by Mattr | Feb 26, 2014 | news
(Originally posted in Medium, written by Christina Rosalie) How do I build an audience, or engage with customers online? As a strategic storyteller and digital consultant, I get asked this question in some form on nearly a weekly basis. Usually, the brand or product already exists in some form (anywhere on the spectrum between an established brand that needs to be reenergized, to a product on the verge of launch) and the business owner or entrepreneur wants answers. Urgently. Just as often, and just as urgently, they tack “using social media” onto their query. For example, I just received this email from a new business owner: “I’m interested in how social media marketing can be leveraged with other types of online and more traditional marketing. No need to tell me just to use LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. For those and others like them, I’d like specifics about how to use them, which groups to join, etc.” I’ve worked with many types of clients from solopreneurs to marketing leaders for multi-national corporations who are just as adamantly convinced they need to “do social media” without ever stopping to question why. I get it. Social media is ubiquitous. We’ve all seen its impact on politics, love, and yes, branding. And I understand the allure of tactics: They’re tangible. They give you something to do—and doing something tends to feel like progress, at least at first. It would be easy (and it’s sometimes quite tempting) to respond to such inquiries with a list of possible tactics and social media best practices that might generally be applied. But the truth is, without strategic brand direction, diving into social...
by Mattr | Feb 24, 2014 | news
(Originally posted in SteamFeed) As the recent Pace salsa debacle proved, a brand’s Twitter followers have the ability to truly influence its reputation — with some followers playing a bigger part in shaping that reputation than you would think. The truth of the Twitterverse is that all followers are not created equal, so it’s important that brands ensure their tweets are reaching — and positively resonating with — the right people. Read this article for a few unconventional ways to become your followers’ Twitter soulmate. Big brands spend millions on digital marketing. Sometimes, however, a reputation can come down to just a few characters — 140, to be exact. In the digital landscape, a smart, effective presence on Twitter has far more significance than its bite-size format might lead you to believe. And right now, your brand has two kinds of Twitter followers: those who read your tweets and scroll past, and those who do more. On Twitter, that means they’re “engaging”: sharing, retweeting, or replying to friends, celebrities, or your brand. But what makes them so different than your other followers, and what can you do to create a following that’s even more lively and involved? Win the Twitter Advantage To truly use your Twitter following to your brand’s advantage, you need to build a meaningful connection with your followers. And to do that, you need a complete picture of who’s following you and why. What do they get from your brand right now? And, more importantly, what don’t they get? The best way to find the answer is a bit unconventional: You need to look beyond your own...
by Mattr | Feb 18, 2014 | news
(Originally posted in IdeaCafe) Have you ever tweeted something to hundreds or thousands of followers, only to hear nothing but crickets? It’s not just you — brands across the country are finding that the biggest source of engagement and interaction comes from a surprising source: non-followers. On a recent product campaign, we reviewed 40,000 engagements for one of our clients and found that only 11 percent of interactions came from the brand’s followers. That means that non-followers represented eight times the engagement of followers. Yes, you read that correctly: You can get significantly more engagement from people who don’t even follow you — calling into question the true value of a follow. How did this happen? Not with spammy promotional messages, that’s for sure. The brand did it by using relevant hashtags in its messages — a user engagement strategy that is quickly becoming the best way to reach the broadest audience of targeted users. The Secret to Real Engagement Is Staying on Topic Social media users love hashtags because they’re a way to cut through the noise on their Twitter feed and home in on their specific interests. Hashtags are a simple, effective way to tap into a community of active users. Advertisers can make use of this trend by applying those contextual hashtags to their current campaigns. Here’s a great example: If you’re working for @Fab and want to show off the new line of Momofuku’s baked goods, you can tweet beautiful images with clever captions and obvious calls to action to your followers. But if you add one little hashtag (like #ValentinesDay), consider how many...
by Mattr | Feb 12, 2014 | news
(Originally posted in Medium) So you’re a company that sells razors in a culture that’s embracing facial growth? Sounds like a hairy situation (pun intended). And a problem that razor company Gillette now claims to be facing. All this talk about a new shave-free culture seems to be accurate, at least here in the States. In Austin, TX, handlebar mustaches and full-on beards are popping up all over the city. Even our usually bare-faced CEO has opted to join the no shave club. Encouraging this trend, as mentioned by Aaron Perlut on Social Media Today, are the facts that shaving is expensive, charities like Movember promote no shaving, and millennials now have the luxury of working in laid back offices (or home offices) where stubble on the face is completely acceptable. So what’s a brand like Gillette to do? Dive into the Consumer Data Interestingly, AdAge reported some statistics about shaving following Gillette’s recent earnings report. Specifically, that long-term decline in shaving frequency is the real issue at hand (particularly for the 18-24 age group). Despite the trend, though, that still left 34 million razor-cartridge users in the US, not counting people using disposables or electric razors. So Gillette, let’s start with a simple fact. Surely not all of those 34 million users are interested in “the best a man can get”. It’s your job to find out what they ARE interested in, and how to speak to them in a way they can relate to so they feel a real need to buy your product. And- SURPRISE! Some of those 34 million users might be women! In my social circle, it’s a common...
by Mattr | Feb 4, 2014 | news
(Originally posted in Social Media Today) With its recent interface upgrade, Twitter is making a strong play to encourage its social “lurkers” to get involved — that is, the 40 percent of users who have active accounts but fail to tweet. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. While lurkers are a powerful source of untapped potential for brands (and Twitter), engaging them takes hard work and time, and it’s only specific content marketing tactics that will help you do it. But it’s worth it. If just half of Twitter’s 40 percent became active, that would result in over 100 million newly active users looking for brands to engage with. That’s a lot of potential. The Different Types of Users Lurking in the Dark Social media is such a part of people’s daily lives that you can’t help but try it out. With this optimistic hypothesis in mind, we see simple divisions within all brands’ audiences: Brand Fans: Those unwavering advocates who engage the most and are the most easily pleased (think Apple brand fans). Under-Engagers: Also known as former lurkers, under-engagers do interact with your brand — just not as much as they could. Fake Accounts: Those followers that celebrities and public figures have purchased to falsely inflate their number of followers. Brand fans will share no matter what you do, and fake accounts won’t share no matter what you do. There are no real lurkers anymore! As social is woven into our daily lives more and more, we’re simply seeing different levels of under-engagers. The real challenge presented here is to get those under-engagers — those potential converts to your brand — to share your content...
