Archive for the ‘Buzz Marketing’ Category

Social Media Influences Purchasing Power – Study Shows

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

A study conducted by ROI Research for Perfomics, shows that consumers who use social networks have a greater impact on buying.

The study, which included 3,000 people surveyed, found the following results about consumer buying behavior in relation to activity with online social media.

Here are some of those social media stats from the survey:

  • 80% of respondents have an active Facebook account (only 71% in October 2009)
  • 67% of respondents have reconnected with people, which has an impact on purchasing influence, since it increases the span of connections the person is likely to listen to.
  • 39% of Twitter users, respond to other people’s tweets at least once a week.
  • 30% use their phones to go to Facebook and/or Twitter on a daily basis.
  • 41% of those surveyed use Facebook as a source of information for companies and products.
  • More than 1/3 of all those surveyed said they saw an ad on a social network, then used a search engine to find more information about the companies’ products or services.
  • 32% of respondents indicated that they would follow their friends’ advice regarding buying certain brands from companies.

The social media buying power study also revealed:

49% of respondents use social sites to ask for advice on their purchases in electronics

47% for healthcare/pharma and home furnishings

42% regarding financial services and telecommuncations

41% for purchasing appliances

38% for auto purchases,

29% regarding consumer goods

24% for buying apparel (men and women’s)

23% entertainment

22% for travel advice

More details of this report are available at Search Engine Watch.

8 Tips For Using Twitter as Part of Your Internet Marketing Plan

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

Social media networks are becoming increasingly important as part of a company’s Internet marketing plan. When used properly, companies can get their information out to millions of potential clients and customers. Here are some tips to make the best use out of social networking giant, Twitter.

  • Search for and follow people or businesses that have the same interests as your company. These followers are more inclined to in return, follow your company and they will find your tweets useful and relevant. The key is to get your company information out to people who could be potential customers, clients or partners in your business. Also people who are relevant followers are more likely to re-tweet your posted material, which allows everyone on their followers list to see it as well.
  • Always post relevant, unique and useful information that is targeted towards your followers, i.e. customers, clients or partners. Include relevant news stories, information about your company’s products, upcoming events, etc. If you want to post information about your personal life, make separate Twitter accounts for business and personal. Remember, you are trying to utilize this particular social network as part of your company’s Internet marketing plan, not tweet to your friends about your weekend.
  • Use a keyword in your tweets. Google is going to begin including Twitter posts in search results. Using keywords that are relevant to your company can help people find you both on Twitter and on the Internet in search results.
    Use Twitter as part of your Internet marketing plan

    Use Twitter as part of your Internet marketing plan

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  • Never disguise the content of your tweets, in other words, don’t use misleading headlines. You may think it will get you more clicks, and it might in the beginning. However, you will ruin your online reputation and people will eventually stop following your company’s account.
  • Find a tweet tracking resource so you can see the statistics associated with your tweets. This will allow you to see which tweets inspired people to click the link and when they clicked. This can give you insight into what kind of tweets you should post in the future and what time you should post them. One such Twitter tracking program uses statistics in easy-to-read graphs, allows users to schedule tweets (which can be useful to busy people who often forget to keep up their Twitter account) and allows users to manage multiple social networks in one place.
  • Keep in mind that long tweets that use all or almost all of the 140 character limit are less likely to be re-tweeted by others. However, using too many abbreviations does not say “professional.” It is important to find a happy medium between the two.
  • Link to your Twitter account to your company Website and blog. The more links guiding users, the more followers your account will likely receive.
  • Use hash tags – #seofirm – when appropriate to allow for better search capabilities.

Following these easy tips for using Twitter to help your business grow will without a doubt help your business reach more potential customers, clients and partners. Including social networks like Twitter when putting together an Internet marketing plan is an essential part of advertising that is gaining momentum and will continue to pick up in the coming years. Getting familiar with social networking for business now will give your company a huge leg up on the competition and ready your business for growth in the future.

Internet Marketing Service Study: Most Fortune 100 Companies aren’t Using Twitter Effectively

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

internetmarketingserviceIt shouldn’t be a surprise to any Internet marketing service specialist that by now most Fortune 100 companies have registered Twitter accounts. But according to a study released yesterday by PR firm Weber Shandwick, the majority of those companies aren’t using Twitter as effectively as they could. According to their study (PDF), 73 of the 100 companies that sit at the top of the Fortune list use Twitter, but most aren’t tweeting often enough, most aren’t engaging customers, and most aren’t letting their company’s personality come through in their tweets.

This is a case study that all Internet marketing service specialists will want to take a look at, since it seems to highlight the difficulties that all companies, not just the largest, are having with using Twitter. The result is low engagement from followers. In fact, 15 percent of accounts registered by Fortune 100 companies didn’t have any followers at all.

The leading reason for this, as any effective Internet marketing service will tell you, is that there probably isn’t any personality coming through in those tweets. And that’s just what the Weber Shandwick study found. According to the report, 53 percent of the Twitter accounts “did not display personality, tone or voice on their account pages.” That means that the Twitter account didn’t have anything that could be seen as a “real person” behind the it. The way to creare an engaging account is to convince people that the tweets are being produced by an live person, an actual human being.

Another incisive fact from an Internet marketing service perspective is that the companies weren’t tweeting enough. While it’s not necessary for a company to tweet every hour, a troubling 76 percent of Fortune 100 accounts had fewer than 500 posted tweets. If the companies were really trying to engage as many customers as they can, then the tweet count should be much higher. Fewer tweets means less of an online impact.

The Internet marketing service study found that most companies felt comfortable using Twitter as a company news feed. But they haven’t always used the best tactics to gain and keep followers. Only 16 percent of companies use Twitter to alert customers of sales and special offers for Twitter users.

So what’s the solution? A change in strategy will go a long way to remedy these issues. The most important Internet marketing service missing from these accounts is conversation. Twitter works best as a communication application. That means that the best results will be gained from companies that use Twitter to interact with their customers and followers.