My Le Bui's Social Media Adventure

Posts Tagged ‘promotion’

Idea #1: Exchange link with other bloggers

Description: Reaching out to other bloggers that are writing about the same or related topic as my blog.

Rationale: I believe that if you connect with other bloggers in the blog community, they’re more likely to link back to your site if you do the same.  People will be grateful for you in appreciating their blog post by linking to it. You can link to their blog by writing a blog post about a round-up of your favorite blog or you can create a sidebar at the side to feature them in. Links are more helpful than most other forms of sharing as they assist with rankings more.

Achievement: By linking to other blog and having other bloggers do the same in return, you will therefore create more traffic toward your site. I hope to get more readers interested in what I have to post and hopefully link back to my blog site.

Measurement: I will know if this is a proficient approach by measuring the increase of traffic to my blog. I will do this through either Google Analytics or Sitemeter, which provide the breakdown of my site activities.

Idea #2: Bookmark my blog post on Delicious

Description: Create a delicious account and share my blog link to a community of like-minded individuals that’s on the lookout for interesting news.

Delicious is a social bookmarking website for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks.

Rationale: I think it has the ability to send traffic to my blog post.  I believe social bookmarking website have high influential power among its community. People trust their own peer’s recommendation.  People usually trust the knowledge you have accumulated. If I blog about a particular topic for so long and continuously post interesting and substantial blog post to Delicious, then eventually the number of bookmark will increase.

Achievement: I hope by sharing my blog content on Delicious that other people will find it interesting by visiting my blog or sharing it with other people.

Measurement: I can determine the success of this approach by examining how many people share my Delicious content in addition to an increase in traffic to my blog.

Well-Known Brand

 I have decided to pick Victoria’s Secret as the brand I will be investing on their social media effort. There is no doubt that Victoria’s Secret is a powerhouse fashion and retail brand. The brand has focused its social media efforts on where its fans already are accessible: Facebook and to a lesser magnitude because of the limitations of the platform, Twitter in addition to YouTube. An immediate verification to the brand’s social media activity is the noticeable 12 million plus of Facebook fans. If judging from that number alone, Victoria’s Secret social media efforts could be confirmed an accomplishment. However, the brand has done much more. Utilizing all the means offered to commercial Facebook users, including, most staggeringly, customizable page tabs. The page encourages comments and it gets them probably over on average of about16,000 comments per status update.

Something on a Smaller Scale

For something more local which is also my favorite childhood memories is the Philadelphia Zoo.  What truly capture my attention is on their homepage a section of links to their social media outlets. Their social media outlets include: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Each link is in a form of an image icon with animal attached to each one. The Philadelphia Zoo social media effort focus on connecting followers with fun and interesting information relating to the zoo such as photo of the week that consists of various animal from the zoo itself. There are uploading of videos that capture all the wonderful events and animals. Followers do engage in conversations by sharing their thoughts and ideas when asked.

Evaluation

I believe both Victoria’s Secret and the Philadelphia Zoo did a remarkable job on their social media communities. Especially Philadelphia Zoo for incorporating their social media into their website so visibly while Victoria’s Secret social media links on their website is not really out there (it’s all the way at the bottom of the page). On top of that, Victoria’s Secret only promotes Facebook and not Twitter or YouTube which they do have presence on. Both have dedicated followers who interact within these various social media communities. The right balance is maintained through engaging their target audiences with information, encouraging dialogue rather than just having them at the receiving end.

The purpose for these companies to have social media presence is to involve their customers with their brand. Social media obsession is sweeping the world and has taken over traditional media to a large degree, due to its immediateness, influence, knowledge sharing and networking. I believe the key to measure the success of your social media effort have many factors. Traffic is the more obvious ways of measuring social media, but you must remember that quality often beats quantity. Participant is a valuable indication for success. Engaging followers is a highly valuable one. It’s key to improving satisfaction and loyalty rates and revenues.

A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization. It’s individual, and it’s based on emotions and not driven by marketing messages. So by having an official and strong presence on social media channels is vital to businesses nowadays.

Q1. In our reading last week in The Starfish and The Spider, it talked about the role of ideology in the decentralized organizations. When Christine talks about “fellow believers” do you think she means the same thing as ideology?

The concept behind an “ideology” and “fellow believers” are quite similar. The belief of ideology is that it’s a sense of belonging to a community. This notion is parallel to the idea of having fellow believers as Christine Cavalier mentioned in her blog post. By structuring a setting where you’re bounded by people who will embrace your idea and make you feel like you belong to the group is the same as being surrounded by people who believe in your brand, aka fellow believers. Yes, I do think there is a connection between the two.

Q2. Reading through the specific suggestions on how to search, share, and support which ones make the most sense to you? Are there any you are ready to go ahead and try?

After reading through Christine specific suggestions on how to search, share, and support, I would say the sharing segment is what stand out the most to me. By sharing contents with your community, you are showing them what your brand is all about. As marketing major, I know that a brand is about the image and personality it portrays. Therefore, you must have a story to share to other in order for people to connect to your brand.

“Give the believers some branded products that can be downloaded so they may freely show their personal identification with your brand.” This is interesting, not sure if it will fit with every product/service but it is well worth a try.

Q3. What is your overall reaction to the contents of “How to Build Community Online”?

The contents of “How to Build Community Online” are very useful for anyone that wants to build a true online community. Christine wrote in her blog that, “any true community is already sold on you, your brand, your profession or your product.” I strongly agree to this statement with a much emphasis on “true community.” Often time, I see online community where all they do is selling and promoting which gets annoying overtime. I do believe in some selling is fine, which is part of the reason businesses create these online communities. But they’re smart in approaching it. The most successful ones are those that sell only 20% while the remaining 80% is providing relevant engaging information for their followers. That’s the only part I would disagree in Christine’s post. Some selling is necessary but it must be handle – cautiously.