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All Inclusive Marketing: Leaders in Social Media Performance

affiliate marketing podcast If you want to improve your digital strategy as an affiliate marketer, exponentially grow your profits for you and your business, then this podcast is for you. Learn from the online marketing elite to reach your growth goals.

Welcome to the Digital Strategy Insights podcast with your host Sarah Bundy of All Inclusive Marketing. The landscape of digital and social media strategy has rapidly changed, which has been trying for some, but beneficial for those who have stuck to their guns.

Listen as this week’s guest, Alina Radinsky of All Inclusive Marketing, answers Bundy’s in depth questions on the ins and outs of social media strategy. Radinsky has grown a client base as the social media manager at AIM, ranging from non-profit organisations to ecommerce businesses. She is an expert on digital and social media strategy, as well as community engagement. She is part of an industry leading team, focussing on search, digital and social media strategies.

Sit back and relax as Bundy and Radinsky discuss effective social media engagement, how to improve the relationship with your desired demographic and your SEO with social media presence.

Grow Through Social Media

Growing your business through social media shouldn’t be a minefield, and Radinsky will talk about some simple ways to get a hold on your social media marketing. With a few strategic changes you can build a loyal following through social media. Thinking about your audience will help improve your social media presence and SEO ranking.

Thinking about the social media identity attached to your business is key to ensure social media works to your advantage. Engaging with your desired demographic in a strategic way will ensure you optimise this presence. It can be as simple as paying attention to what is currently trending, using the appropriate ‘hashtags’, or thinking about who uses different social media platforms and when.

The Goal is Key

When starting to use social media you should ensure you have a solid goal in mind, whether that is the CTR (click through rate) you want or cost requisition traffic. Having a starting point such as this will make the minefield of data analysis much easier. This week Radinsky will tell us:

Which social media platforms are best for my business?
How do I cope with limited bandwith/resources?
Is paid advertising something I should invest in?
Which key metrics should I pay attention to?
How does my social media presence affect SEO?
Can I make negative feedback positive?
Why am I failing to engage with my audience?

Take 20 minutes out of your day to find out the answers to these question and more. This is a snippet into all the benefits you will gain learning how to strategically use search, digital and social media. This knowledge is a necessity as even more businesses are using social media as a platform to increase conversion.

Mastering social media can be the best thing you ever do for your business. Engaging with customers through social media can be the key to getting your business off the ground. The advice Radinsky and her team can provide is the best, ensuring you build a strong presence on social media.

Are you ready to master your social media presence and audience engagement? Do you want to build your business with search, digital and social media strategies? Get in touch with a quick email to Radinsky at alina@allinclusivemarketing.com.

If you want a bite-size look into how you can improve your social media performance and digital strategy, take a moment to listen to the Digital Strategy Insights podcast. Then if you want to reach out to us at All Inclusive Marketing (www.allinclusivemarketing.com), you can visit the website, visit our Facebook page at Facebook.com/trusttheexperts or follow us on Twitter @trusttheexperts.

Sarah Bundy - June 22, 2015 - Social Marketing - alina radinsky, digital strategy, podcast, social media marketing - No Comments

The Enigma of Todays Social Media - Sharetize

I had an interesting meeting last week that a friend of mine in town set up between myself and a new company called Sharetize. I didn't know what to expect and frankly I didn't do a ton of research into them before we met, but after a run down from my friend the week before I was really curious to meet the founders.

After my meeting I found them to have the right idea of the direction buyers behave and influence each other so asked their CSO & President, James Faulkner, to send me his thoughts on the direction of social media today, how it's changing our society and how his new platform addresses those needs.

Here are his comments in relation to my questions above:

"As we all know the iterations of the internet are never-ending. This constant evolution creates a a myriad of complexities to understanding how it ticks each and every new week. As a founder of a social network marketing platform, I can tell you that I have heard all the angles, from the top advertisers in the world to the mom and pop brands. What I have come to realize is that the majority are, bless their hearts, lemmings! I respect the responsibility each and every person has, but at the same time as a culture, we have to realize that we hold the power, not the network monoliths.

In my travels I have run into an interesting cast of characters at ad agencies. I find that some not all, (most have been so helpful, thanks) so desperately try to hold on to the purest social media of yesterday. Which I suppose is valiant but yet strangely cavalier in the same breath. We have seen a tectonic shift in the power of ad distribution where fast thinking and innovation are key. Print is has gone from mainstream to niche, primetime is anytime, and Facebook has turned from a relaxing day in Central Park to Fourth of july at Disneyland. This is no ones fault but our culture… we have done this to ourselves, because we wanted to. Inherently we are all searching for meaning by the experiences that shape us. For the masses these nuances are wrapped up in brand experiences. Even our family activities are attached to who we are as a family, and how we are perceived. This search for identity is were brands have us down. They know what we want before we do. I remember buying my first iPad just because I was an apple freak, thinking "what am I going to do with this thing", now both my 65 year old parents are face-timing me on a daily basis.

So if we are so dependent on brands and the purpose that serve for our own identity, how do we discover new ones. If primetime is now a commercial-fee Netflix experience and the radio has been replaced by Songza and Vevo, our exposure to the repetitive barrage of brand messaging has disappeared. This was the cornerstone of advertising. Things have clearly changed.

In the past the mega channel conglomerates of radio, TV, and print were in control. Today the every single person is a micro channel and the holds the conch. We are in an awkward place in the evolution of this paradigm, because… Advertisers don't think the mega channels have any power, the mega channels are freaking out with their new found lack of punch, and the average person does not yet get the fact that their conch is a moneymaker. But this is today… and midnight is approaching. The dawn of tomorrows advertising methods are evolving like a time-laps of the seasons.

My company is in the micro channel business. We provide each and every person with a voice the equal opportunity to curate their own broadcast with brands that they not only like, but who value their voice. This is a good thing… because the public will decide just what messaging it will tolerate. When the culture chooses the advertising its people sees, foul play will be much mush less prevalent. Sure there will always be the sell-out, but that is the case with anything. Sharetize is my company, and we have really thought about our culture in its making."

About Sharetize: The Sharetize system leverages personal relationships to distribute marketing campaigns via social network conversations and connections. By leveraging these personal relationships, Sharetize social network campaigns are far reaching, targeted and effective. The Sharetize system is built by advertisers for advertisers and is designed to engage audiences in an authentic fashion.

This social network marketing system provides advertisers the ability to create robust campaigns which are then effectively presented by real everyday people who share the brands they love with their friends and connections. Sharetize compensates these people for their recommendations and referrals.

So, readers, what do you think this means for the future of affiliate marketing?

Sarah Bundy - February 26, 2013 - Social Marketing - james Faulkner, sharetize, social media - No Comments

Facebook Strategies - How to Get From "Like" to Buy

This is a live blog post from the Online Marketing Summit (#OMSummit). Session presented by Kevin Ryan of Motivity Marketing

Facebook Methodology

Photos and video still reign - and we like it!
Use meaningful photos
More sharing than commenting
links second most common media type. Status is least common
Potentially great for brands wanting to leverage influential word of mouth.

Three Essentials

Successful brands are focusing more on a posting quality than quantity.
Photos by far dominate as media type for engagement rates. Also tend to have high rates of sharing
Even large pages are still gaining fans at solid rates.

Facebook "Likes" are the click that keeps giving - one click provides awareness and engagement for a protracted period but direct attribution is difficult.

Determine if a relationship exists between search and social marketing, and if so, explain key traits of that relationship and determine potential campaign relationships.

Findings from Case Study

Significant correlations in the content / subject relationship between search and social.
Brand terms are some of the highest performing terms in both channels
Geographically-specfic terms perform similarly
Lifestyle attributes performance similarly across platforms

Tips

Mindless content stratégies don't work
Test and learn, lobby for testing budgets
Social insights map relevant content
Google subjects in social that could work in search, performance media (everywhere)
Strategic positioning among different social properties
Inform copy content for ad creative

Editor's note: Unfortunately the majority of slides were images and case studies that I couldn't translate into workable points. I think the idea is just test everything, have your plan mapped out but be flexible, have some budget to try things to find what works, and keep in mind best practices that focus on engagement and interaction more than anything else.

Sarah Bundy - February 14, 2013 - Social Marketing - 2 Comments

Establishing Your Brand and Maximizing ROI on Pinterest

This is a live blog post from the Online Marketing Summit. Day 2. Session presented by Danny Maloney of PinLeague.

What Can Pinterest Do?

Mobilize fan base
Attract new customers
Analytics and Data

What Pinterest Is (and Isn't)

Fastest to 10 MM monthly users - now 30 MM active monthly users
Average 175 repins on comments
Its NOT about status updates. It's about conversation and real time. The average tweet lives to about 20 mins. The average facebook page lives for about 80 minutes. The average post on Pinterest is still being tested, but it's averaging for over a week.
It's an online Pin-Board = why do people care? They express life events, home projects, shopping, gifting, education, self-identity. This is EXTREMELY relevant and important.
Pinterest makes Discovery and Planning social.
It's brand and product inclusive

What's the difference?

Twitter - What Im Doing
Facebook - Who I am
Pinterest - Who I WANT TO BE (which is an incredibly powerful concept from a marketing perspective)

More referrals per user, more revenue per referral. Twitter & Facebook vs Pinterest - Pinterst wins by 14 times more. Buyers have a higher average order value on Pinterest than on any other social network because it's based on aspiration (who a person wants to be vs a need).

Building Your Brand on Pinterest

Pinterest can be (and should be) your #1 social referral site.
Yes, it can work for B2B and B2G as well, you just have to figure out how it can work for you (graphically) and keep going at it - it will build over time.
It's FANTASTIC for B2C. - Top 1500 Brands are currently on Pinterest. You have to put enough time into it.
Early Brand "winners" remerging: Harper's Bazaar 4MM followers, Better Homes and Gardens 300K followers, Seventeen 175K followers, etc
Good news: Pinterest has started to promote early adopters! Bad news: This window of opportunity will close.
80% of focus is currently spent on company profile / boards HOWEVER 80% of buzz and revenue comes from USER Pins.

Maximizing Pinterest ROI

Step 1: Understand your audience profile

Step 2: Design content for the USER (make as list of 5 things they love, 5 things they have a hard time finding, 2 things about you = your first 12 boards)

Cover Photos are CRITITAL! First line of boards COUNTS! If your cover photos are no good, they will move on and not click through.

Step 3: Engage Your Fan Base

Integration.
Contests and Charity - "Pin It and Win It" - Note - have your contests run for LONGER than a week. Shorter term ones don't work well.
Cross promote - if you have something successful happen on Facebook or Twitter - use your success on one platform to cross promote that on Pinterest if it's relevant and interesting. Use Jeep as an example. They did something on Facebook that mentioned Pinterest in a contest and got 1000 Pinterest followers in 2 days and growth triples from 35 to 100 / week.

Maximizing Pinterest ROI

The Marginal Cost of growth on Pinterest is lower than Facebook. Pinterest is $0.01 - $0.40 per fan on Pinterest and $0.50 - $2.50 per like on Facebook.
Energizing your base in the fastest path to critical mass
Most companies use a single blast: this is a flawed approach
Engage users who haven't followed your or engaged with you yet
Use Pinterest data and analytics to track competitor data

Tip: Text 954 404 8008 with first name and email and get a free Analytics Pinterest account and a cool info-graphic 🙂 Woot!

Sarah Bundy - February 13, 2013 - Social Marketing - pinterest, social, social marketing - No Comments

How Social Media Affects SEO

Guest speakers at #OMSummit - CatFish of BusinessSol.com. Part 2 of How Social Media Affects SEO.

Blogging Recommendations

Blog posts are new pages of content that can be focused on new keyword opportunities or reinforce existing targtes
Blog posts topics are not constrained by current site architechture
Blog posts provide excellent internal link opportunities
New blog posts create new pages that slightly increase Page Rank
Too many blogs are under-utilized for internal linking purposes. This should be leveraged more (ie: If you mention dog food, link back to your dog food page on your site)
Make sure you include your main navigation template on all your pages - if you have 1000 - 2000 blog posts of pages of content and you don't have your global navigation in place, you could be missing out on TONS of SEO opportunity.

YouTube - Direct Impact

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.
Include the essential keywords in the title of your video and link back to them from your main site
Top listings in YouTube can drive considerable traffic
YouTube thumbnails also appear in regular Google / Bing search results
Number of views you have, number of embeds you have will impact how well they rank

Facebook Open Graph - Direct Impact

Facebook Open Graph Search is the new searching functionality that allows you to search Facebook profiles / pages.
Currently focused on people and places
Facebook Meta Tags for Open Graph can be implemented.
How usage varies from regular Google / Bing search remains to be seen
Facebook Open Graph search is still in Beta.
Incorporate these into your search strategy.

Links - Effect on Social Media

Most links found in social networks are rel=nofollw and o not boost regular search rankings
Occasionally profile links will be counted
Social media networks attract links by marketing good content to target audiences
The more friends and followers you have that share an interest in the content you are producing, the more potential links your content will receive when it's shared through those channels.
It's not about the quantity, it's about the QUALITY of these links and posts that count.
Focus on the people and opening communications, building relationships with individuals - this will have more impact than anything else.
The more relationships you have with people in your space, the better. Take an avid interest in what people in your space are doing. Offer thoughtful feedback and responses on their blog posts. Give them something of value to them.
The value of the bloggers is not just based on the content they write, it's in the relationships and networks of people they influence in the space.

Links - How Blogs Attract Links

Bloggers have a high propensity to link to 3rd party sites - web masters do not
Blog posts are typically more timely in nature and are focused on current events
Bloggers typically have personal relationships with other bloggers which increase the propensity to receive a link
The more personal relationships a blogger has with authoritative authors in their industry, the greater chance of receiving a meaningful link for any piece of content
Blog post are most effective from an SEO perspective when they have keyword focused internal links to relevant pages that taget high priority keywords
Guest blogging is one of the most effective link building exercises that also benefits your brand and authority.

Final Blog Recommendations

1. Ensure Blogging teams understand what pages target high priority keywords

2. Consistently imbed relvant preferred landing pages for your site into blog posts

3. Use your standard site navigation template for all blog pages

4. Ensure that blogs post are optimized for SEO, especially page titles

5. Make sure you have a link to your blog in your global navigation template

6. Train bloggers on SEO best practices so they can optimize content as it is created

7. Make back links a metric that bloggers are rewarded for

8. Add compelling info- graphics to important blog posts

9. Ensure that bloggers spend some time each week reading and commenting on target blogs to establish relationships

10. Ensure your bloggers spend time each week cultivating relationships with prominent bloggers

11. Create blog posts that offer an opinion or point of view on popular blog posts from other authors.

Sarah Bundy - February 11, 2013 - Social Marketing - blogging, SEO, social, social seo - No Comments

Stand Out Social Marketing What's It All About

This is a continuation of the session at #OMSummit, Day One, from 6 Keys to Stand Out in Social Marketing.

The way we communicate has evolved. Social Media represents the largest shift in communications in human history. We are in the midst of a revolution.

Evolution of Communication

1400's - printing press
1800's - telegraph (telephone)
Late 1800's - recordable media (radio)
1900's - TV
2000's - Mass Social Communication where your audience is now the content producer. Additionally, the audience is savvy and has moved from broadcast to dialog. Meaning we expect people to communicate directly with us.

Why are marketers sooooo excited about it?

Steps to Social Marketing Strategy

Develop a Campaign.
Identify Sources
Develop Compelling Content and Offers
BROADCAST!
and wait... (for people to respond to it) - then RESPOND!

White paper or schedule a webinar if you're B2B (might have a six month sales cycle)
Offers, coupons, discounts, polls, giveaways, etc if you're B2C

For businesses, marketing through social media is about:

Data that is driven by
Dialog and
Contextual Content within a
Community
Real Life Examples
Louisville Real Estate Agent - 30% conversion rate on leads sourced via Twitter!!
IBM - Generates millions by listening for leads
TrNet - listens for "events" and sells software through twitter
Roger Smith Hotel - attracts guests

What's at the Core?

Market Intelligence. Social platforms offer deep audience insights. The social breadcrumbs people leave online as they take actions and post content provide ripe insight for audience segmentation and targeting. Marketers that do this have a TREMENDOUS advantage over marketers that don't.
Social scoring = finding prospects and converting them to customers.

So How Do You Do It?

Social Prospecting - identifying conversions that could result in the likelihood of a sale. (Pay attention to brands, products, services, keywords related to what you do and what problems you solve).
Pay attention to the conversations and identify buying signals and listen for them.
Use Hootsuite to monitor on these conversations and identifiers.
Collect the publicly available profile information on the individuals engaging in your specific conversion.

Paint a picture of your prospect! Capture Profile Details.

Are they talking about topics we care about? Location, time, who they are talking to, etc.
How do you target specific targeted individuals?
Social Scoring - Develop tracking before direct engagement. (can take 9-12 months). Develop a behavioural score model.
Tweet with specific keywords, Tweet with corporate account. Joined Facebook group. Blog post on specific subject, and so on.
Define a path to purchase.

THREE STEPS TO SOCIAL MARKETING:

Monitor
Post
Engage

Target top XX influencers for direct engaegment
present list of cxx leads to sales team by region.
The benefits of social scoring
The social web becomes your marketing database
- identify buyers, prospects and leads
- tier your prospects lists and database bas don your rules
- target bvery specific groups and individuals for conversion

Case Studies

Foiled Cupcakes - 94% of sales come through TWITTER!! They send leads to the site, give away samples to her exact target market, talk to them about things women like (like shoes, kids, etc - it has nothing to do with cupcakes, but people build relationships with her then buy her cupcakes because they like her).
Jeep - They look for comments from people who talk about having kids and needing to upgrade their cars, wanting to buy a new vehicle, etc, capture their information then send them a personal message.
Ford gives 100 social influencers euro version of the Fiesta
Asked to track Missions via video and upload
6.45 millions views of Missions resulted in 10,000 car sales in the first 6 days.
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter - Reached out to the Ttop 7 Harry Potter bloggers who generated 350MM views

8 ROI Social Media Related Metrics

1. Conversions

easiest imporelentation = link append (http://mycompany.com/?q=LeadLource&fn=Link
Mask with vanity or bit/ly
Send through appropriate channel

2. Reach & Relevance

Sum of fans, followers and subscribers
Reach Velocity = Social Reach growth month over month

3. Interactions

Interaction = SUM (shares, likes, retweets, @replies, comments, fans, etc)
Interaction Velociaty = Social Reach growth month over month

4. Activity Ratio

Activity Ratio - # of intersections / social reach

5. Content Effectiveness

Comment to content ratio
Comment to profile ratio
Content to share ratio

6. Brand Sentiment

Audience Sentiment
Contributor Sentiment
Content Sentiment
Author Sentiment

7. Inbound Links

Total number
Authority Domains

8. Influence

Influencer score
Influential tipics / areas

Summary of 5 Steps to Stand Out Social Marketing

Pay Attention
Interact & Engage
Know your audience, intimately (prospecting, profiling and scoring)
Follow the big 3 of Monetizing Social
Optimization and Improve with social ROMI etc

Tools for social scoring

Monitoring tools so you understand what your audience is saying.
Purchased tools that do this
Hootsuite
Still an emerging marketing so there are not tons of free or inexpensive tools out there yet.

Sarah Bundy - February 11, 2013 - Social Marketing - Metrics, social, social marketing - No Comments

6 Keys to Stand Out in Social Marketing - Part 1

social media icons how to stand out I'm currently live blogging at the Online Marketing Summit (#OMSummit) and am in the first workshop on day 1 called "Stand Out Social Marketing" presented by Mike Lewis, Author of Stand Out Social Marketing.

Here are my notes from the first part of this three hour workshop:

Here are the six stand out strategies that will make you hugely successful in the social space:

1. Pay Attention

Listen to your customers and understand them on an individual basis. Don't be general. Speak with people and care about them. This shoudl be the heart of your social strategy. It involves paying attention to behaviours and individuals.

Key Concepts: Social Prospecting + Social Scoring

Traditionally....

- Broadcast messages through multiple channels
- Collect data and demographically target
- Open stores in areas of audience concentration
- Drive people to online or offline purchases

2. Interaction

- If you are trying to get more people into your extended audience - share photos and videos.
- If you're trying to get more passive fans, who are silent observers, ask questions.
- If you're trying to get more moderate interactors who are regular engagers, consistency is key.
- If you are trying to get more active interactors, who are your top fans, make them companions (guest blogger, reward them for shares, give them public props, etc)
- If your'e trying to get influential interactors, influencers who are active with your brand, you guest post with them.

3. Content

Focus on the needs of your prospects, not the needs of your company. Repurposing content to drive additional interactions - solve someone's problem.

Promote your content across multiple channels. If you are sharing your content in only one channel such as twitter or facebook and not pushing it in multiple channels in different ways, you are doing yourself a major disservice. Engaging in 3 channels or more significantly increase the chances of shares, views and engagement.

Check out Marketo.com's website - they do a great job with their social marketing and content development and distribution.

4. Presence

Build and manage your brand persona. It's hard to humanize your brand if you're B2B. But create a stand out persona that thrives on interaction and posting distinctive content. Red Bull does a great job with this.

Be on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, etc, but BE CONSISTENT in your messaging. Check out Mashable. They do an outstanding job and engaging on an individual basis.

5. Management

The only way you can have a hugely successful social campaign is to have the right management behind it. Have someone dedicated to these channels. Collaborate and manage internally. Be organized, have a plan, know your voice.

6. Measurement

Social ROMI - Return on Marketing Investment

Overall social marketing contributiosn to the business over time (Usually year over year)

Add all marketing
Determine contribution to results
Calculate ROMI

Social ROMO - Return on Marketign Objective

Specific social merit contributions to customer engagement and sales (usually campaign based and short term).

Calculate Lead Gen
Determine Contribution to Results.

Sarah Bundy - February 11, 2013 - Social Marketing - #OMSummit, OMS, social - No Comments

Gary Vaynerchuk on Social and Mobile in Performance Marketing

Gary Vaynerchuk and Sarah Bundy on Social and Mobile in Performance Marketing Wow. How many of you have heard Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) speak in person? I hadn't until yesterday and My God, what an incredible experience. I took some notes from his presentation and recorded the talk to digest it again later, but what really struck me right off the bat was his message about the shift in the way our society communicates and markets. I've heard it all before from a million other places - social and mobile are the ways of the future, but for some reason, it didn't really impact me until my hour with him.

What I took from his talk is the immense opportunity of the affiliate marketing space coming in social and mobile marketing, more so than in search and coupon affiliates, both of which are currently dominating the industry. I see a light at the end of the tunnel for those feeling stuck by over saturation and push tactics, or affiliate programs dominated by coupon and loyalty sites.

Social and mobile WILL be the future. It might take 3 years to get there - it might take 10, but the bottom line is the shift is already happening and we have to learn as individuals, companies and an industry how to adjust for that change and embrace it. I see many affiliate managers, OPMs and agencies working against their own social media and PR teams. We have to stop that. We have to find a way to make it work together and understand how to merge the synergies of these teams together.

Affiliate marketing has the same opportunity as social and mobile because it incorporates and rewards affiliates using those efforts as much as other channels. Affiliate marketing will not go away - it will continue to grow, however it too will have to be ready to shift from search and daily deal centric to social and mobile centric over the next few years.

Regardless, it will be exciting to see push marketing become pull marketing more and more, where one person on twitter can have more influence than an global corporation with a $100 million marketing budget.

I'm looking forward to reading Gary's books: Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion and The Thank You Economy and hope to shake his hand again in the near future.

Gary, I know you won't forget - 5 Years. We'll keep in touch 😉

Sarah Bundy - September 28, 2012 - Social Marketing - 2 Comments

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