The Zen of Social Media Marketing. Shama Hyder

quilt for his own daughter but wasn’t sure if she would really enjoy it. He just stumbled across Sue’s blog after his wife forwarded him an article in which Sue was featured. Seeing Jane’s granddaughter’s smiling image with the quilt makes Don smile. He thinks, “If that little girl loves it so much, perhaps mine will, too.” He also notes how much Sue seems to care about her customers. He buys a quilt instantly.

      AHA! Zen Moment

      In this book I’ll be using the words “customer” and “client” interchangeably to refer to both, because there isn’t much difference between them when it comes to using social media marketing techniques: you can ATTRACT, CONVERT, and TRANSFORM both with the same methods!

      Through the ACT process, Sue ensures that she will never be short of customers. It is a simple yet effective process.

      Start thinking about all your online marketing tactics as falling into at least one of these categories. Whenever you think about marketing, ask yourself this question: Am I using this technique to Attract, Convert, or Transform? Keep in mind that there are plenty of instances in which an online marketing tactic can perform multiple functions. We will cover these instances later.

       Attract

      Nowhere is social media marketing more successful and useful than in the “attracting” phase of online marketing. During the attraction phase, you are trying to drive traffic to your site and stand out from the masses.

      We will look at the how of driving traffic later in the book. For now, let’s focus briefly on what you need in order to make your product or service attractive online.

      This may seem like a detour from social media marketing, but it is in fact the framework you absolutely must have to attract people to your product or service.

      What do you need to attract prospects online? A great BOD!

      • Brand: If your brand could be summed up in one word, what would it be? I will use my company, The Marketing Zen Group, as an example. Our clients use many words to describe us, but at the end of the day, the best phrase is “full service.” We constantly aim to provide anything our clients may need relating to digital marketing and PR.

      • Outcome: What’s the outcome you help clients achieve? Not the process you use but the final result. Sum it up in one line: Our company helps businesses grow by leveraging the internet. Simple. We may create websites and conduct social media trainings and so on, but those are all part of the process. We do those things to accomplish a goal. That goal is to help our clients make more money. That goal is our outcome.

      • Differentiator: What makes you inherently different from your competitors? The online marketing field is a competitive one. However, most marketing companies only offer one piece of the puzzle. They may offer graphic design, or optimize websites, or focus on simply consulting. There isn’t anything wrong with this approach, but this is where our company, The Marketing Zen Group, decided to stand out. We recognized that many clients out there didn’t have the time or in-house resources to handle their web marketing. Moreover, they didn’t want to hire and manage multiple companies and consultants. So, we offered to literally take over web marketing for our clients. In essence, we offered to become their online marketing department and drive inbound leads. It has been an amazing differentiator for us! So, your differentiator, in other words, is simply what makes you stand out.

      I can’t stress enough how important these principles—these basic building blocks—are to online marketing and social media marketing in particular. There is no lack of information and noise out there. As consumers, we are constantly inundated with data. It is a continual grand bazaar. If you don’t have the right elements, you can’t stand out from the noise. If you don’t stand out, you can’t attract people to do business.

      The branding principle “everything communicates” has only been magnified by the rise of social media.

      To be effective in this space, you have to be clear about what you want to be known for—what your brand stands for. And then, you have to be vigilant about building an integrated marketing presence that supports your identity consistently. Due in part to the blurring of personal and professional identities online, you can “leak” messages that are incongruent with your brand. Frustrated offenders might say, “I didn’t want that to communicate!” But it’s not our choice; the experience of the target audience determines our identity, and they decide what to include as an element of our brand.

      From its essence to its look and feel, business model, affiliations, and so on, it has never been more important to thoroughly plan your brand.

      Samantha Hartley,

      Enlightened Marketing (www.EnlightenedMarketing.com)

       The #1 reason people fail at social media marketing is that they don’t have a solid foundation. They don’t have a brand, they don’t understand the outcome they provide, and they have absolutely no way of differentiating themselves from the competition.

      Social media is the ultimate amplifier. If you have a good product or service, it will be amplified until it is perceived as great. If you have a shoddy product to begin with, that will also be amplified. Think about when you speak to your friends. Do you tell them that a restaurant you liked was good or do you say it was amazing? Inside each of us is a storyteller. We like to amplify. Social platforms and the internet in general allow us to do that. They are a megaphone for your message. The people who consistently do well using social media are the ones who were already doing well to begin with. The medium simply amplified their success.

       Convert

      So, what happens after you attract clients or customers? If they are an ideal fit, they convert. I say if they are an ideal fit because not everyone you attract will be. In our story earlier, Sue attracted Jane, who was an ideal fit. She was looking for quilts to buy. Let’s say Sue also attracts Edgar to visit her site because he likes the pictures of the quilts on her Facebook profile. However, he doesn’t have any use for a quilt; he just thinks they are pretty. He may never buy. And that’s okay. You want to convert the Janes out there, not the Edgars.

      As I mentioned previously, conversion can happen in one of two ways: (1) a stranger turns into a consumer, or (2) a stranger turns into a client or customer.

      People become consumers when they subscribe to your blog, get on your newsletter list, or merely like your Facebook page (more on this later). They are consuming your information. At this point, they have converted. They are no longer strangers.

      Why is this important? Even if they aren’t paying for the content they’re consuming, they are still being exposed to your company and your brand. There is an old marketing adage that says a person must come into contact with your brand seven times before he or she will make a purchase. Seven times!

      Think about the last time you went grocery shopping at a big chain store. Chances are that there was some table setup that allowed you to sample a product—whether it was a new juice or old-fashioned jam. Studies show that when people sample, they are more likely to buy! This same “sample table” concept also works online. Offering people a sample of your work—whether through written content, pictures, or videos—can also lead them to buy from you.

      Ideally, the formula works like this:

       Consumption of Valuable Content + Time = Client

      Time is a variable. Some people may buy right after sampling your product or service. Others may need much longer. Some of our clients received our newsletter for over a year before they decided to become clients. And not everyone should turn into a client. You only want those who are a perfect fit. The more qualified the buyer, the fewer the returns.

      Consumers and business buyers want to make up their