Social media is not a campaign… it’s a channel. It’s a means to an end, not an end in itself. That means your social media networks should be part of a larger marketing plan.
With that being said, you still need a set of goals to guide your individual social media efforts. Like most marketing plans, social media channels need to go through the following five goals in order to produce the kind of results that are truly profitable.
Step #1: Identify warm prospects
There is no doubt that social media has gone mainstream. Virtually everyone in America knows what Twitter and Facebook is.
Earlier this year Edison Research published a report that shows how Americans are using social media. One of the things they uncovered is that 52% of Americans over the age of 12 have at least one social media account. And 51% of all Americans are on Facebook.
That’s huge! But just because there is a huge audience doesn’t mean all of them are your prospects. You need to define your prospect before you decide who to attract and follow.
In fact, without a defined idea of who your prospect is, your social networks will just get big, clunky and messy. You may end up like Chris Brogan or Michael Hyatt who both unfollowed over 100,000 people. While that’s not a career-ending move, it just demonstrates what happens when you launch into something without a plan.
To identify prospects you can:
- Figure out who the ideal person you are looking to connect with is. Is it a business owner, a VP of marketing, or a social media consult… This person should ideally be a decision maker and the one who is going to buy your product or service.
- Once you know whom you want to reach, look for areas they may hang out. It could be social sites like Twitter and Facebook, or other types of sites like Digg.
- After you know the avenues they use, do searches to connect with those people. For example if you are looking to connect with the VP of marketing, search for marketing related topics on Twitter and start engaging with the people who are tweeting about those subjects.
Step #2: Establish a conversation with your prospect
One of the most effective ways to use social media is to encourage people to follow you based upon a purpose. This could be as simple as attracting followers with deeply discounted offers, like one California luxury hotel operator is doing.
But after someone is following you, you need to look at the conversation that is going on with your prospects. What happens to your content after you send it out? Do people ignore it? Do your questions generate conversations? Are you actually getting sales, subscriptions or more followers?
There are plenty of good social media advertising and metric tools out there that will allow you to measure your social media success.
But why is it important to know your social media stats? For instance, when you significantly increase the frequency when you post your likely hood of getting a customer jumps. In fact, according to the 2011 State of Inbound Marketing by HubSpot, posting multiple times a day versus just once a day will return 15% greater results.
Of course, you have to know if your audience can stomach that much content. It’s not worth burning them out if they don’t want it. You measure and test your social networks in order to help you establish a comfortable conversation with prospects… because in the end your prospects need to feel comfortable.
Step #3: Gain rapport with your prospect
Growing your social media networks is just one part of the equation. While a large fan base is great, you need to engage that audience.
Fortunately that’s not as hard to do anymore, as it seems that users appear to be using social media more, like Twitter, according to the Social Habit 2011 Edison Research:
Building rapport on the social web occurs in a handful of ways. Sometimes it’s as simple as replying and thanking someone for retweeting, inviting them to DM you to swap emails and sharing content from other followers with your audience.
Social media levels the playing field and brings you into direct contact with the prospect. You must earn his respect through repeated conversations to get to the next level of social media success.
Step #4: Develop a social media relationship
Just because you are talking to people doesn’t mean you have a relationship. That’s the mistake a lot of marketers are making. They are rushing to the transaction simply because they have the conversation.
What you have to understand is that those thousands of interactions between you and your followers or subscribers is what builds trust between you and your prospect. Here’s a diagram of what that looks like:
The path of moving prospects to customers is paved with trust. That means you need to figure out how to move those prospects into a relationship with you.
At this stage of the game a multi-tiered path is a good idea. For example, you move your prospect to join you on a social network. Next, you begin to get them engaged through questions and surveys. Offer a free download or webinar. Then recommend the transaction.
Keep in mind, the bigger your brand, the less time you need to build trust. Apple doesn’t have to convince many people to trust them. You on the other hand will, so be patient.
Step #5: Track the lifetime value of a relationship
Finally, you need to be thinking about the life time value of your social networks. You are probably familiar with customer lifetime value (CLV), which is the amount of money a company expects to make from one customer during their time of their relationship. In the same way, when used effectively, CLV can lead to improved decision making and increased profitability when it comes to social media.
In fact, CLV is an important tool that can satisfy executives’ desire for social media accountability, which is something KISSmetrics can do. Besides, a plan without measurable markers is worthless. How are you going to know if you are winning or losing?
Conclusion
Social media is here to stay. And how we think about it is still changing… and will for years to come. But smart marketers are learning to treat it like every traditional marketing tool, which means they set goals and measure the success of those goals. So you should to.
What other goals should marketers be setting to measure the success of social media?
This amazing course will teach you, step by step, how to double if not triple your traffic over the next 30 days.
Good point about needing to build trust by proving valuable to your prospects. Got to be patient and build relationships over time.
Thanks!
Thanks Peter,
Yep, patience is key. Overtime if you continue to engage and provide useful information trust will naturally form.
Shouldn’t it be patience
Haha yes it should be, thanks for the correction.
yup, just like Neil did before selling his things, it’s all about providing value-added content and then when you implore your readers to buy something, it’s almost rude not to!
It definitely helps to sell to your readers when you provide them with valuable information and have their trust.
Without valuable content you won’t have too many readers. People like to read about things that offer them information they need not just content that is posted to fill the pages.
It’s all about providing value… in one way or another.
Neil
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who gets concerned about people seeing social media as an end in itself and not as a tool!
Good blog, some excellent points in it.
Kind regards
Nic
Definitely, social media when utilized properly holds a lot of potential. Glad you liked it Nic, I hope you found most of the tips helpful.
Nice post and all these are awesome steps. I think social Media is all about making new connections and building relationship with them.
You are right, it is about forming connections and relationships. Getting your followers to listen to you and trust what you are saying is the ultimate goal. That can only be accomplished through reaching out and making an effort to connect. Once you have their trust, you will find it is easier to get their business.
Sometimes, I get confused from where to start your social media marketing. I mean how do you find your prospects?
Hey Web design,
I wouldn’t too hung up on worrying about where to start, and just start.
Your social media strategy will evolve as you become more familiar with the different channels available & you’re likely to refine your message as you go. With twitter in particular you’re unlikely to find that new followers will go back and review your earliest tweets.
Good point, just get started!
Yep, very true.
I agree, thank you for adding your input on the matter.
If you don’t know where to start try looking to your competitors. See what they are doing and who they are talking to and go from there.
The problem we see with some new prospective clients is they want that return on investment immediately. I always hear “Can you get me sales tomorrow.” Yes, but that’s not the point of using social media. It’s the long term increase in CLV that needs to be focused on and it’s a beautiful thing getting them to see the light and allowing social media the time it takes to work.
Great post Neil. Only thing I’d add is to resist the temptation to constantly sell via social networks.
I agree, it can be difficult to get customers to be patient and allow for the time it takes to produce the best work. Many people expect results right away and are anxious to see them. If you can get them to wait they will be happy in the end.
I think this is just the reality of today’s ultra-connected global community. Information and answers are now instant.
It may very well be. Everything today is now quick and constant do to the internet.
Social Media Relationship plays vital role in the success of your business, if you’re interacting with your prospects on regular basis it doesn’t mean that they trust you…. for this purpose you need to give them some time, offer them
True, they may not trust you right away. However if you interact regularly like you said then that means they at least like what you are saying. Then over time you will be able to earn their trust by providing them with information that can help them.
Excellent point, Relationship building is key and I think our society is slowly shifting into the importance of interacting more when people post Tweets etc. Instead of just submitting a post and ‘end of story’, one needs to respond to their network of posts, tweets, comments etc.
Thanks Karen,
You are correct with you’re thinking. It has become increasingly import not only to post, but also to continue to respond and interact through the post. This will help you build relationships with followers and gain even more.
So from what I gather from the “Your Social Marketing Network” diagram is you let your jellyfish prospects keep you within their tentacles, you then constantly feed them little bits of delicious value-added information, and poof! one day they’ll get more hungry and want more than just an appetizer…
Got it
That is a cool analogy. I wouldn’t have thought about it like that but it works. Give them a little bit and they’ll come back for more.
take a look at your diagram, I’m just looking at that thing literally haha
Great, that is what it is there for.
Neil,
Thanks for another great post. I’ve been reading your blog for over 2 yrs and you are truly one of the most consistent “hitting it out of the park” marketing bloggers. Thank you for being so generous with your insight & wisdom as it has been catalytic for my own projects and career.
Thanks a lot Mike,
I appreciate your kind words. Nice to have you as a reader for so long. I am glad you enjoy the content, I am happy to help when I can. If you ever have any questions feel free to ask.
Nice post! I particularly found the stat about blog post frequency and customer acquisition interesting. Two or three posts a day…that’s a tall order!
Yah I agree, posting a few times a day is a lot of work. Posting even once a day is hard work.
yea, you think it would be easier than it is, I find just getting all of that mess out of the way first thing is the easiest.
Definitely, not as easy as it may seem.
Neil,
Regards the first step “Step #1: Identify warm prospects” – I don’t see how you do this in the content under that heading? You just mention about the size of the market.
Mic.
I added some steps on how to identify prospects.
Great. Cheers Neil.
Anytime Michael.
Thanks Neil for some great info. I’m still on the fence about Twitter. It seems to go back and forth over the last few years in terms of overall (or long term) value but it looks like Twitter users are becoming more engaging. I’m sure that is due in part to offering them better reasons to engage. Either way, it’s very interesting to see how social media has grown and your take on how to best capitalize on it. Take care.
Even if you are unsure about Twitter try and keep with it. Over time you will see the impact it can have, as long as you use it properly. It is definitely up to you if you want users to be more engaging. You have to find a way to post interesting and useful things worth remarking on or having questions about for your followers. If you can do that then you will be better off in the long run.
This is an excellent post, Neil. I am really in favor of this long term approach to building clients through relationship building.
)
Not only is it perfect for Social Media, but it creates high value long term customers for life. Much better than some companies who seem to favor the make the one hit sale.
Thanks so much for sharing it.
John Alexander
PS: I’m going to let my readers all know
Thank you John,
Yep, for me it is all about long term value. It may take me longer to do certain things but if the extra time spent produces value in the long run then it is worth it to me. Happy to share and thank you for sharing as well!
Hi Neil,
Today seems to be a Social media day. I am continuing to figure this ‘amimal’ called Social Media out but as you say a relationship has to be established with the community.
Thanks for this Neil.
David
You’re Welcome David,
I hope this post has been able to help you. It can be a tricky beast to tame.
Great post Neil,
I really liked the section on building relationships, It’s so true that only after that will come trust and then sales.
Nice one!
Catch up soon,
Glenn
Thanks Gelnn for your support, hope you come back soon!
Great points about trust and how social media/networking is making relationships more important than they have ever been in marketing.
I wrote this piece a couple of weeks ago about what goes into a personal or business reputation, and it’s good to know that I’m at least on the right page.
http://swaymaker.com/2011/11/21/fundamentals-of-reputation/
Thank you,
Happy to hear you are heading in the right direction.
Great points. Neil can you write an article on Google Adsense and what tips you use.
I know you build a lot of software sites, like crazy egg and kissmetrics.. do you even do any affiliate or have any niche sites?
thanks
I don’t really know much about AdSense and I don’t really have any affiliate sites…
I totally agree with you Neil, repeated conversation is very important!! One has to be really interested with the people they are targeting,and slowly build trust… nowadays people have are very smart and can sniff out easily someone who is trying something sneaky.
Definitely, if you want people to be interested you have to keep them interested and show that you care. If you want them to trust you, you have to give them a reason to do so, by engaging and listening to what they have to say.
definitely, the days of believing in chain emails and “too good to be true” promotions are over, people are smarter now.
Yep, they certainly are.
Great points and its true that trust is at the center of relationship building. I think many people get worried about the time needed to cultivate social media channels and is the return really worth it.
I think when used in the natural flow and language of the brand, social media doesn’t have to be time-consuming and can help to build a really strong presence on those channels.
- Fajr
You make a good point. Social media becomes less time-consuming and more beneficial when users feel that what they are reading is simple and natural.
Neil,
Excellent post. Actually jaw dropping. Can you put me wise on your customer lifetime value strategy. I need to learn more about it.
Sure, if you shoot me an email to neil@neilpatel.com with any questions you have I will be happy to try and help.
As you so aptly state, social media is a channel, a means to an end. You still have to make the personal connection offline. That may mean by email, Skype or phone if you’re not in the same geographical area. But most of us living in urban areas, like I do, probably don’t have to search more than 5 miles in any direction to find all the business they could want. So time to get off social media and into potential client offices!
You make some good points. It is defiantly a good idea to make personal connections by going to conferences or office parties. Social media sites help but it is a good idea to meet people in person as well.
Another great post. I have been looking forward to these every week. I have taken a lot of blogs and other sites off my RSS feed lately, but this is one that is staying on for a while.
Thank you Joseph,
Glad I am still on your list.
It is interesting to see the information you use to identify the profile of the persons in a network.
I think we all realize that there are only so many hours in our day and we have to apply some of these things in order to pair down to the true prospects for our products.
Yep, there is along so much time to do what we need to get done. That is why it is important to take the time to make sure what you do is your best work so you can get the most out of it in the long run.
time management is crucial with social media, it sucks, but it’s what needs to be done.
You have got it, you have to put in the time to get what you want.
Thanks for publishing (and intelligently discussing) our data, Neil – and a great point about establishing a plan (as in, a segmentation/targeting strategy) *before* wading in. Great post!
No problem Tom,
Glad you liked it. It is always important to have some sort of plan or guidelines to keep you on track and help you move more quickly.
Great blog again Neil, religiously read the great content you provide.
Thanks for your support Steven.
Thanks for great info.
Social media is just a platform. It is our duty to reach the prospects using this platform.
Definitely, you have got it. Social media is only helpful if you utilize it properly.
aka “social” media, aka you have to participate.
LOL.
More than internet presence what we focus on is adding value to peoples life. People are paying for their dreams. And their dreams are PRICELESS. They are not paying for the social presence.
If the person in front of you has big enough dreams. And you can put them in touch with the deepest, most powerful of those dreams. And then they get that spending time with you will help them to achieve it, they will move mountains to create that money.
I agree, if you can give people what they want or help them to get it you will benefit greatly from that.
Nice one, Neil looking forward for a post on how one should look at FB and/or youtube insights… most of the data are good to know but how to act upon it?
Thanks for the suggestion Ravi, I will consider writing a post on that for the future.
Yes, Neil the social networking is not a link building it is a Trust Building ….. I really happy to read your all blogs posts.
Same thing you mentioned in your posts you applied in every article you posted.
We don’t Learn How to do SEO or SMO from your posts we learned the best approach to do these things for best results.
Thanks Neil
Trust is key for sure. I try to teach from what I have learned personally works for me. That way I know first hand the information I am providing works.
best practice baby!
Absolutely.
Hi,
Very nice post Neil you describe very well about what is the importance of social media sites in our life. I think we can’t achieve good milestone in SEPR without the help of social media sites.
Beside that another great thing is that we can make lots of friends and make own social network for share and gain good experience about technology and other things which are going in all over the world.
Yep, these sites help a great deal. They not only provide potential customers but beneficial connections as well.
I like the idea about what social media means to all of us these days. I agree with you that social media job doesn’t end in following and unfollowing people but creating a meaningful conversation that benefits both parties. Social media is part of a big relationship marketing method employed by businesses.
Social media sites have certainly developed and evolved over time. It is has become like you said about being part of a large relationship.
Added to the “reading list” (in work so need to work when at work). One thought though, I don’t think you need to own a business to have a social media strategy. We can always work on building trust with others “prospects”, friends, associates and even family. Part of your personal social media strategy could be just to greet everyone happy birthday to reconnect throughout the year, by doing this you can sincerely touch base and strengthen those relationships. At the end of the day, it is not about how many people you know, it is about the depth of those relationships with others that brings happiness.
Interesting points you have made, definitely ideas to consider. It s very important to create long lasting and valuable relationships.
Thank you Niel,
Eye opener, building trust is what it takes.
I never have learned so much in such a small time.
Great, happy to hear you were able to learn something useful for this post.
Thanks for valuable information, i used to read all blogs post by Neil
Thanks for the support.
I agree with your statistical analysis regarding twitter, I too started using twitter in 2011 only.
Cool, glad you feel the same way.
Thanks for the tips, but i wanted to know that will it workable for any country ? suppose i choose France then these tips will work? Please help me…
They should work even in a different country. If there are some specific questions you have you can email me at neil@neilpatel.com and I will do my best to try and answer them.
Thanks for your support, I will surly look on your advise.
Great, hope I can help.
Good post, Neil, building the trust is ultimate for my business, because I am writing & posting info they want to read more about because they need to feel better and take care of their health.
That is important to have trust when it comes to taking advice on ones health. As well as making sure you provide valuable information.
Agree with you Neil, conversation is very necessary to build relationship
It is the best way to learn what they need and how you can give it to them.
But people say social media traffic does not convert that well, how true is that?
You have to figure out how to make it convert. At KISSmetrics it converts well, but it took us 6 months to get there…
You just have to be creative when trying to get things to convert.
Nice Article Neil, I hope people take this on board as a pose to just using social media channels to send their latest blog posts to.
Thanks
Stuart
I hope they do too Stuart.
Nowadays social media sites is the major source for seo analyst to increase the traffic
Definitely, these sites are extremely beneficial when you learn to use they properly.
Really good tips. Social Media is undeniably vital these days, and as you emphasized, building an interactive relationship with prospects is important. Many are so turned off by feeling they are just a name on someone’s list.
I think people look into a company’s Social Media profiles to establish how they feel about the company.
Thanks,
I agree people tend to base their judgments off of what they read and see on the businesses social media sites.
Absolutely. Then the aspect that I find surprising, when I interact with quite a number of businesses, is that they can’t quite see or imagine the value of social media.
I see more and more catching on, some because they hear that it works alone, and others because they can grasp the concept. But a number of them whom I have interacted with seem to see social media as something for kids.
I noticed a trend where companies who used to capitalize through being vendors within niche related forums are moving to Facebook etc., where in essence, advertising in certain ways to their clients and fans is free.
Sooner or later I believe everyone will catch on and see the value of social media.
It’s amazing how social media has grown so big so fast. I wonder what might be the next BIG thing? Years ago, everyone thought myspace would dominate forever, now people say that about facebook. I wonder what will be next?
It is interesting to see how social media sites have developed over the years. I can’t wait to see what is next either.
It is here to stay and I myself am guilty of not using social media to my advantage. You have giving some great thoughts here. I will have to work harder on implementing a social media marketing strategy.
It can be tricky to learn, but once you do it will be greatly beneficial.
Best of luck.
Social marketing requires a lot of time, and time is in short supply when you run online business.
You make a good point. Hiring someone to help you is a good idea if you have the option of doing so.
I will probably need to hire someone to help me out. I can’t imagine having to learn all there is about social media in time to do anything.
If you aren’t the best at it then it is important to hire someone who is. I know when someone can do something better then me I hire them so that I can focus my attention on what I do, do best.
Amazing post! Really useful ! I am starting to create my first social media strategy to promote my business. This article helped me with on writing down the first steps i will take.
That is great Phil,
Glad this post was able to help you.
Best of luck!
Hi Neil,
This is exactly why I keep coming back to this blog. You share such useful content for bloggers in the blogosphere and internet traveler’s. I like reading posts that have statistics or factual data to back up what the actual post is about – and it all connects… Like a warm cup of tea on a cold winter’s night.
Thanks Ryan,
I appreciate your support, nice simile as well.
Good point about needing to build trust by proving valuable to any
prospects. I think we get more social media by twitter of facebook
Definitely, when you build trust you build a business.
Social Media its the best strategy to gain an good business leads
It is certainly one of the bet tools out there. Do to its ability to reach a vast market of potential customers.
Do you think that having profiles on smaller social media websites is it worth it to promote your business or should we just focus on the biggest?
Anything can have an impact on the web but is better to focus on the biggest in my opinion. I think the impact of smaller ones is too little to waste your time with them. Focus instead on the biggest ones and invest as much as you can in them rather than wasting your time on something that won’t help you a lot.
I am with you. I like focusing on the big things… unless they are niche ones.
If those smaller social sites are niche ones related to your business, then yes.
Hey Neil, nice points you have covered over here. With the help of effective social media marketing we can establish the long term relationship with out customers. So it is necessary to do solid planning before implementing social media marketing. Because good marketing requires a better strategy which can give awesome results.
It is necessary as without a good plan it is going to be hard to build strong relationships. I am a big believer in having a few strong ones with customers than a ton of weak ones.
While I don’t have suggestions (yet) I just wanted to give you a warm thank you as I just started using HubSpot and KISSinsights (cause of you) and have already seen growth in the traffic to my site. No conversions yet, but all in good time young grasshopper. New Follower alert!
Awesome! Hopefully your conversions go up soon.
WoW. Great strategy. Really usfeul. I fully agree that we should write to our followers/prospects in order to be successful. Nice post
Thanks for your support, glad you liked it.
I wish i could find a patiency solution to my seo achievements. I want things to happen quick..and they really take a lot of time..
Most things worth accomplishing and having take time and hard work. Hang in there, the results will be worth all the time spent in the end!
Here’s a social media tool thats for free- itweetlive was designed to help u target your audience and engage with all of them at the same time, this saves you so much time and cuts your work in half http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Yu4JpV5sHo&feature=related Includes ‘geo-location’ and Klout score in your search results as well as AB testing to see which tweets generate the most mentions for you.
Cool, thanks for sharing this tool. I will have to check it out.
Loved this post. Like going through the ABC’s of no-nonsense selling with social media as a conduit, not an established list of prospects, but still works like a charm. Excellent article!
Awesome, glad you liked it. I appreciate your support, thanks for reading Quick Sprout!
I think it’s worth mentioning that a key factor of success on social media sites is not just identifying who you want to build a rapport with but it’s to go looking for the guys who are already big players in your niche and seeing how best they use social media.
For example, the people I’m looking for are all into video games, so I follow all of the video game mags and big video game blogs to tap into their userbase.
Social media is blasting its way into being one of the most powerful marketing tools to use on the internet. the best thing about the whole thing is, ITS FREE! When I started my blog, I immediately signed up for the most prominent social media sites. It has helped my traffic tremendously!
Social media surely has some very powerful marketing possibilities, and every webmaster should take as much benefit as possible.
hey neil,
it’s a great attempt from your side. well elaborated all the five steps.
Thank you for providing us such information.
Matt
Social Media Relationship plays vital role in the success of your business, if you’re interacting with your prospects on regular basis it doesn’t mean that they trust you it may or must need to take time to get that relation to a person.
I know social media was really helpful to build up your site and expand your presence online but sometimes it is hard to show you on the top of social media because a lot of competitors.
It’s the long term increase in CLV that needs to be focused on and it’s a beautiful thing getting them to see the light and allowing social media the time it takes to work.