To understand what’s driving the growth, its important to look at both demographics and psychographics of social media users in order to put things in perspective. Females make up the largest segment of social media users, and 18-34 year olds being the most active among all age groups.

Even today targeting is overlooked. Many are lost in a world of different metrics like followers, likes, retweets and more. Even social media marketing should cater to a customer segment through some kind of targeting.

All this is interesting, but what’s important to note here is how fast mobile is gaining on popularity.

Almost 40% of people now access social networks from their mobile phone, and Web users over the age of 55 are driving the growth of mobile social networking. That’s twice as many accessing social sites from their smart phones as last year.

Targeted Social Media is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Driving your online branding strategy often requires one to be perceived as a key resource or authority within your market or niche. Sometimes referred to as thought leadership, aiming to position yourself as “The Source” (or one of the top alternatives) poses more of a challenge than one might expect.

If you’re committed to this approach, read further for details on how to get started.

It’s important to have c-level buy for this approach to work within a market that has any real competition as it will require both resources and commitment for an extended period of time before you begin to see things working.

Communications are the cornerstone to developing authority, and as such, it’s important that a team of competent writers are at your disposal. While you might consider turning to internal resources, its worth mentioning why this often fails. Staff that already have a job to do or typically busy with doing just that, and even with the strongest intentions, will often find it difficult to find the extra time necessary to research and produce the content required to achieve levels of authority.

If cost isn’t a big concern, then creating an editorial team is the start towards success. Since most won’t have this luxury, or to a limited extent, another option would be developing a network of freelance writers that can complement the writings of any internal contributions. Be forewarned this often has mixed results, and if you’re handling your own administrative tasks like sourcing, proofing, and providing creative direction, its all far more time consuming than it seems.

Building authority creates trust, when builds equity in credibility. Keep in mind this can go far beyond a blog and include graphics, webinars, white papers, interviews, video and other mediums to distribute and share knowledge. Curation of resources to filter out noise can also be a great equalizer towards your quest.

But positioning your digital brand starts with a strategy or direction that’s been mapped, so dive in and explore the above options to see what makes the most sense for your own organization. It’s also worth noting that before you commit to a direction, you should do a competitive analysis of your chosen niche to get a sense of how difficult it might actually be. If you look up a few phrases in Google and keep seeing the usual suspects showing up, analyze them individually. How old is their site, how many pages do they have indexed, and refer to their backlinks to get a sense of their authority. Saying “we’re going to become the ultimate finance resource” would require extremely deep pockets and patience, but zoning in one certain aspects often makes more sense, in almost every instance.

Positioning With Digital Branding is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

The results? While the clear winner is SEO, about 60 percent of respondents said they will increase their budget for social media marketing; with 53 percent planning to increase their budget towards SEO and 40 about percent will be increasing their PPC budget.

While social media is clearly the trend as of late, it’s often difficult to measure. But despite this, social media is not hype. What needs to be understood is that it takes time, and it can have significant influence towards online branding efforts.

SEO might take a while before seeing signs of progress, but it’s the clear winner. With the highest conversion rates, SEO outperforms all other means of online marketing. It’s worth mentioning that while PPC can bring traffic almost instantly, it will cost more over time than SEO, and is most suitable for starting a campaign to acquire traffic until an SEO campaign kicks into high gear. Additionally, PPC only earns about 10% of the potential search traffic, and if you’re not in the top spots (which are more expensive bids) then you won’t see a lot of visits.

Report

SEO, Social Media, PPC Compared is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Story telling often creates an emotional connection that the listener can identify with. One of the great examples of story telling would probably be Nike. In case you haven’t heard, they sell running shoes. Nike’s positioning strategy has been to appeal to those that not only take their sports seriously, but the product is also for those that want an edge to be at the top of their game.

The heritage of your company could be an intrinsic part of corporate culture, and also your brand. There might be a story there.

Recommended:
The Importance of Story Telling

How to Tell a Great Story

Steve Jobs and the Power of Story Telling

Brand Building and Story Telling is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Over the last few years marketing budgets are seeing an increasing shift to digital marketing. With budgets tightening, there was a natural attraction to online advertising for reasons like its improved measurability and ability to make campaign changes almost on the fly. Almost as appealing is the near real-time tracking and analytics that online advertising can offer.
Does this mean an entire marketing campaign should be online? Definitely not, but it should be part of every campaign. Online marketing and advertising have proven themselves as part of the marketing mix, and that now includes social media.

An issue with offline advertising is its based on presumed eyeballs (or in the case of radio, ears) but it doesn’t mean that your ad was actually seen. Someone came up with the expression that an ad needs to be seen 7 times to be effective. Yes, there are variations such as 11 or even 20 times. Whether that’s true of not, the idea was probably started by someone looking to sell more ads. Although it does stand to reason to some degree.

One area I think that’s often overlooked is the entire campaign is a factor of influence. From the print to outdoor or any other advertisements, they all contribute towards brand awareness. It just so happens that the click often takes the credit.

Digital branding is the new frontier, and we’re starting to see more Facebook pages and iPhone apps integrated with a campaign. Brands are placing more emphasis on “fishing where the fish are” and increasing their social media efforts.

Yet there’s still one undeniable fact, that being that when a customer is looking to make a purchase, the vast majority will do a search on Google or another search engine.  Sure, consumers often rely on social networks for referrals, but that’s usually followed by a search.
If you’re to consider how SEO and social media affect digital branding, they aren’t really comparable, but linked and can work together.

Recommended reading:
Comparing SEO & Social Media as Marketing Channels – SEOmoz

Social Media, SEO, and Advertising – A Digital Dilemma is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Created by the Queensland Tourism Board in Australia, they asked prospective employees to post one-minute application videos to YouTube so they could create a short list, and choose someone (eventually) to be the caretaker for Hamilton Island for six months. The only real task as caretaker would be to blog about how much fun he or she is having doing their “job”.

As promised, here’s a few social media case studies worth looking at…

3 Things We Can Learn From IKEA’s Facebook Campaign

How Does Microsoft Do Social Media Marketing?

Old Spice Social Campaign Case Study Video

Social Media and Car Insurance: A Match Made in Heaven?

The NBA’s Social Media Strategy

Best Buy: A social media case study

Being HUGE on Twitter – A Small Business Case Study

Old Spice – The Man Your Content Could Smell Like

How Social Media Helped Cisco Shave $100,000+ Off a Product Launch

Case study: The Home Depot

Twitter ROI Case Study – Dell Generates $3 Million in Sales Utilizing Twitter

Social Media case study – Dairy Queen

Canadian Social Media Case Study: Loblaw

Case Study: How To Blatantly Advertise Through Social Media And Get Away With It – H&R Block

Hotel Social Media Case Study: Fairmont Chicago

LEGO Click case study

Clorox: Rewiring The Brand Experience With Social Media

Social Media Marketing Case Study – Twitter Drives Traffic, Sales

Molson Canada – Harvard Business Review – Social Media Case Study

Also see:
5 B2B Social Media Winners
How Social Media Drives New Business
Barack Obama’s Social Mediea lessons for business
http://www.debbieweil.com/blog/list-of-67-big-brand-corporate-blogs/
26 social media marketing examples
300+ case studies for social media
Social media case studies from Nokia, Disney, NBC, and 17 more
Social Media ROI and the Pepsi Refresh Project
6 Social Media Marketing Case Study Lessons
Working With Your Brand Enthusiasts, Not Against Them
Integrating PR and Social Media
Understanding Luxury Brands and Social Media
3 Killer Social Media Case Studies from SMC San Francisco
5 Case Studies Of Social Media’s Viral Power
Marketing lessons from the [Grateful] Dead – David Meerman Scott
Breakdown: 4 Ways Brands Are Earning and Buying– Followers on Twitter
Why does Comcast care about Twitter?
Influence Versus Popularity on Twitter: Celebrity Kim Kardashian Social Media Case Study
1000 + Social Media Marketing Examples – Peter Kim

http://www.womma.org/casestudy/
http://mashable.com/2008/07/23/corporate-social-media/
http://nowisgone.com/case-studies/
http://www.getelastic.com/social-media-examples/

40 Social Media Case Studies is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Social currency is often described as ways that brands might go about inserting themselves into the cultural conversation, and in theory, generating more awareness than they might find through conventional means like a tv commercial or promo driver. And its been incredibly effective in many cases, with the right approach.

With social currency we’ve become curators, sharing and contributing for a variety of reasons. Building social capital is the new currency, and brands have been quick to realize its worth. Our now hyper-social world allows marketers to listen, adapt, and exceed expectations. Being able to deliver creates advocates.

Ask yourself – what value does my social currency deliver? Is it information or knowledge? Entertainment? Perhaps it provides a personal value such as fame or exclusivity. Is it useful, allowing something to be accomplished easier or in less time? Or perhaps it simply has value like some form of monetary compensation, rewards, prizes, or a free trial.

In a study by Vivaldi partners, social currency has been broken down into 6 dimensions; identity, affiliation, conversation, information, advocacy and utility. the importance of each depends on a variety of considerations, from the stage of brand development or the nature of the market, to factors like the category and industry.

You can read the whole study here.

Some interesting commentary on social currency from Russ Klein, Chief Marketing Officer of Burger King:

“Social currency is like a good joke. When a bunch of friends sit around and tell jokes, what are they really doing? Entertaining one another? Sure, for a start. But they are also using content — mostly unoriginal content that they’ve heard elsewhere — in order to lubricate a social occasion. And what are most of us doing when we listen to a joke? Trying to memorize it so that we can bring it somewhere else. The joke itself is social currency. “Invite Harry. He tells good jokes. He’s the life of the party.”

Think of this the next time you curse that onslaught of email jokes cluttering up your inbox. The senders think they’ve given you a gift, but all they really want is an excuse to interact with you. If the joke is good enough, this means the currency is valuable enough to earn them a response.

That’s why the most successful TV shows, web sites, and music recordings are generally the ones that offer the most valuable forms of social currency to their fans. Sometimes, like with mainstream media, the value is its universality. In the US right now, the quiz show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” is enjoying tremendous ratings because it gives its viewers something to talk about with one another the next day. It’s a form of mass spectacle. And, not coincidentally, what is the object of the game? To demonstrate one’s facility with a variety of forms of social currency! Contestants who can answer a long stream of questions about everything from sports and movies to science and history, are rewarded with a million dollars. They are social currency champions.”

Great analogy. The real challenge with social currency is about creating value. As curators, its our responsibility to provide or share compelling content to drive the value of our personal brand. With corporate brands, its more than a responsibility, its crucial to their social media success.

The following infographic is related to the above study by Vivaldi (image credit – Fast Company)

If you’re attempting to position yourself as a thought leader, the dialogue begins as a communicator which includes engagement. But if you constantly tweet about your lunch I may lose interest. Thank goodness for twitter lists. There is an increase in regurgitated information and noise with social media, so the challenge comes back to differentiating what you put out, while creating value, and marketing yourself. It’s a way that online branding that provides more control, rather than broadcasting for the sake of building awareness. Repetition works, but it also creates a stigma sometimes known as “vendo caecus”, which is loosely translated as banner blindness.

One thing to keep in mind is social media is a means, a channel, a tool. You can choose to entertain, educate, create advocates, or possibly another approach, but you’ll want to have some form of strategy to build your brand online. A great way to start is by making it easy for fans to engage, allowing them to share too.

Social Currency and Curation is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

The great thing about online advertising is how trackable and measurable it is. On the other hand, it’s also the downside.

Marketing budgets have tighten over the last couple years and accountability has become necessary, requiring marketers to show a return for their ad spends and create cost per customer metrics or similar. While its probably led to a shift in marketing dollars to the online channel (being so trackable) its also be at the expense of building awareness, positioning, and online branding.

In a post called ‘How Social Media Exposure Leads to Brand Evangelists‘ the author went on to suggest online branding was as simple as just 3 steps:

1. Phase One: New Customer – first exposure to the brand
2. Phase Two: Knows of Brand – first purchase
3. Phase Three: Regular Purchaser – Evangelist

This overly simplified overview was unrealistic in my view, and seems to be a bit misleading.

Online branding, social media, and search engine optimization are all hard work to create the desired results. If I were to draw out a process on the phases it would probably look more like this:

1. First exposure to need or offer, often through experience through:

• advertising
• social media
• offline, and went online to research

2. Research phase

• possibly through search engine
• alternatively, through price comparison or review site
• most common is through reading reviews on blogs[1]

3. Additional exposure phase [2]

• online advertising
• social media
• blogs, forums, reviews
• search results

While the above is still only three phases, it does go a bit deeper to provide a sort of rationale.

[1] About 65% of blog readers access blogs specifically to get an opinion, and over 90% trust user reviews over an in-store clerk

[2] From first exposure to a brand to actual purchase, potential customers usually do some research before buying

And finally we have step 4, the Conversion Phase.

Social media creates product purchasing influences at several levels, and since there’s no one size fits all answer its your job to find what works for you. Keep in mind a multi pronged approach has been a favorite.

The web has allowed us to stop taking ads at face value and perform our own due diligence. But as marketers we’re also in far greater control of creating opportunities, demand, and engaging with prospects to drive social commerce.

If you spend any regular amount of time online, you can’t help but run into fan pages, likes, reviews, referrals, comparisons, ratings and possibly a viral video once in a while.

In an article from the Harvard Business Review it mentions;

The majority of managers we spoke to in our global study told us they believe that a broad array of information diverts attention from the core offerings. But we found it helps customers search for solutions, invites them to think of all the ways the core products might add value to their lives, wins their loyalty, and entices them to buy. In fact, we found that exploiting consumers’ desire for engagement is the single dominant driver of superior shareholder value for e-commerce companies.

The bottom line is online merchants acheive higher conversions with social media shopping.

Photoshop disclaimer: I tried ;-)

Social Media and Brand Evangelism is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Social media has changed the game, and consumers are communicating with one another about brands, products and services. Much to the horror of many marketers as they stand at the sidelines confused about how to get involved.

It’s estimated that about 70% of bloggers write about brands organically, and almost half of that is product reviews. About 65% of blog readers access blogs specifically to get an opinion, and over 90% trust user reviews over an in-store clerk.

The new marketing – its not about marketing. Today’s brands need to be transparent, engage, and participate with the conversation that exists. It’s already going on, and its up to the marketer to find it and leverage these new opportunities.

What some don’t realize is the new social media tools allow a dialogue that essentially make your customer base more accessible, and almost like a giant focus group. Rather than diving in and reverting to broadcasting, they need to listen, and be part of the dialogue when the moment is right.

Traditional advertising has been about attacking the masses with their marketing messages, and justifying campaigns with repetition. Phrases like “we need to build awareness” and “a consumer needs to see an advertisement at least 7 times” became common place. But with poor targeting (aka segmentation) the ROI has called into the question of accountability in recent years.

From print and outdoors to broadcast and direct mail, it was never clear what the return was. And when it was measured, the results took weeks at a time. Usually it wasn’t until after a campaign was over before a tally could give any idea whether it was a success.

And now marketers have online advertising, where they can fine tune, shift spending, and track the results almost as quick as things happen. But there is one drawback, advertising is still advertising.

Social media integration isn’t an after thought to a campaign anymore, its a key component.

In a recent study, 40% of brand representatives world wide believe social media poses new challenges to the integrity of their brand. With more than a third saying that social networking sites affect brands significantly enough to bring about changes in their marketing strategy.

So where does this leave marketers? It starts with breaking old habits, and communicating instead of broadcasting. But to make social media work effectively, it often involves several layers rather than the “let’s make a facebook page” approach.

The Shift of Brand Marketing With Social Media is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Building brand equity online can take enormous amounts of time, money, and energy. A culmination of online advertising, social media, SEO, and even online PR, big brands want to listen with social media tools to guard their online reputation management.

In this video of Dan Colbey entitled “What physics taught me about marketing” he discusses positioning brands and how one incident can erode much of the brand equity built.

What’s your game plan? Do you have a strategy that takes you past the next year?

How about a social media crisis plan should your brand come under attack?

Positioning and protecting your sweat equity with proper planning can help retain the strength of your brand should it ever find itself in the crosshairs. And if you haven’t come up with one yet, now is the time to start thinking about online branding strategies so that you have a path to follow and measure down the road.

Internet Branding Is Key To Today’s Marketing is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com