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.

A financial company had this big event planned which would bring down some heavy weight global investors as well as some key government leaders two months away. They planned to market this event in a big way to attract more attendees from the private sector and decided to use an integrated multi-pronged plan with email campaigns, a single newspaper advertisement, call in known press contacts for some offline PR and wait for it….social media marketing!

Now this could have been a great strategy to reach out and spread the word about the event inviting people to come attend but the catch was they didn’t have a social media presence or online engagement they could tap into so they decided to engage a social media and online marketing company that could help them create a web presence for them since they would be busy with preparations for the event. Now deciding to create a social media and web presence for your company IS a great idea. What was wrong with this particular case is the plan was to spend exactly 2 months engaging on social media, setting up a blog, a Facebook account, connecting with groups on Linkedin, Twitter…..and then STOP until much later in the year when another similar event was planned.

Social media can not be compared directly to television advertising or other offline media. It doesn’t work on the principle of flash a message to a known sized audience and pay accordingly (Online advertising does that but not social media engagement). It’s about constant interaction, communication and building that community / audience and that’s not a quick ‘put together’ and sell ….it’s build and nurture over a long time. Blog audiences are not built in a month or two, neither are Facebook groups or social influence on other sites. Not to say they can’t be done with a large budget and paid online advertising but you get what you pay for and to grow a social presence online organically and build lasting relationships with people online, that’s not a viable strategy.

Think of it as a conversation (which is exactly what it is). When you stop activity, stop publishing, stop updating, stop answering, replying or communicating online…..that is the end of the conversation. The other’s in the room with you have little option but to leave the room or move on. You can’t build a relationship based on a single conversation in any social situation online or not. Stronger relationships are built when you keep in touch, keep communicating and stay in contact. Social media and online presence is great for marketing – but it can’t be a seasonal strategy which can be turned on an off.

This company is not alone in their resolve to use social media and invest in online activity for a few days of the year only when it’s strategically needed for their marketing. There are sporting clubs and franchises that engage a million strong fan base for a few months of the year when the season is on and then cut off all activity when its done. Sure season is when the interest peaks and the sponsorship revenues come pouring in for the teams and clubs but what about the fans? Do they stop being fans once the season is over? Do they stop reading about their favorite players or not want to hear what is happening off the field through the year till the next season? There are businesses from every field occasionally dabbling in social media and then letting the activity slide like it’s a seasonal campaign but there’s no such thing when it comes to social media.

There’s always advertising to turn to for instant demand generation but inbound marketing and social media marketing is not about that and doesn’t fit there as a solution to short term demand increases. It’s about relationships and like any dating guru (or social media influencer) will tell you…you need to invest time and effort in any relationship and work at it constantly to strengthen it.

If what drew you to this post was the alluring image of Olivia Wilde on a cover, then I’ve made my point. In fact, even if you stopped at the top of this page and spent a few seconds wondering “I wonder what this post is all about” just because the image caught your attention, that’s good enough for me as a blogger and content marketer because I now have your attention.

Attention is a valuable commodity for any blog or website since we’re all up against millions of competing blog posts, articles, videos, graphics and photos that are published every day. As a content marketer, engaging an audience with  your content to drive inbound traffic versus the myriad of other options people can click through to and consume instead …is a challenge. To stay in the running, compete and still draw online users to your site, your content needs to stand out and appeal to them and this is something magazine publishers can teach a thing or two about to bloggers and content marketers.

Magazine publishers have been battling it out for years when it comes to competing for attention, grabbing a persons attention and getting them hooked to their content. They’ve studied just about every psychological aspect of consumers and readers and incorporated decades of best practices in the way they write new content, design, structure and deliver their end product to readers. Their attention to detail is what web sites, blogs and digital content marketing media will have to strive towards in the sea of user generated content to stand out as a quality source for content as opposed to just another blog.

 Attention Grabbing Titles

The general thumb rule is people will always scan first and then read if they decide to read further. Attention grabbing titles are essential on social media sites and search engine results as they are when you scan hundreds of magazine covers on the shelf at a magazine rack before picking one up.

 Awesome Images

No doubt that fantastic quality images are the number one draw to a magazine and all the best photographers and graphics designers in the world would contribute to the publishing team in a huge way. The same holds true for web content too and being able to source and use photography, graphics and imaging in your content will set it apart as a quality content source over the plain text and boring looking pages.

Layout & Design

Another key element which web content has adopted from the traditional publishing industry and evolved is layout, typography and design. Placing images, text, advertising, using fonts well, titling, sub titling and knowing user habits is all well thought out in a great magazine as it needs to be on a web page or blog. This is something every reader will subconsciously make a note of when they are on a professional content site or a casual novice blog.

Rich Glossy High Quality Feel

Don’t you ever relate to the quality of a magazine by how glossy or high quality the cover and the paper quality is? It’s makes the images pop out and create a much richer reading experience also adding to the value of the overall publication. Now some may ask how this applies to web content …and it does. Selecting a good publishing platform and theme with a great modern look and feel CAN change a users experience and perception of a blog or web site.

 Well Thought Out & Fresh Topics

Once you have the readers attention, following through and meeting expectations is just as important to have them engaged and keep them coming back. Magazine content teams sit and brainstorm new fresh topics that could grip their audience carefully selecting the best ideas keeping readers in mind. Every piece needs to evoke some reaction whether they read it and think, “this was useful”, “this was enlightening”, “this made me laugh”, “this got me excited” or even “this made me sad”. The last reactions you want for your content is “huh…waste of time”.

Put The Target Audience First

The magazine business model that publishers have followed since they first hit news stands is “be the number one content and information resource for people in our target segment to build a reader base around the magazine”. Only then target advertisers to promote their products to our reader base and subscribers. A poorly executed web content strategy thinks more about marketing products and repetitively talks about it’s own products and gets boring. A good content marketing strategy thinks about what readers would enjoy or find useful first and the promotion is an added bonus to this. Focus on giving the audience what they want. The marketing will happen.

Would You Rather Read This?

Or this?

So if you run a blog or content site that you hope will really become a marketing asset for your brand or business, think: how would I approach it if I were a magazine publisher and depended on building a reader base regardless of what I intend to market. Do that, and things will take a turn for the better!

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!

When we’ve sent out proposals for inbound marketing and social media presence development for B2B companies, we make it point to suggest posting and publishing either 3 or 5 days a week based on our structured solutions. The reason being, experience has made it clear if you’re spending hours developing a great blog post or content piece to publish and share on a Saturday or a Sunday, chances are it’s falling to deaf ears since activity is significantly lower on the weekends when people are not at work.

For a B2C shopping site however, it could be quite the opposite since people are more likely to be online relaxed and considering some online shopping over the weekend if the’re not out. It’s a good time to get some messages out to them and could trigger buying. Similarly, a business located in South Korea with it’s key consumers in North America are likely to be ineffective posting updates to their Facebook page during the day when their customers are fast asleep. By the time they wake up, those updates will be so far down their news updates feed, it’s like they weren’t even there.

Timing is a determining factor when it comes to how effective an inbound marketing or social media engagement is. Getting content out at the right time, sparking conversations when there is an audience to participate and not getting lost in a flood of information from others all play their parts in the effectiveness.

What we’re consistently aware off simply from experience, trial and error has now been brilliantly put into perspective in the form of an infographic by Argyle Social which plain and simply explains timing your social media marketing right! -

 Click On The Infographic Below To View Full Size

There’s been an awakening in how effectively social media can be used to engage with consumers and stay connected with them after they’ve gone through the “awareness” phase through offline marketing that many businesses still spend massive parts of their budgets on. It seems almost everywhere I look, brands are connecting their online and offline efforts well really implementing the concept of “Social CRM”.

It’s understandable that you can’t reach everyone online and traditional advertising and marketing channels like television, newspapers, magazines, events and more are still going to be a part of the marketing mix especially in the Indian context where the web market is still growing but not all-inclusive. However, brands are realizing that the offline channels mentioned above are strong in creating awareness, but then a lot of the research, comparison, deliberation and final decisions are made after moving online and the two need to work seamlessly together to get results.

Moreover, offline marketing is still considerably more expensive and buys less attention time with consumers so how do you keep them in the loop after they’ve heard about you?

Send them online!

Scenario 1

The 2012 Delhi Auto Expo is a classic example of an offline marketing channel that brings over a 1000 automobile manufacturers and brands together. They showcase their cars, unveil new launches, measure customer reactions and interact. Needless to say, it doesn’t come cheap and not every consumer that brands connected with that day are going to make an instant decision and become customers at the location itself. However this year, you will notice many manufacturers and brands have prominently displayed their social media locations asking consumers that have visited their stalls to go ahead and connect with them on their Facebook page, join their online communities or follow them on Twitter.

This enables them to stay engaged with those consumers much after the event is over and the tents are packed away, remaining connected with them and potentially see more of them turn customers at a much later date.

Scenario 2

I passed by a large billboard for a new shopping mall that’s opened not too far away. Unlike some hoardings which try to cram as much of a message into space one gets a few seconds to look at most while driving by, this one had the mall and invited passers by to come find out more about what they had in store directing them to join their Facebook page. Almost literally what you could remember in those moments when you glance at something and drive by.

Awareness through the billboard and engagement via social media. A perfect combination.

This process of awareness -> capture -> engage -> convert while moving from offline to online media has been evolving rapidly. From having static website addresses displayed asking people to read more about the company or brand some time ago, we now have more Twitter handles, Facebook page addresses and social media locations printed across on shopping bags, signboards, television commercials, shouted on radio, splashed across billboards…

The key difference?

We’re no longer asking consumers to come read some information about the organization or brand on the website. We are now asking them to come engage with us in a two way dialog, talk to us and keep in touch!

…. and that is a whole new dynamic in the relationship between organizations and consumers!

Overview

Volkswagen has been standing out in peoples mind when it comes to their innovative and often striking marketing campaigns both offline and online. Their marketing activity in India where they have grown very quickly into one of the most desired car brands has covered everything from The VW Polo Cup racing series to newspaper advertisements that had people drop their coffee and jump back. Remember when you opened the newspaper and it started talking about the VW Vento? From talking newspapers to some of the funniest viral videos, Volkswagen is one to watch when it comes to creative marketing ideas.

With the new launch of the 2011 Volkswagen Jetta, the VW brand has set the social media grapevine buzzing with another engaging and fun social media outreach campaign which has everyone on the social web talking about the new Jetta.

Challenge

The Indian car market has been very active with new launches with several manufacturers and and equal number of hot new launches taking place in the last three months with every model vying for attention both from the consumers and media. Car sales is a very aspirational space and the more people talk about a car, the more you want it! So just how did Volkswagen India get people online to talk to talk about the all new Jetta and capture attention?

Strategy – What Volkswagen Did

They launched the Anything4Jetta campaign and got people to talk about what they would be willing to do to get their hands on the all new VW Jetta! The online campaign is centered around a micro-site http://www.anything4jetta.com/ which is primarily Twitter centric…or in other words, you can login directly with your Twitter account.

Simplicity is key and the anything4jetta.com website gets straight to the point on the home page. As a visitor that would like a chance to win the new Jetta, all you have to do is Tweet what you would do for the new Jetta along with the hash tag #anything4jetta and your witty tweet may qualify you for a range of monthly prizes and eventually the grand prize of a brand new Jetta.

So that would get users thinking up smart tweets and tweeting but there is more. A clever point system explained here within the site would point out you get points for following @volkswagenindia, SMS tweets, voice tweets, uploading photos, uploading crazy videos of what you’re willing to do, retweets and other activity. THAT is what makes this a complete social media experience exploiting all channels to create buzz around the Jetta and the incentive… points (and the grand prize of possibly winning a car of course).

As a result Twitter is buzzing with chatter over the new Jetta, videos are being added, photos shared and ….they have out attention.

(The Anything4Jetta Online Campaign & Contest – Click Here To Visit)

(The Facebook Component – Click Here To Visit)

(The YouTube Component)

What’s Cool About This Campaign?

- It gets you to talk about the car by offering you a chance to win something you desire (the car) which instantly makes you an online ambassador for the product and has you saying good things about it

- It get’s users to do a lot of the creative work and come up with fun, catchy tweets that could draw further attention

- Very low entry barrier to get started with the campaign and competition. All you need is a Twitter account and add a hash tag to your tweet and you are in the running

- Great incentive system to drive more social activity like sharing videos, photos, voice recordings through the point system

- A smart system of having monthly prizes and a leader board to keep users involved and keep talking about the product till the winner of the grand prize is announced

- Doesn’t directly advertise the product since the campaign itself is fun and about coming up with crazy things you would do to win a Jetta. Yet the product is well placed everywhere, showcased on the anything4jetta.com site

- Integrates Facebook, Twitter well

To sum up, the Anything4Jetta campaign is just a very fun and engaging campaign which still gets people buzzing about the car. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

(The Facebook Page – Reaching Out To A Community)

Overview

For any guitar player, the Gibson Guitars brand needs no introduction whatsoever. Their guitars are legendary as is the brand with guitar players such as Slash, Joe Perry, Zakk Wylde and several other musicians endorsing the brand. Just about every guitar player and aspiring guitar player would want to own a Gibson if finances permit. Gibson as a brand has a global appeal on just about every continent but when they decided to formally launch their range of products in India more recently and connect to the growing music community there with an online web presence, they appear to have paid a lot of attention to adding a local flavor to their campaign and creating an identity in the local rock music circles across Indian cities.

Indian rock culture has been growing among the youth and both musicians and music lovers across the country are constantly tuned in to what is happening in the music circuit, where the next gigs are happening, what the most popular bands are up to. A very tight community that’s actively involved with staying in tune with the music scene via the web and…the perfect market for a brand like Gibson.

Challenge

For Gibson, the challenge would be to create awareness in a completely new market which has a more or less ‘underground’ or non-mainstream rock circuit consisting of a few hundred active bands and tens of thousands of fans that attend rock concerts, buy albums and tunes released by prominent local bands and form the larger group of buyers and influencers for the Gibson brand. Guitar purchases are highly influenced by guitar heroes that use and  endorse a particular brand of guitars. Gibson would need to help audiences in India identify bands and prominent guitar players (local guitar heroes) that use their guitars and make a connection with them.

Strategy – What Gibson Guitars Did

Local community & content driven website – www.gibsonguitar.in The website not only has a product listing and information about the line of products available now for the Indian market but prominently features the “News & Lifestyle” section as well as the “Community” section which is all about making a social media connection with the audience that matters for the brand.

(A Website Focused On Delivering Engaging Content To The Music Community)

The “News, Features & Events” section is virtually the blog component of the campaign with daily multiple articles, news posts, events, interviews with really well written pieces pertaining to the Indian rock music circuit. Covering practically all the interesting happenings, topics and news that musicians and music lovers would like to keep in touch with, the content does a great job of keeping fans updated and very intelligently features bands, interviews and artists that use Gibson guitars.

The “Community” section features a forum which is a great platform to drive the musician community to the site and get them talking about their products. What’s very commendable is the Facebook page and community which gets it’s feed of content and updates largely from the blog / news section of the website but really adds that ‘interactive’ and ‘two way conversation’ component with fans actively commenting on updates, sharing event updates, replying to articles and features. It’s interesting to note, this is not Gibson Guitars, creating a Facebook page where they talk only about their guitars. This is a Facebook page where Indian rock music enthusiasts get great updates to upcoming events, reviews of shows, albums, interviews and keep in touch with the Indian rock music scene. It’s branded by Gibson guitars.

Although the Gibsonguitar.in website has a YouTube component, it’s linked to the Gibson Guitars international YouTube channel and we would have liked to have seen a more local flavor with branded coverage videos of interviews, concert clips and more. However, what they do very well is sharing new music videos, concert clips and YouTube videos directly from other sources on their Facebook wall which means as a fan, you get to watch the latest on YouTube via their feed.

(Gibson Guitars India On Twitter – Always Interesting Tweets)

(YouTube Videos That Really Push The Product Well)

What’s cool about this campaign

- The strategy offers fans a music publication with quality articles and news on the music scene

- It doesn’t come across as a blatant attempt to market or sell although you can’t ignore the branding or knowing that you’re on the Gibson Guitars site or Facebook page

- The product is very well represented and it’s very clear the people interviewed or the bands reviewed and so on use Gibson Guitars. If they don’t, they are still included but more subtly than those who do represent their brand

- Great word of mouth / social sharing component built in since fans on Facebook love to talk about the guitars featured in the content, are happy to spread the word about them, share event updates and articles with their friends and become advocates for the brand

- The content rich main site fuels the engagement on Facebook and Twitter too providing regular updates and keeps followers interested

- Great use of contests, free guitar giveaways to build more followers, engage people and build more word-of-mouth reach integrating Facebook and Twitter

All in all…a great way to make a connection with those that will eventually become your brand advocates!