If you’re involved in Social Media Marketing in any form, you should read through this. It was compiled by Jeremiah Owyang who knows what he’s talking about when it comes to brands using social channels to interact with consumers.
As the front cover suggests (and this is something I totally agree with) “Brands lack maturity by not leveraging social features” and indeed if your brand is not leveraging the free social channels to interact with your customers, the chances are that you’re missing out. For a whole range of reasons why you should be using social media to interact with your customers visit the post that myself and RKTalks ‘collaborated’ on here.
In June this year the company I work for (LBi) asked me to do a case study on the implementation of social media in a much smaller vertical. It was easy to find the perfect candidate to interview – My local Hospiscare who thankfully have found that the implementation of social media/marketing into their tradition advertising has been simple and indeed the most obvious and cost effective way of targeting ‘like minded’ individuals.
Working for a large digital agency like LBi gives us the access to the campaigns of large companies and a knowledge of how brands are ‘sold’ through the different mediums we use.
It’s easy to forget that the web is not only the place for big brands though, it’s also a place where smaller clients and services can make a big impact. When considering the work we do at LBi it’s possible to see how aspects of our work are employed by local organisations on a much smaller scale.
Take the example of my local hospice.
They have a Twitter account and a Facebook page plus a fairly active community who spread the word about how the hospice is raising money and in the process raise awareness for fundraising activities. Plus if the engager is feeling particularly generous they might even give some money themselves. Essentially what has been created is a highly localized social media campaign which is driven by people wanting to help.
I have to admit however, that when I noticed that the local hospice had a Twitter page I was filled with mixed emotions: “Why does anyone need to generate ‘buzz’ around an organization which cares for people in their final moments”. Typical self righteous type! Call me a cynic or just say that I’m totally missing the point, but it did make me feel slightly uneasy.
I decided the best thing to do would be to contact the hospice and ask them why they had decided to put so much effort into creating a social presence for such a seemingly morbid industry…
I spoke to Amy Kilburn the hospice’s full time Communications Officer
“What exactly do you do for Hospiscare?”
“A large part of my work is within the fundraising function, supporting events, corporate FR, trust and grant applications. I am also responsible for the Hospiscare brand and internal communications. I produce all literature and display material, and administrate our websites.”
“I noticed you have a fairly active Twitter account, how did this come about?”
“I attended a couple of conferences – one from Inst. FR and LikeMinds in Exeter, and decided Hospiscare needed to improve its online presence, and could do so fairly easily. I started my own, private Twitter account to test it out (this was Goosgog). I started collecting local followers, and was monitoring for mentions of Hospiscare. Through this account I found I was actually working for Hospiscare, so after about 3 months I ‘came out’ and changed the account name to AmyHospiscare.”
“Aim?”
“To raise awareness of Hospiscare, in order to ultimately raise more funds and break down some of the common myths about hospices.”
“Has using Social Sites such as Twitter/Facebook etc increased the amounts of money you have raised as an organization?”
“I believe that social sites have achieved the aims above, and I’m sure this does translate to increased income, although it is difficult to quantify. It is basically another means of communication. I have found Twitter tends to be more individuals representing orgs, and Facebook to be more individual supporters – walkers, runners etc. read more…
A quality back link from a authority newspaper domain is a good thing to happen SEO wise if you are serious about building quality, authoritative links back to your own or clients site.
Take for example this fairly juicy anchor text link from a BBC news story on ‘how the recession is fueling insurance fraud’. In the ‘Related Internet Links’ section there is a link to http://www.insurancesearch.co.uk/home-insurance/.
Can you guess what the perfectly formed anchor text might be?!?
Now as much as it is a contextually relevant link, I believe it’s probably fair to say that this choice of ‘related internet link’ is slightly strange. I imagine a much more ‘suitable’ choice would be along the lines of say: Money Supermarket or even the dreaded (thanks to the advert!) GoCompare! But of course this is the internet and what is ‘suitable’ or not has generally been doctored with to the advantage of both parties!
However shady the creation of the link, for http://www.insurancesearch.co.uk/ the benefits to the backlink repertoire are obvious: A high quality, contextually relevant, natural and authoritative link back from one of the most visited sites on the internet. This at the end of the day is something all link builders should be trying to achieve…
Now a source at the BBC (who shall remain nameless) suggests a couple of reasons for why the BBC might have allowed such a link and I took the liberty to put forward my opinion to follow. read more…
