Social Media Marketing That Works

More than ever, customers are going online to find everything from products and services to discussions and relationships. But something is very different about the Internet these days. No longer can you rely on a simple website and call it your online marketing campaign. In the “distributed web” you need know your customers and where they are congregating and talking about their issues. The social web, and specifically, social marketing, is where it’s at. You must know how to use it effectively in order to succeed in today’s online environment.

Take The Confusion Out Of Social Media Marketing

The Surefire Social Marketing System knits together powerful social web marketing concepts, platforms and tools into a proprietary design to help companies like yours become an authority in your niche. You’ll have a large digital footprint all over the distributed web, driving customers and prospects back to your website, so that you can increase traffic and leads that convert to paying customers.

How do we do it? By plugging you into our social marketing system that helps you to deploy a large distributed “content pump,” literally driving qualified buyers to your business.

Why should you trust our system? Because we have developed the Surefire Social Marketing System from years of experience launching and maintaining Internet and Web 2.0 lead generation, customer-interaction platforms that create market leaders. Are you the next great market leader?

Designed To Meet The Needs Of Organizations Of All Sizes

We created the Surefire Social Marketing System to offer two options to meet the needs of any business regardless of size:

1. “Done for You” Consulting and Services
2. Do-It-Yourself eBook/System

Our consulting services let us get up close and personal with your business so we can create and implement a very personalized and streamlined social marketing launch plan. We will then launch the social media campaign for you and then train you and your staff to take over and maintain the program.

Remember, in this new normal world, you can’t just launch and run a campaign. You need to stay involved consistently and create new content to feed your presence in the distributed web. Social Marketing also cannot be completely automated because customers and search engines will detect it and the effort will be useless.

If you have a system established, this is much easier to do. We will establish the system for you and teach your team how to continue to build momentum toward market dominance in your niche.

Smaller companies can get all the benafit or our social marketing system and big-time experenice in an affordable an do-it-yourself approach, the Surefire Social DIY 20-Day Guide To Successful Social Media Marketing. This resource is designed to have you well on your way to social media success for your business in 20 days. We also support you with an exclusive membership to the Surefire Social Total Access Club where you will have a library of videos that will teach you exactly how to implement the tactics outlined in the book and comprehensive resources for everying you need to dominate your market using social media marketing.

Through the “Surefire Social DIY 20-Day Guide”, Marketing Expert Chris Marentis provides advice and insight that people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars—all at a fraction of the cost.

The primary goals of the eBook include:

• Providing you with a DIY action plan to turn around your marketing strategy in 20 days by incorporating social media marketing.
• Showing you how to implement the action plan with proven strategies you can apply on your own when it is convenient for you.
• Inspiring you with real-life examples of people who are using the system.
• Walking you through the process of acting upon your action plan.
• Get results quickly!

We will also provide buyers of the book one month free access to the Surefire Social Total Access business builder portal. This new distributed web-marketing phenomenon is changing quickly and you need to stay on top of these changes to stay current and relevant. You can plug into the changes quickly and have access to online video tutorials to implement the principles outlined in the “Surefire Social 20-Day DIY Guide”. Imagine having the support you need to implement your plan on your own time whenever you need it!

You don’t have to do it all on your own! With the right tools and information, making social media marketing a major and successful part of your marketing plan is possible. Whether you are just getting started with a new business or trying to turn around an existing business that isn’t workign to it’s potential, Surefire Social Marketing System put you on a completly different level.

Use Digital Forensics To Dominate Markets

In a time of uncertainty, how do you make sure you are taking advantage of every opportunity and continue to thrive, while your competitors stumble from one new tactic to the other?

Before launching any social media marketing program, we apply the powerful principals of our Digital Marketing Compass system. This business research and planning system uses a proprietary process to reverse engineer the “digital footprint” of your customers, competitors and your own brand or service.

The best part—we can show you how to strengthen your brand positioning by building a firm foundation based on how this process reveals hidden opportunities.

• Step inside the mind of your best customers and find out how they are searching for solutions in your niche.
• Identify the top ways your competitors reach them and what they are using to convert buyers.
• From this information, we will create your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and carefully researched keywords and phrases that will be threaded throughout the various layers of your distributed web campaign.
• You’ll even learn what new products and services you can add to your business to increase the lifetime value of your customers.

Using the Digital Marketing Compass system with GenNext Media, you can build or re-launch any type of product or service business. The really good news is that you no longer have to create products and marketing plans without knowing if they are going to be effective or not.

Digital Compass will validate profitable niches with proven customer behavior.  You will have insights to establish an overwhelming dominance in your niche by out positioning your businesses against your competition.

The three phases of this process work to provide a straight-forward method for starting-up a new business or taking your current business to the next level as quickly as possible.

Here’s a brief overview of how each phase fine-tune’s your business marketing plan to be more effective:

Phase One: Identifying the right audience for your products and services. It is important that your target market contains hungry customers who are lined-up ready to buy. In this phase you will:

• • Define target prospects and determine how they are experiencing pain, urgency or a passion regarding a specific issue related to your niche.
  • Determine if these prospects are actively seeking solutions and where they are going, and what they are searching on, to meet the need. What competitive businesses are providing services for them?

Phase Two: Once your target market is defined we focus efforts on in-depth research and analysis, listening to prospective customers’ purchasing behaviors as well as what your competitors are doing. We will zero in on important questions, such as:

• • • What are target customers already buying?
    • What are they saying in forums and blogs?
    • What is the competition doing that works?
    • What keywords and phrases are competitors trying to dominate in SEO versus keywords and phrases target customers use in search engines?
    • Find competitive weaknesses and dominate.

Phase Three: Move from research to action. Take all the information gathered and organized in the first two phases and apply them to the business marketing plan:

• • • Identifying your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and the specific product and keyword positioning that gets you to the top of your niche.
    • Applying what competitors are doing successfully to your own business strategy.
    • Identify the best customer converstion mechanisms and landing page strategies to drive traffic and engage target customers.

Phase Four: Develope a content distribution and customer converstion strategy that will attract customers and develpe a following for your business. Key components to this step include:

• • • Identifying what content is working for other businesses in your niche and then focusing on innovating to provide customers a unique, valuable twist.
    • Create a systematice approach to content development that reinforces the brands USP and keyword positioning.

To get to the next level in your business marketing or to get started on the right foot, the Digital Marketing Compass can take you where you need to be to become a powerhouse and authority in your niche. This is the first step to take when you are preparing to launch your new marketing effort in the distributed web.

Learn more about the Digital Marketing Compass in the Surefire Social DYI System. We also perform this service for every client that uses our Surefire Social “Done for You” marketing program.

Social Media ROI

eMarketer had a terrific report today about social media ROI.  The fact is more businesses are employing social media marketing every day.  The problem is they are not doing in a strategic or systematic way.  Seems we are in a hurry to implement new things as we hear about them…but often do not even know what we are doing it or how it fits our overall stragic plan.

I remember when I was at Clearspring Technologies, a leading widget syndication company, and a major media partner called me and said he MUST get an app. on Facebook right away.  I asked him why and he could only answer because the just opened up their platform to apps and needed to be there.  Now I understand why a company may want to be a leader and certainly understand the importance of experimenting in this new space. But don’t you think that with a little planning you could think through how you could actually deploy something that supports your other marketing activity and even find ways to measure results?

The key in this new marketing world is making sure you have the right strategy (including targeted keywords and phrases) and then implementing many different programs in the distributed web that support that strategy.  Measurement is the lifeblood of this new marketing word because at the end of they day, the number of opportunities you will have to communicate with prospective customers in endless. You must know what is working and what is a waste of time or social media marketing will be and endless burden on you and your team.

We will do a post shortly about measurement techniques to help the discussion.

10 Rules For Social Media Particpation (For Employees)

Employees want to build their personal brand.  Companies want to encourage that so they have the advantage of as many people touching their customers and partners as possible.  However, the emergence of social media and the convergence of personal/professional brand building with company marketing strategies presents a dynamic tension between the two objectives.

Mutually agreed to “rules of the road” should be a part of any companies (or employees) agreement with employees.  Here is a starting point of common sense guidelines.  Thanks to Shift Communications for some of this material.

These guidelines apply to employees or contractors who create or contribute to blogs, wikis, social networks, virtual worlds, or any other kind of Social Media. Whether you log into Twitter, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, MySpace or Facebook pages, or comment on online media stories in forums — these guidelines are for you.

While all employees should be welcome and encouraged to participate in Social Media, it should be expected that everyone who participates in online commentary understands (and follows) these simple but important guidelines.

The overall goal is simple: to encourage participation in online communities in a respectful, relevant way that builds and protects both the employee and companies brand and reputation, and of course follows the letter and spirit of the law.

1. Be transparent and state that you work at a specified company so everyone knows where you are coming from. Your honesty will be appreciated in the Social Media environment. Moreover, you will be less likely to get a backlash if people find out after you make comments that might be challenged. If you are writing about your company or a competitor, use your real name, identify that you work for that company, and be clear about your role. If you have a vested interest in what you are discussing, be the first to say so.

2. Never represent yourself or the company you work for in a false or misleading way. All statements must be true and not misleading; all claims must be substantiated.

3. Post meaningful, respectful comments that add value to the community— in other words, no spam and no remarks that are off-topic or offensive.

4. Use common sense and common courtesy: for example, it’s best to ask permission to publish or report on conversations that are meant to be private or internal to your company. Make sure your efforts to be transparent don’t violate the companies privacy, confidentiality, and legal guidelines for external commercial speech.

5. Stick to your area of expertise and do feel free to provide unique, individual perspectives on non-confidential activities at your company.  Be careful because you do not want to come across as a “cheerleader” and loose credibility with the community.

6. When disagreeing with others’ opinions, keep it appropriate and polite. If you find yourself in a situation online that looks as if it’s becoming antagonistic, do not get overly defensive and do not disengage from the conversation abruptly: feel free to ask the PR Director for advice and/or to disengage from the dialogue in a polite manner that reflects well on your company.

7. If you want to write about the competition, make sure you behave diplomatically, have the facts straight and that you have the appropriate permissions.

8. Never comment on anything related to legal matters, litigation, or any parties the company may be in litigation with.

9. Never participate in Social Media when the topic being discussed may be considered a crisis situation. Even anonymous comments may be traced back to your or companies IP address. Refer all Social Media activity around crisis topics to PR and/or Legal Affairs Director.

10. Be smart about protecting yourself, your privacy, and the companies confidential information. What you publish is widely accessible and will be around for a long time, so consider the content carefully. Google has a long memory.

These are fluid times and communication is abundant.  That presents both opportunities and challenges to companies and their employees.  Guidelines like these should become a part of any employee training for companies of any size.

The Marketing Potential Is Enormous

Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama

It’s Your Mom’s Medium…

The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females

Meet People You Will Love

1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media

Find Your Prospects

80% of companies use LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees

Who Has Authority?

78% of consumers trust peer recommendations…only 18% trust advertisements

Interruptive Advertising Is Over

90% of people that can TIVO ads do it!

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