Does Your Marketing Strategy Include Snapchat?

In order to be competitive in an increasingly globalized world, social media needs to be at the forefront of your company’s marketing strategy. For millennials, the introduction of social media had the same impact as the introduction of cell phones did to baby boomers.  Technology is facilitating rapid, easy dissemination of information worldwide, generating new business opportunities and widening corporations’ potential client and customer base.  For marketers, social media is another channel to help brand companies and products, capture competitive information, and listen and respond to the voice of the customer.  In this article, I want to concentrate on one popular social media channel, Snapchat and how you can use it for business.

Created in 2012 by three Stanford University students – Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy and Reggie Brown Poster – Snapchat is a photo and video platform that allows users to share brief images or videos lasting 1 to 10 seconds.  After those images or videos are shared, they are no longer accessible. There is also a “story” feature where you can link several segments in chronological order.  Stories are available for 24 hours before they disappear. Several media outlets participate within Snapchat as “teams” that offer their content to share. Some of these outlets include CNN, Comedy Central, ESPN, and the Food Network.

Today, the company boasts a $10 – 20 billion value with over 7 billion daily video views online and 200 million daily users.  Snapchat’s predominant user demographic is 13 to34 year-olds.  If your company is targeting this demographic, I strongly suggest considering incorporating Snapchat into your marketing strategy.  Here are some business applications that you should consider.

Branding

Snapchat stories can provide prospective customers with a quick view of a company’s personality and mission without the expense of creating flawless corporate videos.  Some companies have used Snapchat as a tool to give customers an inside look at the company.  For example, one company told several stories on Snapchat showing sneak peaks at new products before they were officially introduced.

Promotional

Other companies use Snapchat as a promotions tool.  For example, if your company manufactures clothing, you can encourage your customers take a Snapchat of themselves wearing your products and send the images to your company’s social media team.  As a reward, you could automatically send participating customers a discount for their next purchase.  This would build support for your brand and expand your customer base.

You can also create a promotional code and “Snap” it to your customers.  They can then get their discount using this code online or via your call center.

Another popular promotion is to send customers a story and have the last frame of the story be a redeemable coupon that they can take a screenshot to be used on their next purchase.  Alternatively, you can use the private chat feature built into the application to send a promotional code.

Announcements

Snapchat is a great medium to announce new products, trade shows and events.  The NBA has used Snapchat during the draft, the All-Star Game and the Finals, to allow attendees of the games to add to the Atlanta Hawks “story” as events were unfolding.

Deliver Special Private Content

You can also use Snapchat to deliver special private content and to convey a sense of personal investment in individual customers. For example, actors Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson appeared at the Paris Fashion Show as their characters Derek Zoolander and Hansel to promote their new movie “Zoolander 2”. They documented their Paris Fashion Show adventure using Snapchat to help followers feel like they were involved in a special private event by creating behind-the-scenes snaps.

Acquiring New Customers

Customer acquisition is always on the hearts and minds of marketers.  You can utilize Snapchat to gather new customers by uploading prospect lists from your address book or utilize a QR code in your digital and print marketing that invites customers to be part of your Snapchat network. Snapchat enables your company to target a younger demographic and build new customer support through innovative outreach strategies and promotions.

Building New Relationships

Customers do business with companies they know and trust.  Use Snapchat to help build relationships. How can you build relationships in 1 to 10 seconds?  By stringing a  series of Snapchats together in a story or a series of events that showcase your products and services, you provide customers with personal insight into your company and help them feel connected to your products and brand.

Conclusion

If you are marketing your products to 13 to 34 year-olds, you should strongly consider Snapchat as part of your marketing strategy.  I recommend that you don’t just settle for one social media channel; synchronized marketing strategies utilizing Snapchat, LinkedIn, and other tools will enable your company to achieve its goals.  You can leverage Snapchat along with Vine, Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter for example, to create a multi-pronged marketing approach that creatively tells your story to attract new customers.

If you want to learn more about me, visit my LinkedIn profile, my website, my Twitter account and my blog.

Photo credit: business.teenlife.com

The Evolution of Technology for Business

I have always been fascinated with the rapid evolution of technology.  Thirty years ago – long before digital cameras and HDTV were invented – companies used multi-image, or multi-projector, large screen slide shows that were synchronized to motivational soundtracks.  When large screen video was introduced, multi-image and photography professionals believed that it would never compete with the crisp, high quality images of 35mm slides.  The industry didn’t anticipate how quickly the public would accept large screen video, despite its inferior image quality to large screen video.  In a matter of months, 35mm slide companies went out of business or had to reinvent themselves to make way for the new large screen video technology. Technology evolves rapidly.

From a retail perspective, the film distribution industry has also changed dramatically.  Local video stores like Blockbuster, Hollywood Video and others boomed with business for over a decade, renting VHS tapes to a wide variety of customers.  Soon that technology was replaced with DVDs, and later Blu-Ray high definition discs. With the advent of online streaming for movies and television shows, many of the retail stores closed due to declining sales, and were replaced with external DVD and Blu-Ray kiosks like Red Box and others.  As cable companies innovated new ways to provide more bandwidth to customers, online video streaming became the latest feature in evolving technology. Now you can order new and old movies from the comfort of your home thanks to Netflix, Vudu, Hulu, Amazon Prime and a host of other online services.  Thirty years ago, the thought of streaming video to a telephone would have been unthinkable.  Today you can stream broadcasts of your favorite shows, news and sports events, and other entertainment to your home, cell phone, tablet and other devices.

Where is business technology going?

According to Forbes*, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has partnered with Samsung on a new adventure to revolutionize communications via mobile Virtual Reality (VR).  Using a Gear 360 camera and a virtual reality headset, VR via mobile phone will soon be a reality. In the 2015 movie Kingsman: The Secret Service, there is a scene where two men are sitting in a boardroom.  When they put on special glasses, holograms of other Kingsman agents sitting around the table appear – virtual reality achieved through eyeglasses.  The Kingsman virtual reality boardroom is now on its way to being a reality, thanks to the creative efforts of Samsung and Facebook’s mobile VR project.  Dick Tracy, a police detective character from the 1931 comic strip, had a wristwatch that functioned as a two-way radio. What was science fiction back then is now being sold in retail stores under the brands of Samsung, Sony, Qualcomm and Apple. In the 1989 movie, Back To the Future 2, the main character, Marty McFly escapes his enemies on a hoverboard (a skateboard without wheels).  Lexus released its first hoverboard, propelled by magnets and conducting blocks cooled by liquid nitrogen, last summer. Who would have thought 20 years ago that you could watch television on your computer, have portable music devices the size of a packet of matches or 110” Ultra HDTV flat screen televisions in our homes?

Innovations in Internet technology are also transforming the ways in which companies conduct business and connect globally. Google Hangout provides on-air conferences that stream live to YouTube so anyone around the world can watch conference proceedings and webcasts online.  Take that reality a step further and imagine what Google could do if Hangouts were combined with Facebook’s emerging virtual reality (VR) technology. Instead of posting updates on Facebook, you have a VR reunion with family members all over the world. Rather than trying to schedule in-person business meetings for your company to pitch new ideas, you can have VR collaboration meetings that connect Bangkok and Beijing with New York.  Add 3D printing to the mix and now you’ve opened the door to world-wide product development and innovation meetings without leaving your office or home.  One might argue that we can basically do that now with video conferences using Skype, but VR takes everything to the next level.  Colleagues can walk around the room with you without really being there, see what you are seeing, and work side-by-side with you from across the globe.  According to Entrepreneur.com, even McDonalds is getting into the VR conversation by rolling out a VR viewer that can be constructed from a Happy Meal box.  As advanced as technology has become over the past 30 years, we are just scratching the surface of possibilities of technology for business.  To quote an old Bachman-Turner Overdrive song, “You ain’t seen nothin yet.”

If you want to learn more about me, visit my LinkedIn profile, my Twitter account,  my website and my blog.

*To read the Forbes article, cut and paste this link into your browser.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2016/02/22/mark-zuckerberg-virtual-reality-samsung-galaxy-s7/#17dec0ac4a64

Photo Credit: Kingsman: The Secret Service

Social Media – A Game of Strategy

Monopoly is a game of strategy.  When you play the game, you need to evaluate different options and understand that the choices that you make are critical to your success.  Social media is also a game of strategy.  The social networks that you use can help your company grow through brand awareness, promotions, and customer feedback.

When determining which social media networks work best for your company, there are a number of things to consider.  Before we go there, let’s make social media a bit easier to understand by categorizing the various types of networks. By doing so, we can more easily determine what social media networks work for your company and which ones you don’t really need to invest time in.  It’s time to play the game of social media to keep up with your competitors.

Social Networks

Social networking sites fueled the rise of social media. These networks were designed as a platform for online social interaction and means of sharing similar interests, connecting with artistic groups, and personalizing Internet space. Facebook, Google +, MySpace, and MeetUp are a few examples of these networks. Social networks are an effective channel for business to build credibility, and company and product awareness. Here are some examples of successful business Facebook pages. Zappos uses discussion posts, wall updates and Fan of the Week contests to engage with their customers. Burt’s Bees uses spotlight videos to build product awareness and allows customers to buy products from their Facebook page. Skullcandy leverages music, videos, and blogs to encourage customers to purchase their products.

Professional Social Networks

Unlike the original social networks, professional social networks are focused more on business-related networking and information sharing.  LinkedIn, SlideShare, Xing and Viadeo fit into this category.  You typically wouldn’t share family photos at the zoo on these sites, but would instead reach out to expand business relationships. Businesses create LinkedIn pages to build brand awareness, share corporate information and announcements such as Coca-Cola, Mashable and Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts.  Like many social networks, the lifespan of professional social networks is sometimes short, so be sure to pick a reputable and established networking site.

Private Social Networks

Although the name sounds like an oxymoron, private social networks – or private enterprise networks – are a useful tool that an increasing number of companies are utilizing.   Private social networks operate like normal social networks but can only be accessed behind the firewall within companies – hence the term “private”.  Yammer, Salesforce Chatter and Ning are examples of these networks. These networks enable companies located in numerous domestic and international locations to share sensitive information and collaborate on projects more effectively.

International Social Networks

Similar to other social networks, international social networks have originated outside of the US.  These sites offer networking platforms in multiple languages and are customizable to the user.  These networks include QZone (China), Netlog (Belgium), Vkontakte (Russia) and Sonico (Japan).

Social Media Monitoring, Management and Tracking

Social media monitoring is a method of tracking what is being said on social media about an individual, product or company.  These networks or software have become very popular to help companies dispel rumors, bad press and incorrect information.  Some of these networks are Tracx, BuzzBundle, HootSuite, Postling and Lithium.

Content Discovery and Curation

Content delivery and curation networks offer interesting and entertaining content for the purpose of sharing information and providing news content outside of traditional news networks. Sites include BuzzFeed, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Digg and HubPages.  Often users will forward these stories to their networks via other social networking sites, facilitating the quick dissemination of information through multiple Internet platforms. Use these networks to reach younger demographics (millennials) by creating funny and entertaining content that can go viral, which can become an effective branding tool for your company.

Blogging

Blogging sites allow their users to write and post articles and share information relevant to specific topics.  Some networks like LinkedIn have incorporated blogging within their site to allow users to share opinions, new trends, and current affairs in the business and professional world.  There are several blogging sites on the internet, but the most well-known are WordPress, Posthaven, and Blogger.  Even though I post articles on LinkedIn, I also use my blog on WordPress to share my information on different platforms including Facebook, Google + and Twitter.  These articles can contain links to your products driving traffic and sales to your website.

Microblogging

The only difference between blogging and microblogging is the limitation of content.  Microblogging involves sending short messages, announcements and links instead of paragraph-long posts. Twitter, Tumblr, Posterous and Disqus are best known for these applications.  Three companies that use Twitter very effectively are McDonalds, Delta Airlines and Nike.  McDonalds promotes new items on the menu and have giveaways when followers tweet about what they love about McDonalds.  Delta Airlines introduces their latest offers and special packages.  Nike doesn’t use Twitter for sales.  They send out tweets that motivate and inspire their followers, which strengthen the Nike brand.

Photo Sharing

It is said that “A picture is worth a thousand words.”   Photo sharing networks allow individuals or companies post photos including images of products, family, personal interests, hobbies, and so forth.  Instragram, Pinterest and Flickr connect communities of various interests and allow them to post images.  SnapChat is a similar platform for photo sharing and also allows you to post short videos. Photo sharing networks are an important tool for improving branding and marketing images of your company. By connecting with influencers and innovators, sharing their posts, using hashtags, tag names, comments and links in your posts, you can expand your brand visibility quickly.

Video Sharing

YouTube has put video sharing networks on the social media map.  Since its inception, YouTube has transformed into a global repository of videos that are searched like Google.  Other video sharing sites that have grown in popularity include Vimeo, DailyMotion and Vine.  Businesses use this network to show corporate, product and how-to videos.  According to Wired.com, YouTube is one of Google’s biggest successes outside of search and YouTube now reaches more 18 to 49-year-olds than any single US cable network.

Which Social Media Network Should You Use For Your Company?

Determining which social media network to use for your company is important for your marketing and branding strategy. Choosing only one network is not sufficient for your company to get noticed.  I believe that every company should be, at the very least, on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest or Instagram and HootSuite.  These networks or their competitors will provide you with networking and blogging opportunities (LinkedIn); microblogging (Twitter) to announce new products and company updates; social networking (Facebook), which expands your audience to a wider variety of  potential new customers; video sharing (YouTube) to post product and corporate videos, including community service; photo sharing (Pinterest) to expand your brand by providing images targeted to the appropriate communities that buy your products and services; and social management and tracking (HootSuite) to monitor what your customers, prospects and competitors are saying about you on social media.  Even if your business is more service-oriented, you can still take advantage of these networks.

Conclusion

Like Monopoly, social media is a strategy game. You need to decide what social media networks are right for your business.  Research options, see what your competitors are using and make sure that you have dedicated resources (internal or external) to respond to the market conversations that are happening on social media about your company and industry.  This is a strategy game that your company cannot afford to lose.

If you want to learn more about me, visit my LinkedIn profile, my website and my blog.

Photo credit:  Emilie Ogez via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

 

Why Isn’t Your Entire Company On LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is best known as the place where professionals network with other professionals.  With over 400 million members, LinkedIn has built a very large network that you can take advantage of.  The concept is pretty simple.  I’m sure you’ve heard of the six degrees of Kevin Bacon.  The concept is that any two people are six people or fewer acquaintance links apart from each other.  By creating this large network of professionals, you have the opportunity to connect with any professional that you want to using LinkedIn.  This tool allows you to easily find contacts at other companies and discover who you are connected with that may be able to introduce you to those contacts.  Here are some suggestions on how you can benefit from having a LinkedIn presence for your company and how your employees can help your company grow using LinkedIn.

Create Your Own Company Profile   – If you haven’t done so already, create a company profile on LinkedIn.  It’s really easy to do and along with your other social media networks, you will have more visibility to more customers.  If you don’t know where to start, I recommend reviewing some very impressive LinkedIn business pages including Microsoft , Google, Salesforce, and Harvard Business Review.  According to LinkedIn, these companies have a few things in common that have made them very successful.

• 99% of the top global brands have employees sharing their content to their networks
• 97% of the top global brands have employee posts contributing to their content efforts
• 99% of top brands regularly share updates on their Company Page
• 73% of top brands are utilizing Sponsored Updates
• All of these top brands post an average of 12.6 updates per week

Although you don’t need to have your content machine in place on day one, these are great practices that should be emulated.

Sales – It is a very good idea that each of your sales staff has their own LinkedIn profile. Companies like to do business with people that they know.  Having a professional photograph and information about each sales person will help your company’s professionalism online and help them by having an “online business card”.  By the way, having a LinkedIn profile URL on your salespeople’s business cards is another way for your customers to learn more about them and you.

Sales should use LinkedIn to find key contact names of targeted prospects.  A word of caution –  many salespeople say they want to network and connect with professionals, when all they really want to do is turn that networking opportunity into a sales pitch.  Presenting your products and services to targeted prospects subtly is one thing, but don’t use LinkedIn as a tool to hound them for sales.  The better approach might be to see who you know on LinkedIn who might be able to introduce you to that contact.  Referrals are much more effective than cold calling on LinkedIn.  LinkedIn offers advertising opportunities to present your company’s products and services which is respectable way to get noticed.

Marketing – As mentioned above, there are some successful companies using LinkedIn very effectively.  Your marketing team should research these LinkedIn companies for best practices.  There is much to be learned about effective methods of leveraging LinkedIn and other social media networks.  The more updates that you can post on LinkedIn, the better.  Keeping your updates flowing, keeps your customers and prospects interested and updated on what is going on with your company.  I also recommend that your marketing team sign up for different LinkedIn Pulse channels.  There are millions of marketing professionals on LinkedIn and these groups love to share ideas that have worked for them.

Human Resources – Job seekers use LinkedIn as an online resume with the added value of providing recommendations from colleagues, skills, endorsements, volunteer information, blog posts, videos, photos, slide presentations, and documents. Your HR department should comb LinkedIn to find new talent.

Administration, IT and Production Staff – Having your administration, IT and production staff on LinkedIn can help build the company profile to your prospects and customers.  Not only is it important to have them create their own profiles, but also having them provide content for your corporate LinkedIn pages and sharing that information with their contacts spreads the word exponentially on social media.

Executive Team – The average number of connections that CEOs have on LinkedIn is 930.  Executives need to leverage LinkedIn for peer and new business relationships, partnerships and strategic alliances.

If you don’t have a corporate LinkedIn profile, build one.  Encourage your staff to create their own LinkedIn profiles and whenever you have a company update, make sure that you get your staff to share that information with their connections.  Leverage the power of LinkedIn to give your company more visibility and to expand your brand through networking.

If you want to learn more about me, please visit my LinkedIn profile, my website and my blog.

Photo credit: A Name Like Shields Can Make You Defensive via Foter.com / CC BY

Statistics: LinkedIn and DMR

Marketing on a Tight Budget

I don’t know many marketing professionals who have an unlimited, endless budget.  With the economy as sluggish as it is, marketing budgets are monitored closely.  Branding and marketing effectively isn’t cheap, but there are some things that you can do on a tight budget that are still effective.  Here are a few suggestions…

Email Marketing  – Email can be a very effective way to keep your brand in front of your customers and to drive sales to your website.  Email is still a very effective and inexpensive way to communicate.

Search Engine Optimization – Make sure that your website has the correct title tags, long-tail keywords, and great content on each page.  Well indexed pages on Google can increase your visibility in searches, which will drive new customers to your site.

Social Media – Social Media has many benefits for marketers.  Customers talk about your company on Social Media.  Listen and more importantly, join the conversation.  You can do some effective marketing using social media without spending a fortune.

Google Adwords – You need to be very careful with Google Adwords budgeting.  If you aren’t careful, you can blow through your budget very quickly.  The good news is you can set your Google Adwords budget so you don’t overspend.  This is a very effective tool especially if your website isn’t optimized.  You will have the opportunity to appear on search pages that highlight your top selling products.

Oversized Postcards – Postage is often the budget-killer with direct mail marketing, however there are some effective direct mail programs that won’t destroy your budget.  Consider doing oversized postcards or tri-fold mailers.  There are also slim-jim catalogs that still fall into affordable pricing models.

Blogging – Blogging is a very effective way of branding your company and driving traffic back to your website by embedding deep links to your website within the articles that you write.  There are several free blog sites on the internet that are very easy to use.  LinkedIn also offers an excellent tool for your corporate LinkedIn site to post articles.

Press Releases – Send press releases on a regular basis announcing new products or other newsworthy activities for your company.  Press releases can have usually up to four deep links on your website driving traffic to your products.  Sites that offer press release services often give discounts for larger PR packages.  If you decide to do a series of press releases, you can save money.

The best way to take advantage of these recommendations is to put together a strategy that utilizes them together as a synchronized marketing campaign.  Blog posts should work with the other social media activities.  You can get your postcard and email marketing efforts in sync to cover your target markets.  Press releases can drive traffic to your SEO-friendly website and your Google Adwords campaigns can drive traffic to the products that your press release is highlighting.

If you want to learn more about me, please visit my LinkedIn profile, my website and my blog.

Photo credit: frankieleon / Foter / CC BY

How to Incorporate Social Media into Your Marketing Strategy

So what’s the big deal about social media?  Everybody is talking about it.  Companies need a presence on social media, but why?  Your company has done fine without it. Why should you invest time and effort in social media?  Which ones should you use?   Here’s a quick overview of some of the more popular social media platforms and how you can use them.

LinkedIn – Most effective business networking site on the internet.  If you want to find leads, everyone who is anyone is on LinkedIn.  LinkedIn lists names of executives of your prospects, so you can find the key contact that you need.  LinkedIn also offers advertising opportunities.

Instagram – Online photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service.  You can upload photos or videos and share them on other social media platforms like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Flickr.  Information sharing is a key benefit of social media.

Flickr – Image hosting/sharing and video hosting/sharing platform.  Businesses use Flickr to upload photos of happy customers, their plant and operations, volunteer events sponsored by the company, etc.  Flickr is owned by Yahoo.

Pinterest – Photo and creative idea sharing network.  Pinterest is an excellent place to build your brand by “pinning” your product images and events. You can build a huge following of customers and prospects on Pinterest.  It is also a great place to drive traffic to your website.

Facebook – Not just for college student communication anymore.  Businesses, families, college students use Facebook as a way to disseminate information to select groups or the general public.  Facebook has several like-minded groups which provide an excellent way to target market.

Twitter – One of the most popular social media platforms.  You are limited to short messages of 140-character or less to provide quick updates to your customers.  In August 2015, Twitter removed the 140-character limit on direct messages (private conversations).  Great for announcing new products, press releases, events etc.

Snapchat – Short videos that tell a story.  The video disappears from one to 10 seconds after it is viewed, so businesses need to be short and to the point.  Snapchat can be used to announce quick sales, promo codes etc.  Snapchat is a fun platform, so keep that in mind as you use it.  Know who your audience is and get personal with your customers.  Give them glimpses of who you are with Snapchat.  30% of internet using millennials are on Snapchat.

Google Plus – Similar to Facebook, but with some differences.  Hangouts are unplanned meet-ups online, Sparks are one-stop shop for information where you can select topics to get information, Huddles allow users to chat with a targeted group of people, and you can use Instant Upload to instantly upload videos and images from your phone to Google +.  Google + is building momentum in the social media marketplace.

YouTube – The most popular video sharing site on the internet.  You can load how-to, product introduction or corporate information videos.  YouTube has a huge following and user base.  YouTube is owned by Google.

Slideshare – Slide hosting service using PowerPoint, PDF, Keynote and OpenDocument presentations.  It’s like YouTube for slideshows.  You can post and share slideshows about new products, your company profile, charitable events etc. Slideshare is owned by LinkedIn and is integrated with that networking platform.

StumbleUpon – This social media site helps you find unique and interesting things across the internet.  Think of StumbleUpon as a tour guide through the internet.  You can also submit websites that you like, see what others have shared, browse videos, photos and posts.

Tumblr – Tumblr is a blogging platform.  Let’s you share what you like with others that share the same types of things.  You can upload images, comments, etc.  It creates a custom webpage with your interests on it that you can share with the world.  On your dashboard, you can track your posts, blogs, images etc.

WordPress – WordPress is another very popular blogging platform that has been around since 2003.  I personally have a WordPress blog account.  It’s very easy to post and distribute articles.  Blogs are an effective platform to discuss new products, corporate strategies, white papers etc.

Besides building your brand and announcing new products, one of the greatest benefits of social media is it is where your customers and prospects are talking about you and your competitors.  Social media allows you to be part of their conversation. I can’t think of a better place to be.

If you want to learn more about me, please visit my LinkedIn profile, my website and my blog.

Photo credit: ePublicist / Foter / CC BY-ND