Learn more about creating a LinkedIn marketing strategy

Follow us on LinkedIn

Depending on the size of your company you should always remember that your Facebook business page is just one tactical element of your overall marketing strategy and your comprehensive social media plan. Whether you are small one-man operation or a  large global marketer you must put together a social media plan that states why you are using social media, including Facebook and other channels such as Twitter, Slide Share, You Tube, and LinkedIn. What are your goals and expectations? How will the time and money spent on social marketing benefit your organization? If you are not sure where to start, consider working with a professional marketer to help create your plan.

(from Facebook ‘Best Practices Guidelines’)

Facebook Marketing Solutions helps marketers create rich social experiences, build lasting relationships, and amplify the most powerful type of marketing – word of mouth.

1. Build a strategy that is social by design

Social media is about people. Friends, followers, and fans will be involved with your brand, products, and services up close and personally. Your Facebook Wall should be used to inform, advise, and add value to those who follow your company. Be prepared to communicate with them directly while the rest of your Facebook universe watches and reads. Listen and monitor what they say about you and respond to questions and comments professionally as quickly as possible. Managing your page is totally different than running a magazine or newspaper general awareness ad. Be ready to communicate directly and rapidly.

2. Create an authentic brand voice

Followers and fans want to feel like they are communicating with a person, NOT a brand or a company. Unlike other “non-social” advertising and communications, your Facbook voice should be casual, comfortable, and “human”. Your Facbook voice may be friendly and familiar where your Twitter, LinkedIn and other social voices are more serious in tone. Each social channel has its own flavor and your audiences will vary from one platform to another.

3. Make it authentic

Save the canned spam and mindless blatant self promotion. Listeners will tune out. Show concern for others and share with your local and wider community. Offer advice and try to help others.

4. Nurture your relationships

The Facebook fans who comment on your Wall and ask questions are marketing gold. Always be courteous and appreciative. Develop these relationships on and off-line. Invite these people to company events or ask them to help test new products and services. Send them an occasional gift certificate. Show them you value their input. They will become evangelists of your brand. They will provide terrific word-of-mouth.

5. Keep learning

Facebook and other social channels undergo frequent changes. A great site for staying abreast of changes is www.mashable.com. Stay informed of the latest tools and listen and learn from your followers. They are your customers, advocates, and allies. Understand what is important to them and what they respond to on your Facebook page. You will make mistakes. Learn from those too.

Like every other part or your business, social media and your Facebook business page require a well thought-out strategy to understand how it fits within the big picture. Make sure you you know the how’s, why’s and what’s before you get started.

Most of us recognize the significant role that social giant LinkedIn plays matching job hunters and recruiters together. It’s a benefit and a powerful tool for both parties. However, what about all of the other information we post and respond to on Facebook, Stumble Upon, Twitter, You Tube, Slideshare, etc… from behind the safety of our keyboards and monitors or smartphones? It appears that the online identities we create do not live entirely within a secure, protective bubble. Who knew? This social info can actually come back to bite us in the butt when searching for a new gig.

Erica Swallow writing for Mashable.com reports that a recent study finds “more than 90% of recruiters have visited a potential candidate’s profile on a social network as part of the screening process.” That is a staggering number. I would say this qualifies as the norm now. The impact of which upon active social media users can surely be guessed. It is the new “social background check.”

So, should job seekers unfriend, dislike, and unfollow all at once? Probably not but you should be aware that others are reading and judging you based on what you write and the way they perceive your on-line personality. Be aware that your next career move may hinge on that racy You Tube video you posted.

One more tidbit from the study: “…a whopping 69% of recruiters have rejected a candidate based on content found on his or her social networking profiles.” I think we already knew this bomb was coming. So beware if a new job hunt is in your near future.

Read Erica’s article [INFOGRAPHIC] here: http://mashable.com/2011/10/23/how-recruiters-use-social-networks-to-screen-candidates-infographic/

Why do you need a creative brief?

Planning an effective advertising campaign starts with the writing of your creative brief. This outline provides a road map for your creative team so that designers, copywriters, artists, and other team contributors are all on the same page from start to finish. Along with a review of previous campaign successes and failures, the brief is crucial when preparing to communicate your brand’s main message.

The creative team working on your ad campaign needs to understand what your company is all about and how your products or services compare with the competition. Finding that unique advantage and creating your own company brand image is what separates you from the pack. It’s called your marketing position and ‘positioning’ is often what separates a great ad from a mediocre one. It’s your creative team’s job to identify your unique position and communicate it through your advertising campaign.

Example: Avis “We’re #2. We try harder.” Apple Computer ”Think Different”.  Burger King “Have it your way”.

Key elements of your creative brief

1 ) Background

What’s the big picture? Describe your company and its place in the market to our team. Have any recent changes affected your brand, image, or marketing?

Who is the ad talking to? Who is our audience?

2) What is the objective, the purpose of the ad?

Clearly explain what you expect the ad to do for you. How should the ad make people feel about your company and your message or offer?

What specific action do you want the audience to take after experiencing your ad?

Example: Click on a website or landing page link. Call a telephone number to receive more information, or maybe sign up to attend a free seminar.

3) Target audience: who are we talking to?

Again, the more precise you can be, the better. Go beyond age and sex to describe demographics, psychological characteristics, and motivations  if possible. Explain how the audience currently thinks, feels and behaves in relation to your industry and to your product specifically.

Example: Our primary target audience is male, 25 to 35 YO, college educated, employed. The target is approximately 30% married, with income of $55k on average.

4) What’s the most important thing to say in the ad?

What’s the single most persuasive or most compelling claim we can make in your ad to help move our target to action?

Keep this short, preferably a simple sentence.

5) What other reasons are there to buy?

What information, research, factual claims, or evidence can we use to support our main message? Why should they believe the ad? Where is the proof?

Is there a special offer, sale, discount, or other timely call to action? Explain the specifics of this offer so everyone understands the details.

Do you have client testimonials or reviews we can use?

6) Creative Schedule & Deliverables

Provide a time table  of what is due and when,  for both the initial concepts and finished art. Example:

1. Date _________initial creative review of rough sketch ideas.
2. Date _________review revised creative. 
3. Date _________client creative & media presentation. Full size, full color.
4. Date _________ print ads delivered to publication.

Related: Need a Design Brief for Web Design?

For reference, here is a link to a Design Brief tamplate used by our web design partner MH1 Web Design in The Woodlands, Texas. This is targeted for a website design or re-design but many of the same elements are involved as in any good advertising creative brief.

When Choosing An Ad Agency, Don’t Consider Size; Consider Collaboration

http://www.fastcompany.com/1774758/when-choosing-an-ad-agency-dont-consider-size-consider-collaboration

in Fast Company Magazine – @fastcompany magazine on Twitter.

_____________________________________________________

My thoughts…

Clients are always looking for the same thing — how can you make their life easier. Create good work that helps them meet sales or other goals and do it for less. Launch a new brand, product, or service. Build an audience where there isn’t one, etc… As my good friend Curtis Schlough  with Brochure Builders says, “Solve their problem.”

Small agencies are often more adept at collaboration on design, marketing, and other advertising or PR issues that benefit the client. While big agencies have greater resources they too rely heavily on specialists and contractors behind the scenes. Often there just aren’t as many layers of middle-men working with a small agency. Of course we all realize that smaller advertising firms will often be willing to do more and bend over backwards for the same account that a larger agency may brush off. The best philosophy for a small agency is “Stay lean, Stay hungry.”

Clients want fast, responsive marketers that make them feel like they are the agency’s ONLY client and that minor miracle of account service is no easy feat for a large agency or a small one. Agency work cannot exist in a vacuum today. Creatives have to be flexible enough to share and explore concepts that benefit the client. This often means sitting at the same table as folks who are technically-speaking — competitors. If you are a small agency like us, you will check your ego at the door and do whatever it takes to find that solution for your mutual client.

Mike Hallaron
www.HallaronMedia.com

August 25, 2010 by Nate Erickson
SproutSocial.com

The Twitter world is a community with its own language.  As a result, you may encounter a variety of terms you may not yet be familiar with, as some of these terms were coined by the users themselves.  Cool, huh?

What is a Tweet, anyway?

Any post on Twitter is considered a Tweet, whether a post, reply, link, or a location-update (more on this later).  Tweets have a maximum of 140 characters (due to SMS/mobile constraints) and are typically shown along with the username of the individual who wrote it.

Timeline

The term timeline or stream is used to describe the flow of messages seen by users, or messages from a specific user. Timeline is typically used to reference the public messages (tweets) from users who you follow.  When visiting your profile on Twitter.com, users will see your timeline, or chronological list of all the messages you have sent.

Mentions or @’s

The @ sign is used to identify, mention or reply to other users on Twitter; the way you communicate on Twitter. Each username is unique and by prefixing another user’s name with the @ sign (ie: @username), Twitter creates a link to their profile and also adds the tweet to their reply column.

If you want a specific person to see your message, you’ll want to include their @username in the message.  Even if they follow you, they may miss it otherwise.

Tweets that begin with an @username primarily only appear in the timeline of users who follow both the sender and recipient, though anything other than a direct message (below) should be considered public.  This allows users to communicate back and forth without having all of the messages appear in their followers timelines, which can get noisy.

If you want a message to be read by the recipient and anyone who is connected to both of you, start the tweet with the @username.  If you want it to be seen by all of your followers, start it with something else.

Following

Following is the term used in Twitter to indicate a relationship with another user.  By following a user, you will see updates they post in your timeline.  Following is similar to the concept of ‘Friends’ on other social networks, with one primary difference: users don’t have to consent for you to follow them.

Following someone has two purposes in the context of business; the first is to stay updated when someone posts new messages, the second is a way of introducing yourself.  Commonly, on the Twitter network, when someone follows you, if you are interested in connecting with that user, you will follow back.  It’s a low-pressure way to encourage users to make you part of their network and timeline.

Re-Tweets

You may see the letters ‘RT’ appear from time to time on your Twitter feed. These will almost always precede another username (ie: RT @username message). This is a Re-Tweet. It’s generally used as a way of “seconding” or giving context to a public reply to what someone said.

You’ll also see a new for of Re-Tweets that appear a little differently (it’s different from place to place). This is usually accomplished with a single click, and users can’t edit the original content.

Since standard replies are only seen by you, the individual, and those following both users, the RT can come in handy for your business if a customer or client asks you a question that you think others may be interested in the answer to as well.

You may also want to RT interesting articles posts that your users might like, praise about your business, etc.

A best practice when posting tweets that others may want to share is to leave enough characters to Re-Tweet them.  When someone uses the RT format for reposting your message, it will include (at least) the RT and @username characters.  It is best to keep tweets around 120 characters to ensure people can easily share them.

#Hashtags

Similar to blogging, tweets can be tagged to create context and add to a discussion already taking place.  Whether you’re at a business conference, discussing a piece of news, or rolling out your own product, you can associate your tweets with a specific topic by using hashtags.  One example would be the 140 Characters Conference (#140conf), or a brand name like #Apple.  In most Twitter applications, hashtags are turned into links, allowing users to easily see all tweets that include that identifier.

Adding hashtags to tweets can be a useful way of letting readers know that they pertain to a certain topic, location, etc.

Direct Messages

Direct Messages, or DMs, are the private messages of Twitter. This is the Twitter equivalent to email. Only you and the recipient can read these messages. You can only DM users if they are following you, but you do not necessarily need to be following them.