Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Digg, StumbleUpon, Google Plus etc are the the better known bigwigs of the social web and undoubtedly the first places that come to mind when you think about developing a marketing strategy online. Going purely by the volume of traffic they have, it seems obvious to spend more time and energy developing activity and outreach on the platforms that have the most traffic and give less priority to the ones that have comparatively less traffic. It seems like common sense that if you have target market of 20 million on Facebook, that’s where you should spend most of your online marketing focus and yet this isn’t always the case.

When it comes to online marketing and engaging people through different web channels there’s a lot more than quantity of traffic that comes into play. The same set of social sites and using the same outreach formula may not always work since every brand, business, target market and web user base has it’s own characteristics. Facebook may bring in 1000 fans and not a single conversion over 10 months. A small niche community site or online group on the other hand may bring in just 50 visitors in the same time frame resulting in 10 conversions. There’s marketing potential far beyond Facebook and the obvious social media super sites.

Just to be clear, we’re not saying don’t spend time on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and so on. We’re saying don’t restrict your outreach efforts to only these sites and look beyond the obvious choices because you never know what works best for your inbound marketing till you experiment.

Let me illustrate:

A new picturesque family getaway hill resort was looking to  increase their online visibility to drive more bookings and eventually to rely on inbound traffic and conversions to keep the occupancy charts filled. They managed to create a Facebook page and spread the word through family and friends touching 400 fans in their first 3 months however, there were only about 3 bookings that could be attributed to their activity on the Facebook page. Some weeks later, one of their customers submitted a review of the resort on TripAdvisor.com and resulted in someone else discovering the resort as a result of this review. From that instance, the resort decided to explicitly request their customers to add a review on TripAdvisor.com if they enjoyed their stay and customers did. The TripAdvisor reviews showed up well in Google search results for ‘places to stay’ related to the region and the bookings clearly saw an increase. Learning from the experience, the resort spent more time submitting their details to similar hotel directory sites, travel review communities and listings stepping up their activity on these sites and although the traffic increase was not huge, the conversion rate was growing and inbound bookings went up significantly as more people discovered the resort through their searches for staying options in the area.

A children’s clothing and apparel brand setup an online store in an attempt to break out of it’s local operations and look global for customers. They spent significant resources working on on-site SEO and creating accounts on Twitter, Facebook as well as setting up a blog which they could use to showcase their style tips and advice. They soon learned this is a very crowded and competitive space online and got frustrated not being noticed and getting the attention they thought they would. Their break came from getting actively involved on family and kids fashion sites like mykidsfashion.com, stylecaster.com, cafemom.com and others. People seemed to respond better to photos of their kids wear and gradually the purchases started happening. They were finally connecting to the right audiences in the right places and developing an influence there.

There’s a wide web of places online beyond the popular choices to develop an influence and reach out to the right people online and sometimes all it takes is a little will and effort to experiment and find out what works best for you. It can be a long process but well worth it in the end when you find the right mix and focus efforts on the ones that yield results.

While we see some awesome and innovative things many companies are doing to engage with people on the web and “be social”, few still struggle with the idea of “being personable” rather than “sounding professional”. When I say “sounding professional” here I’m not referring to the true sense of the word but rather the ‘cliche’ of having to use politically correct and complicated business terms or corporate talk while interacting with online audiences. It may have been the proper way to conduct business in the formal corporate world where embossed letterheads on bonded paper were the medium of of choice but in the Social Media world…people prefer simplicity. Also, in the social media world – the people hold the power and decide what they prefer and who they like.

I remember the founder of IMG the late Mark McCormack and sales thought leader saying “All things being equal, a person would rather buy from someone they like versus someone they are indifferent to” so being like-able is a key factor in any buying process.

Nowhere is this more true than on the social web. Most people on the web have low tolerance (or attention spans) for complicated explanations, corporate jargon, advanced technical terms, business vocabulary or language they have to read over a number of times to make sense of. Social media loves and respects simplicity!

A single word best practice rule for communication, content, marketing or just about any interaction on the web to really connect with people – SIMPLIFY!

Things we like in our social web experience?

 Tweets & Short Status Updates

140 characters is a short space but it’s perfect. If you have something to say and you can put it 140 characters or less it forces you to be concise, clear and make your point quite simply. Little wonder why Facebook status updates and Twitter is so popular?

Introduction Videos That Turn Complicated Ideas Into Plain English

Gone are the long multi-page technical specification manuals or documentation that explain something complicated in even more complicated terms and language. Social media loves simple videos like the one below which can even have Grandma understand what this new age concept of CrowdFunding is all about.

Infographics

Well crafted visual representation of facts that you can absorb simply by looking at an image rather than having to read long texts of technical facts, survey results or statistics. They are simple and make their point!

Easy Registration & Calls To Action

Crisp, Short & Personal Direct Messages & Communications

Those are just some of the examples of how effective keeping things simple online can be just the way web users like it. When it Rome, do as the Romans do. When on the social web, think about what people love about their social web experience and tune your online communications accordingly.

Leaving out the unnecessary complicated bulls***t that aims to impress but no one really gets and simplifying will really connect well with online audiences and help not just get what you’re about but perhaps even grow to like you as a business. That in the online world…is a winning formula!

“If you don’t have an iPhone…then you don’t have an iPhone”

As a marketing enthusiast I love the message. It’s smart, it’s catchy and makes you question…why don’t I have an iPhone? As a television viewer, I can’t stand this line anymore because I’m compelled to watch it every five minutes over and over again while catching my favorite shows on TV. Today it’s the iPhone advertisement but a week from now it will be some other advertisement, message or brand that will fight for attention and eventually haunt me to the point I would actually have a negative attitude towards the brand.

Similarly in the social web space, there is such a thing as overdoing it…..only perhaps you will have to change shoes to perceive this fact.

Let me explain with a common example of a regular day on Facebook….

Put on your marketing shoes as someone who is promoting their brand online :-

- 10:30 am You discover a really great blog post related to your business or industry

- 10:32 am You post it as an update on your company’s Facebook page and share it with everyone within the group

- 10:38 am You share another find on Facebook using your company’s page

- 10:40 am You add a status update to your company page about a new product that will be on offer soon

- 10:50 am You upload some photos from yesterday’s event to the page’s photo album

Put on your regular everyday Facebook user shoes who’s logged in to connect with friends and family. Rewind to 10:30 am:-

- 10:30 am You log in to Facebook and look at your news feed. A friend of yours has a birthday today. There are some new photos your sister uploaded of their recent vacation.  So you wish your friend, check out the new photos.

- 10:32 am You go back to your feed and see this blog post shared by a company whose page you “liked”. So you check out the blog post, click the line button and maybe even leave a comment.

- 10: 38 am There is another share from this company in your feed less than 5 minutes after the first one. You ignore it.

-10:40 am Now there is a third item from the same company saying they have a new product.

-10:50 am There is another item in your feed from the same company with some photos but your feed page is starting to look like their company page and their posts are dominating all the space in your Facebook feed pushing your friends and family out.

-10:55 am This is getting annoying…so you blog their updates or leave the page.

There is something like too much! Perhaps not as a business, but definitely as a consumer or user of the social web. It’s the same annoying feeling you get when someone on Twitter posts every 20 seconds especially when they are just links and not personal messages. It’s the same for automated social accounts which keep posting like bots, when you get an automated comment on your blog every single day from the same company trying to promote their link but don’t really have anything real to say about your post. It’s the same when someone keeps posting the very same link to your Linked twice a day in group drowning out all the good discussions and shares.

From a business perspective it’s understandable why so many will insist more is better when it comes to frequency of posting, updating and getting their brand and message in front of people as often as they can through any site. We need a return on investment right?

Is overdoing it really going to give you that return? Or will it turn people away from your brand?

Consistency, frequency and being ever present in front of your consumers is undoubtedly important. So how much is too much?

No surprise because sharing is a cornerstone for the social web and at the heart of it all. People share things all the time. Sit on a long bus ride and the guy next to you may talk about his recent work trip experience, what he thought about last nights basketball game or what he thought about the mid-term election polls.

That’s how you get to know people. That’s how you start relating to people. That is how relationships are built! They share. The ones you don’t know much about and can’t connect with are the ones who won’t or don’t share.

It’s easier with people. Perhaps that’s why so many people have successfully tied into the social web, strike conversations with others, interact with others and find it easy to carry their offline personalities with them to their online persona and interactions with others. Not all companies and businesses on the other hand carry their personalities as well to the online world as they do in the offline world.

Let me tell you what I mean by that. Just the other day I walked into the office of a prospective customer and had a discussion with a bunch of people from their office who were extremely personable, like-able and easy to relate to. I learnt about their interests, how they got started with their business, what they’ve been up to in recent days and it turns out they were a great bunch of people. Definitely a company I would love to work with. Truth be told, that’s not the impression I had going in that day.

My first impression was formed by their website. I checked the ‘about’ section and most of the standard information you would when you go to a website. I then looked at the blog and press releases. Both were not updated often and had some content loosely related to the industry but from what I read, they were a very serious company, stated facts needed and quite “dry” or plain vanilla was my guess. The people who made up the company were however, anything but plain vanilla or dry….they exuded passion for what they did. They celebrated small victories and took challenges seriously. They had opinions on a lot of different issues within their sector and often brainstormed on how to offer something better and stand apart. Yet, none of that was reflected on their website, blog, Twitter account or Facebook page. If you have never met them personally, you would never really know them for what they are…a great business that you or I would enjoy engaging with.

Businesses need to humanize when they decide to go social.  They need to reflect a personality that people can relate to. On the social web, people like interacting with other people. Not with inanimate entities like a corporation or a limited liability firm or whatever the legal entity is. A number of businesses owners and managers we’ve spoken to over the last few months have registered or sign-up accounts on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress blogs, Flickr, YouTube and other social sites. They have remained inactive since the first sign in because they couldn’t figure out what “The Company” wanted to say everyday.

Sharing is the key to humanizing a business to fit in with the social web. Share experiences, share interesting things the business has learnt, share photos of last nights team dinner at the steak house, share updates on little victories, share what happened at the office today, share challenges and upsets the business faced, share what the business is excited about, share opinions your people have on something current….keep sharing. Thats when you come across as more than just a company name and develop a personality that other people can relate to. Let people know and relate to the emotions and personality of your business. Thats how relationships will be built and that’s how a businesses social online persona can start reflecting it’s real world persona.

Business Today Aug 22- Angels in the Crowd

Reading has rapidly moved to the web. I personally do a lot of reading online every single day across a variety of personal interests from aquascaping, music theory, travel to social media, marketing and more. Even if i’m experimenting with dishes in the kitchen I have a recipe open on my netbook nearby. It’s only natural that we’re all going to take to e-readers and tablets sooner or later. From the current buzz, my guess would be sooner. So the question to start asking is not “should I go in for the iPad or Kindle? The question that urgently needs to be answered is “is my business publishing online and is it ready for the tablet boom?”

Online magazines, blogs and online publications are bound to be consumed that much more. If currently most reading is done while at your pc or at work, e-readers are simply going to ensure reading happens on the bus, on the subway, at airport waiting lounges and in bed. In marketing terms, it just opens a wider window of opportunity to have wider audiences discover your business. Online publications with compelling content will be key to engaging consumers and the earlier you can establish a leading publication within your industry space, the better prepared you can be for the inevitable boom. So how ready is your business on the online publication front?

Content plays an important role in social marketing and is often to keeping the conversation and buzz going around your business.  You need to have content that you can share with the online community. The real challenge is how you generate that daily content and keep it interesting for your customers.  One great way to tackle this is starting with a very active blog. By very active, we mean one that has engaging posts, insights, reviews, articles or observations as often as possible. Useful articles and posts around your business can be very versatile and need not be restricted to the blog. Once posted, the same post or article can be Tweeted, shared on groups like Linkedin, MySpace and Facebook, posted to discussion forums or communities, converted to a down-loadable document for the website and even sent out in an email newsletter. Discussions naturally follow around these posts whether in the form of comments people leave on the blog or social sites like Mixx & Reddit, re-tweets and replies on Twitter, passed around on social networking sites and really fuel the wider online conversation around your business and help it gather momentum.

We recently developed an niche vertical based online magazine for a customer of ours to provide not just their customers but virtually the industry with fresh articles published daily with interesting content within the space. Other than the stand alone community of readers within the industry which quickly developed around the online publication the company saw this as a great opportunity to tie the blog / online magazine content to jump start their other online marketing initiatives. This included posting regularly on a large community site for the industry, posting articles and starting conversations around them on their Facebook community, Myspace and drawing more followers on Twitter. On all these groups and communities they have people who enjoy reading through, sharing and commenting on the articles which are interesting or offer some valuable insights to them. As a result, the members on all these communities have increased activity and helps the business build stronger communities and better relationships with their customers.

The common ground for all social media marketing channels and social marketing is your content. Invest in regular content and the process of having a constant conversation with your customers online will just become a whole lot easier.