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Internet Marketing Vs. Social Media Marketing

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We have often said that the work we do here at Area 224 – and the 12 Minute Marketing program we launched last year – has been at the intersection of Internet Marketing and Social Media Marketing.

Pinterest Photo
Guess which camp we think Pinterest is in?

But what do we mean by that?

Good question…and, even though we see some real differences between the two – in approach, in positioning, and in numbers – we think both sides can learn lots from each other. Here are some key learnings:

Internet Marketing is All About Numbers.

Social Media Marketing – while getting better at it – is more of a “soft science.” Here’s what we mean:

Uber-Marketer Frank Kern has talked quite a bit about specific programs he has done – and he has opened the kimono and shared the nitty-gritty numbers. Like this:

  • 10,000 emails sent
  • 27% open rate
  • 97 sales
  • $1397 per sale

The ROI here is unclear – we don’t know how much was invested in all facets of this campaign, but we can tell you this: Internet Marketing focuses on Sales Numbers.

To take it a step further, there’s a guy named Ryan Deiss – also someone who falls into the “Uber-Marketer” camp – who has often said that he zeros in on one absolute number before deciding whether or not to get involved in someone’s product launch:

Earnings Per Click. (Or, if 100 people click on a landing page, and 5 of them order a $49 product, take 5, multiply it by $49 and you get $245; divide that by 100 and you come up with $2.45 per click.)

Meanwhile, Social Media Marketing is Less Mature about Bottom Line Impact

Very simply put, if we have to explain any of the above concepts to you, you are probably NOT an Internet Marketer. You might be a Social Media Marketer.

OR, at the risk of being even more direct, you might just be “in Social Media.”

This is one area where big brands and big agencies have failed in the past: they’ll hire based on soft numbers that might be rather suspect. 5000 Facebook friends (the limit). 25,000 Twitter followers (many of whom may well be bots).

And, to expect “Social Media” to translate immediately into “Social Media Marketing,” you MUST have an Objective.

Gone are the days (and these were a couple years ago, mind you) where brands can say “get me on Twitter” or “get me a Facebook fan page” and have that translate into some definition of success.

Campaigns and Landing Pages are more the domain of Internet Marketing

Yes, I said it out loud: Social Media Practitioners – the experts, gurus, ninjas and rock stars you have heard so much about – these folks tend to NOT be very good at running a campaign that goes beyond really soft sciences like “engagement.” You’re possibly going to hear terms like “number of Retweets” and “number of Facebook Fans” – but, from the Social Media folk, you will not hear anything that makes the ears of the sales people ring.

“We drove 1000 people to the landing page, and 125 of them filled out a form. All of them received a white paper from our firm; we were able to reach 15 of them by phone in the first week after the white paper arrived. We have appointments with 5 of them to talk about their business needs.”

A hypothetical quote…but which type of person produced it?

Internet Marketing is always wearing a Sales Hat

This might be the greatest difference between Social Media Marketing and Internet Marketing:

Internet Marketers always have a number attached to their name.

One reason yours truly got out of traditional PR back in the middle of the last decade: fighting for budgets and not being able to quantify the value you bring to an organization is TIRING stuff.

Our Point: if you’re in Social Media, think first like an Internet Marketer.

Social Media Strategy is So Simple

We write today with some uber-easy advice for Social Media Marketers.

It’s a dog-eat-dog social media world out there. One company’s desire for a viral video is another company’s IT nightmare. One personal brand’s quest for world domination is another’s boxes upon boxes of books in the remainder bin.

Social Media Strategy Can Be Simple. Just Think It Through.

Ah, THINKING! Critical thinking, or scenario planning, or mindmapping. Something using your head can get you there. Right?

Which brings us to GOP Candidate for President Michele Bachmann.

This isn’t going to be a rebuke of her politics, or a discussion of whether or not we agree with her stand on the issues. Plenty of places can let you do that. Instead, we just want to discuss whether or not Michele Bachmann HAS a Social Media Strategy.

99 Counties

Bachmann launched something over the weekend called “The 99 County Tour.” You can see evidence over there on the right hand side that she’s tweeting about it. Actually, her “Team” is tweeting about it. (On Twitter, her campaign’s account is TeamBachmann.)

Problem? In this reporter’s humble opinion, this was not thought through very well. Ignore poll numbers, ignore issue stance, ignore everything for a second…and focus on the name of this tour.

“I got 99 counties…”

Are there 99 Counties in Iowa? Do you care? Do Iowans care? Does it matter because we just put an earworm in your head?

Here’s a BRANDING PROBLEM waiting to happen. The most important thing that Rep. Bachmann (R-MN) has to do is this:

Build a Personal Brand around Michele Bachmann to increase the chance of winning early states, then winning the GOP nomination, then the Presidency.

People of Earth, you can say this about any candidate for any office anywhere in the USA. Breaking the larger OBJECTIVE down into these three steps gives you three smaller OBJECTIVES, but, in turn, gives you something to actually build towards.

Social Media Strategy for Michele Bachmann Made Simple

Why do we talk about this? Well, take a look at Exhibit 2.

Exhibit Two
Exhibit Two - MB Main Twitter Account

What you have here, in Twitter lingo, is a “Verified Account.” That’s what the Blue Checkmark Starburst tells us. Built In Audience. 35,000 followers.

(We won’t even get started on the Facebook page for the Representative – a recipe for brand-building disaster, what with its free-flowing commentary on everything and apparent lack of monitoring or engagement.)

Yet, no real Twitter Strategy is apparent. A Tweet here, a video posting there – “Michele’s Path to Victory” is today’s video – an occasional “RT” (Retweet) and maybe a Foursquare Check-in.

The Social Media Strategy is NOT Holistic. You’ve got a couple Twitter accounts competing with each other, and, if you were to sniff around on other sites, you’d be left to your own devices to find out what the Congresswoman stands for.

Advice: Break This Down Into Steps…

…And use the tools and audience at your disposal to start turning those steps into actionable strategies.

Step One: Tweet with the Entire State of Iowa.

Wait, that sounds counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? No, you have the reach with your 35,000+ followers, start actually saying hello to people.

Step Two: Outline Your Plan for Your Presidency as it pertains to Iowans.

You can do this for any industry you’re in. That’s right, you have a plan for the Widgetmaster 3000 and you are launching it to Lawyers in Kentucky. Go! Speak to them and share how they will Benefit from your Widgetmaster.

Step Three: If it Doesn’t Impact Iowans and you Cannot Spend Time on it – Don’t Do It.

This means that there’s no real reason to share all of your daily activities on Facebook if you can’t support that platform and you can’t speak to Iowans there. Don’t waste your time there.

(Again, any industry can benefit from this advice. Why check-in on Foursquare if you’re a B2B concern? Etc., etc. – don’t waste your time with marketing that isn’t Objective-Oriented.)

Notice how we didn’t talk about policy? Didn’t talk about issues? We broke this down into the actionable steps, and the most actionable step RIGHT NOW is the one that increases chances of winning Key Early States. Rest of it? Doesn’t matter.

There’s your strategy. Repeat for your product, your service, your business. And you’re welcome.

Why SEO Isn’t Dead

SEO Isn’t Dead. Search Engine Optimization Wasn’t Killed By The Content Revolution.

Not. So. Fast.

SEO Tweet
Pulled from Twitter

There are days when you might think that every single website on the planet is focusing on Content, and Content Alone, as its strategy. Social Media Gurus will tell you that you need to be posting on every single platform at all hours of the day and night just to have a chance of being found by the search engines.

Content Farms and Content Creation Engines will tell you that it’s all about fresh, relevant, really good content: and you don’t need  to write for the search engines if your stuff is awesome. Because people share awesome, right?

Right?

In one of our 12 Minute Marketing lessons, we talk about Search Engine Optimization. It’s not a deep study of the science – it’s enough so that you can cover the basics for your business (not so that you can turn yourself into an SEO Ninja). And yes, we’ll admit that we do say “Content, good content, is important.” Relevant content is important. But a couple other takeaways to complete our study here…

Links are just as important as Content.

It’s one thing to say “I’m going to link to a similar website, like that of Spin Sucks, just because it will help me.” But it’s entirely another thing to link somewhere (1) with authority and (2) with relevance to what you are talking about.

For instance: in the photo we use on this post, there’s an article on Read Write Web on SEO and the Google algorithm changes. This is what started us down the path of posting on the value of SEO – the article made it seem as if Content trumps SEO, and SEO is, thus, not important. WRONG.

As you see, we are linking to the article in a post about a similar bit of content. It’s not a trick, it’s not gaming the system. It is an SEO basic: Link to what you’re talking about. Bringing us to our second SEO takeaway:

Try owning long-tail terms of 3 or more words.

Back in September, when we guest posted on the Social Mouths blog, we didn’t plan on owning the term “Social Media.” Too short, too many searches. We DID plan on pwning “Holistic Social Media.” It worked: our SocialMouths Holistic Social Media post is still number one for that term – and our own posts, on Area 224 and 12 Minute Marketing, are in the top 5.

It didn’t hurt that it was a well-written post (IMHO) and had great content in it. But it focused on an actual term that made sense in the post and it was explained well in the post.

This means you’re more likely to own terms that you can actually say something about: Tallahassee Real Estate Trends, for instance, if you are a Realtor in Tallahassee.

What does this all tell you?

SEO isn’t THIS simple. But it isn’t dead, either. You can focus on great content, sure, but you also need to make sure you are linking to other relevant content and not trying to jump into the pool for short keywords.

Go. Search Engine Optimize!

 

Measuring Influence With Bacon

Social Media and Bacon Collide for Another Important List: The Bacon Index.

Bacon
Thanks, cookbookman17 on flickr; photo used with CC license

Another day, another list.

First there was this kerfuffle about the website Klout and its digital privacy – now it’s a discussion of just who is “Influential” on Twitter, with the launch of a tool called PeekYou. (That’s a link to the Forbes article about PeekYou, and the Digital Influencers they rank.)

PeekYou, Forbes, even Klout, are missing the point.

Being influential AT social media, or IN social media or even ABOUT social media does no one any good at all – unless there’s a point to this influence.

As a for instance, Gary Vaynerchuk is awesome, he’s passionate, and he’s the only one allowed to say “Crushing It.” (Because he IS Crushing It.)

But his influence in social media stems from the fact that he developed deep domain expertise in wine – investing well above the required 10,000 hours to know his stuff. (10,000 hours being Malcolm Gladwell’s number – that’s how much time you need to invest in a subject to truly have expertise.)

The point to Gary’s influence? Sell more books, sell more wine. Get speaking gigs. Buy the New York Jets someday.

Wine Influence > Digital Influence > Global Influence. That was the progression for Gary. What’s your progression?

This Brings Us to the Question: Who Is Most Influential About Bacon?

Does it matter?

That. Is. The. Point.

Off the top, there are guys who we know who are involved in cookbooks about Bacon. (Gary Unger.) There are Master Sommeliers who can tell you which wine to drink with bacon. (Rick Bakas.) There is even a company that can sell you the rights to use its copyrighted recipe for the Bacon Explosion.

We have to start this off with a binary question:

Do you care about bacon?

If the answer is no, it doesn’t quite matter who is the most influential about this subject – as you are officially not interested.

There Is No OFFICIAL Bacon Index. And There Shouldn’t Be a Social Media Index.

“Influence” is one of the most peddled buzzwords of 2011 – and it shouldn’t be. Just like “community” and “social media.”

Lists will come and go: today’s influencers are tomorrow’s front-line employees who need to get approval to tweet. Today’s entrepreneurial wunderkinds will move up or move on. Some of the most real, genuine, likable people on the planet – a couple of whom who are on the list, like Chris Brogan and Scott Stratten – are unknowns to 99% of the population – and that population might be struggling with finding the next client, getting the next gig, paying the next bill.

They may be hungry for some bacon – or they may be an Orthodox Jew who refuses to go near the stuff.

Human. Connections.

That’s ALL that counts. Who are you? What can I do for you? How can I help you? What makes you tick?

Go ahead: make a list of your OWN influencers. Use it, or toss it aside.

Even better, make a list of those 50 people – bacon lovers or not – you are connected with and have yet to meet in real life. Then make them your targets for 2012.

That’s Your Bacon Index.

PS: Be sure to give us a whirl over at 12 Minute Marketing – where you can watch one of the free lessons by using this link: Holistic.

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