social stomper Googling Social

When products begin to host their own social media networks, you know two major market forces have merged to find an ever-wider circle of possible consumers and a platform to proselytize the product. So, to be sure, a funny thing always happens on the way to the forum — and the Facebook page and the Twitter page. When media and consumerism, those uneasy bed-mates, strike up a bargain of sorts, we the people are sure to be invited to one hell of an event.

To be sure, a viable marketing strategy for these latter days of Web 2.0 has been to link the homepage of major products and businesses to a social media website (Facebook has become ubiquitous — for now) it does beg the question of whether or not this is the wisest strategy. In some regards, these companies take their reputation management into their own hands.

Hosting a social media website dedicated to Product X makes it possible for fans and critics alike to post comments, start threads, and affect organic search results. To be sure, with the growing prominence of real-time search — and the wholesale appropriation of Twitter feeds in the SERP pages — it seems one bad comment could set off a wildfire of negative press.

It must be said that these comments, whether praise or condemnation, would have been hosted on other social media websites. Now comes a rather Machiavellian idiom: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Why allow another site to benefit from your company name? By hosting the social media channel or platform, you are indeed allowing negative posts to pepper your page. But, you are building a tremendous amount of consumer trust in doing so.

If you can be trusted to listen and respond evenly to criticism, you stand to retain and grow traffic and consumers. An even-keeled mea culpa is worth thousands of consumers. Allowing them to respond in kind is a tremendous means of dealing with potentially disastrous public relations incidents and can even entice the dissatisfied to a change of heart.

A prime example of the successful balance of product and social media can be found at Yoostar. While offering a revolutionary new technology, they have made it accessible by everyone.

Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on social media

Is Your Online Branding Important?

As the social spaces grow, there are more opportunities to increase your brand awareness and build on solid customer referrals, but the flip side is that there are additional opportunities for negative publicity. For this reason, businesses should be very aware of their online reputation and how this can affect their position within the SERP’s. As search engines push for more personalized, user based results, consumer attitudes and recommendations become more important, and help to shape your brand online. Don’t waste this opportunity to manage your brand with Social Media.

As a business owner, you should be concerned with your online brand, and it’s important that you carry a consistent message and control the information that can be found online. There are literally thousands of online mediums where a consumer can praise you for excellent work, or bash you for sub-standard service. Your responsibility is to monitor and know what is being said about your business online, and respond in a timely manner to either praise, or criticism. The following steps will make your job easier and keep your brand out of the gutter.

Using Social Media to Manage Your Brand - 4 Quick Tips

Use a company logo or the picture of your PR rep for your Avatar. This will help you to make sure that you have a consistent image across all social sites, and ensures that the image associated with your social presence is worthy of representing your company.

You want all images associated with your site to be the same, or at least managed by your team. Control is the name of the game here, and you want to make sure that the images that will be associated with your business can be taken down at a moment’s notice, and that they do not portray your business negatively.

Keep your eyes and ears open - Monitor your company name, blog and industry. Social news spreads fast - good, bad or otherwise. It’s important to monitor your company name, web address and social profiles, and it’s equally as important to respond quickly when someone questions or challenges your reputation. It’s often possible to resolve disputes if you respond quickly, and before the negativity spreads. Tools for monitoring your name or web address include Google Alerts and Twitter Search, among others.

Avoid accidental branding - It’s easy to wander through the social media scene without a clear cut message or purpose, and it’s also a bad idea. Everything you publish online is visible to the public, and remains there as long as the web property is live. Make sure that you are in control of the message you are delivering, and ask yourself if your post or image is something you would want a family member, friend, potential employer to find. If the answer is NO, then you probably shouldn’t publish it. People lose their jobs over Facebook pictures or blog posts, don’t let that happen to you or your business.

Want to start a Social Media Campaign to Help Your Brand?

For building relationships online and promoting your business, social media sites may very well be the best thing since email, but you have to do it the right way. Rather than jumping blindly into social media, it makes sense for a business to strategically plan their course of action and take into consideration the big picture.

Social media can reap huge benefits for the right business, with the right approach. Make sure that you are setting for the correct plan for social media so that you can not only manage your brand, but create lasting relationships with your consumers that will resonate for years.

It’s better to avoid social media than do it wrong. Hopefully these tips will help your business get started!

Want to find out more about Social Media Brand Management, then visit HighPoint Search Marketing to see all of our Search Marketing solutions.

Related Blogs

• Related Blogs on social marketing

Since it’s so new on the scene, Facebook has had unprecedented growth and expansion in just two short years. Similar to other social media sharing sites, Facebook allows chiropractors to network and connect to highly targeted groups of people in their community, thus expanding the reach of their chiropractic practice. The potential for leverage is unheard of. Every big company sees the writing on the wall, and they’re fighting to get in on the action.

Just recently, some of the big wigs from Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google were fighting to get a piece of Facebook’s success. Finally, Microsoft was the winner, dishing out an unbelievable 240 million to own a mere 2% of Facebook. If these big wigs see the writing on the wall, then chiropractic marketing should see it too. Here is the answer to finding success for your chiropractic practice. There are millions of people on Facebook, and even if a minute fraction of them see your information, you’re in for a wild ride of success.

When I first began teaching social networking and social media marketing to chiropractors 3 three years ago, Myspace was the big-boy on the block and Facebook was only for college students. The score has been evened, though, as Facebook opened up globally to everyone and now is a major competitor. Myspace has actually copied many things from it’s cut-throat competitor including the addition of live-feeds and separate and distinct applications. Chiropractors have never had a better opportunity like right now to brand themselves and reap massive financial rewards social networks like this.

Im not making a big deal out of social media sites like Facebook for years now just to improve my health! There are a whopping 140 million members on Facebook, with a whopping 200,000 more joining daily. The potential for chiropractic marketing success in such a forum is unbelievable. And its all completely free.

By starting a chiropractic marketing campaign on these social media sites, you’re meeting countless people from your community while creating credibility for your practice. Create a personal relationship with these people, and you better believe that you’re going to be the first person they think of when they have a chiropractic issue. When these people trust you, they’re going to be marching through your door seeking your services.

Not only is this form of chiropractic marketing totally free, but its also a fun and exciting process. Connect with people across the globe with keyword specific marketing. I have friends who have had great success selling their books by marketing for highly targeted niches and people of certain literary interests. This is just the beginning of whats possible. Make your profile personal with photos, songs, and videos that you enjoy. Poke people and send messages to others who enjoy the same hobbies and activities.

Google and Microsoft know that were on the edge of a marketing revolution using social media sites, so chiropractors need to get on the bandwagon as well. Begin today by starting your Facebook account, and explore the site to learn about all its fun options that allow you to connect with other people.

Begin to join groups that fit your profile on this site, and share your chiropractic story with them. Sell yourself as though you were a product, which you are, and people will become increasingly interested in you and your chiropractic practice. As your credibility and name grow in the community, you’re going to see countless new patients walking through your doors each month. All of this is for free!

For those of you out there wondering what the hell the # symbol is all about and how you can benefit from using the symbol in your tweets life has just got a little easier with the introduction of twitter twubs.

Twubs are something like squidoo lense in look although functionally a little different. As twitter becomes more and more mainstream they will certainly gain popularity so pay attention.

Why do we use hashtags? Simply to step outside of the noise and into a quiet area. To move from the mainstream mashup into a niche where we can connect, converse and communicate in less than 140 characters.

Twubs ahve given users that room and provided extra functionality with a group members area and other useful features to help your marketing ambitions. This is how.

Get to the twub first and it’s yours. This means you can brand it, add your RSS feed and links to your website.When fellow twitterers arrive in your niche you are already seen as the leader of that twub, an early adopter in your niche.

Twitter is growing fast and the noise out there can put a lot of people off and send them packing fairly fast. Do yourself a favour and find out how to use hashtags, join the party and find a suitable Twub to talk about your niche.