The Michigan Apple Committee has a website which we proudly designed.  Check it out here: http://www.michiganapples.com. As well as highlighting a sleek design and many informative sections on growers, news and where to buy Michigan apples, the top portion of the website has easy-to-view links to the organization’s social media, which include an RSS feed, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Here is a snapshot:

The ease with which a visitor can quickly find these links is something I want to stress to businesses and organizations when designing a site. And it is not just having links to a social network which is important; any widgets that I have seen for things like including a Twitter feed directly on your site can pay huge dividends. It aggregates more content in an effective manner making things easier for site traffickers.

Then, on your social media pages, include links back to the main website and your other social networks so everything is well connected and easy to maneuver between. Small things like this are components that should not be forgotten when considering effective web and social media strategies.

Besides working on social networks here at BCP, I also have had the responsibility of maintaining campaigns for publications as well as my band. So where do we begin?

Two things stand out to me when working with social media.

A successful social media campaign must 1) be monitored at a consistent level to maintain the most up to date content and engagement, and 2) provide some sort of ROI (return on investment). Let’s break it down into these individual parts based on my experiences running social media.

First comes the monitoring aspect. With the use of platforms such as Hootsuite, it’s easy to just plug-in your interesting links and share them with followers in an automated fashion. While there is nothing wrong with this, in order to build meaningful relationships online, time and effort must be spent to forge relationships in a more personal, real-time manner.  This will make your followers feel more engaged in what you have to offer. A carefully chosen method of using programmed content and real-time engagement is what I have found works best. “Set it and forget it” by itself rarely creates a meaningful following.

Next is the topic of ROI, which is the goal of most marketing campaigns but can be quite different for social media.

Traditional ROI goes something like this: (Change in revenue – investment)/ investment x 100.  Companies have used this to help determine whether money spent for an ad campaign is worth the result.

With social media however, it’s not always about this model. For brands, creatively engaging customers and building loyalty can be part of the top line of that equation. Promoting social good through charitable efforts also can help build a company’s following and presence online. Basically, there is a whole new set of rules when it comes to ROI for social media. A client needs to have a specific goal in mind when starting a campaign so that time and effort can have worthwhile results.

These are just the basics of any social media campaign, but are extremely important in determining a successful outcome. Also, I would like to give a quick thanks to the people at SocialMediaToday.com for all their great articles. I suggest checking them out if you are interested in this subject!

If you have any questions or would just like to talk about social media, contact me directly at: pete@blohmcreative.com.

And so it is in marketing. Periodically a clamor arises about this or that new marketing method, the new “silver bullet” if you will. The current new favorite is social media. While undoubtedly the different social media options, like Facebook and Twitter, are valuable additions to the marketing arsenal, they are not a panacea. They are, and any future “silver bullets” will remain, a part of a marketing mix that each client’s marketing efforts demand. Despite the wishful thinking no magical silver bullets exist in marketing or in life. If anyone tries to persuade you otherwise...tell them about the Wolfman.