1.  The social market is just one more component in the Wheel of Persuasion. Direct mail and email marketing are

Marketing Wheel of Persuasion

tools on the wheel as well, and in order to have an effective campaign, all elements must be considered,utilized and executed properly, and then measured to receive the maximum ROI.

2.  While there is a mass migration to social media and so many companies are advertising and selling their “wares” on social media sites, they are forgetting about direct mail and email marketing; thus these avenues may actually become more effective.  Direct mail and email marketing can also be just as cost effective as a properly planned social media campaign.  By using all of these avenues to reach your targets on multiple levels and multiple locations you are reinforcing brand recognition and messaging, and creating a stronger campaign as you go.

3.  Email marketing may seem easy, but there are a lot of very strict laws out there that prohibit businesses from sending unsolicited messages.  If you are caught doing this without following the rules, it can be costly on a number of levels.  (A.)  You can be given a pretty steep fine and in this economy can anyone really afford this?  (B.)  You lose the trust of your audience.  When you send spam, you are bringing your company and your campaign down to the same level as those businesses (is that what they really are?) that send out the latest discounts on male enhancement drugs.  Is this really the category under which you want your message to be filed?  No.  Marketing professionals are very aware of these laws and it is in your best interest to consult with them before you try to send anything out.

One thing to remember about using social media to promote your business is that it takes time to develop relationships and gain the trust of those people you are trying to reach.  Then once you reach them, often the messaging is not perceived in the manner in which you intended it to be conveyed.  But remember, perception is reality from each person’s standpoint.  Full Moon Design Group is experienced in reaching audiences using techniques that limit those variations in perception and truly get across the meaning in the light our clients want to be seen in.

Consistency is the key. Direct mail, email marketing and social media can actually be used to cross promote each other.  The point being is that marketing effectiveness does not happen in a bubble.  They should all be a part of your overall campaign.  They strengthen your brand, your image, your message and get you in front of your customers.  Let us help you develop a strategic overall marketing campaign and design the right mix of all of these elements that is right for your company.  Contact us today: 512.428.9072

Thoughtful planning and consideration need to go into the process, but the effort can be daunting and outright overwhelming.

Here’s a good solid approach that just about any business can follow and be successful with when entering social networking.

1. Make the commitment and decide your time commitment. How much time you are willing to commit to be consistent with your participation?  The benefits of social media do not happen overnight.  They take time.  Making this commitment and sticking to it is the only way to ensure success.  Be realistic.  If you think you can only commit to an hour a week, then a blog may be the way to go (We like WordPress).  Got 2 hours? Why not establish a Facebook page as well.  As you become more familiar with each new site, you will find natural efficiencies occur and you will have more time to add more sites to your repertoire.

2. Monitor and listen and follow. Sometimes this is the easiest step and it will get you used to what is being said, by whom it is being said and the intricacies of engaging in those conversations.  This is often overlooked, but can be one of the most important steps you should take.  It gives you insight to your audience and will give you opportunities to be involved before you start blasting your message.  Technorati is a great tool for finding who is talking about what.  It’s free and you can search just about any term or group of terms and get a list of blogs or blog posts that pertain to those terms.  You can even find blog rankings and other pertinent information so you know who the industry influencers are no matter what industry you are in.  Follow the people who you find interesting.  Find industry experts and follow their conversations.  Learn what they do, what they talk about, who they follow and follow those people as well.  The more people you follow, the more you will learn.

3. Define your objectives and determine your measurements of success. What do you hope to gain by becoming active?  Brand awareness? Better customer service? Increased sales?  Specifically state your goals and you will have a way to measure them and determine if your efforts are worth the time.  Will you measure success by the number of “followers” or “fans”? or will measure success by the number of posts or comments to your blog?

4. Do your research. Who is your audience? Where (which sites) do they reside? Why should they listen to you (i.e. what do you have to offer)?  Without this prior knowledge and understanding, you are basically taking a shot in the dark hoping to hit your target… oh after you’ve been twirled around until you are almost sick with dizziness.  Yep. That’s a good analogy. If you start spattering off about nothing in particular to no one (or everyone) in particular, the chances of people taking your seriously are pretty slim.  Or they may just tune you out completely.  Take your time to develop the right ideas, but hurry up already…  The world is waiting.

5. Establish a strategy or game plan. Don’t just start blasting anyone and everyone with no process or purpose.  Develop a schedule.  Develop a theme. Get organized.  Brainstorm topic ideas that you have knowledge of, have an opinion about, or want to learn about.  This last one is important, because not everything has to be about what you know.  It can be about what you don’t know!  There is nothing wrong with asking for advice from your audience.  This can lead to trust and open communication because people want to feel needed and they like to offer their “solicited” advice.

6. Monitor comments/conversations. It’s not just about your message.  It’s also about what other people are saying and topics they are discussing when it pertains you or your business.  And there are always dissenters out there that need to be addressed.  The only way you are going to know about these is to keep an eye on what is happening on the sites where you have a presence.  There are easy to use monitoring tools out there. Check out Hootsuite.  It’s a good one for monitoring and integration (plus a lot of other really cool tools.  We’ll get to this in a later post).

7. Determine time frame for measuring success. I’ll say it again: The benefits of social media do not happen overnight. However, you must track your progress as you go.  Remember those goals?  You have a starting point.  Now, how fast are you going to get there with the relation to the time commitment to which you have agreed?  What is working?  What is not?  What is necessary for consistent imaging of your brand?  Will you measure each of these by the week, by the month, by the quarter?  No matter what measurement scale or time frame you decide, make sure you are consistently measuring the same thing over a longer period of time.

8. Adjust as necessary. Not every site works for every person or business.  Only you can determine how best to use your time and how effective that use of time is on obtaining your goals.  Don’t be afraid to start something new, but think twice before you stop participating on a site.  Make sure you have used it effectively and for an adequate amount of time.  Most importantly: make sure your audience isn’t left hanging.

Of course, not everyone has the time to get in and get started or keep the time commitment to an appropriate level.  Full Moon Design Group has professionals that are experienced in helping clients engage with their customers on a variety of platforms.  We can help integrate your social media strategy into your overall marketing strategy, no learning curve involved.  We can guide you through each step or we can manage your strategy from start to finish.  We take your comfort level into consideration and develop the right plan for you and your business.

Want to get started?  Give us a call.  512.428.9072

Tip #1:

Attend networking meetings.

royblumenthal

The best business relationships start face-to-face. Plus, most networking meetings occur during meal time…and since you have to eat, you might as well be meeting prospects as well. Networking opportunities surround you! The first place to look is your local chamber. Then you will want to ask fellow members where else they network and interact with other businesses owners. Another outlet is to find something that you have a passion for, like a non-profit group or arts group. Get involved and build those relationships. You could network morning, noon and night if you really wanted to! But don’t forget, it’s all about who YOU are (See Tip #4) and what YOU have to offer.  What you get in return will soon follow.  NetworkInAustin is a great Austin resource to find networking opportunities around town.

Tip#2:

Matt Hamm

Utilize social media outlets. Currently, most social media sites are free. This is a great time and place to establish yourself as an industry expert. First, most companies are still not using these outlets to reach their customers.  Those that are, may not be direct competitors. If they are direct competitors, then that’s even more reason to make your presence known.  Second, you have friends and colleagues and they have friends and colleagues, and so on. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. are all great places to share your knowledge and they are where most people (2010 stats and facts) these days reside online. People are hungry to learn – hungrier now than they’ve ever been before and they usually turn to their immediate networks first to find the information they seek.  Make sure it’s you that they are getting their knowledge from! (and having a presence on these sites actually helps your SEO!)  Not sure where to start?  Call us:  512.428.9072.  We can help.

Tip#3:

Ask for referrals. This is something that we all forget to do and it should be the easiest task of all! Pick out your top clients – especially if they are always raving about your products or services – and ask them if they can introduce you to some more prospects. You will find that your happiest clients are more than willing to help you in growing your business…You just have to ask! Quality referrals most often come from those with whom you have already done business.  Full Moon Design Group knows this and we are rewarding those who think of us and send business our way.  We recently launched our 2^nd Annual Referral Reward Campaign.  Our rewards prove to our clients that we appreciate their confidence in us.

Tip #4:

Ensure that you have a memorable identity.

matthew solle

It’s simple – marketing is consistently getting in front of prospects with a consistent look and feel on a repetitive basis. Your business brand or identity is the foundation that you will need to build credibility in the marketplace. If you are going to seek business from your competitors, you better make sure that you look like you have a business. No self-designed business cards that you have printed on perforated stock from your local office supply store…nope…not allowed! You need exceptional quality assets to let your audience know that you can provide that same quality in the products or services you offer.  Not sure what I mean by brand/identity? Take a look at Full Moon Design Group portfolio section to give you more of an idea:

http://www.fullmoondesigngroup.com/portfolio.html

Tip #5:

Make sure you have a website. If you don’t, now is the time. The web is no longer a luxury for businesses…it’s a must. Times are changin’ folks and your website is no longer your online brochure. It’s a place where people are looking to learn more about you, your clients, your culture. They want to interact and learn from you. Blogging, videos and pictures is what’s hot for websites now. The time and money that you invest in your website will pay off in the end. Think about it…your site is working prospects when you are busy at that networking lunch (see Tip #1) or sound asleep in bed! But websites aren’t cheap, you say… Or are they?  Full Moon Design Group has websites starting at just $500 – sites that you can change content on your own (and we’ll show you how!) and blog and feed into those social media outlets of which you are now a part (re: Tip #2).  Take a look at a few samples below:

www.jbaustin.com/
www.austinecofence.com/
www.hillcountryhomeimprovements.com/

Social Media really is all about exposing yourself.  It’s about getting yourself out there, engaging people in conversations and telling everyone about your business.  Think of it this way:  Remember the 60-second elevator speech that has been ingrained in every business class or networking function you have attended?  With social media, you are in the biggest glass elevator you can imagine and you have 60 seconds (or in Twitter-verse – 140 characters) to get people’s attention.

The great thing is that it’s your elevator.  Everyone knows it’s your elevator and they are choosing to ride on it.  You can just ride that elevator up and down as many times as you want.  Every time the elevator stops and someone gets on, you get tell them about what is going on, what is new today.  And  you don’t have the keep saying the same old 60-second speech that you’ve been trained to memorize and spout out at the drop of dime.  You get to change it up, you get to get new ideas out there, and you get to get feedback about those ideas.

And your audience is always changing.  You will have some people who ride the elevator often, others that only ride it on occasion, but not matter what, there will always be a different mix of audience in attendance at any given time.

The trick is to know what mix of social media outlets to use for your given business or industry.  For some business professionals, LinkedIn is the perfect spot to make those professional connections.  For others, Twitter and Facebook are the places where their core audiences reside.  While still others go beyond the Big Three and use everything from YouTube and Del.icio.us to Slide Share and blogs.  There are hundreds of potential sites and each one has its own unique demographics of visitors.

Full exposure is all about integrating your social media strategy with your overall marketing strategy so you are reaching your audiences everywhere they reside.  The Full Moon Design Group can help you design your marketing strategy and integrate your social media strategy so that no matter where your audience is you are fully exposed.  Give us a call.  Expose Yourself!

I started reading blog updates and following different Twitter feeds in January. The goal was to see who was coming to town and when I might be able to catch some free shows. One of my friends had even started her own blog for all of the free SXSW parties with food, free booze and some kick-butt music. By February, I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of “underground” conversations and insight I was finding on the internet.

Basically, with a little bit of blog research, following Twitter feeds and signing up to receive sponsor updates, I was able to be “in the thick of it” this year. I ended up taking Friday off to enjoy the day parties and follow my mobile updates for more schwag and food. Friday night was reserved for the newly famous Fader Fort party. There was big news that Kanye West was going to be hitting that venue, but nobody knew what day. By keeping up with all of the Twitter feeds and blog posts, when the news broke, I was going to know!

Friday came and went. Still no Kanye. That was okay by me since there was still one more night at Fader. There were a few more hyped parties that I wanted to hit, but unfortunately, the stars weren’t aligning. During the day on Saturday we hit the Do 512 party, The Big One 2009. All I had to do was RSVP on the website and I got free Sweet Leaf Tea, LoneStar Beer and good music..seriously, who can ask for more than that?

Knowing that the rumors were flying about Kanye’s appearance, we knew we had to hit the Fader Fort party pretty early to make sure that we got it. After only half an hour in line, we made it and all of the rumors were true! Not only Kanye West, but Common, Erykah Badu, Kid Cudi and MORE! I had such a blast and am doing it again next year.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen with all of the wristband buyers because it seems to me that you don’t have to pay VIP prices to have an all access pass. You just need to find those that have gone viral! Next year I’m starting earlier so that perhaps I can make it into those coveted parties that I didn’t make this year…and I tried, believe me, I tried!

But, after a short “UGH” I proceeded to create one … and this is what I discovered.

“Out of Sight … Out of Mind.”

With today’s technologies, we are inundated with ads everyday. So how do you stand apart from everyone else? Very simple – you inundate your friends, family, peers, clients, and co-workers with messages that you’re here. Your Facebook page causes a potential client to think, “This is Vicky and she owns Full Moon Design Group who does custom graphic design AND I need to get with her about my business cards.” That’s how social networking works. And, much to my surprise, it doesn’t take all that much time either.

Since I created the Facebook page I’ve had friends from all over reconnect with me and they are eager to learn what I’m doing now. That’s the perfect opportunity to promote Full Moon and catch up with an old friend to boot.

It’s rare that I ever find a client during the holiday season who’s focused on their business. Everyone gets tied up with the hustle and bustle of the end of the year celebrations, family gatherings, and holiday parties. Because of this, we have to get especially creative on how to bring in new business during this time. While looking for ways to promote Full Moon Design services I decided to update my status on my Facebook page …  “Vicky is looking for anyone interested in us producing a custom xmas card design”.

It worked! I had a few inquiries which equated to business.

On another note, I posted a comment about a project that I was working on in the office regarding a design around the word “imagine”. I had a few friends ask me what it was going to look like. If you think they aren’t watching, think again.

Best of luck to your social networking adventures in 2009!