Where do I begin…I’m an Internet Marketing Specialist for a large B2B manufacturer/distributor company. For a long time we were doing 20k in sales daily via the website. That was 15% of overall sales..not bad eh? Not good enough though. Our company set a major web initiative in 2009/2010 that included a complete website redesign with an SEO focus and followed by some serious internet marketing. The goal was to jump from 20k to 40k in daily sales accomplishing 25-30% of overall sales! Big stuff. I was involved with the redesign and SEO implementation but my job really came into play when it was time to market the site-I was put in charge of the SEM. With-in a month I doubled daily sales with a comprehensive, in-depth Social Networking strategy I developed and will officially name:
The RM Social Strategy- A Corporate social media/networking internet marketing strategy.
Im not saying this will work for every company, or every business of any kind. But what I can tell you is that you need a social networking strategy and I worked countless hours to develop this one..and it worked. You probably already know you need to get involved with social networking and all of its arms but you might not have a strategy in place, or don’t even know where to start.
You might ask yourself..why is this dude telling me his strategy? what’s the catch?…well, here it is…The internet is filled with people telling other people how to market their products on the web, and at the end of their blog/site they ask you to buy their stupid PDF, book, video, webinar, tool etc. How ironic eh? The truth is im not a “make a million online from you home office” guy…I work for a company and sometimes I need help developing strategies for my company to help market their products on the web, and I use the web to do so. After an hour of sifting through the BS I might find something not attached to a personal money-maker. I just want to share my strategy for two reasons,
1. im psyched about it because it is working right now.
2. I want to document it so I don’t forget it.
3. Help other people in my position develop and implement their strategy.
Before I start talking about the strategy there are a few things you need; If you don’t have the following this strategy will not work.
- Enough content-you need enough to talk about on the web. Different subjects, different topics and plenty of products.
- Enough team members to facilitate this strategy. At least 3..but the more the merrier.
- A team lead that understands and can communicate SEO, SEM, and social media/networking tools and research. This team lead needs to be able to motivate and keep the team motivated for long periods of time. This strategy is not a “one-off project”. It’s a long-term project that will see positive results right away. Kind of unusual. But, these quick results are what keeps the team motivated.
OK, lets begin…The best way to communicate this strategy is by example. For this example I will use 6 team members.
Product Line Owners
The basis of the strategy is to think of each member as the leader of thier own company. They will be in charge of a specific product line, product, group of products, customer segment, etc..however your business can be segmented. The team lead needs to find a way to segment. For this example we will segment by product line. Product lines A, B, C, D, E, F.
Product Line Owner Responsibilities
- Each product line will start their very own blog based on their product industry. Product line A will start a blog that relates the product line A’s industry. If A’s industry is Tennis rackets then the blog will be about Tennis rackets. It is important to put some thought into the URL for this blog. Do some keyword research and try to use a keyword phrase that draws the most traffic with minimal competition. This will help each blog rank higher in the search engines.
- Each product line owner will start a twitter account and a Google Buzz account. Follow the same tactics used when starting the blog.
- Each product line owner will join a social network/community and open an account. They should try to find niche communities with-in their product lines category, if there isn’t one, or it is weak then join a larger general community. Keep keywords in mind when choosing you account name and setting up your profile. In fact, due to Google’s Real Time Search it is important to keep keywords in mind when doing any social networking.
- Each product line owner will be responsible for writing and submitting articles and PR releases based on thier product line’s subject matter.
- Each product line owner will be responsible for creating and submitting web video’s based on thier product line’s subject matter.
Social Linking
Now that each product line owner has set up all of their accounts: Thats a blog, Tweeter, Google Buzz and Social Community. All together, with 6 product line owners there should be 6 blogs, 6 Tweeter accounts, 6 Google Buzz accounts and 6 Social Communities. Remember, these should all be separate from each other. It is time to link them. Each account should link 3 ways.
- Link with-in the product lines social network – link with blog A, Twitter A, Google Buzz A, Social Community A.
- Link with the other product lines social network. Blog A links with blog, twitter, Buzz, Social Community of B, C, D, E, F.
- Link to company’s home page from each product lines social network accounts.
- Also, use keyword rich anchor text links in the articles, PR releases, and videos back to the company’s main site or the niche social networks you have creates.
Here is a diagram I put together to capture the linking strategy. When I did this Google Buzz was not created yet so it is not in the strategy. Also, I gave each team member two product lines to manage.
Why do we do this? two simple reasons…1) linking improves your rank with-in the search engines, linking provides visitors other avenues that ultimately funnel to your company’s main site. For example, if someone search Tennis rackets and your blog pops up in the search engine results before you main site more than likely they will click on the blog. From there you will want to funnel them back into you main site to make a purchase.
Schedule
The schedule is very important, it is very easy for a product line owner to ignore their responsibilities and that can throw the whole thing off. There is also a lot to do so a schedule is a nice day-to-day reminder. It sounds like a lot but each owner should at least submit the following…
- 2 blogs a week
- 2 tweets a day
- 2 Google Buzz messages a day
- 1 Social community interaction a day
- 1 Article a month
- 1 Press Release a month
- 2 videos a year
We are talking about some serious, keyword rich, link heavy, niche content being submitted daily. Now, that sounds like a lot of work but it really isn’t and I’ll tell you why. Each product line owner should do their best to feed content into each network account where it allows for it. For example, their blog should feed into their social network, thier social network announcements should feed into their twitter, thier twitter should feed into thier google buzz, etc. Try to automate where ever possible. That said, it is still necessary to go in to your accounts and submit info organically. Respond to tweets, comment on blogs, answer and pose questions in the social communities etc. What im trying to say is that you don’t need a 100% dedicated Internet Marketing Division to do this work..you need 20% of an employees daily time and you need a team lead to spend 50% organizing and tracking.
Maintain Your main sites master network
Your company’s main website should already have its own social network presence. This is not related to this strategy and should be maintained. With that said, it would be a good idea to link to the main site social networks as well as the other members networks.
Tracking and Reporting
This sounds boring but it is actually fun and very important. The tracking and reporting can keep the team members motivated and excited because there are goals and results in place. The team lead is responsible for all tracking and reporting and at the end of each two-week period he or she should compile all results and report them to the team. At the end of each month there should be a 2 hour-long status and review session. I would suggest making this session a collaborative meeting where each owner presents any news, success stories, struggles, and questions. We have a big lunch brought in from Panera Bread for ours! Some examples of what an owner would present would be…I got involved in a conversation in my social community that ended up in a sale..I saved it and here is how it went..or…I submitted a blog about xyz and it drew 39 more followers and was ranked in Google’s top 10 for the keyword phrase xx yyy zzzz.
Some Tracking Tools…
- Google alerts: keep track of when Google has recognized your work
- Twitter tracker. Lets you know quickly how many tweets each account has entered.
- Blog stats: keep track of views, followers, submissions
- Google analytics
- Tweet and Google buzz followers – how many followers does your account have?..who are you following?
There a few other minor tactics the team lead should do..he/she needs to submit to directories, social bookmarking sites, and other social networks to drive more back links and deliver more content. Automate this by using submission sites like social maximizer, directory mazimizer, onlywire.
The ultimate last step-create a niche site
This is what I’m doing for my team but it is completely up to you….After a few weeks each team member will have all of this content being developed and distributed, and will probably have several followers via twitter accounts, blog and social networks. The next step would be to harness this content and following into it’s very own niche website. This is easier than it sounds. Each member will…
- Buy new domain name that is keyword rich and best represents their product line. For example, www.tennisshoesinfo.com
- Host your domain through your blogging platform. So now each blog will have a true domain not just a blog domain.
- Choose a website type template, I prefer a 3 column template.
- Set up pages, Home(the blog will auto feed), About(write an about us page using keywords and links), products(write summary of the products with-in your product line and link them back to your company’s main site, articles and More (this is where you will paste your articles and PR releases), Video (this is where you will house your videos)
- The left and right columns are static throughout the website, one column should be holding relevent links(links back to your main site, links to you twitter, Google Buzz, Social network, etc, links to your other team members sites. The second column should be your product lines 5 or 6 best-selling products all linking back to their product pages on the main site creating deep back links.
- Design the custom header and give the site its own look and feel.
Once each niche site starts ranking in the searches for their own specific product line you will take up more search engine real estate than your competitors. You have successfully cornered the searches and the market.
Summary-broken down into steps
- Put together a team of employees ready to spend 20% of thier daily time on internet marketing.
- Give each team member a product line, or subject matter to be ultimately responsible.
- Put together a social tactic list and schedule. Blog, Twitter, Google Buzz, Social community, Articles, PR releases, Video.
- Have a launch meeting..show each member how to log into their specific accounts, and show them how to use their new social accounts. Provide some basic SEO training. Provide helpful links such as, writing blogs, successful tweeting, etc. They can do the research on their own if they want their product line to be successful.
- Make sure members have linked all of their accounts with each other, and linked back to the company’s main site.
- Set up you metric standards. Report metrics every two weeks, discovering trends, success, struggles etc.
- Hold monthly update meetings having each member present their work.
- Harness content and build niche sites for each product line. Promote products and use linking strategy.
That’s it…like I said, im not here to sell anything..I just want to share this strategy so I don’t forget it! You can take parts of it, the whole thing or morph it into your own strategy. It’s rather simple, but it does require serious organization skills, leadership, understanding how to use the platforms and being able to teach the team members, and keeping team members motivated. Good luck and feel free to contact me with any questions..I will be happy to help.
