Seven Big Tips for a Successful Brand Launch in Social Media BY JOHN SEROKA AUG 12, 2014 10:44am ET PRINT EMAIL REPRINTS COMMENT TWITTER LINKEDIN FACEBOOK GOOGLE+ In 2002, social media was considered a fad. In 2009 it was cutting edge and what all businesses were doing to get ahead of competitors. In 2014, social media marketing tools are a critical component to a brands overall integrated marketing communications arsenal. When launching a brand in the mortgage industry, social media marketing helps build brand awareness, trust, drives leads, interaction, builds community, offers repeated exposure to target audiences, and establishes your company as an authority and as an influencer. Here are some key statistics you should be aware of: 82% of consumers trust a company more if they are involved with social media (source: Forbes) 85% of customers expect businesses to be active in social media (source: Vocus) Businesses that blog get 55% more web visitors and 67% more leads (source: Vocus) Here are seven tips to embrace for a successful brand launch in social media. Find out where your target audience is. So youre launching your business and you know you need to be on social media. But the number of outlets is overwhelming — theres Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and many more, not to mention everyone seems to think you should have a company blog. Where do you begin? First, do your research. Find out where your competitors are placing emphasis as this will be the quickest way to understand where you likely need to be as well. Also, conduct demographic research on the most popular social media venues so that you have a clear understanding of the target audience for each. Focus at first only on the venues where you will garner the very most benefit. Your venue selections will depend on the type of business youre in. If youre a wholesale lender vs. a retail lender, for example, your primary venue selections and where you place most emphasis will be different. Dont feel like you need to do everything at once, especially if you know you dont have the resources to keep up. Finally, even if you wont be active on all venues applicable for your company in the immediate term, its important to take ownership of them quickly. Do this to avoid issues in case another company with a similar name should creep up and take control of those venues ahead of you. Have a plan and define what success means. You need to integrate your social media efforts into your companys overall communications plan. This is not even an option these days. Your plan should include an editorial calendar, posting schedule, contests, drawings and much more. It should also be adaptable to changes in the market, new products and new services and it should accommodate other newsworthy items of interest to your audience. Consider who will be on your planning and plan implementation team. Most social media teams are made up of one to three people. They are skilled in public relations, marketing, web analytics, search engine optimization and customer service, plus they have an understanding of the legal aspects of what you can and cant do in the mortgage industry. Finally, your plan wont mean much unless you determine what success means. So, once this plan is constructed, make sure you know what youre going to measure to determine success. For example, on the front end you might measure new website traffic, interactions, information downloads and new lead quality among other items. Engagement is expected…and necessary. The primary purpose of social media is not to sell on the front end; its to increase brand awareness/exposure and build a community of followers. Some will be qualified leads that you can then engage in a variety of ways. Some will develop into customers. Write blog posts that answer questions relative to your product or service offering and include sharing links to allow distribution across social channels. The key is writing and distributing useful content so that your followers connect with you for the right reasons. If youre a retail lender, your social media posts, for the most part, should speak to topics of interest to those in the market to obtain mortgage financing vs. how to build a sandbox, for example. Wholesale lenders could focus on special products and how they can help brokers close more loans, market news and more that directly affects their business. When people start to connect with you, a huge part of community- and conversation-building is actively listening. Be sure to initiate conversations with your followers to find out what content youre distributing that they find valuable, their experience with your company, and what you can do to improve it. Follow the 70/20/10 rule for content, which means that 70% of content is brand- and business-building (information valuable to your followers), 20% is content shared from other sources, and the remaining 10% is self-promotional. Since social media has become a legitimate go-to feedback tool for many customers, have a plan in place for responding to feedback, both positive and negative. Be consistent and authentic. One of the benefits of social media is that it gives companies the ability to put a personality behind their brands easily and quickly. Its imperative that your social media personality match your brand, and that your voice is consistent across all communication channels including paid media (advertising), earned media (media relations) and owned media (social media, blog posts). If your social media content doesnt seem to jive with your companys advertising or media interviews, youll appear inauthentic. Its important to establish a consistent posting schedule so users will know when to expect new content. Capitalize on current events, seasons and holidays to make your content more relevant. Media-rich content is king. Seeing is believing, right? A picture is worth a thousand words? Weve all heard those expressions and theres a reason they resonate; a photo or video is more engaging than words on a page. According to 2013 Arbitron and Edison research, Americans spend an average of four hours per week watching videos online.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 00:15:32 +0000
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