@Spirocks

Make Local Sell Local

Social Media Monitoring for Marketing

Where are you when your potential customers are talking?

Social media provides a chance to hear things you would never hear before, find customers you would never find before, and make connections that lead to sales you would never make before. The key is to be there to capitalize on the thought, comment, mention that your customer makes, when they make it. You have to have the system in place to make it possible, your finger has to be on the shutter to capture the moment.

Are companies really doing that? Yes.

Here is an example from today that will illuminate the way companies are using social media monitoring to build brand awareness and make connections with proven customers. Earlier I stopped by Whole Foods to pick up some Burrata Mozzarella, a creamy fresh mozzarella that is one of a kind. While there I checked in with Foursquare and tweeted my checkin as shown here:

What Followed that Tweet was a Retweet by the brand that I bought. Notice I never mentioned a brand name, just the variety of the mozzarella. So how did the company know it was theirs? I uploaded a photo of the package with my checkin. That means the company was monitoring twitter for mentions of Burrata (they didn’t follow me prior to this) and were aware of my tweet and the fact that it was their product, they then re-tweeted my post. That all happened in 40 minutes. Not bad.

As you can see a subsequent conversation took place about their product and who knows how many people noticed and didn’t comment.

Social Monitoring used in marketing

 So how do you do this cost effectively?

You need to use tools that monitor the mentions for you. You can’t spend all day watching, and you can’t pay someone either, unless you are GM or Verizon etc. I use Spoke Social which I am involved in developing. Here is an example of the monitoring screen that Spoke has for setting up the keywords and other parameters:

Spoke Monitoring Set-Up Page

As you can see I set it up to monitor for mentions of Brunch or Sunday Brunch, within 25 miles of my restaurant Evenfall, as I am going to be starting brunch there in October. So now each time someone mentions that term within 25 miles of Evenfall I will be notified and able to message them an invitation. Will they all come? No. Will they have an interest in brunch? Likely. Will it cost me much time, money, or anguish to do it. Definitely not.

This is the type of Marketing Use that monitoring tools can have.  They are most often used as a customer service tool to make sure that any disgruntled customer taking to social media and venting about your brand can be contacted and the situation rectified.

If ideas and examples like this interest you, you can subscribe for free here: (It would make me happy too.)

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What do you think? Is monitoring interesting? It is not expensive, in fact it is one of 40 features that spoke has for $15 a month. I am here to answer questions for you, @spirocks on twitter or in comments below. 

Local Business and Google Search Ranking

So What Can You Do?

Make sure your website or blog is optimized for local search results. Focus on the terms that people will use when they search for you locally, broad and general terms will likely leave you ont he 90th page. Use the local area you are in, whether it is SOHO in New York City or the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. That is your Ace in the Hole.

Content Creation. You may think that it is obvious since you are a restaurant located in a particular town that you are catering to them. But to Google it is not obvious unless you spell it out. So when you are crafting your messages that means you are writing to both the reader and to Google. Mention your location. One of my restaurants, Evenfall, does a lot of private functions like rehearsal dinner and such. So we strive to be a top result in our area by targeting search terms like Rehearsal Dinners Haverhill, Rehearsal Dinners Merrimack Valley, as you can see we fuse the service with the location in the search terms.

Take Advantage of the HTML Code that Google Checks. Each page should have focus keywords that it is designed to be found for. Each page should also have a carefully considered title as it is a major part of the indexing process and then it is what the searcher will see when he/she comes across you in google search results. Finally the Meta description should be a clear and concise summary of what the page contains as that will be the text that is weighted heavily in search rankings and the text that will be displayed in results.

Submit Your Site to Google via SiteMaps and URL Submissions. Your website should have a sitemap to take advantage of the XML Sitemaps protocol, which will allow you to submit every page in your site to Google and Bing. Google also just realeased a URL submission tool that you can submit URLs to get crawled. It is a good idea to do both.

What do I do for Clients?

I talk to them about their business, and ask them which terms they would love to get to the top in. Then I take the time to make sure everything above is taken advantage of, and I try to create content for them that will be ranked the highest in their niche for those terms.

I also try and think like a customer, easier for me then someone running the business, and work to create keywords that i beleive would be searched for. I create content that will be found for those keywords too.

Then using Google analytics I track the ‘Organic Traffic’ generated from search engines and look at the best performing keywords. Those are the ones that generate the most traffic that leads to a conversion page (point of purchase, Email list sign up, etc). Those become the focus of a second round of content creation that is aimed at bolstering the site’s results for those keywords and the conversion rates that we are after.

If you are interested in talking about your business, seeing what i would do for your site, or just getting more info don’t hesitate to comment here, on twitter @spirocks, Google+ top right, or call my office (617) 379-2430. I am always happy to talk about these things whether you want to hire me or not.

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Run your own Group Buying Promotion. I am.

Who needs Groupon?

Keep all the revenue and stir up some serious business along the way. In this post I am going to explain how with an example I just put together for Evenfall Restaurant, it’s a home grown group buying marketing campaign. It’s Mojito Time.

Mojito
Evenfall's Famous Mojito

The Hook: The more people that buy the cheaper it gets.

Evenfall is well known for having the best Mojitos in the area, with elbow grease, fresh muddled mint and lime, and some silver rum they serve them in pint glasses and they serve them often in the summer months. So for this promotion we decided to lower the price every week that at least 100 mojitos were sold. We started by reducing the price from $8 to $5 for the first ten day run. The every week until mid August the price will be reduced by 50 cents until it reaches $1 a Mojito.

I created a page on the restaurants blog dedicated to the promotion, you can see that here: (Make My Mojito Cheaper) and shared it via Twitter, Facebook, and a soon to be released email blast.

As the promotion progresses the deal gets more and more enticing, it is timed to coincide with the slowest season of the year for the restaurant and designed to drive businesses during the dog days of summer with ridiculously cheap mojitos. Read on to see the consideration I took, and why it makes sense for the restaurant…

[Read more…] about Run your own Group Buying Promotion. I am.

Small Business Online Marketing Blueprint

Steps to a RockStar online Presence (part one)
Rockstar

1) Create or Invest in a Modern Well Designed Website that has conversion pages and easily updated information, as well as an email opt in for updates regarding your products or services. Your website can not be an ugly brochure online any longer, it is turning away business. If you do not have a form for customers to request more info, a way to make a reservation, an email subscription box, and multiple up to date answers to the questions everyone asks about your business you are missing out on sales.

2) A Blog with consistently created content about your business that is written in a way that will result in search engines finding you and ranking you highly. Your blog is your chance to talk to your potential and current customers in your voice, to do the sales pitch of your dreams, to explain a new offering, and so much more. You should be using it to define your company’s personality, and to create identification between your customers and you. It is a tool that requires time, consistency, creativity, and a willingness to share. It should be written both for the current sale and as a permanent part of your online presence which will continue to show up in search results as long as you host it on your site.

3) You should employ a professionally scheduled system of sharing the two types of content listed above so as to maximize traffic to your website from social media outlets. This includes facebook and twitter and google plus, as well as the creation of Flickr and YouTube accounts to ‘Curate’ your photo and video content for the long haul. Search is only one way you will be found, if you develop a strong social presence you will be able to share the above two content sources with your social network and get them off your profile and onto your website, thus into your ‘selling zone’. You should have a well thought out schedule for sharing your content and it should be followed. This is not the time for randomly thinking about it and posting a bunch then forgetting about it for another week.

4) An informative email newsletter which is sent to a segmented list according to recorded click through data from your own campaigns. Your email newsletter should not be a series of buy this links, it should be a chance to share information your customer would be interested in. Monitoring who clicks on what in your emails will allow you to create segmented sub-lists that indicate peoples interests. From there you can send more specific topic emails to people who are interested in those topics. This segmentation will increase open rates and responses.

5) A willingness to be responsive to requests received from your website, social media accounts, and email newsletters. If you do all the above and your customer responds, you better be ready to be responsive yourself. Why waste all the effort and then leave a customer hanging. It sounds crazy but I see this a lot so I added it to what I first thought was going to be a four step list.

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Where to start?

I do all these things for my clients everyday (and a lot more), some of you have the time and computer skills to do this alone and I hope this gives you the framework to find more success marketing online. For those of you who need help, and want to hear what I would do for your particular case, contact me HERE.

The Great Facebook Like Hoax

Two views of exhibit in window of Rothschilds' Department Store in Ithaca in 1917 ...

One of the most common questions I run into from my clients is how can they get more Facebook LIKES. It’s an interesting smorgasbord of approaches you can find being used out there, but what ones are worth the effort and investment? Lets take a look.

First let’s Get Real:

Lets understand what Facebook (as we know it today) was created for. If I asked you what Facebook has been created for, what would you say? “To connect with people I know, and stay in contact with people I have met.” “To share photos and keep up with what is going on in all my friends lives” Chances are you would say some variation of these two answers. The fact of the matter is that you would be wrong.

Facebook has been built to monetize the connection between brands and individuals.

Consider the fact that Facebook is now the number one provider of display advertising in the United States. Or the fact that they will gross 2 Billion dollars for those ads this year. Do you think that happens by accident? Of course you don’t. It happens because Facebook was created to make it happen, and to make ungodly amounts of money. Now lets think about Facebook Pages for a moment. They are created to allow brands or organizations create the equivalent of a profile on Facebook, just for a brand. They allow Facebook members to ‘Like’ a page and if they do the brand can share content with these individuals as they wish. FREE. Now does that help Facebook’s goal of extracting a fee for the ability of Brands to market to the individuals? No it doesn’t. So…

Facebook intentionally makes getting Likes difficult for brands.

Why is it hard for a brand to get a like? The standard Facebook page, one without iFrames custom built to modify the page, is what 95%+ of the pages are running. In that environment the individual who is prompted in some way to visit the page of a brand can visit and read and view the content whether or not they click LIKE… so the actual conversion rate is low. Why would a visitor take the extra step when they dont NEED to? This is what keeps like levels low, and what prevents proactive marketing from the page to consumer, which is what most brands want.

Want Proof? Chris Brogan is one of the most prolific and successful bloggers and new media marketing pioneers, he works on projects for fortune 500 companies, has an ad-age top rated marketing blog, he is a best selling author, and does an impressive amount of speaking on all these topic. His blog can be found at chrisbrogan.com if you want to make sure he is the online marketing stud (despite the wacky pictures) that I am saying he is. The point? Getting likes for superstars not giving away a free gift, running a contest, or some other LIKE clicking motivator, is difficult. Brogan has 182,000+ twitter followers, yeah that many, and only 5,531+ Facebook likes. Sure having that many would be a blessing for you most likely, but it takes someone with online leverage that very few have to approach those numbers. It just isn’t something that you can directly make happen very easily, Facebook makes it that way intentionally as noted above.

Brogan twitter

 

brogan facebook likes

So what does this mean for you? Sounds discouraging I am sure, and I am sure there are those out there that promise to get your likes up in exchange for cash. My suggestions are what have worked for me, and they are not loaded with tricks. Facebook wants you to buy Ads, not get free access to their members easily. There really is no trick that they allow to make LIKEs happen.

As I mentioned, you can run a contest and reward people who ‘Like’ your page in some way. You can build iFrame modified pages that will reveal your content only when someone has ‘liked’ your page. I do this for clients, it works well, but it costs money and requires a hosting account. In general I host my clients pages on my host, but it still costs money. My favorite is probably the most honest of any of these.

I create relationships and then ask them to click like.

Yeah its not the silver bullet you may have hoped for, but it works. I say it is the most honest because those that are clicking LIKE want to hear about what you are doing. They are not clicking like to get a free iPod then clicking UNLIKE once the contest is over. They are legitimately interested in, connected to, and likely to follow up when you continue to post your amazing content.

So yeah getting LIKES is not easy, its hard.

  1. You should ask your personal friends to consider liking your business.
  2. You should share the pages content on your profile, and other social networks and encourage people to LIKE you there so they can keep up to date.
  3. You should consider themes for your pages instead of generic ‘Spiro’s Bar and Grill’ type themes. How about; ‘Spiro’s Hangar Steak and Chimi Churri Rules!’
  4. You should create relationships and ask them to click LIKE. That means paying attention to what they are doing and commenting.
  5. You should think about incorporating Facebook Deals into your business marketing, that way they need to click like to see the specials when nearby.

Hope this helps. if you have any ideas, tips, experiences, or love for me. Let me know in the comments. You will hear back. See you on twitter @spirocks much love, and success.

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Why location is more important today than yesterday..

… but not as important as tomorrow.

What are the implications of social posting on location by consumers?

A recent report by ListenLogic – 25% of social media shopping conversations are posted by consumers while they are in an actual store. Fueled by the explosive growth of the smartphone market share, consumers are commenting on their experiences as they happen. Whether you are a restaurant or retail shop, a doctors office or a registry of motor vehicles… the comments are flowing live.

boston
All around people are making their voices heard...

This means three things:

1) You have a new and self generated source of publicity, people telling people what you do while they are experiencing it. Obviously you want to knock their socks off, and make then rave about your product, or service.

2) You need to be ready to respond in real time, if they @mention you in a tweet, or comment on your facebook page, it would be good to be there to help them. What a new level of service for a customer to be able to get an answer to a question they themselves were probably not expecting.

3) Even if you only sell offline, you need to be aware that there are conversations going on about you and your company, your staff and your products… you can be present to help and rectify, or you can be absent to accept the outcome of the comments.

This is trend that is only increasing, with each wave of upgrades the cell phone landscape is adding more and more smartphones to the population’s pockets. Application developers from Facebook to Foursquare to Google to Yelp are all building location based commenting, check-ins, and reviews into there functionality… if you noticed those are some big tech names.

What can you do?

  1. To prevent negative comments from making it out: Start by making sure you are proactive with your account sharing, why not have your customer steer an angry message to you rather than the general public, maybe you can rectify the situation and save a blemish from rearing its ugly head. A visible facebook account, twitter account, and better yet email account may collect the wrath in a way that is less damaging. Basically provide an ear and an outlet, and try to fix the situation.
  2. Encourage your customers to make there location known, for those of us with a smartphone and the respective apps, it is likely that is all we need. you will reap the benefit of the word of mouth machine, the social proof, and this exposure can really only be good. Any publicity is good publicity right? Charlie Sheen? Anyone?
  3. Begin with standard monitoring, if you don’t have a smartphone, get one. Have notifications set for mentions on twitter, and posts on your facebook page. Once you see how powerful this monitoring can be, as a service and sales tool, you may want to invest in a social media dashboard, $25 a month that allows you to manage all your accounts with a common inbox to prevent logging in and out, lets you set up keywords (brand monitoring) and automate more in depth monitoring. Like say how much is your competitor mentioned compared to you. This is known as ‘Share of Voice’

Do you think it is worthwhile to monitor this or not? Let me hear it!

Use the newest Foursquare specials to promote your restaurant

How to use the newest foursquare specials to promote your restaurant. Recently foursquare announced its third version, which gives merchants a handful of new specials to offer.

FourSquare for Business

Here they are:

– Swarm Special: If a certain amount of people check-in at the same time, a retailer can offer a discount.

– Friends Special: If you and a X number of friends check-in a a certain store, you can all get a percentage off.

-Flash Special: First so many people to check-in get a deal on their purchase.

-Newbie Special: First check-in gets a special offer.

-Check-In Special: As long as you check-in you get a deal.