SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION ...

Social Media Optimization (SMO)

"Web 2.0 also includes a social element where users generate and distribute content, often with freedom to share and re-use. This can result in a rise in the economic value of the web to businesses, as users can perform more activities online."

Why leverage Social Media and Blogging Communities?

Because of the sheer number of online communities and the number of active users, every possible demographic is represented on the social networks on the Internet. Your customers are on MySpace right now.

Having a powerful MySpace presence is one of the most effective ways to engage your audience on the Internet. Social Media Optimization is your opportunity to embed yourself, your business, your brand, or your product into the community of people who are most likely to purchase from you.

Interchanges uses highly effective segmenting technology to target and attract specific types of people to invite to become a "friend". We call this "Social Droving". Interchanges' Social Marketing teams will run a highly effective campaign for your organization....all you need to do is make us your first "friend" and we will do the rest.

Social Media Optimization Benefits

Brand Awareness	Lead Generation
Event Promotion	Customer Loyalty
Blogging Platform	Build Brand-Centered Community
Local / Regional / National Focus

Social Media Facts

MySpace is not just for kids & teenagers!

• Did you know…40.6% of MySpace users are between the ages of 35-54?
  Source: zdnet.com
  
  
• MySpace has grown to over 300,000,000 people and is growing at a rate of over 230,000 per day!
  Source: Wikipedia
  
  
• MySpace achieves nearly 80% of visits to online social networking web sites
  Source: Alexa Internet, Inc.
  
  

Social Media Services

Professional Profile Development	YouTube Integration
Create a presence that engages your market	Web site Integration
Outgoing Messages and Replies	Blogging Campaigns
Integration with Other Social Media Outlets	Bulletins and Comments

Interchanges Advantages

• Proprietary technology
• Experts that “live” in the social networks
• Systematic Processes for developing friends
• Lead generation techniques
  
  

Where Social Marketing Ad Dollars Are Going

Emarketer had an interesting report that looked at social network advertising. While Facebook is the face of social networking to most of the press, eMarketer projects that Facebook will only capture 20% of the ad spend on social networks in 2008., compared to 54% for MySpace.

Facebook stumbled last year with its roll-out of their Beacon Platform, while MySpace has quietly launched its HyperTargeting system. HyperTargeting allows marketers on MySpace to target ads based on 1,000 different issues and hobbies that members describe in their profiles. The eMarketer study would seem to indicate that MySpace is much more advertiser friendly than Facebook. We specialize in running internet marketing campaigns specifically focused on MySpace.

When you look at the actual dollars that are being spent on social networks, it is interesting that niche social networks already have $150 million in advertising, putting them close to all other general social networks other than MySpace and Facebook. It appears that advertisers understand that the power of social networks is conversational marketing and small niche social networks are much more suited to this type of marketing than large general social networks.

Forrester is advising clients to advertise on social networks

E-consultancy had an interesting post about Forrester Research who are advising clients that a recession is the time to be advertising on social networks.

As Forrester put it:

Social applications in particular, such as communities and social networking sites, are cost-effective and have a measurable impact on prospects' decisions in the consideration stage, which will be important to companies under recessionary pressures.

This is an interesting position for Forrester to take as social networks have not exactly been a boon for most advertisers. In their paper Forrester makes two points why this is a good time to switch your advertising dollars to social networks.

The first point is:

"Well-designed social applications are effective. Social programs leverage the voice of the customer to get messages carried further than ad impressions. If your message resonates with consumers, their word-of-mouth is a more effective medium than any of the traditional media."

Yes a successful viral campaign can be much more effective than a traditional campaign (see the Barack video for an example of this). But isn't viral marketing simply successful word-of-mouth marketing? You can plan on having a campaign go viral, but unless the message resonates with the consumer (and that is a big if), your message will go nowhere. Social networks can be a conduit to helping your message go viral, but it needs a good message and product in order to be successful.

The second point is:

"They're cheap. Advertising campaigns often run into millions of dollars. But Facebook pages and blogs are two examples of social programs that you can start for next to nothing. Even more sophisticated programs like a full-blown customer community typically don't cost more than $50,000 to $300,000 to get going."

Just because it is inexpensive to advertise on social networks does not mean that the traffic you are buying is good. There is a reason why StumbleUpon lets you buy traffic at $.05 a click in even the most competitive markets. Social networks are notorious for providing advertisers with lots of ad impressions, very few clicks and even less conversions. One of the reasons for this is that users of social networks are not on social with a commercial intent. When I talk to my nieces who are heavy Facebook users, they all mention that they are never looking to buy something when they are on Facebook. They are there to socialize. They are blind to the ads.

It is akin to when you use Gmail. How many of you actually read the ads that go along with the email you are reading? You ignore the ads, because you are not looking to buy something. The same applies to broad based social advertising campaigns.

The only difference between a poorly executed cheap social marketing campaign and a poorly executed expensive marketing campaign is the amount of money that you spend.