Monday, August 2, 2010

Creating Engaging Social Media Content!

Image from Jack Bogdan

Perhaps the most important tenant of social media marketing is participation. Participating in the social Web can take many forms, including creating and maintaining your own blog, commenting on other blogs at places like Blogger, contributing to discussion forums and groups, such as on Yahoo! Groups, partaking in social networks, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, developing compelling YouTube videos, sharing images on Flickr, collaborating to produce Wikipedia content, ranking, tagging, and sharing your favorite sites on bookmarking services like
delicious and StumbleUpon, and using Twitter to converse with your potential customers.

So, how do you create engaging content that really "connects" with your audience on the social Web? The following resources provide a variety of ways to spark conversations on the social Web:

18 comments:

  1. It makes sense that participation is key with regards to social media marketing. How do companies measure the effects of their SMM campaign? Surely they must hire people to support the SMM campaign, and they must have some feedback in order to correctly steer their campaign and confirm that the juice is worth the squeeze. Is the feedback of a SSM campaign in the form only of hits? Do hits offer the company enough info for them to maximize the effect of the campaign?

    William Wall

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi William,

    You may want to check out my post below about how to measure SMM campaigns for answers to this question. Hits are just one type of metric. I think you will find that monitoring SMM campaigns is rich and interesting field.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This SMM is overwhelming to me and I'm not quite ready to get involved. I do not participate in any at this time. I must say though, your posts did catch my attention, and I've read several in the last few minutes, just to measure how long it would take me to get through them. I did this as my own little experiment to possibly change my first impression/perspective about this whole SMM, thinking it would take way too much time to respond to everyone. I've noticed your comments are brief and get right to the point, no fluff. I appreciate that.
    I am going to pass your information on to my 15 yr old daughter, who is writing a grant for a small, private library. She wants to start a teen mentoring program, but needs additional materials for the library. I think she will find great tips from your posts. Thanks for taking the time to respond to all of us. I've loved this class!
    Tracy Stephens

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. 30 tips to a memeorable blog was right on the money! No one wants to hear about why you haven't been blogging or what got in your way to posting. We don't care! Just write about hwat you are passionate about and keep it simple and straight forward.
    Sometimes people get so involved in their own thoughts that they forget that people are reading these. Make it worthwhile and memorable. Speak what is on your mind and do not sugar coat your words. Be direct and inventive. That's what will catch people's attention.
    Ray Peterson

    ReplyDelete
  6. This all really very interesting. It is awesome information that has the criteria to assist a business, big or small, known and new, to gain consumers world-wide. I personally have experienced learning about a business because of a Facebook follower, that I would not have otherwise known about.

    This must be a particular great way for a smaller- "mom & pop" shop to advertise, for little to no money. Not to mention, I believe it may be due to these social media website that allow for entrepreneurship to be a booming success.

    Shayne Wakefield

    ReplyDelete
  7. When I read the 12 tips, I was really interested. I had no idea that there were that many obsticals that made Social content sucesful. Being honest yet being able to be respected is a different srory. Like the content said, you have to be honest around the right people. If you say the wrong information around the wrong group of people, you will get a negative response.

    A way that people will get noticed is being honest. Just like talking to somebody, in order to fully understand a situation you got to relate to the situation. Being able to justify your position, will give people the comfort that you are the real thing. So being honest is the best thing you can do, it gives you the respectability that you want to acheive. Once repect has been acheived, then that proves you can do anything.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I think using sites such as Facebook to be really great for advertising. You can create your own ad or you can simply create a page. When you create a page for a service or company, people can "like" it and that "like" shows up on all their friends feeds. People will see that someone ejoys your service and they will be more likely to ask about it or check it out themselves. Also, I agree that interaction is key. Boring advertising will lose the customer's attention and busines. By being bold and honest, there is a much better potential for pulling in more consumers.
    David Fox

    ReplyDelete
  9. David--actually social media marketing differs from advertising in a key way, namely, ads are interrupt by nature (think of a banner ad or TV ad), which social media marketing attempts to influence consumer opinion through honest open dialogue.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I have found your information and websites to be very helpful in understanding the ways you can promote your business, your work or just an opinion.
    I loved the article about writing a blog. I have in the past attempted to write blogs but didn't seem to have much success. I think the next time I try to create a blog I will be more apt to utilize twitter to encourage others to actively read and comment to my blog.
    I also learned you must write about something you are passionate about as well as those you want to reach. Just because I am interested in a topic doesn't mean that all are interested in it. We must use key words, fun videos and catchy headlines to draw people in.
    Youtube would be a fun way to draw people in for fun, advertising, etc. People search youtube for random items constantly and they are bound to come across your video. Just make sure you have a catchy headline or keyword.
    I appreciate your time and efforts in giving us better information on how to use social media for our gain.
    Katie Rogers

    ReplyDelete
  11. Melissa,
    I had never thought that social media was an area of marketing. Apparently, I was never clued in to the fact that there is so much information on the web that companies and business could use to better their products; by listening to what people say they don’t like about them and also providing a means of advertising to them as well. It makes a lot of sense to me after reading various blogs and articles on the subject. However, I am quite curious as to how a business engages or participates in such verbal transactions? I don’t understand how, let’s say Toyota, engages in the conversations and provides feedback to its potential customers.
    I chose Toyota for a reason I work at a local Toyota dealer. Toyota recently published an inside corporate magazine that is distributed to employees as a means of updating them on current and future trends of the company. One of the articles in the magazine said that Toyota is now on Facebook and that they were trying to tap into the potential of sites that are similar. Do they directly blog with individual customers? Is Toyota promoting products on its own Facebook page? What are they exactly doing with such a website? Is the site created to be an off-shoot of the corporate main website? The concept of social media marketing seems like a fantastic, inexpensive and effective promotional and feedback tool, but I have little to no idea of how they use the information. Thanks for listening and hopefully you can help me out.
    Sieg Fichte

    ReplyDelete
  12. I personally believe in social networking to market and update your audience. I try to be as active as possible in my community, amongst other things. Such as health walks and providing information to my family and friends to join the fun with me in 2010 I used facebook for my first big walk as I was able to gather a team of 32 people and raise nearly 2k in money for MS with my fellow teammates we used facebook as a tool, we all know we are super busy our each personal life. We like fast and convenient tools to help us and not to forget fun and entertaining as well. Facebook is a great place for a business to get some business local and far away, by creating a Fan page your friends can suggest and they can suggest to others and so on. The more fans the better. Recently I have noticed a lot of contest's going on with business's to keep people interested and participating. Bianca just had a photo contest and gave away a free Ipad. My local casino just gave away 2 tickets to the fights this weekend for the most page referrals. So keeping it interesting and interactive is a perfect way to keep them coming and buying your product and interacting with you first hand. Enjoyed contributing my thoughts on this topic. Thanks Lornajane Thompson

    ReplyDelete
  13. You provided some really good information regarding how to get people involved in social media marketing and how to effectively use these tools to further a business. I was recently hired to be in charge of event planning and social media outreach for a small art house theater in my hometown. We already have a Facebook page, which is useful and has a decent amount of readers, but I am needing to step up this outreach and bring in new people to the cinema. After reading some of the links after your post I am quickly realizing that the content needs to be stepped up in a big way. Simply posting what films are playing is not enough, I need to capture attention with smarts and wit to really capture people's attention. The content needs to reflect the type of place I am promoting and I am promoting independent cinema and community involvement. This means writing about the commuity and how these films are part of said community or how others can feel involved with the film center.
    Cheers
    Kelly Davis

    ReplyDelete
  14. I understand the need for flashy business advertisements. You need something different and eye catching, something that can appeal to a potential client or consumer before the other guy. I never considered how much you had to campaign and visually stimulate someone to really appeal to them via social media marketing.

    The active participation and change too is something that I have a hard time grasping. Is it more effective for people to advertise this way? Would smaller businesses be able to afford the time it takes to participate? Who does this type of marketing appeal to? Ultimately I guess that this sounds like a great oppurtunity for a business that can afford to give the time whether it be through management or an actual marketing team. I think that for smaller business owners dedicating the time that would be required for an effective media campaign I just don't see being possible. Is this possible for small business owners?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous said...
    I understand the need for flashy business advertisements. You need something different and eye catching, something that can appeal to a potential client or consumer before the other guy. I never considered how much you had to campaign and visually stimulate someone to really appeal to them via social media marketing.

    The active participation and change too is something that I have a hard time grasping. Is it more effective for people to advertise this way? Would smaller businesses be able to afford the time it takes to participate? Who does this type of marketing appeal to? Ultimately I guess that this sounds like a great oppurtunity for a business that can afford to give the time whether it be through management or an actual marketing team. I think that for smaller business owners dedicating the time that would be required for an effective media campaign I just don't see being possible. Is this possible for small business owners?

    Moriah Slider

    ReplyDelete
  16. It is interesting how much planning there is in creating media advertising. I know that many businesses use blogs for communicating with employees and customers. It can be a very powerful tool for even the smallest of businesses if conducted efficiently.
    If a business can use this to help motivate employees by letting them be involved in customizing news and information it is extremely empowering as well. Thanks for the great tips on creating social media.
    Liz Offenheiser

    ReplyDelete
  17. It's pretty amazing how many sources of media advertising there are available these days. It is definitely one of the number one ways to advertise.

    I bet Media Advertising is probably the best way to get a new business "out there", and known among customers. Great information on media marketing.
    Brett Anderson

    ReplyDelete
  18. Katie – Thank you! Glad to hear it :)

    Sieg – Interesting questions. Toyota is simply using these social networking sites for reputation management and as a means to update consumers on product information. In a way, yes, it is an off-shoot of the corporate main website. Hope that clears things up!

    Lornajane and Kelly – Thanks for the comments!

    Moriah - I believe it is not necessarly advertising but more a means of creating brand awareness. This is a fantastic way for smaller businesses to promote! Low cost, appeals to all types of demographics, and is definitely an option for small business owners!

    Brett – Thanks!

    ReplyDelete