Certain businesses have become overnight starlets in the world of social media. Somehow, things just clicked right from the start, and they “get it.” As it turns out, these social media divas all have some essential practices in common. With just a little effort, you too can enter the social media stratosphere.

• Don’t be afraid to ask for fans.
  Let your email subscribers know about your social media efforts by including “Follow Us” buttons in each message you send, including customer service messages. You can also create a special campaign to request followers. Templates are free and easy to integrate into your newsletter format.

• Incentivize subscriptions.
  One-time incentives such as a coupon or discount for liking a Facebook page can be excellent tools to acquire likes. You can also tempt would-be followers with promises of regular Twitter-only specials, sale previews, or VIP access to sales events.

• Integrate your promotion efforts.
  Email marketing is a great way to spread the word about your social media efforts, but don’t ignore other promotion opportunities. Include a link on your website, solicit followers in your print advertisements, and pin your emails to your Pinterest board with keyword-enriched descriptions so your business shows up in a search.

• Encourage your fans to interact.
  Engagement is one of the keys to succeeding with Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm. In order to show up in a fan’s newsfeed, you need to establish a pattern of interaction. Think outside the box and make it fun with ideas like:
  • Post photos of recent community events you’ve worked with.
  • Run a video contest.
  • Ask questions.
  • Invite fans to post their pictures to your page.
  • Link your blog posts to your Facebook page.

• Tailor content to the strengths of each venue.
  Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube—each social media venue you choose interact with will exhibit various strengths and weaknesses. Don’t try to shove all of your content into one mold. Create conversations on Facebook, provide how-to ideas and inspirations for Pinterest, and tweet about your online sales. While it’s important to integrate your marketing efforts, it is also important to recognize that your fans have different expectations from each venue.

Proactively building your fan list, providing great content and incentives, encouraging interaction, and capitalizing on the strengths of your various social media endeavors will give you all the know-how, popularity, and success you need to catapult you to rock star status.

HMG Creative knows there are a lot of amazing writers and bloggers out there, and we want to find you. We are always looking for new ways to inform, educate and expand our clients and readers’ industry knowledge.  So with that said, we are looking for some writers who can inject their knowledge, expertise and passion into our blog.

Topics HMG Covers:

• Social Media Marketing
• Social Networking
• SEO
• Mobile Technology
• Email Marketing
• Web Dev/Design
• Something Awesome

Why Write for HMG:

• Exposure to a new audience
• Increase your presence and credibility online
• Get syndicated on other media outlets
• Get new followers on Twitter, of course
• Blog a little or blog a lot
• Because who doesn’t like having their writing featured

Sounds good to you? Great, email us!  Introduce yourself and give us a quick rundown of who you are. Send us an article for review and we’ll place it in queue if we like your stuff. Don’t forget to mention the frequency of your posts (weekly, monthly, etc), or if you just want to be a one-time contributor (we’re cool with that too)! Don’t have an article to post yet? No worries, we’ll help you mull over some cool topics we think would be relative to our blog.

Submit or contact us here.

Continue…

Newsjacking is the (sometimes) clever, quick-response PR tactic piggybacking on current events with an angle benefiting you or your client’s company.  The strategy is not new by any means, but became increasingly popular over the last several years with the rise of Twitter and the constant struggle to stay relevant and timely as news stories can be buried within minutes.

Marketing strategist David Meerman Scott’s definition of newsjacking is the “process by which you inject your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real time, in order to generate media coverage for yourself or your business.”

To execute newjacking appropriately you must stay abreast of breaking news stories, know your target audience and most importantly, utilize common sense.  As a result you can increase search rankings and exposure to new customers or clients.  Failing to heed these rules results in you: 1) completely falling on your face in a desperate attempt to promote a hardly-relevant spin on a topic and 2) most likely pissing-off a social community of very vocal citizens.

In the wake of the devastating Hurricane Sandy, I felt the need to bring up the most sensitive and more-often-than-not inappropriate newsjacking, which occurs during a tragedy. Like this gem, below:

President John F. Kennedy once famously noted that when written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters; one representing danger and the other representing opportunity.

It is the opportunity portion of crisis in which many wide-eyed marketers neglect any sense of sympathy or reason and in-turn embarrass themselves, their company and the entire industry of public relations.

HupSpot received much backlash this week in a blog post that has since been taken down highlighting marketers who have newsjacked during the horrific Hurricane Sandy. Hubspot responded in a follow-up post, semi-apologizing and posing the question: “Is Newsjacking Hurricane Sandy Right or Wrong?”

The marketing resource provides some awful examples of newsjacking and a couple that are partially relevant to emergency tactics or supplies.

The worst include InStyle Magazine’s cosmetics story: Hurricane Sandy Have You Stuck Inside? 5 Beauty Treatments to Help Ride Out the Storm and online dating site HowAboutWe’s blog post titled: 18 of Our Favorite Hurricane Sandy Date Ideas from HowAboutWe Members. Yes, because my family on the East Coast’s primary concern is their manicure art or planning their next date during 80mph winds.

I’ve coined this lack of intellect and sensitivity: newsjackassing. But it’s definitely far from the first time this kind of idiocracy has occurred.

A few short months ago the Aurora tragedy was followed by more instances of tasteless and disgusting marketing; most notably a retail boutique whose staff tweeted this, mere hours after the shootings:

“@celebboutique: #Aurora is trending, clearly about our Kim K inspired #Aurora dress ;)”

WTF, right? Insensitive, shocking and complete disregard for all the families and victims affected on that day in Colorado.  The boutique claimed they did not know about the event as they are out of the country, yet they tweet about Kim Kardashian. Don’t buy it. And neither did Twitter.  The CelebBoutique ruined their online image forever.

You will not overcome these very public mistakes mocking or downplaying a crisis; instead exercise tact, empathy and better judgment, if you can’t — then rethink your career choice.

As a PR professional disgust is the word that is most accessible in my mind, as well as other obscenities stemming from the frustration when I learn about horribly misplaced PR stunts. I secretly hope these individuals have zero background in the field, but I know I am just fooling myself. Of course we all make mistakes, but these instances are blatantly crass and unforgiving.

Unless your company or client has a product or service directly applicable to a situation as severe as the above, leave it be. There are very few companies in this category, and if you have to wonder if you apply, the answer is always no.

Don’t be a jackass.

Almost everyone who uses the internet has interacted with affiliate marketing in some way, though you might not have realized it. Affiliate marketing enables merchants to partner with a third party, or affiliate, to promote their products and services. It seems like a match made in heaven: the merchant gets free advertising, and the affiliate makes a commission on each sales. And in many ways, it is a perfect set-up. But before you jump in with both feet, make sure you’re making an informed decision.

The Good: A Beneficial Partnership

Both merchants and affiliates can reap huge benefits from an affiliate marketing program. Amazon, one of the largest affiliate marketers in the world, has more than a million affiliates happily making money from their ads. Let’s take a look at the pros for both parties:

• Merchant Benefits: Free ad space, broader audience, greater brand exposure, and—did I mention?—free ad space. Merchants benefit from placing their ads on a wide variety of website types, reaching a much broader audience than they otherwise could—all for free (mostly—see below).
• Affiliate Benefits: Cash, cash, and cash. Affiliates can make money at home, at work, on the golf course, or on the beach. Just by devoting a small square of their website to advertising.

The Bad: A Risky Proposition

Just as both sides can benefit from affiliate marketing, both sides assume some risk as well. Don’t assume that affiliate marketing is all a bed of roses. Grit your teeth and take a look at the cons:

• Merchant Cons: False advertising and commission costs. An unscrupulous affiliate can use shady methods to promote your advertisement, causing significant damage to your brand’s reputation. Merchants can also take a hit in the commission department, especially if the advertisements require significant investment of time and resources to create and maintain.
• Affiliate Cons: No cash, low cash, stolen cash. Fraudulent merchants may end the affiliate program without warning and refuse to pay what they promised. They might also hook affiliates into the program by promising high commission rates and paying less than promised. Finally, affiliates face the risk of getting hacked and having their commissions stolen.

The Ugly: Schemers and Scammers

Because affiliate marketing offers potentially high dividends, it has become a target for nefarious internet bandits. Schemes and scams abound, but if you do your homework and know the risk, you can still benefit greatly from entering into an affiliate marketing agreement.

While affiliate marketing does carry risks, the potential for earning money and gaining exposure far outweigh the negatives. The key is to know as much as you can about the company you’re dealing with and talk to people who have dealt with them before in order to avoid the scammers.

Are you currently an affiliate marketer or a merchant who offers an affilate program?  If so, please share your tips and experiences with us below.

Mobile marketing has received a lot of press lately, so much so that some short-sighted marketers have loftily proclaimed email marketing to be dead. But before you send flowers, stop and check the pulse of your email marketing campaign. It may be much more alive than you think.

Is Texting Messaging the New Email?

I’ll admit it. I don’t have a smartphone. I was the last of my friends to get a cell phone of any kind. And at the end of the day, I still prefer sitting down at my computer to texting. I realize I’m not the typical consumer (there are now more people using smart phones than basic cell phones and texting is the most popular use of phones of any kind), but think about it for a minute. If you don’t have a smart phone and you receive a text with a link or URL in it, how likely are you to go find a computer and type that URL in so you can shop? Not very. That means that for the 41% of people who still use basic cell phones, your marketing message was wasted.

Which One Is Better?

Although it’s a natural question, it’s really not the right one to be asking. Don’t think of email and texting as being in competition with one another. Think of them as being partners on the same team, with different jobs.

• Email Marketing: Your Online Powerhouse

Email marketing lets people click on a link immediately, visit your full website, and take action. There are no usability problems and no worries about whether the subscriber has a phone with web browsing capabilities. People can visit social media pages, interact with your call to action, browse your website, and make a purchase using a coupon much more easily via email. You can see a wide variety of affiliate marketing apps to choose from.

• Mobile Marketing: Your On-the-Go Solution

Mobile marketing, on the other hand, is perfect for quick, on-the-go messages. People tend to check their phones more when they’re out and about, and texting is the communication medium of choice for those situations. Use white label SMS reseller messaging for appointment reminders, quick alerts, interactive messages, and instant access.

Which Basket Gets Your Eggs?

Dividing your marketing efforts between texting and email marketing is a smart move, but how do you know which basket gets the most eggs? You’ll need to observe your audience, learn how they typically interact with your content, and invest the most resources in the medium that promises the greatest return.

Both texting and email bring benefit to the marketing table: determining which one is best for you is simply a matter of determining objectives, knowing what each tool can do, and using the right one for the job.

A site with no visitors is not profitable at all. If your phone isn’t ringing from internet leads, you need to start doing something different to drive traffic to your online store front. One key strategy that targets potential customers during their decision-making process is Google Ad Words.

For those who have yet to discover this type of campaigning, Google AdWords is a pay-per-click advertising program by Google. With AdWords, businesses can promote their website’s products and services on Google’s search results in the “sponsored links” sections. As always, quality copy and relevant keyword buys will give you a competitive edge over your competitors. With AdWords, unlike traditional advertising, you can set your budgets and change your campaigns in real-time; there are no commitments or spending requirements of any kind.

The Benefits of Google Pay-Per-Click:

• Control your budget and overall costs. Set your daily budget and the amount you’re willing to pay for a click, and you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.
• Advertise where you want. Target your ads to potential customers around the world, or only to those in your town, region or country.
• No risk. There’s no minimum term or commitment and if you ever need to change the level of spending you can increase or decrease your budgets with peace of mind.
• Targeting. You choose your industry-specific keywords to target your customers and can know your exact ROI and how to better tailor your campaigns for the future.

Not sure how to start or manage a campaign? Let us do it for you.

We at HMG Creative keep a close eye on all our clients’ PPC campaigns to ensure their business is seen by all the right people; we will set up your account, keywords, regions, daily budgets and performance. Account management of your Google PPC is affordable and just makes “Adsense.”

AdWords Services:

• Research profitable keywords and compile exhaustive negative keyword lists
• Build campaigns with proper keyword structure and organization
• Develop and manage effective Display Network campaigns
• Optimize account settings based on budget, geo-targeting and account analysis
• Improve quality scores with click-through-rates, landing page and keywords bid management
• Eliminate wasted spending and work towards constant ROI improvements
• Write and manage ad copy and split testing
• Conversion tracking, reporting and analysis

So what’s it cost?

Due to the competitive, real-time nature of PPC, it’s necessary to monitor, strategize and make changes on an ongoing basis to achieve the best results. For this service, our pricing is month-to-month and varies depending on the complexity of the campaigns as you can view below:

Special Offers:

Commit to a full year and we will waive the Set Up Fee for your PPC campaign and receive your first $100 of ad spend is on us.

Commit to 6 months and we will include your first $100 of ad spend will be free.

Go ahead, attract new leads and get the phone ringing by picking up yours.

Amy Kauffman
858-255-0027

LinkedIn is the go-to website for most B2B marketers when it comes to networking and expanding their client base. But is it really the best place to get the job done? According to some studies, Facebook offers just as much if not more opportunity to reach your professional audience. Let’s take a look at how the two sites stack up side by side.

Facebook Pros and Cons

The social media giant clearly leads the field in terms of B2C marketing. But how about that professional audience you’re trying to reach?

• Pro: Facebook’s huge user base means that more professionals are on Facebook than on LinkedIn in terms of total numbers. Those professionals don’t turn off their business acumen when they’re on Facebook, so you can still market effectively through the broader platform.
• Pro: Facebook allows direct marketing through Facebook ads, meaning you’re no longer dependent on buyer engagement in order to reach potential customers.
• Con: Facebook posts may or may not appear on your fans’ walls, depending on their level of engagement with your brand.
• Con: Marketing efforts must compete with non-professional posts. Music videos, cute puppies, and pithy quotes are all clamoring for the attention of your potential buyers. Your posts have to be good enough to earn a viewing amongst all the ruckus.

LinkedIn Pros and Cons

Most professionals rely heavily on LinkedIn for job seeking, hiring, and networking. But is it an effective way to market to business professionals?

• Pro: Professionals tend to gather at LinkedIn. Nearly 60% of B2B marketers are on LinkedIn, meaning you’ll reach more professionals there at any given time than you will on any other social network. You can also count on your target audience checking in pretty regularly, with most users active between noon and 3 p.m.
• Pro: It’s easy to network with serious professionals, view their profiles, and connect with the movers and shakers in any industry. Profiles contain lots of rich data that proves invaluable in your marketing and networking efforts.
• Con: Total number of users, number of minutes spent on the site and number of high-level professionals fall far below the same stats on Facebook.
• Con: Most people don’t think of LinkedIn as a marketing platform. Instead, they typically use it for job seeking and networking with others in the industry. That doesn’t make it a deal-breaker, but it is something to consider.

LinkedIn has established itself as a valuable tool for business professionals, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the best tool for every job. It’s important to consider which social media platforms offer the best opportunities for marketing to your business clients and then choose the one that makes the most sense for your business.

Twitter and Facebook have been well-established as the twin pillars of social media for what amounts to eons in the rapidly evolving technological world. Now, after an epic Google Buzz fail, Google has launched their newest attempt to run with the big dogs: Google+. The questions being asked by many businesses include “Do I really need a third networking site? Will it be a good investment in the long term? Does anybody actually use Google+?” Let’s address these questions one at a time.

Do I Really Need a Third Networking Site?

“Need” is a relevant term, but Google+ does offer some unique features that Facebook and Twitter don’t:

• Circles—Circles allow you to categorize all your contacts into groups. You can share posts with all your contacts or you can cater your content to those within a particular circle.
• Hangouts—Hangouts are like video chat on steroids. They allow you to chat with up to nine other Google+ users, even those who aren’t currently connected to you (a great feature for brand exposure). Hangouts are ideal for webinars, group discussions, and question/answer sessions.
• Google Indexing Benefits—Google is the search engine king, and you can bet they will integrate Google+ into their indexing algorithms. For the best exposure, you have to play the game their way.
• Saved Searches—Type a keyword into the search feature and find all content relevant to your brand or another topic of interest. These searches can be saved and displayed in your sidebar to keep you up-to-date on all the latest conversations.

Will Google+ Be a Good Investment in the Long Term?

To date, Google+ remains significantly smaller than Facebook. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. On Facebook, you’re competing with a huge conglomeration of events, photos, updates, and more; Google+ tends to be more informational, meaning that you can get your message out to the people who really want to hear what you have to say. It’s also a good bet that Google+ will eventually be integrated with all of Google’s other offerings: Google Places, search, images, and more. All of which makes it a good investment for businesses.

Does Anybody Actually Use Google+?

So far, 90 million users have accounts with Google+. And because every gmail user automatically gets an account, you can expect that number to grow. Sixty percent of those users log in every single day (compared to just 50% who log into Twitter every day), and eighty percent log in once a week.

Google+ is a growing network whose ultimate reach has yet to be established. Its unique features make it a good investment for businesses as social media becomes increasingly integrated into the daily lives of average people. Should you invest? You bet.

In nature, “nurturing” anti inflammatory supplements always implies a particular relationship between the nurturer and the nuturee: the party with more knowledge/experience/information/power shares those qualities with the party possessing less, with the goal of bringing about positive change. Appropriately, “lead nurturing” in the email marketing world refers to the educational relationship you create with subscribers, with the goal of persuading them to act. When you get it right, you’ll not only get more customers to say yes, you’ll also build a core of loyal clients who throw their business your way again and again.

Basics of Lead Nurturing

Lead nurturing isn’t just sending emails once a week. It involves providing relevant, useful information to the subscriber about the offer you want him to accept. And it requires planning.

• Create a target audience persona. Your email list includes a variety of personality and customer types, but in order to create the most effective email campaign, you’ll need to choose one target persona to focus on. Create each email with that personality in mind. What motivates them? What information do they need? What questions do they want answered? Focus on building a relationship with your target audience in order to earn their loyalty.
• Determine a consistent email frequency and sequence. Every new lead on your list should receive the same emails in the same order and at the same frequency. Each new message should have a specific goal and call to action. Frequency should be no less than once a week; every five to six days works well in most cases.
• Create content. Each email should contain helpful, actionable, and educational content. Be creative. Try videos, FAQs, surveys, special reports and other formats to get the most important information about your company and your offer into the hands of your subscribers. Emails should build on each other, creating forward momentum and culminating with your ultimate call to action.
• Use offer-based opt-ins. Provide an incentive for opting in to your email list that is related to your ultimate offer. If you’re selling a weight loss e-book, for instance, your opt-in offer could be a free report detailing seven secrets to reducing the risk of Type II diabetes.
• Use autorepsonders. Autoresponders ensure that each new lead gets the same emails at the same frequency. It’s the smartest way to keep your email campaign ducks in a row.

Securing Action With Lead Nurturing

Once your campaign is up and running, keep a close eye on your analytics and your banner stands. Monitor which links are being clicked, how many subscribers convert, how many new leads you get, and where those leads are coming from. Tweak your campaign based on subscriber behavior.

Persuading your target audience to say yes begins with a strong lead nurturing campaign designed to educate and build relationships. Strong content, effective planning, and a solid approach to email creation and distribution will create a loyal audience that wants what you have to offer.

HMG Creative is excited to announce Stacey Donelan as our first-ever Social Media and Marketing Intern and another amazing talent to add to the Austin team. Stacey is a product of The University of Texas at Austin, completing her senior year to receive B.S. in Public Relations next spring. Even though she has yet to graduate from the great 40 Acres, Stacey is packing some serious communications experience including previous internships at Southwest Airlines in Dallas, TX and local public relations firm Hahn, Texas Communications. From writing newsletters, to managing digital marketing efforts and working with clients like Livestrong Austin Marathon and Whataburger, Stacey is more than well-versed in the industry. If you weren’t impressed yet, she additionally serves as the Public Relations chair for her sorority, Delta Delta Delta and is a member of the Public Relations Society of America Student Chapter at UT.

Stacey will be bringing her A-game to HMG Creative for the fall semester and will head up online Social Media and Marketing tactics for our growing company. So send her a tweet, Facebook “like” or welcome her personally at [email protected]. Do it.