Page 405 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

For example, suppose that you’re running advertising and want to test three
different versions of ad copy. You can run all three, and depending on how
each performs (the number of clicks each version gets), the ad serving
solution shows the one that’s doing the best. You can use this format to test
ad creative that is run in other locations, too.
» Seeding with a private community: Many brands launch and run private
online communities in which they ask consumers for feedback on production
innovations, marketing efforts, and future business plans. If you’re creating a
piece of content (whether for SMM or elsewhere), you can first run it in your
private community and solicit feedback before using it on a much larger
public scale.

» Tapping into individual third-party content creators: Another alternative is
to tap into content creators directly to help create your marketing communi-
cations. Companies such as Tongal (www.tongal.com) and CrowdContent
(www.crowdcontent.com) source content creators from their huge commu-
nity of writers. It happens very quickly, with the greatest benefit being that
you’re using their communities to help find the right content creator instead
of vetting someone on your own. Other companies that can help in this space
are FullScreen (www.fullscreen.com), and Soul Pancake (www.soulpancake.
com), which does something similar for video content on YouTube.

Real-time distribution

The vision of real-time marketing can only truly come to life if you have a real-
time distribution system in place. There’s no use gathering powerful insights,
creating powerful content, and testing it with consumers if you can’t then distrib-
ute it on a mass scale. As we say in the “Real-time response” section, earlier in
this chapter, the first step is in launching and running the responses through the
organic social media channels.

However, you have other ways to distribute the content, experiences, and various
forms of communication. Following are some of the key forms of distribution to
consider for your real-time marketing content:

» Social media platforms: This is probably the easiest way to distribute your
real-time content, but you should start with your own social media channels.
Why? Because it’s critical to first meet the needs and provide early access to
advocates of your brand. They’re typically the ones who follow you on Twitter
or have Liked you on Facebook. Distributing real-time content on your own
channels first takes the shape of organic engagement on the social media
platforms, but beyond that engagement, it occurs through paid social media
engagement. However, note that because of Facebook’s changes in its

CHAPTER 27 Using Real-Time Marketing 389