achieve our business goals. We are driven by dreams and aspirations for improving our business marketing using Social Media marketing without the need for definitive proof that it will work before we start.

However this is the stage at which results must begin to match dreams.

visionaries are easy to sell but very hard to please… because they are buying a dream…

This is where the real risk for Social Media lies!

It must be seen to deliver the results expected. And it is this expectation that it at the very heart of the risk facing Social Media marketing’s future.

Hype Setting Unrealistic Expectations

Social Media Marketing has certainly been hyped up in some many quarters as the new marketing approach for the new age. Whether deliberate or not, expectations are being set that Social Media marketing will deliver above average returns on marketing effort.

If visionaries can only achieve average results or arguably even slightly above average results, their perception may be that their Social Media marketing experiment has failed. Based on the concept that satisfaction is achieved when perception exceeds expectations. For example if you have really high expectations but perceive only above average results then you will be dissatisfied.

Metric’s Needed to Moderate Expectations

The second problem is the absence of benchmarks or metrics to moderate or help define a reasonable set of expectations. Moderation of expectations may be needed by Social Media, given the hype especially by those who advocating the wonderful benefits of “going viral”.

However there is an understandable paucity of metrics to gauge the success of social media marketing due to its infancy. Some research is being to emerge to help guide and even moderate expectation thinking. However such research is still limited, effectively meaning that a real risk exists of visionaries having unrealistic expectations of success hence being disappointed when those expectations are not met.

Risk of Focusing on Applications (Tools) Not Strategy

The next risk element facing Social Media marketing is the focus on tools (applications), ie Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Linked in etc rather than a coherent strategy. Twitter and Facebook’s dominance in the mainstream media may lead to some visionaries building business dreams on the basis of just using one or two of these applications. Such an approach to those of us who are beginning to understand Social Media marketing is fatally flawed.

Social Media marketing requires a coherent strategy with a defined purpose, such as increasing web traffic, increasing sales leads, improving brand awareness or customer retention. Flowing from the purpose objectives can be set. Knowing both the purpose and objectives means that the appropriate applications and resources can be determined. Whilst the absence of metrics (as discussed above) may limit the hardness of objectives this should not be used as an excuse not to create a strategy.

Pressure is On Social Media Marketing

Finally the pressure is mounting on Social Media marketing and with it the risk of perceived failure in the broader business community. In addition to the risks discussed above is the pressure coming from the volume of companies who are planning to undertake Social Media marketing. The Center for Media Research found that…

After surveying more than 1,000 people with media buying or planning responsibilities, the center found that “having a presence on social networks” is one of the top priorities for media plans in 2010.

As Sean Carlton (former Dean of Philadelphia University’s School of Design + Media) from Clickz.com puts it many of these companies are creating a presence with out a strategy.

Bad Publicity will Create a Bigger Chasm

It will take time for Social Media marketing advocates to develop case studies proving the benefits, plus defining the metrics as well as providing the infra-structure of education, consultants, resources etc to teach the “how to’s”.

The clock is ticking though as the high volume of “newbies” entering the social media marketing space creates a real risk of bad publicity. Newbies who fail will be quick to tell the world, “oh we tried that and it didn’t work.” Bad news always travels faster and wider than good news, its human nature.

To cross the chasm, ie to start to become part of the main stream marketing, Social Media marketing needs third party referencing. The early majority, that segment on the other side of the chasm, look to others in their industry for proof that something works:

Pragamatists tend to be ‘vertically’ oriented, meaning that they communicate more with others like themselves within their own industry than do technology

If some in the industry have been early adopters who have failed to be successful then word will spread. This will have the impact of slowing the adoption of Social Media marketing in that industry. Effectively deepening or widening the chasm depending upon your perspective.

Social Media Marketing is at a Cross Roads

Social Media Marketing has a future and it will in time become a standard component of marketing strategy. However it does face risks to its short term future from over hyped expectations and the focus on tools not strategy.

Greater emphasis needs to be placed on developing strategic frameworks/ guides and as well as metrics, case studies and other reference material to help support the successful use of Social Media marketing.

If you believe in Social Media, and we do, then we need to focus less on hype and more on the tools to help support its growth!

About Us

Making Life Ezy provide business management solutions with integrated web and social media solutions to the Hire/ Rental Industry. For more information email us at sales@makinglifeezy.com.au or visit our web site www.makinglifeezy.com.au

Social Media and Socialising…Let’s not muddy the waters. (socialmediatoday.com)
Establish the beachhead (marsdd.com)
Why Social Media Measurement needs to Catch Up to Adoption (visinsights)

22 Dec

Big List of Resources on How to Use Social Media

What Social Media offers to businesses of all sizes is amazing.

Business tools for a range of needs and functions from:

collaboration,
marketing,
knowledge management,
document management,
sales,
logistics, etc

But what are they and where are they?

Cameron Chapman made this post on Mashable, it is one of the best consolidated resource lists we have read. Not only does it list sites but also provides a succinct summary of what they do.

Click the link below to read it, it is well worth it.

HOW TO GUIDE: 60 Great How To Sites and Resources

Posted using ShareThis

19 Dec

Hire and Rental Industry Social Media Wallflowers

A recent survey of the consumer packaged goods market identified that over half of all such companies are social media wall flowers.

About half (53%) of consumer packaged goods companies are still social media “wall flowers,” meaning that they still have both low presence and low engagement within these media, according to an informal survey conducted among members by the Grocery Manufacturers Association. (read full article – its another brilliant article by Sarah Mahoney)

The same can be said of much of the equipment hire and equipment rental industry – where wall flowers dominate

Not an issue you think – well given the best Equipment Rental and Hire companies now generate most of their leads from the web.

AND in order to generate leads you need high levels of on-line awareness (search engine rankings)

AND with out doubt the best tool to help create that is Social Media

THEN being a wall flower is costing you money

Social Media marketing should be essential for every party hire, party rental, event hire, event rental, wedding hire, wedding rental type company -

WHY because the market you target is to supply people who are being social!!!!

Social media helps you to engage with such people – it works!

If you are in the industry and want to know more about Social Media marketing for you company then we are happy to help share our experience and knowledge, as an industry service.

HireEzy the global innovation leader in equipment rental software and equipment hire software – and it includes embedded integrated social media marketing tools – amongst a whole lot of other things

For more information email us at More Information

Social Media includes Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Delicious, YouTube etc – for articles on how to use Social Media for hire or rental business marketing see other posts we have in this blog.

4 Online Marketing Techniques Your Business Should Be Using (smtusa.com)
SEO vs. Social Media: Which is Better? (shoemoney.com)
Shifting CPG resources from traditional to social media (smartblogs.com)

Cross Platform
MAC & WINDOWS SOFTWARE

HireEzy – Hire and Rental Software

Why Social Media

Our Social Media Links

Meta

Telephone

Company

Contact Us

Why Social Media

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So what are the prediction trends for events and party – starting with 2010.

And One Special Mention

If anyone else has any thoughts please share them with us!

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The are stuggle has to come to a head because of Social Media

All Customer Conversations are Idle Chatter

Now Bring on Social Media

Marketing Will Tell Customers

Measurement is the Key

True Customer Relation Building May Become in Vogue

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Despite this slow start- Growth Has Doubled

Caution Needed

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Problem Solved

About Us

But It Does Takes Effort

Content

Let People Know About Your Blog Article

Effort Versus Return

Key Lessons Learnt

If you have any similar experiences or even different views please take the time to add your comments – they are most welcome!

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Why Is It More Difficult!

but are you actually reaching them?

Traditional Mail

Decline of Email

Tele-Sales Now Seen As Least Effective

Decline of Yellow Pages/ NewsPapers/ Television

So Where Are Customers Going

It is Discretionary

Common Interest

It Works!

Summary

Interested in more articles on Social Media and Marketing?

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Why

Resources

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One particular area we have concentrated on is the opportunities offered by Social Media!

About Us

Dr Tom McKaskill has just published a short article on where the business growth will come from?

Ok, I am an unashamed Dr Tom McKaskill fan!

Tom McKaskill’s Business Article Latest Article

Ok That’s Great But What Are Some Ideas For Business Initiatives?

About Us

Necessity is the mother of all invention!

Great Point But Where To Start To Look For Innovation?

So What Are Some Ideas for Innovation?

First - Increase Revenue

Second - Cutting Costs

Reducing Risk

Still Unsure?

What do we get out of it?

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Social Media is how we now increasingly conceive and plan events and parties….

Primary Marketing Demographic of Party Rental and Party Hire companies is…

Hence why it is so strange!!!

Missing A Golden Marketing Opportunity

So Why is it Not Used?

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In this article we will explain how to align Social Media to the customer buying process.

Understanding the Customer Buying Process

Now Align To Social Media

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Necessity is the mother of innovation – so the adage says!

Social Media as Basis of Innovation Ideas

Where to Look for the Innovative Ideas?

Hire Rental Industry Innovation

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How to Use Social Media Tools