Category — Social Media
Why Social Media Matters to Direct Marketers
An open letter to direct marketers…
There are those who say that direct marketing is dying. It is being replaced with a new “unmarketing” philosophy embraced by consumers and forward thinking companies. There will be no room in the future for the tactics that used to motivate people to respond to corporate messages.
The opposing viewpoint is that social media is a fad that will disappear like pet rocks and the Macarena. This group argues that most of the people tweeting, linking, and nudging are kids with nothing better to do. Before long, we’ll be back to normal.
Which side is right? [Read more →]
How to Measure the Unknown for Social Media Initiatives
Capturing information to confirm point of origin for sales is challenging. The most accurate method is asking customers to enter a keycode or embedding one in the URL.
When all else fails (and even if it doesn’t) look at your direct marketing segments before and after your social media campaign. Usually there is a consistency in average order, response rate , and ratios from one campaign to the next. The numbers in the following chart are the results from one test. [Read more →]
Who’s in Your Community: Friend, Follower, or Figment?
Social media offers us an opportunity to build our own virtual community. One would think that if you are creating the community, you would have control over the participants. You do, if you make it private. If not, your online community is like a real neighborhood filled with friends, dissidents, curmudgeons, and trolls. There are also figments – users who aren’t really present and sometimes aren’t real.
The difference between real and virtual neighborhoods is management. Active users of social media have to manage their community. They have to choose who to follow or friend, when to block, and how to respond to trolls. It can easily consume hours every day.
If you want a good community, the management cannot be automated. There are tools that speed the process, but your eyes are needed to differentiate between the good, bad, and nonexistent. They all look the same to a bot. You have to clean it up yourself.
Last week Sharon Mostyn (@sharonmostyn) asked about managetwitter.com. Since I’m continuously testing new tools, I decided to check it out. The functionality for managing following/followers is similar to Buzzom.com, but one different feature was particularly appealing to me. It allowed me to see inactive people that I was following. [Read more →]
