Welcome to the 2nd Social Media Hotlist of 2010! This list contains hot topics for the month that could do very well on social sites. Ideally you could use this to help aid in linkbait and content creation for social media. Hopefully these ideas can help you harness the momentum of a current hot topic and get more traction. Here’s what will be hot on social media in February!
- Valentines Day
This Hallmark holiday <ducks> is always popular – especially if you get creative when putting together really creative lists. Hint: If you talk negatively about V-day, you can get a lot more conversation and traction
- The Oscars
Get your Oscar-related linkbait in now! There isn’t much time left before Oscar night (March 7th), so get your content in early! - Black History
Take a look back at African-Americans who were pioneers in your industry, or look at how some of these folks helped us get where we are today!
- Bioshock 2
This is the followup to one of the most critically acclaimed games of the past decade. The game releases on February 9th and has a great deal of societal and historical influence and can be tied into a great deal of topics. - The Wolfman
This February movie release stars a fan favorite, Benicio Del Toro, who has to wear makeup that took 3 hours to put on (and one hour to take off), so mix in some special effects/hero & anti-hero/monster/cosmetics linkbait around this release. - Kathryn Bigelow
Another Oscar related topic, Kathryn directed ‘The Hurt Locker’, which is a film up for many awards, including best picture. If she won, this would be the first time the award would go to a female. And guess what? The director’s ex is James Cameron (who is also up for best picture). Who else broke the gender barrier? Who are some of the people who did so in your field? All will make great linkbait topics! - President’s Day
Have any odd presidential facts or tie-ins with your industry? Put them together as President’s Day is Feburary 15th. - Super Bowl Spin-offs
Follow up on spin-offs to the Super Bowl and use them as linkbait. From the Puppy Bowl to the Lingerie Bowl, these spin-offs can be a less croweded space than Super Bowl linkbait.
Happy February linkbaiting!
Have any other hot topics for the month of February? Feel free to share examples below, and don’t forget to follow 10e20 on Twitter and subscribe to our RSS feed.
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How to Deal with Brand Identity Theft
Feb 2, 2010 by Stephanie Weingart | Facebook, Reputation Management, Social Media MarketingHow much do you trust your fans? Do you trust them enough to manage your Facebook fan page? Do you trust them to converse with other fans that might have customer service-related questions or complaints? A job like this should not be left in the hand of a customer.
Facebook Fan Pages are now thought of as the Brand Community or the Brand Hub. Facebook users are accustomed to asking customer service questions and reaching out to the brand on these platforms. If there is another fan behind the driver’s seat, how can the brand be sure they are being represented well? Because these fans are not trained brand employees, the brand may not not be represented properly. Why do some brands still allow this fraud to happen when there is a vast amount of knowledge about Facebook all over the internet?
There are many potential Brand Identity Disasters that can occur from misrepresentation on Facebook. For example, 7Eleven is a very popular franchise, with their 24-7 Slurpees and delicious coffee drinks. The Official 7Eleven Facebook page is really well done — it has over 185K fans that actively engage with the brand. However, the brand name is commonly misspelled. What about when the average consumer searches for “711″ on Facebook?
Here is what they will find:
Problems:
- Over 35 thousand fans have joined a fan page that never updates content and displays a poor image of the brand
- The fan page insults competitor brands with harsh language
- People who misspell the brand name have no option to find the official page
Sometimes the brands who are not participating within social media are subject to letting their fans take over completely. For example; CVS is currently not participating in Facebook. The CVS fan page is completely taken over by fans in a negative way.
Problems:
- Over 6 thousand people became fans of an imposter brand page
- The fan page has no brand information
- The fan page lacks any fan engagement on the Wall
- The photos that are uploaded by fans hurt the brand tremendously
Fan photos include an image of a letter from a CVS employee who is upset with the store and how it operates, images of a man who scams people outside of a CVS parking lot, and a faulty flu shot done at a CVS pharmacy. These images have the potential to turn many customers away from CVS. When choosing not to participate in social media, brands like CVS should look at competitors like Walgreens, who are extremely active and powerful on Facebook.
Facebook fan pages have the ability to serve as a Community hub where consumers can come and show their appreciation to other fans. But fans can also actively show their complaints and aggravations with the brand. Facebook users have become familiar with this practice.
When your customer comes to your Facebook fan page, asking questions about products, complaining, and looking for more information, who do you want behind the driver’s seat? There are many resources out there to learn about implementing great Facebook fan pages.
Here are some tips on how to better control your brand on Facebook:
1. Search: Look for your brand terms and misspellings of your brand name on Facebook. Make a list of how many impostor fan pages are out there and tally up the total number of fans that are engaging on these pages. This is your audience!
2. Prepare: Are you ready to take over these fan pages? Do you have the right content? You will need photos, oodles of brand information, witty status updates, and a strategy to implement in order to engage and stimulate the fan base.
3. Create: You will need to create an official Facebook fan page and build it as if it is your website. You should build tools and “Tabs” that are brand specific. For example, if you are a movie theater, you’d want a unique way to show movie times.
4. Control: Taking control of the impostor pan pages is easy. People at digital agencies have frequently dealt with this issue and work hand in hand with Facebook to take control. It is extremely important to make sure that fans of the brand are getting the correct information.
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This morning I attended a Business.com webinar about B2B Social Media. While much of the information was fairly introductory in nature, there were some interesting tidbits that I thought I’d summarize/share.
Nowadays, social media seems to be about trying to keep your head above water and staying updated with the latest marketing trends in order to help your business and reach a relevant audience. The webinar shared a quote from a small business owner who stated, “At the end of the day, if we have spent a lot of our time tweeting, facebooking, and ‘me’tubing, I’m afraid [individual productivity] is on a rapid decline. What really gets done in a day that helps improve the bottom line?”
Below are the main social media challenges cited by small businesses:
It’s no secret that social networking usage among adults has grown rapidly in the past few years:
If adults are turning to social media and social networking sites, isn’t that a good opportunity for businesses as well? Absolutely — in fact, many businesspeople are using multiple social media sites and resources for business information:
However, there is a difference between B2B direct media and B2B social media.
B2B direct media:
- Tends to evolve slowly
- Is comprised of established best practices
- Is reasonably predictable
- Has a clear optimization path
B2B social media:
- Evolves extremely rapidly
- Can be comprised of temporary best practices
- Can be frustratingly unpredictable
- Has a shifting optimization path
A lot of B2B social media “half-truths” and myths have been floating around:
Myth#1: Nobody Uses Social Media for Business
A lot of business owners feel that Facebook, Twitter, etc. is just for keeping up with friends. The fact of the matter is that social media resources are broadly used. Businesspeople are using multiple resources and investing aggressively in different media channels.
Keep in mind, however, that the perceived importance of using social media for business depends on the industry. This chart illustrates that different sectors regard social media marketing to be more important than others:
Myth #2: Community is the Core of Any Social Media Strategy
The word “community” itself is often misunderstood — it’s the core spirit underlying social media, but there’s a difference between “community ethos” and “community creation.” Social media provides the opportunity, but not the obligation, to interact with others. The webinar shared this Venn diagram to help illustrate the point:
Myth #3: Metrics are Difficult to Measure
Social media is very measurable. Its success is no more difficult to measure than other online marketing, as long as you’re clear about business goals and make measurement a priority. In fact, B2B companies are usually better at measurement.
The important thing is to identify your main focus areas:
- Where is the real opportunity? Make sure your target audience is clear. Use 3rd party sources like Comscore and Nielsen to investigate target audience participation in social media. Survey your customers, look into which social media sites are driving the most traffic to your website, and find out where your best leads come from.
- Immerse yourself in key channels. Each social media channel has its different nuances. Immerse yourself and commit to finding out how these sites work and what matters most for your business.
- Do less with more. You won’t have the resources to execute effectively on everything, but you can do less (social media) with more (resources).
- Stay organized to stay focused. Carefully target your initiatives for specific target audiences and objectives.
- Focus on business metrics, not social media metrics. Business metrics are more important when it comes to benefiting your bottom line.
The webinar concluded with a POST analogy:
People — Understand how your target customers use social media during the business buying process.
Objectives –Align social media and activity with business goals.
Strategy — Determine how your objectives will change your relationships with customers.
Technology — Choose the appropriate tools and tactics to deploy.
Overall, the webinar shared some interesting stats about B2B social media adoption. Hopefully you found the information valuable!
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How to Use Social Deals Sites to Help Sales
Jan 25, 2010 by Greg Finn | Business, E-commerce, Social Media MarketingOne of our biggest mantras here at 10e20 is to test out various social media outlets for clients and find what work, regardless whether or not it’s currently a “hot topic.” Believe it or not, social media is more than just Facebook and Twitter, and one of my favorite sectors (for buying unwanted gadgets) is community deals sites. A week or so I posted over at Search Engine Land about how to use these deals sites to help your business. I broke down how you can use this to help your sales and talked about the following items:
- Don’t be too promotional
- Make sure the deal is easy to see from the submission
- Offer affiliate commission
- Use coupon codes
- Have a really good sale
If you want to read more (with full details), head on over and read the full post!
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Bridging the Social Gap: Are Site Blogs Your Missing Link?
Jan 20, 2010 by Jake Matthews | Blogging, Social Media MarketingOne challenge some companies face in social media marketing is how to bridge the gap between stale corporate or e-commerce sites and social networking websites. What is the link between your site and social networking sites? How do you get people FROM social sites back TO your corporate site and visa versa?
Some “experts” posit the best solution is to just to slap badges on your homepage saying “Follow us on Twitter” or “Find us on Facebook.” Or “make sure your site links are on all your social profiles” so people will see your link, click on it and visit you. These are foundational points, but there’s more to successful social awareness for your company than showing your site visitors where your official socials account are.
The important and missing link for some marketers may be adding a blog to their main site. Why?
Online social media users are constantly looking for new and fresh content. A site blog provides an opportunity to reach these users with fresh content related to your business. With ongoing, strong and effective content creation – and sharing of the site blog content into social – you can create a tremendously effective link between your social networking presences and your main company website.
To demonstrate, here’s a graphic:
Site Blog Influence in Social Media (click to enlarge)
Though a blog on a corporate or product site is not a new idea by any means, it’s often overlooked for its added social sharing and conversion value. If you are not a publisher, you’re simply not producing a lot of content that can be shared in social media. Blogs provide this platform. A blog provides an opportunity for visitors from social sites (who saw the content you fed in from your blog) to click back to the blog and then be only one click away from areas on your site where they may convert for product purchase, inquire for service or RFP, or perform another action such as CPC, email sign-up, RSS subscription, etc. And though social is not about selling all the time, all marketers have a responsibility to make their efforts pay off at some point. Being able to access more opportunities for conversion is a true benefit with blogs.
There are deep considerations as to what type of content goes on a site blog, the technology to use, what the editorial schedule will be and who will contribute, but if you can settle these questions and a few other key strategy issues, a blog can be a fruitful effort and a core link in your social strategy. It can drive deeper connections to your social profiles, sending traffic from social back to your blog and main site, and can provide greater reach to new audiences in search, social news, other blogs and mainstream press.
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Letting Fans Create the Product
Jan 14, 2010 by Stephanie Weingart | Contests, Social Media MarketingWhen a huge brand creates a Facebook fan page that generates an audience of more than 1 million fans, how should those fans be utilized and stimulated? Vitamin Water recently took advantage of their huge community by having them create and vote on a new flavor to be sold in stores. The contest took place on a tab within their fan page called the “Flavorcreator”. The application located on the tab required fans to create a unique flavor combination, name the flavor, write a witty description, and create a bottle design. This is Audience Participation at its finest.
However, as we commonly see on Social Media platforms, even the best contests need to be set free. Holding a contest for fans of Facebook eliminates the avid YouTube browser. This is where it becomes hugely important to Know Your Audience before asking them to participate.
5 Questions Before Asking a Brand’s Audience to Participate in a Social Media Contest
- Can the contest/ campaign be fluent on all social media platforms?
- On which social media platform does the average consumer most often spend their time?
- What is in it for the consumer?
- Will the consumer want to promote their participation on their social media profiles?
- What is the longevity of the campaign?
If all of these questions can easily be answered, it could be possible to allow a fan base of over 1 million people to choose a brand’s new product.
5 Benefits of Consumer Participation
- Consumer approval
- High ROI potential
- Increased awareness potential
- Brand Appreciation
- Increased Fans across Social Media profiles
Vitamin Water flexed their Social Media muscle by knowing exactly what their fan base wanted. The majority of the campaign existed on Facebook, while promotional videos existed on YouTube with celebrity appearances by Steve Nash and 50 Cent. However, voting for the new flavor took place across multiple levels of Social Media platforms. Every tweet, image, blog post, etc. on Twitter, Google Blog Search, FoodGawker, and Flickr were weighted as a form of voting for the winning flavor.
As a result, Vitamin Water was able to achieve popularity and recognition on huge news sites declaring them as the brand taking chances. Whether or not Social Media masses agree with the flavor choice is another question.
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This morning I tweeted this question to 10e20’s followers:
A few responses started to trickle in, and most of them followed the same train of thought:
- ChrisBennett: “When you self proclaim that you are a ’social media expert’”
- Amabaie: “A social media d-bag is someone who asks more than he gives. The rest is just details.”
- LoriBourne: “Only promote yourself and no one else; call yourself a social media “expert”; promote yourself anonymously & hope no one notices”
- Audette: “those hateful auto DMs that try to sell you something. FAIL”
- KennyHyder: “when you ask me to be a fan of your lame ass fb fan page just because we’re friends; people that straight up ask me to follow them on twitter”
I’m sensing a bit of a pattern here. It appears that many folks’ definition of a social media d-bag is someone who is too self-promotional. Social media marketing can be a slippery slope; after all, the main point of marketing is to promote yourself or your services. However, once you throw that whole “social” element into the mix, what was once “me me me” has now evolved into “me + you + everyone we know.”
Think about a party you’ve gone to. Everyone’s been in a social situation where they’ve experienced the self-absorbed person or the one-upper. They can’t wait for you to finish your story so they can immediately best it with a “better” one involving them, or they don’t bother asking you how things have been and would instead prefer to drone on about every minute detail of their lives. These types of people are really the hit of the party, aren’t they? You sneak an eye roll to your buddy and wait until the end of the night so you can complain about “that jerk who wouldn’t stop bragging about himself.” Nobody wants to be that guy in real life among a group of twenty or so people, so why would you online across a network of millions?
Constantly tooting your own horn can be detrimental to your business. Even if you’re actually a hard worker and knowledgeable in your field, you can turn off a lot of people who may think the following:
- You’re selfish (and possibly untrustworthy). Who wants to do business with someone who only thinks about himself? How is this person going to help you if he seems to be lacking in the generosity department? Are you always going to have a hidden agenda? Will you only help someone out for personal gain?
- You’re narrow-minded. If you only share content you’ve produced or spread your own advice, people might get the impression that you might not be open-minded enough to consider other points of view or share third party information.
- You’re a possible spammer. Nothing smells spammier than self-serving comments and links that always point back to your website.
Even if the above assumptions aren’t true, a lot of people may think otherwise. Take a look at how you portray yourself socially and see if you can potentially scale back the promotional stuff. Look at the following:
- Your blog. Are you always blogging about your company or your products? Try introducing some non-company related information, such as interesting industry news you’ve heard or some general tips that your readers will find helpful.
- Your tweets. Always tweeting links to your products or services? Never responding to people who tweet at you? Mix up your tweeting style — throw in tweets to your followers, responses, general chitchat and observations, interesting links you’ve come across (that aren’t from your site), etc.
- Your comments. If you’re commenting on someone else’s blog, make the remarks relevant to the post and don’t drop a link to a specific page or blog post on your site unless it’s absolutely relevant.
- Your Facebook profile. Even if you have a fan page, mix up the wall posts once in a while. Show appreciation to your fans by giving them some acknowledgment. Share some cool tips, poll them for their opinion/input, post some pictures and videos, share industry news and information, etc.
You don’t have to be afraid to promote yourself and your business, just be mindful of how often you’re bombarding your followers and peers with self-serving information. If you mix in a healthy array of information along with the self-promotions, your promotions may end up being more beneficial because they’ll stand out more and seem more important and genuine.
Do you have any other tips on how to be self-promotional without being repetitive, selfish or pushy? Share your examples and suggestions in the comments!
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The Passion of the Crust: How Enthusiasm Creates Social Media Success
Jan 7, 2010 by Rebecca Kelley | Social Media MarketingOkay, I know this is my third Domino’s post in about a week, but pushing aside my love of pizza, they’ve actually been quite relevant to social media lately. Last week I posted about how Domino’s was displaying #newpizza Twitter feedback on their microsite and that what they displayed didn’t quite match up with Twitter’s search results. Whatever the reason for the misalignment, Domino’s got a bit of heat from various sites and bloggers (including yours truly). This week, however, a friend of mine sent me a post about how a Domino’s franchise owner in Chicago went above and beyond, and then beyond the beyond, to put out a reputation management fire using social media as the bucket of water.
To make a long story short, a woman ordered a pizza from Domino’s that took over an hour to get delivered to her house, and then turned up being the wrong order. The customer complained about the mishap on Twitter, where it was spotted by Ramon DeLeon, a managing partner from seven Domino’s in the Chicago area. He acted swiftly by doing the following:
- He contacted her and apologized (presumably via Twitter)
- He sent the correct pizza over to her
- He sent her a video apology featuring him and the store manager
- He provided pizza for 350 people at the Chicago Social Media Club, an organization the customer is involved with
You could argue that this is going a bit overboard to appease one angry customer — an apology and correct order on the house would have probably sufficed. However, it’s easier to complain when someone does too little than when he/she does too much, and DeLeon proved that by going out of his way to turn a customer’s negative experience with Domino’s into a positive one.
DeLeon has a good quote about social media:
“The only way to put out a social media fire is with social media water.”
When someone takes a complaint public, it’s best to address it publicly. Even if you have to address the issue behind closed doors, a public acknowledgment of the situation and/or a public apology shows the user and his/her followers/friends that you’re listening and taking action. Silence can be deafening, especially to angry customers.
Ramon DeLeon appears to understand this and has embraced social media with open arms. He has 2,800 followers on Twitter and updates his account regularly, interacting with people and addressing customer concerns. He monitors social media activity using a variety of tools and has created video responses to different customers’ feedback. This isn’t someone who just “gets” social media, this is someone who loves social media.
It’s one thing to assign the young intern or new hire fresh out of college all of your social media tasks because “young people get social media, right?” It’s entirely another, more successful approach to find the person who is truly passionate about your brand and about social media and actually enjoys using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., and entrust him with your brand’s social presence. When you love what you do, it shines through and people notice. Ramon likes his job, and he likes social media. He’s embraced the latter so that he can continue to grow his business and reach out to his customers, and he’s successful at it because he cares.
You need to make sure the right person is handling your social media marketing, not just whoever’s available. It can mean the difference between failure and success, or even the difference between treading water to stay afloat and blasting across the sea in a speedboat. Users and customers are more savvy than you think, and many of us can pick up on who’s social because they feel they need to be, and who’s there because they really want to be.
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The January ‘10 Social Media Hot Topic List
Jan 6, 2010 by Greg Finn | Link Building, Social Media Marketing, Social NetworksHappy 2010! Hope everyone had a good holiday and is sticking to their New Year’s Resolutions! We are here to help start 2010 with a bang by dropping some hot linkbait ideas for this cold month of January. By looking at some of the topics and finding a way to relate to your field, you can harness the momentum of that topic and hopefully get more traction with your content! Here are some topics that are going to be really popular in this first month of January!
- The Super Bowl
Sure, the Super Bowl is in February, but January is the time of the year to go after Super Bowl linkbait. Break down the teams, relate it to your business… but hurry before sites get too saturated! - Things to Look Forward to in 2010
Whether it be movies, gadgets, albums releases… people love articles that lay out the good things to come. So put together the best things that relate to your blog/industry to boost your awareness. - Martin Luther King Jr.
The 18th of January is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in honor of one of the most influential Americans ever. Chronicling the breakthroughs that have happened because of him, looking in on his past or any type of analysis that can be done on Dr. King will always do well in social media (and outside of social media!). - TV Shows Coming Back
A few shows came back in December, but the biggest US TV shows are coming back this month and there are plenty of opportunities to break down what has happened since the last season, how the new season is going and much more. - 2010 Predictions
This was hot last month and will remain hot throughout the month. If you have expert knowledge in a specific area, make some educated guesses as to what will happen this year in your industry. - Dubai
With the world’s tallest building opening yesterday, there is a great deal of information that can be put together around this new (financially troubled) super destination. - Golden Globes
The ‘pre-Oscar’ awards occur on the 17th and are a great indicator for the Oscars. Breaking down who wins, what they wear, winners, losers, who got hosed and who didn’t deserve to win could all be potential Golden ideas. - Lost Premiere
This gets its own bullet point as it technically launches in February and is the last season of the hit show. Lost fans are really passionate and gung-ho about the series so recaps/breakdowns/comparisons/predictions should perform well.
Have any other hot topics for the month of January? Feel free to share examples below!
…and don’t forget to follow 10e20 on Twitter and subscribe to our RSS feed.
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Empower Your Brand Loyalists: 5 Tips for Success
Dec 16, 2009 by Jake Matthews | Social Media MarketingThere’s nothing more annoying to me than going online and searching for my favorite brands on Facebook or typing in what might be a logical URL for the brand on Twitter and NOT finding my brand there!
OUCH!!!!
Further, it’s doubly annoying when you go to a preferred brand website and don’t see any way to connect socially with the brand:
Am I missing something here???
Brand managers need to empower their brand loyalists with the right destinations, experience, tools and content in social media. When brands neglect to participate in social media, they miss a major opportunity for awareness and ultimately sales. The more touch points and positive experiences that you provide your loyalists, the greater the opportunity for positive word of mouth and content to spread about your brand.
So how do you empower loyalists? Here are a couple of conceptual tips to getting started on motivating your brand in social media and making sure that your loyalists do some talking for you:
- Create Destinations: Give your brand loyalists a place to congregate. If you have not yet set up a Facebook page for your brand, consider doing so. If you are not tweeting your brand, think about whether you should start. Create exclusivity and reward the loyalists and let them mingle amongst each other to share experiences around your brand.
- Provide Ammunition: Empower loyalists with tools to help spread your brand message. Optimize your website experience for social media. This can be tools, buttons, or other social integrations that allows users to share, comment, review, save and interact on and off your site. Deliver a seamless user experience for those active social users who come to your brand site and want to bring their social experience with them.
- Display Creativity: Show brand loyalists that you are creative. Come up with remarkable creative content and awareness campaigns that wow your existing loyalists and inspire them to continue to spread the word. Don’t try to sell. Cater to their “joy points.” Provide solid content to your users and give them the social food they need to continue the dialogue for you.
- Affect Service: Your loyalists will have questions. Be there to answer them promptly. They’ll talk about that. It will pay you back.
- Display Confidence: Don’t fear the haters. Haters and trolls will minimize themselves and look silly. If you believe in your brand/product and it’s second to none, you have nothing to fear.
In today’s world it’s important for brand managers to think differently. Think organic and think of talking WITH your loyalists rather than TO your loyalists. It takes a lot of effort and pain to step out of the usual marketing mindset where brands consistently push messages out to loyalists through traditional platforms like the brand/corporate website, email and catalogs, and spread brand messaging through TV/cable, print, radio and other forms of advertising. You’ll have to harness departments including PR, Marketing and Agency. It’s not simple, and it’s not easy, but it’s worth it.
The customer and your loyalists are in control now and you should use this to your advantage. They are ready to be your mouthpiece so long as you provide them the destinations, the tools, materials and outlets to execute on it. Harness the power of your existing brand loyalists and you’ll be impressed with the positive results.
Note: In fairness to Porsche, they have a pretty strong following on Facebook.
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