Don’t Underestimate the Power of Social Media
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010A recent poll asked 123 IT consumers if social mediums influence their purchase decisions. The response: An overwhelming, “Yes.” Read on to learn why social media is something that consumers consider worthwhile
Emergence of new evangelists. Consumers value peer reviews, and social media provides a platform for this sort of communication. New experts are able to voice their opinions about products and services and let their prophecies be heard.
Newspapers are so yesterday. People no longer cut out deals and product news from the Sunday morning paper, they create “favorites” tabs on their internet browser. The internet is the new newspaper clipping. Consumers use these virtual clippings as ways to collect interesting and important information.
Hit the blogosphere. Blogs have become an important part of the average consumer’s everyday life. These portals of information feature the opinions of real people, and consumers feel like these peer-broadcasted opinions are genuine. With blogs, there is no hidden agenda, and this facilitates trusting relationships.
John Smith likes this. The notorious “Like” button on Facebook has certainly made its mark in the social media sphere and has enabled consumers to show their interest in certain products, services and ideas. This provides an outlet for peer-to-peer interaction and helps track trends.
Ask The Marketing Coach: How Can I Stay On Top of the Changes Happening in Social Media?
Friday, June 11th, 2010Dear Marketing Coach,
What’s the best way to keep up with the all of the changes happening in the social media networks, specifically Facebook and Twitter?
Social media is one of the fastest evolving technologies on the web today. In fact, as I’m writing this, Facebook is getting ready to announce yet another Privacy Policy change. Keeping up with the changes and advancements on Facebook can be very time consuming; on top of the time it takes to develop a strategy for social media marketing, then there are the actual social interactions, and of course you still have to do your day-to-day work for your company. It’s enough to make your head spin! This is why so many businesses decide to turn to social media professionals for consulting and profile management.
But for the do-it-yourselfers, there are several resources out there that can help you keep up with the rapidly changing world of social media. First, start reading some popular industry blogs such as Mashable, The Facebook Blog, ValleyWag, and AdWeek. Some of these blogs don’t just cover social media topics so another time-saving tip is to subscribe to each blog’s RSS Feed in a news reader, like Google Reader, so you can quickly scan the latest posts from each blog and only read the articles that are of interest to you. You also save time by not having to visit each website or blog that you want to follow. If you are using Google Reader, you can take this one step further by setting up Google Alerts for keywords like “Facebook update”, “Facebook change”, “Facebook policy”, etc. to instantly receive access to all articles on the web that mention these phrases, without leaving your Google Reader. Another way to keep up on the latest Facebook and social media news is to follow these industry blogs and other social media professionals on Twitter. Think of Twitter as a modern-day news wire and use it to stay on top of what’s happening in social media.
We want to hear from you! How do you stay on top of the latest social media changes and strategies?
Ask The Marketing Coach: What’s the Difference Between a Fan, a Like, and Share on Facebook?
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010Dear Marketing Coach,
I started using Facebook a few months ago to promote my company. Just when I thought I had a grasp on how my Page worked, Facebook changed “Become A Fan” to “Like” and now I’m seeing a new Like button on other websites after I had already integrated the Fan Box and Share buttons on my website. Now I’m confused, what’s the difference between a Fan and a Like? Should I add this new Like button to my website too?
The recent Facebook Page change from Fan to Like really has no impact on how your Page works, how you grow your Page’s audience, or how you interact on your Page. However, this does tie-in to the other change you mentioned– the new Like button. Basically, Facebook wanted to create a universal action that users can execute in Facebook and on any website outside of Facebook. So now instead of someone becoming a Fan of your Page, they Like it, but after that everything else works the same (for now). Even after this change, Page owners are still referring to their audience as Fans because what else are you going to call them? Likers? I’m guessing that the transition to Like will take some time so for now don’t worry about addressing your audience as Fans in your promotions and communications.
I do recommend adding the new Like button to your website, but first you should understand the difference between this new button and the old Share button so you can determine if it makes since to add Like to your site. There are two main things that differentiate the Like and Share buttons– 1) What each action means on Facebook, and 2) How each action shows up in a users profile on Facebook.
Share is still an action that allows a user to automatically share information on their Facebook Wall. The shared information still includes a link to the original source, a brief description about the content, and usually a thumbnail image or video. However, with the introduction of the new Like button, the meaning of the Share action has changed slightly. Share used to imply that you liked whatever you were sharing or that you just thought it was interesting enough to share with your Friends (maybe because you strongly disliked the information or you just wanted to start a conversion about the content). But now if you read something on website that you like, you have the choice to Like it or Share it. The new Like button lets a user make it clear that they like the content they have found on a website while Share is still a somewhat ambiguous action. Although the new Like button action sends a stronger message about the users feelings about the content they are sharing, the Like action does not generate as much detail about the content on the users Wall. Unlike the Share action, the Like action appears as a message on the Wall that simply says “Joe Smith likes Keeping Up With Facebook on The Pomerantz Agency Blog” with a link to the original content but there is no description of the content or a preview image. So with the Like action it’s a stronger vote of opinion about the content but less information about the content appears on the user’s Wall. With the Share action, the user isn’t necessarily telling their Friends that they like, or dislike, the content but more information about the original content appears on Facebook.
We want to hear from you! Send your toughest marketing questions to thecoach@pomagency.com.