Don’t Waste Your Marketing Dollars on People Who Have No Interest In A Car Yet!

Over the last decade most automobile dealerships at one time or another have used email marketing to reach out to more than just their own databases (DMS) of past customers. Success with email is based on several aspects that are very similar to direct mail and a few that allow it to be far superior in the cost-per-car delivered.

With email, the first and most important thing a dealer needs is an effective list. Most email marketing providers use legacy data meaning that the “hand-raisers” on the list wanting to buy a car most likely indicated this propensity six months or even a year or more ago. Stale data yields few results. Bona fide Auto Intenders are hand-raisers in a given market that legitimately want a vehicle and have indicated so no more than 30, 60 or 90 days ago.  Dealerships can see their cost-per-car range from as little as $102 – 200 by using the right type of list.

Next, with email, the message is very important and whether you are using an agency or creating your own messages, it is critical to keep it consistent across your multichannel pieces and don’t cookie cutter or chase a competitor’s cool idea. Today’s consumers desire legitimate information. Tell your story, but remember that your story is only important to them when it convinces them that you are there to help them. Less is more. Think in terms of Twitter rather than information-overload and have fun with it.

Then it is getting eyes on your message. With direct mail, this is getting the letter opened but in email, this is a two-pronged effort. First you need to get into the inbox instead of a spam or junk folder. Look for a list provider that has a send-score that is verified at over 95%. This means at least 95% of what you send will reach the inbox. If you have ever had a bad experience with email, it won’t surprise you that most providers in the industry average 40 – 50%.

Finally, but equally as important, comes the subject line. The subject line has to be compelling; have a sense of urgency. Spend time with your provider to come up with a few different but persuasive subject lines and test, test, test! This is where the rubber meets the road in email. To open or not to open; that is the elusive question.

Email is becoming more and more effective as consumers become more willing to receive sales information. But reaching the legitimate prospects is any dealer’s greatest marketing challenge.

The Rise of the Social Media Advertising Empire!

 2014 brings an even more unprecedented era in social media marketing. As an array of businesses and self-employed individuals flock to Facebook and Twitter for product and talent exposure, the new sphere of advertising is being born, yet again! Today when logging into your Facebook account, you

just simply can’t avoid any ad on your newsfeed. It’s almost as if the ads purposely throw themselves in your face whether you asked to see them or not. Although this seems a bit of an inconvenient to the average Facebook “regular,” this advertising constitutes to be a vital asset to exposing your product and brand name and most importantly, targeting the specific audience you wish to target. This great marketing avenue goes full force in having your campaign succeeding. No matter how many times you choose to ignore these ads, with the right eye catching images supporting them, your eyes just cannot resist landing there.

Statistics show that over 1 Billion people are on Facebook and millions log on each day worldwide! Better yet, according to Facebook’s Third Quarter reports, (which can be found at  http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/facebook-reports-third-quarter-2013-results-229923821.html) statistics also show that Facebook membership increases each year dramatically, since its start in 2004 and is expected to increase its membership for 2014 by up to 70%! With global projections this big, it would be absolutely suicidal for your brand or product to not be a part of this phenomenon! What would also be suicidal for your product? I thought you would never ask! Not allowing Take 5 Solutions to help you get where you need to be. With the help of Social Media and Take 5 Solutions, count on your marketing campaign to be in place for sheer success whether you are looking for traffic, product sales increase or exposure. Call 561-819-5555 now to get more details and great rates!

Making the Most of your Postal Marketing Campaign

Despite what you might think with the rise of smart phones, tablets, and social media, postal marketing isn’t dead. It’s still a popular marketing tactics for many businesses, and when done correctly, can actually create strong response rates, and consequently great ROI. Sure, direct mail does get a bad rap for the rising cost of postage and supposedly disinterested consumers, but the problem is that far too many businesses who get involved with direct mail either aren’t basing their data off of the right info, or aren’t targeting the right consumers with their material. 

The definition of direct mail for lots of business just means sending a mass mailing to specific zip codes or broad demographics. In those cases, the average response rate usually hovers around 2-4%, compared to the .12% response rate for email marketing. However, because of email’s low cost, email marketing still provides a better ROI. For that reason, a lot of businesses forget about direct mail altogether because of one bad experience, or just keep wasting money on ineffective marketing and advertising strategies. But with the right data, response rates of direct marketing don’t have to stay that low. 

At Take5 Solutions, we specialize in creating highly-targeted lists for all forms of marketing, including direct mail.  With our new Flexible Inference Technology (FIT), we’re able to go even beyond that to give our clients the tools they need to get ahead of the competition. Using FIT, we’re able to collect in-depth information from social media users and match that consumer market behavior data back to our more than 360 million consumer records, including addresses. Because our information comes from opt-in users, we’re able to keep it maintained and updated so that data never goes stale. With FIT, you can target much more than a zip code with your direct mail. You can use dozens of different lifestyle triggers and spending behavior overlays to create an exceptionally targeted list that will produce optimal response rates. 

Want to learn more? Find out how Take5 Solutions can take your direct mail campaign to the next level here. 

Email Marketing

Remember back in the late 1990’s when email was the latest and greatest thing to happen to society? Not only did it keep friends, families, and businesses connected, but it created a whole new realm of marketing activity that took the world by storm. Fast-forward a few years to the rise of social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, and the world of Internet marketing shifted once again. With the boom in social media use, many people assumed that email marketing would soon become obsolete and lose its status to social media marketing. However, that assumption is far from reality based one some of the most recent statistics. 


Email still dominates in information sharing, with more than 100 trillion messages sent each year. Statistics released by the Direct Marketing Association show that in 2011, firms made $40 on average for each dollar spent on email marketing. Why is this? By the numbers, there are still far more email accounts worldwide than social media users, with about 3.3 billion email accounts compared to about 1.73 billion social media users in 2013. Additionally, email is becoming more and more accessible with the rise of smartphones. In fact, 8 out of 10 smartphone users report checking and sending email with their device. And intuitively, it makes sense that email still reaches the majority of online users since it’s more of a cross-generational tool. While the 18-29 age group makes up about 89 percent of social media users, email is still a popular tool for those in their middle ages or senior years whether for work, keeping in touch with friends and family, or for online shopping. 

But not all email marketing is created equal. The most successful campaigns incorporate the right strategy for the best, highly-targeted audience. At Take5 Solutions, we’ve found a way to create email marketing strategies combined with other aggregated consumer data that boosts effectiveness and ROI of email marketing campaigns drastically. For example, just by combining email marketing with direct marketing, you could boost response rates by 25%. With our Flexible Interface Technology (FIT), we’re able to provide marketers and advertisers with the benefits of both email and social media marketing. With this technology, we identify consumer niche markets through individual social media usage, and we match back that data with robust in-house files, including email address. Learn more about how FIT can boost your email marketing campaigns here.  

How to Use Direct Mail to Drive Targeted Website Traffic

by Dean Rieck 

If you want to drive traffic to your website, which media should you use?

Email delivers traffic quickly and at low cost, though open rates can be low. Social marketing shows great potential, but it takes effort to make it work. Then there are PPC, banner ads, and other online strategies, all of which deliver varying results.

But what about traditional direct mail? 

Too many people suffer from an "oil and water" mentality when it comes to mixing online and offline media. But they work well together. And when you need to drive online traffic, an integrated approach can often work wonders.

According to the 2009 Channel Preference Study by ExactTarget, direct mail influences 76% of Internet users to buy a product or service online. Better still, direct mail remains the one medium that gives you direct and reliable access to nearly everyone in your target market.

How do you drive Web traffic with direct mail? Here are some pointers.

Make a compelling offer. It's not enough to ask people to visit your website. You need to give them a powerful reason to do so—a compelling and valuable offer, such as a free trial, seminar, white paper, savings coupons, or sample. It must be something they want, not just something you want them to see.

• Use an easy-to-type URL. Unlike email, where you can include a clickable link to your landing page, in direct mail you can only print a URL. Your prospect must type it into a browser. The shorter and easier it is to spell, then, the easier it will be for people to visit your page. If you create a separate domain exclusively for the promotion, the URL can be much shorter. If you want the landing page on your site, redirect from the unique URL to your page.

• Test a personalized URL (pURL). a pURL gets extra attention and creates curiosity. For example, a pURL using my name might look like this: DeanRieck.Widget.com. This is easy to type and allows for tight integration of the direct mail piece and landing page for tracking.
• 
  
• Try personalized copy. Just as a pURL gets attention, personalized teasers, headlines, subheads, and body copy attract attention and encourage reading. Use personalization with restraint—to avoid the appearance of an over-the-top sweepstakes mailing.
• 
  
• Issue a clear call-to-action. If you want your prospect to complete a survey, for example, say "Go to BobSmith.Gadget.com and fill out our survey to claim your $100 Savings Coupon." People are more likely to respond when you specifically tell them what to do.
• 
  
• Push response with a deadline. As in most direct marketing situations, people are more apt to respond immediately when they know they have a limited time for doing so. With whatever offer you make, state a deadline near the call-to-action.
• 
  
• Test various formats. Because of printing and postage costs, many people use postcards to drive Web traffic. But you can also test self-mailers, flyers, and envelope packages. The amount of pre-sell required should dictate the format. The simpler and more valuable your offer, the less pre-sell you need. Only testing can show you for sure.
• 
  
• Build a special landing page. Generally, it's not a good idea to drive traffic to your homepage. There are too many choices on those pages and too many ways for prospects to get lost. By creating a unique landing page and driving people to that page, you can control the message, track response, and collect information for follow-up and future direct marketing efforts.
• 
  
• Capture contact information. A one-time visit offers limited value. Good direct marketing practice dictates that you use a first visit to begin a dialog. And to do that, you must at least ask for the visitor's email address and maybe first name (to personalize future communications). Depending on the value of the offer, you might also be able to get full name, mailing address, and other information to build your in-house database.

Should you use email, social, and other online media? Absolutely. But smart business people don't make decisions based on personal preferences or novelty. They make decisions based on what works.

So if traditional direct mail is working for others, you should test to see whether it can work for you as well.

Read more: http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2010/3796/how-to-use-direct-mail-to-drive-targeted-website-traffic#ixzz2dqEClKtT

How to Integrate Social Media and Email Marketing Written

The problem with social media is that you don’t own it. The shareholders of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram do.
Use social but don’t rely on it

• If your business model is about building a community, you should not rely on social networks solely, but you will want to own a platform, like a blog.

• If your business model is about selling goods to customers, you will want to find the shortest way to reach them. In business that is still with email.

#1. Turn fans to email subscribers with contests and sweepstakes

#2. Use sweepstakes for email capture and lead generation

1. Draw – entrants enter the promotion with a single click. They just need to leave their contact details.

1. Poll – entrants need to answer a question in order to enter. They need to give their opinion that help you to learn more about them.

1. Quiz – entrants need to answer a question correctly to win. It encourages them to learn more about your company, so it increases engagement.

Some tips for sweepstakes
#1. Offer multiple grand prizes with lower value
#2. Choose the grand prize smart
#3. Always use incentives to share
Use contests for accelerating engagement

1. Photo contest – entrants should upload a photo to enter, and ask friends to vote.

1. Essay contest – entrants may share their story in a specific topic, and ask friends to vote.

1. Video contest - (this is the most engaging as entrants need to work a lot with videos) entrants need to upload videos to enter, and ask friends to vote.

Tips for contests
#1. The winner should never be the entry with the most votes
#2. Draw a winner among voters
#3. Should work on mobile!
The inverse relationship between engagement and lead generation

• You can generate a lot of email addresses if it’s easy to enter the promotion. If the entry is easy, the engagement is lower.

• If entering the promotion requires creating content (taking a picture, shooting a short video, sharing a story), then the barrier to entry is higher, so the engagement will be higher. Though, you will receive less email addresses.

What do you think?
Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/08/06/how-to-integrate-social-media-and-email-marketing/#J2GRuKPCrcacHVMs.99 

Building a community of social media is tricky. You have to play to their tune. And if a big social media network changes the rules then your lead generation, traffic and sales can plummet. In fact they can shut you down… no questions asked.

So it’s okay to take advantage of social media, but be careful, and don’t rely on it. Placing all your eggs in one basket is risky.

Mike Stelzner recently interviewed DJ Waldow about the synergy between email and social. DJ explains well why marketers should use both channels. He uses social media, but he explains that if Facebook decided to change their terms of service, then the connection with your friends and followers could disappear.

Even Facebook uses email, they have over 100 email notifications.

Email addresses stick with you. You should work on having more and more potential customers on your email list who you can engage with and convert to paying customers.

Let’s look at how to integrate social media and email marketing.

Contests, sweepstakes and giveaways are perfect to motivate people to sign up to your list, to turn fans to email subscribers. At these promotions the condition of entry is to give your name and email address.

 

This toy shop is running a sweepstakes every weekend, where kids and parents are on Facebook.

Let’s see which promotion type is good for what.

Sweepstakes are chance based promotions when one or more lucky entrant(s) can win. As the barrier to entry is low, these kind of promotions are great for lead generation.

Based on how people enter here are the different types of sweepstakes.

According to Antavo’s stats (a contest and sweepstakes platform for Facebook and mobile I am a co-founder of) 46% of those who are running sweepstakes choose a quiz.

This fashion company uses a poll to gather email addresses.

We see a lot of promotions here at Antavo, and interestingly sweepstakes with multiple, but lower value prizes perform well. The logic behind this may be that if the grand prize is too high-value, entrants feel to have less chance to win, because they think such high-value gand prize would attract a lot of entrants.

The grand prize is one of the best filters when running a promotion. Give away something relevant to your business, the best is if you offer your own product or service. Never give away an iPhone, unless you are Apple.

Motivate people to spread the word about your promotion – if they invite friends, they can receive bonus entry points. If you don’t use such incentives, your promotion will not go viral. Why you ask? I would never want to lower my chances of winning by inviting my friends!

Let your subscribers be motivated – it’s essential for your sweepstakes to go viral.

Contests are “skill-based” promotions – the fans and followers are invited to write an essay, upload a picture or a video. Entrants will ask friends to vote on their uploaded entry, so contests are a perfect way to reach the friends of fans.

There are different type of contests, here you are.

Sunsilk is running a photo contest. Entrants ask friends to vote.

It’s quote unmotivating for entrants if someone gathers a lot of votes so they will loose motivation and stop promoting their own entry. You should include “luck” to the winner selection process, and pick winner(s) from the top 5 voted entries.

If you want a big buzz around your promotion, consider drawing a prize among voters too. Just think about America’s Got Talent. If you vote on your favorite you can win something too.

This one is especially important at photo contests, as these days people use their mobile to take pictures. (I don’t even have a photo camera.) It’s 60 % chance that people will see your contest on mobile, and this number will just grow. So let fans enter right away with the accessibility to upload photos from their mobile, or take a picture immediately.

Mobile compatibility is key in social.

Both sweepstakes and contests can be used for lead generation, but sweepstakes are better.

There is an inverse relationship between engagement and lead generation.

Have you ever used contests and sweepstakes to gather email subscribers? Are you building an email list or are you relying on Facebook?

Look forward to hearing your stories, insights and feedback in the comments below

Guest author: Zsuzsi Szabo is a co-founder of Antavo.com, a tool that helps small businesses to run Facebook contests. Connect with her on Google+ or Twitter.  

Social Media Marketing Tool Box: 62 Tips

Social media marketing is moving from its exciting adolescent phase to a more mature grownup status.

Online social media obsession driven by social web hormones and testosterone that drove social networks to hyperactivity are being replaced by tried and now proven activities and mature business processes. Digital marketing responsibility is now in the driving seat.

The dreaded phrase “what is the return on investment” is now seen as a conversation that needs to happen.

The dinner party conversations are no longer about Facebook or Twitter. An announcement about Instagram providing 15 second videos barely makes a ripple in the blogosphere. Social media is now part of the woodwork and is embedded in the web.

The after work and cocktail bar chats are now about when you are commencing a start up, designing your online store or launching an app.

Sexy to staid

Despite its move from sexy to staid and impending “ho hum” status, social media is embedded and integrated into almost all digital and even traditional marketing activities.

Learning to use social media effectively is now essential and required if you aren’t going to be “disrupted” by your competitors and fast growing start-ups.

So let’s look at it in context in the digital marketing ecosystem, consider core essentials and tips and tactics. These will help you get started and also optimize your current social media marketing activities.

Earned and paid

The initial attraction of social media beyond connection and engagement was that is was “free”. Social networks allowed anyone to publish and market for free with ease.

Search engines also provide this advantage and being found on Google can be done two ways.

Earned search

Earn the right to appear on page one of a search engine with optimized content and search engine optimization and it can make a large difference to your sales and inquiries. The clicks from earned search sits at around 75% of all search engine result page clicks.

This is called organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Paid Search

Now let’s quickly cover how to pay for appearing on the first page of Google

Google AdWords allows you to accelerate your brand discovery and click-throughs by paying to appear on page one for selected keywords and phrases. Stop the campaign and the traffic no longer turns up to your website or landing page.

It all comes down to measuring whether paying produces a positive return on investment. Spend a dollar and get a profit of two dollars means that it is an activity worth pursuing despite the cost.

Social media marketing is following the same route.

Earned social

On Facebook you can update frequently and create content that drives organic engagement without paying a cent. That challenge is becoming a mountain of effort as Facebook pushes you to pay for attention. Obtain 100,000 likes and you have earned some attention that drives traffic to your digital properties.

Grow your Twitter followers to 10,000 and you have free crowd sourced marketing to share your tweets. This takes time to earn.

Paid social

The other marketing route is to log into Facebook’s self-service advertising portal and start paying for some Facebook advertisements. Twitter’s self serve advertising is also available to help you gain that important online visibility. Paid social media advertising is becoming an important part of the marketing budget.

Effective social media marketing is requiring your organisation to learn how to do both earned and paid well to ensure success.

Social media marketing essentials

There are some key essentials that should be part of your social media marketing foundations.

1. Securitisation of your social media network assets

I still am surprised that many companies still don’t have the top social networks secured with their brand name in their digital assets portfolio.

You don’t need to be on every social network but ensuring you have the major ten (as listed in this article) registered by your organisation is vital.

2. Branding

Make sure that the branding is consistent across your social media channels. An important core goal of social media marketing is to create brand awareness. So making sure your memorable brand is recognised wherever your customer’s hangout is vital. Logo, colors and brand consistency should be embedded across all social networks.

3. Strategy

A planned social media marketing strategy that is consistent with your overall marketing activities ensures that you are not chasing quick fix tactical responses to urgent marketing goals. Like lack of sales.

4. Resources

Having a well resourced and adequate team and tools is needed for long term success.

This includes

• Budget
• People
• Tools

Social media despite being free to join, does take time and resources to implement.  It costs.

Allocate and buy the right people, software and even external expert advice to ensure that you aren’t spinning your wheels and expecting the intern to perform marketing miracles.

5. Integration

Social media networks seem separate but in essence they are interlinked paths to your brand and need to be integrated. Everyone has a social media preference. It could be Blogs, Facebook or even Twitter.

Make it easy for people to listen and view your updates on their platform of choice by ensuring that you have cross-linking to other social media networks. This needs to be woven into all your platforms.

Examples include having links on your blog to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

On Facebook have a link to your Blog or website. If you have a Twitter account also link to your primary online presence.

Core social media marketing activities

These are the types of activities that should be woven into every social media marketing plan.

1. Content creation

Don’t underestimate the time and expertise needed to create content that will flow across the web. It needs a good headline, a compelling introduction and a well structured layout with sub-titles, bullet points and short sentences that make content consumption compelling.

Multi-media that is compelling to share on social networks is a creative process that is part art and part science.

2. Engagement

Publishing updates to Facebook, Twitter and Google+ means that people will leave comments and feedback that needs a response from the organisation. This creates deeper trust and, credibility and engagement. This is what you call the quality component of social media marketing

3. Building your networks

To add to the quality you need quantity to get more visibility online. Bigger is better. Continue to grow your Facebook likes, Twitter followers and other social networks.

62 tips for your social media marketing toolbox

What are the some of the basics the top social media marketing professionals implement that are essential to long term success?

I have broken them down social network by social network.

1. Blog

A blog or website should be the center of your digital asset portfolio. You own it and it needs to be a constant publishing platform for your brand and business.

Don’t let Facebook have all your images, videos and contagious multimedia content. A blog with optimized articles and media will build and boost your search engine rankings.

So what are some essentials?

1. Design and launch your blog on your own domain (not on Tumblr’s, Blogger’s or any easy to use but hard to escape network)
2. Self hosted
3. Use a search engine optimized software platform like WordPress
4. Persistent publishing
5. Well structured writing
6. Easy to read
7. Includes highly visible sharing buttons for the important social networks. These include Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+
8. Add subscribing icons which allows people to subscribe to your social media networks including “Liking” you on Facebook and follow you on Twitter without leaving your site.

More reading:

• How to Make Money from your Blog: 11 Powerful Case Studies
• How to Create a WordPress Blog in 5 Minutes
• 50 ways to Promote and Market your Blog Posts

2. Facebook

Facebook cannot be ignored as it is the defacto social network with nearly one in two people that use the internet as members.

Here are some tips for those who don’t know where to start.

1. Design and apply custom tab Facebook apps to your (such as ShortStack) for increasing likes, engagement and calls to action
2. Listen to your audience
3. Update often
4. Use strong visuals and multimedia
5. Link to your core website asset
6. Your “About you” is clear and part of your Facebook profile
7. Use non photo shopped images from mobiles rather than glossy glamour shots

More resources:

• 15 Facebook marketing Tips and Tactics
• 25 Facebook Marketing Tips to Increase Sales
• 5 Successful Facebook Marketing Campaigns: Case Studies
• 7 Ways to Market on Facebook Organically

3. Twitter

Twitter is the unfiltered “Wild West” of the social media “in” group and is often underestimated as a media for connecting with focused target groups and distributing your content at velocity.

It is just as essential as Facebook in your tactical social media toolbox. It is maybe the easiest to automate and achieve some scale.

So what are some key tactics?

1. Use compelling headlines
2. Tweet often
3. Automate where appropriate (Socialoomph, Twitterfeed, etc)
4. Share industry influencer’s content often
5. Link back to your website/blog
6. Engage with your followers

More resources:

• 10 Commandments of Twitter
• 6 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Followers
• How to Get more Retweets on Twitter

4. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the white collar professionals playground and if you work in any knowledge industry you need to be participating here.

More formal than Facebook but LinkedIn has become increasingly important as a place to share your content and engage with industry groups on a global scale.

1. Link to your three top online properties in your profile
2. Update your profile regularly
3. Participate in groups
4. Upload links to content to LinkedIn from your core online assets (Website/Blog/Slideshare/Media)
5. Publish your new content consistently on LinkedIn (such as blog posts, videos and Slideshare presentations)
6. Include video in your LinkedIn profile 

More resources:

• Personal Branding on LinkedIn: 10 Mistakes to Avoid
• Should You Invest in LinkedIn and Forget Facebook?
• How to Harness the Power of LinkedIn

5. Google+

Google+ is now the second largest social network behind Facebook and is considered by Google as core to its platforms such as Gmail, YouTube, Blogger, Picassa and even its  search engine algorithms. It weaves social signals such as Tweets, +1’s and other social media interactions into rankings results on its search engine.

It is a major social media player that is too big to ignore.

1. Use the strong branding capabilities and real estate that Google+ provides
2. Participate in “Hangouts”
3. Use large high definition images (It is a very visual platform)
4. Use Google+ Ripples to monitor the effectiveness of your content updates
5. Share your best content on Google+
6. Add Google+ share and follow buttons on your blog/website
7. Segment followers with the “Circle” feature

More resources:

• 8 Reasons to Consider Marketing with Google+
• 5 Google+ Insights Resources and Tips for Business
• 3 Google+ Power Users Reveal Their Secrets
• Google+ Interactive Posts

6. YouTube

YouTube can be effective for businesses that sell to other businesses (with “How to” instructional videos) as well as for consumer related brands. (eg. Old Spice’s funny and viral videos).

Often the golden grail for a business or marketer is the “viral video”.

What many people don’t realise is that YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google and is vital for visibility on the social web.

Here are some tips to essential YouTube social media marketing.

1. If you are an online store create short YouTube videos to display your product (Research shows that this can increase conversions by 10-30% )
2. Create “How To” videos that explain insights into using your product whether that is about how to use software or even riding a horse.
3. Optimise for search when creating your YouTube videos. This includes writing a headline for YouTube that includes keywords that are important for your industry. Also add a description, categories and tags that allow Google to find and know what your video is about. Even include a link to your website/blog that enables people to find out who your business and brand are all about.
4. Embed them in your blog posts and website to give them more exposure
5. Tweet your YouTube videos on a regular basis.

More resources:

• 7 Key Elements for Viral Content
• 6 Simple mistakes to Avoid When Creating Online Video
• How to Create and Promote Your YouTube Video in 8 Simple Steps

7. Pinterest

So why should you be interested in Pinterest. Recent new data is showing that it has now become the 4th largest referral network after passing Yahoo and now only sits behind Google, Facebook and Twitter.

It is a visual niche social network that is proving to be  a driver of significant traffic driver for image rich eCommerce sites. Walmart is considering plans to include trending pins (Pinterest posts) as one of the signals it listens to in its own eCommerce search engine as signalling buyer intent.

1. Align: Position your brand to align with popular, timely and topical conversations; i.e. if you are a shoe company, pin trendy shoes. “News Year’s Eve” shoes (timely), or “prom shoes” (topical).
2. Optimize: Google LOVES Pinterest! Focus on the keywords that matter most for your brand, align this with what you know about how your audience searches (and what they are searching for) and incorporate them into your board titles and pin descriptions.
3. Engage: Pinterest is a social community that requires two-way engagement. “Repin,” “Like” or comment on pins and boards of others. Interact with your followers and take the time to participate.
4. Organize: Sort your boards well. Also, while keywords are important, have a little fun with how you name your boards. Finally, be sure to set the board “cover image” to a pin that best conveys the topic of that board.
5. Diversify: Pinterest is a great opportunity to reach all the segments of your audience. Create boards and pin items that appeal to every segment of your consumer base!
6. Integrate: Be sure that the content on your website is easy to share. Incorporate the “Pin It” button into your social sharing lineup.
7. Evaluate: Measure your success. What boards and pins are seeing the most “Likes,”

More resources:

• 10 Best Pinterest Practices
• How to Use Pinterest’s Group Boards to get More exposure for your Business
• 4 Ways to Succeed with Your Pinterest Brand Page
• 30 Resources, Tips and Tricks for Marketing Your Business on Pinterest

8. Instagram

Instagram received fame when it was bought by Facebook in 2012 for $1 billion despite the fact is was making a loss and only had 16 employees. This social media app that started life as a mobile app without even a website makes sharing images to Facebook and Twitter from your smart phone simple and fun.

It is even used by large business to business brands such as General Electric.

1. Arrange a feed for your Instagram photos into your interactive website, ecommerce site or blog.
2. Share your instagram photos across your key social media networks of Twitter and Facebook. It also supports Flickr, Tumblr and even Foursquare.
3. Make it fun. Want to see how Jamie Oliver does it so well.
4. Use Instagram to increase engagement on Facebook by asking open ended questions when posting a photo. This can be as simple as “What do you think about this Instagram Photo of the Day?”
5. Reveal “behind the scenes” photos that humanise your brand.

More resources:

• How the Top 10 Brands Post Photos on Instagram
• How Instagram Harnesses the Awesome Power of Mobile, Social Media and Photos: 3 Success Stories

9. Vine

Viddy and the video feature on Instagram thinks that 15 seconds is the right length for a video short message while Vine has chosen 6 seconds. Maybe there is some science behind both but let’s look at some possible ideas for marketing with a short video.

Here are 6 ideas to get you started.

1. The brand elevator pitch: Want people to understand what your brand is all about. The elevator pitch is where you wrap it up in one sentence or two. 6 seconds is maybe enough. How could you make it visual and viral. 
2. Product demonstration: One to two minute video reviews of products in your online store are now maybe too long. Why not experiment with six seconds?
3. Launching a new product or service: Explain your new product in six seconds if you can. (If you don’t then use YouTube). Maybe your messaging will get better as you learn to communicate the key features and not the unnecessary.
4. Give your brand a personality: Social media allows and wants you to give your brand a personality. Use Vine to make it real and authentic. Make it quirky or innovative. Many brands want an image that goes beyond bland.
5. Marketing a promotion: Use a 6 second Vine video to market a new promotion. This could be a new book, song or a movie or even an event. How long do you need to communicate something new. Remember the power of simple.
6. Announcing a special offer or discount: 50% off. How long does it take to announce that special offer for your clothing store? Make it visual, aural and shareable

More resources: 

• 6 Tips on How to use Twitters Vine Video App
•  5 People Rocking Vine with Great Video Content

10. Slideshare

Slideshare is the YouTube of PowerPoint presentations. It is visual and underestimated by many marketers. If you are an author, a business to business marketer or work in a knowledge industry then it should be in your social media toolbox.

So how can you use Slideshare to market your business.

1. Upload your PowerPoint presentations onto Slideshare
2. Share them on other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. Don’t expect people to stumble across them.
3. Turn your blog posts into a visual presentation and load them up to Slideshare
4. Re-purpose your PowerPoint’s into a blog article and embed your presentations in that post.
5. Use Slideshare to capture inquiries as the paid “Pro” version allows you to create a lead form that is embedded in your PowerPoint.

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/07/29/social-media-marketing-tool-box-62-tips-and-tactics/#E7b5U8Z1WXk0gCLk.99