Building Viral Social Media Campaigns

Every day social media marketing stories are launched and published on various social networks but the most successful campaigns are the one's that "go viral" and repeatedly get shared by your followers with their friends and followers. And that begs the question; "Is there a way to influence the outcome and get your post shared again and again"? The short answer is YES but not many businesses focus on this aspect. It's called social media influence marketing.

You can read a definition of influencer marketing on Wikipedia but for the purposes of social media marketing, it's about understanding who has the greatest influence within your networks, building a relationship with them over time and seeking their assistance in the formulation and dissemination of your campaign posts. And if you get the relationship right (online and also offline) you may be able to turn these key influencers into your greatest brand ambassadors.

There are websites that attempt to help you understand your level of influence and those of your social media networks but many marketing people don't like being "ranked" or scored down to a single number. I don't think it's something to be afraid of - to me it's just a tool within the marketing arsenal. 

The current top two influence marketing scoring systems being used today are Klout which measures your network and personal influence and Kred which also measures and scores the success of your influence within vertical marketplaces based on the campaigns that you produce. Once we understand who has the greatest influence, we can ask them for assistance in sharing the campaign posts - thus avoiding paying for placement ads on the social network to promote your story.

It's the obvious cost benefit that drives a good marketing person towards influence marketing activity - because sometimes, a zero-cost (organic) approach to your marketing effort is what is required. I've been using both scoring systems for about two years now and I'm personally ranked in the top 10% of all influencers online. Scores rise and fall as your campaign intensity rises and falls.

I recently conducted an organic social media marketing campaign for a client. Trent Ellis was desperate to appear on the Ellen DeGeneres TV Show when it comes to Australia and they had a competition to find an underwear model - asking people to send in photos of themselves in their underwear. It was called the #EllenUndies campaign.

After building the photo (content) and posting it on the Ellen website and Facebook page, as well as on my own social networking pages, twelve major influencers within my network were asked if they might be able to share the image with their networks, to help the photo go viral. Within 48 hours, and after spending not one cent, the photo had been shared a total of 65 times, with an audience reach of well over 75,000 and thousands of stories being created. It even got picked up by digital media outlets.

We're yet to see if the #Trent4Ellen campaign is yet to result in a positive outcome for Trent but for a campaign that didn't spend any money to promote it, everyone is very happy at the outcomes already achieved. 

If you're looking for some assistance in your next social media marketing campaign, contact +Markham Lane  via Google+ or else call him directly on +61414446660 - he's located in Sydney, Australia.

Integrated Digital Marketing 2013

Where are we headed and what are the digital challenges facing brands and the industry in 2013? On reviewing efforts from the previous year, we notice that search engine marketing continued to be developed with the integration of social media elements, including the integration of public relations campaigns for link building and the measurement of social media campaigns within Google Analytics. This trend is set to continue. In 2013 it looks like the proliferation of social media integrated digital products and services will continue to expand, with Search Marketing Integration (SMI) reaching into all elements of the marketing mix.

In late 2011 it became obvious, in Australia at least, that mobile smartphone penetration was leading the world and in 2012, developing web sites that were optimised for mobile browsing became the must-do project for marketing departments. Distracted by social media and the potential that lay within the mobile apps marketplace, 2012 became a catch-up year for those who didn't see this coming. Using your thumb to browse, watch, comment, purchase and share forced companies to look at what information was really important and what was the real goal of each landing page. This will go down as the year that truly brought the mobile revolution to the fingertips of every business.

Gone are the days that people asked the question, "are you online?" In 2012, it became the must-have item. Felt most acutely in the retail market sector, corporate advertisers took a holistic approach, dominating on search engines with content marketing campaigns that were woven into the fabric of their search optimised web and mobile sites. Seeding original content across multiple social networks, the question became "where is our audience" and "do we want the audience on this platform"?

Analysis of big data metrics put the science back into marketing departments that had been swamped with questions from CEO's across the country on "where is the return on our social media investment"? Social engagement, performance and interaction metrics closed the loop on quantitative data to determine digital marketing strategies and platform developments, as well as communications messages that were appealing to audiences.

Social media continued to put the audience in the driver's seat. Felt most acutely in the media industry, radio stations were slammed in Australia for communications that went against the tide of social acceptability, putting public relations (as well as customer services) into the social mix. The counterpoint were mobile apps from TV stations complete with social integration, driving terabytes of interactive data within seconds of programs going to air, creating an instant feedback loop on what was popular, liked or otherwise.

With the advent of Google+ and the various updates to the search engine algorithm (Penguin and Panda) public relations campaigns to build back links into web portals replaced the outsourced (to India) model that had precipitated in previous years. Companies that took the lead to build audiences on the fastest growing social media network of 2012 recognised the synergy that was created by providing audiences with quality content, leading to more +1's and it's correlation to improve SEO rankings. Video and images lead the content charge.

Small to medium businesses who can't afford to spend heavily on developing their digital assets and who did not have expertise in-house to keep up with the rate of change, focussed on external peer-to-peer networking, while dabbling in Social Media Marketing (SMM) mostly through Facebook and to a lesser extent on LinkedIn. When Google+ came along, many complained about "social media exhaustion" and opted not to follow their lead.

In the new economy, I firmly believe that every digital asset must set a strong foundation of search marketing in-order to generate qualified leads online. It appears that in some cases, the proliferation of social media disruptor technology has shifted focus away from the number one most reliable source of potential sales. Be that at their own peril. Search and social marketing initiatives must both be addressed to get the traffic to come and convert - audiences are looking for social proof when they arrive at their search result.

"Social proof of performance continues to influence audiences to convert them online."

+Markham Lane is available to help your company with an integrated digital marketing strategy that harnesses the power of search engine, social media and content marketing platforms. If you want to grow audience engagement, improve performance metrics and increase interactivity, contact him in Sydney on +61-414-446-660 for an obligation free initial appraisal.

Social Media Marketing Transforming Business

Digital and social media marketing continues to grow and evolve as the technology companies at the top end of the enterprise pyramid joust for position, affecting the way we communicate. Essentially lead by Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook, changes to the technology that we use in our personal lives is now affecting the approach business need to take to grab the attention of a society distracted away from traditional broadcast marketing platforms.

Some marketing gurus including Bill Lee, who is President of Lee Consulting Group and Executive Director of the Summit on Customer Engagement, argues that broadcast advertising, public relations, branding and corporate communications is dead, as these forms of communication do not engage customers in the buying cycle.

Along with Lee, Australia's own Geoff De Weaver, CEO of Touchpoint Digital and Author of "What is a Social Business" argues that traditional brand marketing is being replaced with social media communications because being social is intrinsically wired within the psyche of the human race - communicating with each other is the connecting tissue of our existence - and that information served up from people you know and trust is more likely to convert your way of thinking. 

It seems that Google agrees. Despite their domination of search engine indexing services, Google has changed their business model to build social media into their algorithm, with the following innovations:

• Google+ Launch: A social sharing platform integrated with their search engine.
• The +1 button: Think of it as a “like” for search results, website landing pages and Google+ posts. It all adds to your search quality score.
• Google+ Pages: Keeping your business top of mind with posts every 72 hours, helps to keep your keyword phrases top of the search index results too.
• Google+ Local: A social media extension to Google Places.
• Google Analytics Updates: New features include social media statistics, daily dashboard reporting and A/B testing for content experiments.

Clearly, the direction Google is taking is towards a social media integrated space, providing an online engagement platform that maintains timely updates to the rank results index.

Being “top of mind” in a digital environment is predicated on engaging an audience with information that provides an answer to the most basic question “Why?” as in, “Why should I trust you, believe you, interact with you, buy from you?” It is therefore the job of every digital business to conduct inbound marketing in a way that stimulates interaction, with a soft sell solution presented within the answer to this question.

The take out here is: Don’t talk about the great job you did, talk about why it was such a great job to do. Give the lesson behind the experience. Teach with your stories and solve problems.

As a global leader in the social media space, Facebook has also made changes to their business model, recently launching the “Timeline” while making changes to the Open Graph developer’s platform. The resulting shift in strategy has led to these changes:

• “Like” gates have been abolished: Without “Like” gates, the best way to attain more “likes” is to advertise on Facebook or (with varying degrees of success) get your audience to share your content on their wall and with their friends.
• “Promote” your posts: New forms of advertising to the people that “like” your page. Have your content appear on the Home page stream, for longer. This encourages engagement.
• New Facebook Insights, Includes “Reach”: The Reach of your content measures how far it is spread on the Facebook platform. Posts that are Shared, Promoted and Commented on have the greatest Reach.
• The new “Ticker” waterfall on your profile page: Displays live updates including comments, likes, photo uploads and status updates in real time from your friends, encouraging interaction while on your profile page.
• Pre-made Open Graph Applications: New Page tab applications to drive the outcomes your business needs. Sign-up for newsletters, add your YouTube channel, Nominate Your Fan of the Week etc.
• Custom Open Graph Applications: Engagement and Commerce. Reward your customers for interacting with and sharing your content with badges, coupons and exclusive deals. Sell products, services and tickets with f-Commerce.
• Hash tags now create rich snippets in the Facebook Open Graph: Use verbs to create buzz #listening #shopping #saving #cooking #watching.

Engagement is the new mode of operation on Facebook. The most successful and rewarding experiences for Facebook users are emotionally based conversations on topics that speak to the heart and that elicit passionate responses. Successful viral campaigns are built on emotional issues.

In a recent study conducted on Facebook, it was discovered that video is the most successful form of content shared and links (such as those to websites and blogs) are the least shared form of content. Photography receives the most number of “likes” and comments. Plain text status updates are generally not as popular as photographs for engagement, with a note that emotionally charged status updates are the exception.  

With the changes to the Open Graph, Facebook wants to become a hub for Apps developers. Multilevel games of skill are the most used Facebook Apps but the inquisitive will try something new if the promise of a benefit to them is perceived or offered. The issue that Games developers now face is how to transform simple Games of Skill to a deeper strategic game, to keep audiences engaged.

The key to Facebook marketing can be summed up as: Engage your audience, listen to what they want, interact with them in a human way; reward them for sharing and for providing you with insights and give them something unexpected in return to deepen the relationship.

Social Business through social networks

From a business to business perspective, content marketing works in exactly the same way. Empowering your audience with information that is relevant to their business, which solves the problems their business faces, drives traffic (if delivered in a public forum such as on Twitter and YouTube) and understanding (if in a closed user group, such as LinkedIn).

Throughout 2011, social media usage and platform services reached an all time high. The current figures for Australian users of social media networks are:

May 2012 Active Australian Social Media Users
Facebook	10,968,000	Number doesn't include multiple logins
YouTube	11,000,000	Unique Australian views, (not logins)
Blogger	4,030,000	Increased 30,000 in one month
Google+	2,208,000	User Accounts (not logins)
LinkedIn	2,200,000	Actively logged in
Twitter	1,800,000	Active users
WordPress	1,600,000	Down 200,000 in one month, update issues
Tumblr	1,200,000	Steady
Flickr	840,000	Down 80,000 in one month
Pinterest	560,000	Up 90,000 in one month
Instagram	423,000	Up 171,000 in one month due to Facebook

            Source: socialmedianews.com.au

It should be noted that there are some new players coming up the ranks in the social media market. If “content was king” before now, photos are truly the king of kings! The US$1Bn sale of the photo sharing social media application Instagram to Facebook has given rise to the total active subscribers of the application, in the largest rise in one month of any social media platform in the last twelve months.

Pinterest is also a noteworthy rising star – especially good at facilitating recommendations for high end products and services through the connectivity it creates with the hosting website, generating targeted leads. The average sale of a Pinterest lead is said to be twice as much as the sale from a Facebook one.

And finally, here’s the secret sauce that every marketing person can't live without. It's a little known Social Media measurement platform that assists with building up and engaging a network of highly influential brand advocates. It’s called Klout.

Think of Klout as the social media score card system, in the same way that the Google Quality Score works for SEO but applied at an individual level, based on campaigns conducted over the major social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. Now you can see just how well connected someone in your social media network is at performing campaigns based on their topics. Klout scores each person on their ability to influence people within their network, with daily score updates provided in a public domain. 

Klout offers savvy marketers an opportunity to meet and connect with highly influential brand advocates whose topics of conversation match their brand values. Recent updates to Klout help businesses identify and score the success of social media campaigns across seven major social media platforms. It's a great tool for rewarding your influence network too. If you haven't already, check out Klout.com and start adding influencers into your network and encourage them to engage with you by giving +K points on their main topics.  

Social media may be transforming the way we conduct our marketing activity but innovation in technology is the real catalyst for business transformation. Should your business need a marketing review, start a discussion with Markham Lane. Call +61414446660 and connect with me via my social media profiles - adding @MarkhamImages as an influencer on Klout will always get my immediate attention.

Infographic: Digital and Direct Marketing

An Infographic is the representation of a thought process and concept in graphical form to tell the overall story. The purpose of an Infographic is to show more than the words, so that the brain can use associative cognitive processes to absorb and understand the information being represented. When you read a thousand words, the time it takes to process all that information is much longer than looking at an image which portrays the same message.

In providing my engagement marketing and content production services, being original is the driving force behind everything I produce. I love being creative. And currently, the Infographic is taking off as one of the new "kings of content" in this digital revolution - probably because everyone is so time poor. I've got many different themes that can be used to show different messages, but in this example, I've just used one.

My first Infographic highlights the process of Direct Marketing and how broadcasting education was the fastest way to promote your brand out to the marketplace.

My second Infographic highlights the process of Digital Marketing and shows how user engagement is the fastest way to evangelise what it is you love the most, bring in your audience. 

There are many businesses who struggle to keep up with the demands that are placed on them from a digital marketing perspective, mostly because they're too busy making widgets and services that work better, cheaper and across larger markets. If that sounds like you, perhaps MarkhamImages.com can help? We live to help businesses succeed in an online world.

For more information, contact Markham Lane at m@markhamimages.com, in Sydney Australia on +61414446660.

PS: To all our brand advocates and people within our influence network, we heartily thank you for assisting us with sharing the love and spreading this message with your audience (which you can do below). We'd like to offer these Infographic services to you as a reward, at the "mates rates" special of 50% off our standard fee of AU$770.00 per Infographic. To claim this exclusive reward, just leave your business name in the comments field below and then call me on the number above.