Nowadays, every one else is utilizing the worldwide web for various reasons which eventually will give them best results, for distinctive purposes. The principle of social media marketing or social level marketing as others may call it, in India is like that of those in other countries’ around the globe. It has definite goals and a lot of driver factors when it comes to improving the entire company, its sales, customer satisfaction, service and public relations.
With India as one of the top ten countries, leading in internet market growing, we are never shocked of how the inte...
Google Wave is the latest and probably the best available mode of communication over the internet. Though it may seem a little daunting to those who are new to the Wave, understanding the basics will let you experience a truly exhilarating online experience. The main question that most beginners ask is - what is a wave? To answer simply, a wave is a beautiful blend of conversation and document. With the Google wave it is possible to communicate with people as well as work together on documents, photos, presentations etc.
The best part of the Google Wave is that it is simultaneously ac...
With the advent of technology and the extensive use of the World Wide Web, marketing strategies have taken a completely new look, opting to attract people online rather than offline. Various online marketing strategies are being used to attract potential customers, one of which is YouTube marketing, which essentially uses videos to market your product or service. Using videos to market your company has been recognized as a great strategy by many, especially because the visual medium is always more effective. Having said that, it is important to realize that video marketing or YouTube marketi...
Despite tough economic times and tightening financial belts, most businesses and companies continue to invest in social media tools and online resources simply because they offer many benefits.
Social Media is a Great Marketing Channel
Social media offer many benefits that other communication channels cannot offer. It’s a very natural way to increase and direct traffic towards your website where your products or services are promoted. It spontaneously exposes the company brand to huge groups of people around the world. It is quite different from paid advertisement, which can be a ris...
Here is a short 2 minutes video and a write-up on "Increase Traffic through Online Video Marketing". See to yourself what you prefer- Reading or Hearing!! Your comments will be highly appreciated.
Video marketing has been gaining popularity as a tool in effectively increasing traffic to a website. Promoting a local business or a blog site through the use of a video has steadily gained weight in terms of traffic generation. People have found so many ways how to enhance the incoming traffic that will lead to a better business hence improve profitability.
As one may notice...
Customers Make the Brand – Spellbinders Paper Arts Social Media Success Formula
Much ink has been spent on writing about the meaning and uses of social media as a tool for enhancing your business and therefore I shall not go down that lane. Having said that, however, I feel it is important to mention certain success stories of companies that have used this tool in their businesses and benefitted from it.
Spellbinders Paper Arts is one such company that has made optimum use of social media marketing to expand its consumer base. Based in Peoria, Arizona for the past five years, Spellbinders is a manufacturing company that has been producing tools that paper craft enthusiasts require for their work. While the company sells most of its good through hobby and craft store chains like Hobby lobby and other similar paper crafting stores, it also sells directly from its own company website, directly to the consumers. The main reason for the popularity of this company can be attributed to the importance given to social media marketing by the company.
According to the company, consumers make the brand and therefore it is important to reach out to as many consumers as you can to develop brand loyalty and popularity. The company makes use of blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo groups etc to enhance its consumer base. Spellbinders paper Arts also has about sixty YouTube videos posted and is planning on starting its Flickr gallery in the near future. The best part of the social media campaign of this company is that it is not restrictive in nature. In other words, if you are a member of Facebook then you can also join the Yahoo group of the same company. The company believes that this multiplicity will only encourage loyalty towards the brand. In addition, to the regular blogs it is important to note that the company is an active participant in the various blogs related to craft and arts.
According to Spellbinders Paper Arts, each blog is created with a view to teach the consumers about using the various Spellbinders products. Additionally, the company invites posts from its consumers on the various innovative ways in which they have used their products. This encourages active participation from the consumers and also develops new ideas and craft recipes that others can effectively use in the future. In fact, very recently the company organized a contest to promote its new product and received many entries from its customers, which also showed that there was considerable awareness regarding the new product.
Spellbinders Paper Arts uses a very novel way to reach out to the public using social media. The company along with its team of marketing people, it has a team of five freelance designers who create the various how-to blogs that are posted on different websites. Apart from these designers, the company also has more than ten design team members, who operate their own blogs and promote the company and its products. It is pertinent to note that the company organizes a yearly contest where the best design team is awarded based on their project and the ways they have used to promote the products of the company.
Moreover, Spellbinders Paper Arts makes full use of the power of links to various related sites in order to create a better presence on the Internet. It is important to note that while creating projects, one often has to use material created by other companies. Spellbinders acknowledging the role of other companies in overall creation promotes such businesses through their sites and blogs and in turn these companies help promote Spellbinders Paper Arts, thereby forming a symbiotic relationship.
Lastly, where a company sells its products through retailers, success in social media marketing can be calculated through the participation of its consumers on the various blogs and contests. One can safely say that customer is the key to success in social media and they are the ones who make or break the brand. Therefore, success in social media marketing can be achieved if you integrate it into your entire company system rather than view it as a separate component.
Special Thanks to Jay Baer for sharing this case study
Social media is one of the most important marketing tools used by businesses today. Given the myriad social media sites available on the Internet, enhancing visibility of your company or business has become very easy. In fact, many businesses feel that this is the smart way of Internet marketing and brand building. However, it is important to understand how to use these tools to actually produce results. Often, people register with social media websites and forget about it and then complain about the lack of traffic to their website. Apart from following the four “P’s” of traditional marketing, Social media has a fifth ‘P’ – Participation, which is very important for getting positive results. Participation is a two-way dialogue between the company and the customers.
A very good example of the successful use of social media to actively communicate with its customers is Dairy Queen – an ice cream company that has been in business for over 7 decades. A very well known international brand in the ice cream business, Dairy Queen successfully implemented social media techniques to its advantage and reached out to a wider network of customers, thereby increasing its sales. Dairy Queen has always been a pioneer in exploiting all aspects of advertising to its advantage. In 2008, with the advent of social media applications, Dairy Queen was not to be left behind and adopted these techniques with the same fervor as traditional advertising strategies.
What exactly was the social media strategy of Dairy Queen that made it so successful? Well, firstly, there was a holistic acceptance of the techniques and principles of social media. Acceptance combined with their transparent attitude and the need for connecting with the customer ensured a successful social media venture. They adopted a five-prong approach in applying social media techniques to reach out to their customers by using the tools like:
Dairy Queen ensured that their blogs did not print press releases but actually told stories of the company through the eyes of its employees. A chief brand officer was totally responsible for updating the contents and keeping in touch with customers. Audio or visual podcasts helped a lot in brand building and Dairy Queen used these tools to the optimum by using an articulate speaking approach via words. They conveyed the story of the company by way of an audio podcast that reached out to many people.
Facebook and Twitter are two of the common tools these days that many people use to promote their company. Dairy Queen, not one to be left behind, insisted on engaging in an active dialogue using both these social media tools. Re-tweeting customers who tweet them and following their clientele has helped Dairy Queen tremendously to promote their brand. Finally, Dairy Queen has made another win-win move by accepting the increasing use of mobile technology and is now looking to build a DQ store locator in iPods and iPhones, which would be made available via the iTunes app store. This move will surely help Dairy Queen go a long way in brand building.
If you look at all the above factors that made Dairy Queen so successful in its social media marketing venture, you will understand that it is total participation that actually would go a long way in making the most of these social media tools.
Social media has emerged as a great tool in the recent years where you can market your products and services for free. The real value of social media – especially the social networking and microblogging sites, lies in the number of people who use them. It is an integral part of the business process to reach out to your targeted clientele and know them better. So, you can use the tremendous reach of the social media, especially the Web 2.0, to reach out to your customers, listen to their problems, participate in discussions about your offerings (products and/or services), and build a brand recognition. Be it twittering, blogging, or facebook-ing on the World Wide Web, you need to make some fans who are usually very vocal online and can do you a great service by spreading the word around. The icing on the cake for this is that you don’t have to spend anything at all!
If you still have doubts whether social media can serve as a useful tool for marketing your offerings online, you should listen about how P&G changed the way feminine-care products and other similar stuff from its stable needs to be marketed. The scenario of P&G’s marketing strategy changed with the launch of its community-building site – Being Girl, which provided a platform for young girls to discuss about feminine-care products and other health facts. If the girls had not got this platform, they would not have talked about the issues plaguing them so openly. By offering these girls a discussion forum, culture items targeted for this specific age group and health facts, P&G was able to increase its sales greatly.
The use of social media by P&G was able to drive home a larger point – A majority of products are like feminine-care products that people hardly like to talk about. So, you need to show your targeted clientele that you care, by talking about their problems and offering them solutions. Such conversation in turn would allow you to talk about your products eventfully and make a killing regarding your ROI (Return On Investment) as P&G has successfully done.
Source:econsultancy My special thanks to the author-Meghan Keane
![[Ask]](http://shefalinagdev.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/ask.png)
![[del.icio.us]](http://shefalinagdev.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://shefalinagdev.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://shefalinagdev.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Google]](http://shefalinagdev.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[LinkedIn]](http://shefalinagdev.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/linkedin.png)
![[MySpace]](http://shefalinagdev.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[Sphere]](http://shefalinagdev.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/sphere.png)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://shefalinagdev.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/stumbleupon.png)
![[Technorati]](http://shefalinagdev.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/technorati.png)
![[Twitter]](http://shefalinagdev.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
![[Windows Live]](http://shefalinagdev.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/windowslive.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://shefalinagdev.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](http://shefalinagdev.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
