BroadVision Marketing Blog

By now you have probably recognized the value of having prospective customers and clients find your business by searching on the Internet. And you likely have a good understanding that Search Engine Optimization (SEO), quality content, and the use of Social Media all play a part in making that happen.

A business blog might seem to be a no-brainer for most marketers and business owners. But beyond the fact that every company seems to have one, is there any real value in going to the time and expense of maintaining a blog? Are there any benefits that can translate into profitability on the marketing dollars spent for a blog?

I wrote an article about inbound marketing analysis and the Super Bowl last year that works just as well for this year's Super Bowl. It doesn't matter which side you placed bets on, the big winners were those brands that paid to be played during the half time. But this year there were some unexpected non-half-time players who scored big as well.

I was thinking about the social media inbound marketing strategy of Facebook advertising and how to use it to get leads to your website. I realized that this could become a three-phase process. I am going to assume that you have developed a Facebook Business (Fan) Page already as part of that strategy. If not, this is not the article for you to start with. We'll see you back when your inbound marketing strategy for social media indicates that you are Facebook ad-ready.

Did you think that you could just use social media to launch contests, promotions and branding campaigns on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest and people would flock to your site? Oh, Small Business Owner? You tried that? How did it work out for you? I have a hint for you about why it didn't work: There is a difference between Social Media and Social Sharing. But don't feel alone, plenty of local inbound marketing brands are in the same leaky boat because they don't know the secret I am about to share with you in order to activate viral sharing.

How do you stay popular in the most inbound part of local inbound marketing—knowing when to post to social media platforms? I find that there are two schools of thought on when is the best time to post to which social media. I am going to offer them both to you and you can use which ever you choose to stay popular in the Social Media World. The first school of thought is that you have to do your homework yourself. While there are helps for doing this, a lot of it is going to be trial and error.

Any business person not using social media to create awareness in his company’s products or services is not taking advantage of the best, low cost advertising tools on the market today. I hope you are not one of those lost souls. Demand generation strategy focuses on target marketing programs that result in customers. Social media marketing is one of the advanced generation programs that form lead generation which leads to those customers. So do you create the same approach for each social media? That won’t work. Before you can decide how you want to use demand generation strategies on social media you need to know who you are targeting.

Do you feel like you want to scream when you think about another article on how to create a social media strategy? Sarah Mitchell says she does in her article Why Creating A Content Marketing Strategy Is A Big Waste Of Time. Sarah says that social media isn’t worth anything without content unless you like to shoot the breeze. If you feel like screaming at yet another social media strategy blog, you are not alone. I don’t see how anyone can separate social media and create a strategy for it without connecting it to the other arms of the triumvirate--content and Search Optimatization (SEO), which all go everywhere or should. All three need to be interconnected to come up with a social media strategy that’s worth anything. Then you need to consider that social media has become a sales tool and a search tool in your social media strategy.

Have you counted the number of social media networks you are on? How many computers, tablets, netbooks, laptops, smartphones, etc., do you use to connect to these social media networks? How many times have you given “permission” to access your data to those networks? Do you know how many friends, not-so-close friends and work friends you have circled, grouped and filtered?

With Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, FourSquare, SlideShare and new social media growing and changing—do you ever wonder how anyone gets anything done all day? It eats into everyone’s day in a frantic, addictive time press.  What are we doing with our time?

Cui Bono

Do you know that there is another entirely different kind of marketing mix? We have covered the 4 Ps, two sets of 7 Ps, and a separate discussion of the P for People; but before we close the subject of marking mix we need to look at a totally different definition of marketing mix. Have you considered the marketing mix of using different media sources to market a product?