Making Sense of Social Media

Social media. It’s the buzzword we all know and love to talk about.

By now many businesses have incorporated Twitter and Facebook into their online identity. But with Twitter having recently celebrated its third birthday without an effective revenue model in place, we have to find it curious that companies are so eagerly jumping on this web 2.0 bandwagon. It’s clear that social media is here and it’s here to stay, so what’s the next step and what can social media really do for us?

In THE book on Word of Mouth Marketing, Andy Sernovitz offers his “Five T’s of Word of Mouth Marketing.” These valuable pointers apply to both B2B and B2C businesses, and are helpful in translating the opportunity that social media presents into an advantage for your company or brand. Here they are:

1)    Talkers: Who Will Tell Their Friends About You?
Social media is essentially a conversation between two people on a much broader scale and in the public forum. This makes it easy to find out who’s talking about you, and who is likely to talk about you in the future. The great thing about Twitter and Facebook is that the people interested in your company, product, or brand make an effort to listen to what you have to say by “following” or “friending” you. This takes the guesswork out of finding a target market and assessing the best way to grab their attention. Your company essentially has a captive and eager audience when an account is created.

2)    Topics: What Will They Talk About?
New clients, new products, office events, company updates, a deal or promotion, expansion into a new market – these are all examples of possible things to write about. The important thing to remember is that topics must be interesting, memorable and portable — easy to pass on.

3)    Tools: How Can You Help the Message Travel?
The power and reach of social media are what strengthens and deepens your audience’s connection with your brand or company. It allows your audience to spend more time discussing your brand and mission in a forum that encourages personal opinion and two-way conversation.

4)    Taking Part: How Can You Join the Conversation?
This step is the hardest for marketers who are accustomed to traditional one-way communication channels that are partial to their brand. It calls for a stronger sense of accountability and a more accessible public persona. Your enthusiasm reads through your post – so be sincere and encourage dialogue.

5)    Tracking: What Are People Saying About You?
Social media is easy to measure in a basic way, although quantifiable results comparable to traditional marketing are still in the works. To start with,  your company has a definitive number of “followers” or “friends” and you can witness this number increasing or decreasing in real-time as your brand gains or loses favor in the public marketplace. It also presents daily qualitative data on your brands public reputation and image through the opinions and ideas of your audience. As a marketer you can immediately react to the needs or concerns of your customers and clients, reinforcing their trust in your brand.

This is one approach to leveraging social media and there are many other ideas out there. The important thing to remember is that there is no magic answer for how to use social media.  Social media is still just a channel; your company must build and maintain a strong identity and message in order to take advantage of this channel.

For more information on THE book on Word of Mouth Marketing, visit Andy Sernowitz’s site at http://andysernovitz.com.

Who d’you think you’re talkin’ to?

Your audience shouldn't be a mystery

Audience. It’s the first thing that any company, marketing whiz or public relations professional should consider when structuring a campaign or messaging situation. As an ad agency with long-term client relationships, we’re privileged to have gotten to know our clients’ current and prospective clients in person over the years. But, if you’re a start-up or just starting to consider a broad-scale marketing strategy, it’s time to take a moment to ask yourself: who are we really talking to?

This is an easier task if you interact with your customers face to face each day. You can visually (and subjectively) assess who you’re serving as a company. While this is certainly valuable information, it may be helpful to consider more objective ways to survey your entire client base.

For those companies that don’t have the opportunity to shake hands with their customers each day, objective tactics for determining your audience demographic are crucial. There are several “touch points” in your business that can work for you in this regard. Here are some suggested ways to get to know your clients:

Ask and ye shall receive: Surveys are an excellent way to refine your understanding of who is out there in your customer base. There are several online survey building programs, such as Survey Monkey, which are free for small sampling and otherwise reasonably priced. Our agency and other professional firms can create highly customized surveys that meet very specific objectives. E-surveys are cost effective, easy to create and provide quick responses to your questions.

Web analytics: Sure, the run-of-the-mill analytics program may not tell you lots of personal data about your customers, but you can infer a lot of information about your customers from where they’re clicking (i.e. what they’re interested in) and how long visitors spend on your site.

There are even analytics programs out there that can glean very specific data, such as Omniture TouchClarity, which will automatically build visitor profiles based on their behavior on your website. This allows you to target potential customers more specifically, enhancing the effectiveness of your messaging and the probability that they’ll become a loyal customer.

What you make it: So, you have some general idea of who’s clicking where and maybe some initial survey results. What now? Audience isn’t just about who is out there, it’s also about who you choose to make it (gasp – really?!).

Yes, really. Using the data you have gathered so far, you have some great information that can be used to refine your target audience. From there, you can take things into your own hands, shaping your products or services for those you’re currently reaching and becoming stronger for the demographic you want to be reaching.

Once you have your audience in your sights, your position allows you to move forward with an exceptional, strategic marketing and communications plan.  Now you just need someone to work with you to develop your strategy – can we help?

It’s Time to Shape Up

As the official start of summer approaches, the workout frenzy that precedes swimsuit season is in full swing. Something about the added exposure of a swimsuit propels us to boost our fitness plans and reap the benefits of improved health and endurance.

Unfortunately, many business owners do not feel the same urgency to shape up their Web sites, although the first impressions made online can have a huge impact on a company’s bottom line. We’re not saying that every site has to be sexy, but your site’s user interface should be appealing and attractive to potential customers.

Here are some basic steps to assess your company Web site’s functional fitness:
1.   Write down the keywords that describe your company and the product or service your company provides.
2.   Type these keywords into Google search engine: does your company appear in the first 10 to 15 entries?
3.   Visit a free Web site grading service online. You can use one of our favorites from Hubspot. This site allows you to examine the “backend” of your company’s Web site to analyze your site’s search engine optimization and ranking among competitors.

In addition to search engine ranking, consider the look of your website.  Can your potential customer zero in on your purpose quickly and accurately?  Is your design eye-catching and easy to navigate?  Without design appeal, many Web sites languish as mediocre.

Finally, how does your company Web site compare to your competitors? Does it need a better fitness plan, some minor re-design or a major overhaul?

It’s time to take notice so that others can find your company online and enjoy access to your product or services. Rivers Agency can help you achieve your Web fitness goals – let us know how we can help!

Giving Back in Creative Ways

Each year, Rivers Agency partners with nonprofit organizations to create promotional campaigns that may involve a combination of public relations, marketing and design services.  This is a great opportunity for us to give back to our neighbors, maximize our creativity and network with community members—all for a great cause.

When we work through a creative process with a nonprofit, we’ve found there are common themes that emerge when promoting nonprofit work:

Prioritize: When working for nonprofit, there are often many needs that the organization is seeking to address. Be clear about the objectives of a single campaign and address each issue one step at a time. Muddled messaging can reduce the effectiveness of a campaign.

Play to your audience: It’s a true pleasure to work with a client that is offering real solutions to social or environmental issues. The content of these campaigns makes it easy to communicate an organization’s goals with passion. Creating emotive and compelling creative is of paramount importance to drive interest and garner support.

Work efficiently and effectively: Nonprofits often work on limited budgets, which means efficiency is a high priority. This theme carries through in our for-profit work as well, but working in the non-profit world allows us to push ourselves to become more efficient while maintaining a high standard of quality in our product.

This year, Rivers has partnered with the Goathouse Refuge, a sanctuary in Pittsboro that houses nearly 200 abandoned or injured cats, and has seen skyrocketing demand in this economic turbulence. Through close collaboration with Siglinda Scarpa, world-renowned artist and proprietor of the Refuge, we have created a campaign to boost adoption numbers and raise funds for the organization.

Most recently, our public relations and design teams helped organize and promote a Spring Art Show at the refuge that raised over $10,000, no small feat for this volunteer-run organization!

A New Look, A New Direction

Welcome to the new Rivers Agency blog!  After redesigning our website, we’re excited to announce the re-launch of our blog to fit with our new online look and take our posts in a new direction. Content will be focused on providing industry insight and perspectives from our staff in marketing, public relations and design. Redesigning our blog is just one way that we’re fully immersing ourselves in the proverbial online conversation — and that’s not all!

In addition to re-envisioning our blog updates, we will also be launching a Twitter account focused on engaging our online community in a new way, 140 characters at a time! Getting involved in social media is paramount for staying current and plugged in to the communication stream these days. We’ll be revisiting the topic of social media and how to boost a positive web presence, so stay tuned!

To receive real-time updates to our blog, you can subscribe to our RSS feed or you can follow us on Twitter where we’ll be posting links to our blog posts as they happen. Please be sure to stop by often, add your voice to the conversation and see what’s come across our desks recently that intrigued or inspired.