The 80/20 rule is incredibly useful. As marketers, for example, it can help show us what we should be focusing our efforts on and what we should either automate or ditch altogether.
While convenient, there’s also an uglier side. For instance, when it comes to content marketing, many marketers spend 80% of their time crafting the perfect piece of content, while only 20% of their time distributing it.
As an occasional and quite dreadful guitar player I have a vague interest in what goes on over at Gibson and Fender.
The marketers at these two iconic brands could probably rest on their laurels to a certain extent but both do a great deal in the way of content marketing and community management.
No brand should underestimate the importance of its digital reputation, especially in this era of Google-first, buy later culture, not to mention the prevalence of review sites and social recommendations.
Although it is practically impossible to completely avoid negativity (just look at the comments of any YouTube video), it is how a company controls its surveillance of and response to these mentions that will help determine how it is perceived. By confronting issues as they arise, the impact that negative mentions online will have can be contained, helping to prevent a snowball effect from occurring.
Ensuring a brand is seen in the most positive light possible is essential for establishing and maintaining trust for customers, regardless of what the brand sells.
One of the key benefits of social media is the ability to create
dynamic, long lasting relationships with customers. Creating a useful
community can really add value to a brand or product and greatly
increase return business.
If you have a community that’s both inviting and
interesting to a customer then you’ll develop a stronger bond with them
and have the opportunity to reduce sales cycles.
However, in order to
benefit from this you’ll need to implement some solid management
strategy.
The internet is littered with empty forums and half-formed
Ning groups, so here are a few universal rules that will help you grow a
successful, useful online community whether it’s for a blog, forum or
dedicated network:
For some companies, marketing through social networks isn’t enough, they want to create their own social spaces to attract visitors.
Here are ten tips for building social networks and forums…
To many, the word ‘community‘ elicits thoughts of social networks like MySpace and Facebook, and of popular social media websites like Flickr and Digg. But if you were active on the internet about a decade ago, you probably don’t forget the precursor to today’s social communities: the message board/forum.
They’re still around (there are quite a few massive ones) and while they may not be as sexy as today’s social networks, a Google update that will make it easier for searchers to find content posted in message board communities is likely going to benefit many operators of message board communities.
Social media is an increasingly important part of the internet. But many businesses are still trying to decipher what it’s really all about and how it can relate to their bottom lines. Naturally, not everyone is jumping on the bandwagon and throwing all their resources at Twitter, Facebook, et. al.
The truth is that for many businesses social media makes sense — in moderate doses. If you’re a small business owner, chances are you don’t need to hire a full-time social media manager and the only thing social you’re likely to get from social media experts is a lot of smooth-talk.