Page 340 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

It’s essential to analyze the value of paid media in relation to the value of incre-
mental reach (users passing it on) and the value of the endorsement effect (users
promoting a brand via an image on their profiles and liking a specific piece of
content and sharing it). The point is that when you use paid media to jump-start
an earned media effort, you must analyze the value of all components to assess
the total value of the campaign and how the components support each other.

Build awareness

Paid media is most valuable for building awareness among consumers about a
product, service, or promotion. If you’re beginning to engage with customers on a
social platform or in a hosted online community, an effective way to build aware-
ness for those experiences is to create awareness via paid media across the Inter-
net. Most of your consumers may not know that you’re interacting with others on
a social platform and providing product sneak peeks, offering discounts, or
answering customer-service queries. You can build that awareness by using paid
media. This paid media can be in the form of advertisements on mainstream web-
sites or social advertisements on social platforms.

Promote interaction

You may have already developed a thriving community and could be looking to
increase engagement with a new audience segment. One way to do this is to use
paid media to profile community members and highlight the value that the com-
munity provides.
For example, Intuit has a very successful QuickBooks Live Community (as shown
in Figure 22-3), where customers help each other solve problems. Today, more
than 70 percent of customer-service–related issues are resolved with other users
answering questions. One accountant has posted more than 5,600 answers. Intuit
now has the opportunity to promote the Live Community to prospective custom-
ers as a benefit of buying their software. That can be done through paid media.

Win friends and influence

If you want to engage with your customers in a more meaningful way but don’t
have the resources, skills, or permission to do so, use paid strategies. For example,
American Express hosts the popular business site called OPEN Forum. The site
pays experts like übermarketer Mike Michalowicz to blog on various topics, which
cultivates discussion among the readers. The conversations triggered on the OPEN
Forum percolate to other parts of the Internet, rapidly giving American Express
additional exposure. American Express builds its reputation as a company provid-
ing valuable advice to its customers, the expert bloggers get a larger audience, the
customers get the information, and each post builds brand awareness for the
AmEx brand.

324 PART 5 Old Marketing Is New Again with SMM