3 Business Benefits of Social Media for Software Companies

People often ask me about the benefits of a social media.  If your business is going to invest in something, you want to know what you get in return, right?  Basically, social media offer several benefits.

First, social media helps your search engine ranking.

The bigger your website, the better your search engine ranking. Most software companies don’t have extremely large website.  Social media lets you add posts and blog items that rank like web pages.   Blogs and social media posts also help your sales effort.  You can alert buyers to the latest upgrades and features quickly.  This is important because buyers today want to learn all they can about your product before they contact your company. 

Social media give your sales people more sales material.  As they speak with prospects, they can refer them to your blog, Facebook page, etc., for more information or discussion about a feature.  They can also show prospects a presentation on YouTube or SlideShow about a particular feature.  This is especially handy when talk with prospects over the phone.

WordPress, Google+ page, YouTube, FlickR and SlideShow are popular platforms for storing company information.  They are free, easy to use and indexed by the search engines.  Facebook and Twitter are good mechanisms to use to let people know you have new information available.

Second, to aid lead generation, you can embed organic keyword in your posts.  Using the same keywords in your blog items and posts that your prospects use in their online searches helps your prospects find your product.  Put a tagline describing your product’s benefits and the geographic area you serve at the bottom of your blog/post and you now have a free ad online.  Be sure to include a click to a contact form on your site.  

Third, lead nurturing is a natural use of social media.  Social media lets you contact people without disrupting them the way a phone call, or even an email, does.  In effect, a prospect can ask a question without inviting a 10-minute sales pitch from you.  Just be sure you are diligent about answering questions.  And, yes, every question deserves an answer.

Prospects don’t want to be sold.  They want to find appropriate product for their needs, kick the tires, get other people’s opinions about the company’s reputation, expertise and how they treat their customers, and maybe even use the product for free before they start a sales conversation.   

Social media lets you publicize your attributes in all these areas.

See you on the net.

--Paige

MultiPlanet Marketing, Inc.

Put your marketing on steroids

Need help starting your social media program?  Just shoot us an email, call or comment below.

pmiller@multiplanetmarketing.com, 610.687.2690.

The Answer to January 10 "test yourself" question:


In January 2010, Disney World’s “Give a Day, Get a Day” promotion offered a free one-day pass to Disney World to anyone who signed up and worked on the National Day of Service celebrating Martin Luther King’s birthday.  More than 600,000 people took advantage of the offer.  

Anatomy of An Amazing Marketing Deals

Marketing people are creative, and they often earn their stripes by solving business problems with creative marketing. 


The Philadelphia Inquirer illustrates this perfectly with their marketing campaign to increase subscribers. In November 2011, they began offering a tablet PC for $89 with the purchase of a one-year subscription to the digital version of the newspaper ($10 a month).

Stroke of Genius!
This is a stroke of genius. What does the Inquirer (an all other newspaper) face? Younger readers aren’t buying newspapers because they get their news from the Internet.

Let’s look at what the Inquirer did. You may have heard the phrase “a problem in search of a solution.” If you tweak that phase a little bit and think of it as “a problem in search of another problem” you have a marketing perspective that can result in amazing deals. Someone at the Inquirer was smart enough to think that way.

Think of the Customer
Instead of thinking about their own problem, the Inquirer thought about the problems of their desired client. What do young people want? Education, jobs, family….Ok, those are too big for even the Inquirer to solve. What do young people want for Christmas? Now that’s a more manageable problem.

So, what do young people want for Christmas? Kindles, music, iPhones, Uggs, Wiis, North Face jackets, digital cameras, iPods, video games, iPads. iPads…iPADs! Give the Millenniums iPADS . . .wouldn’t that be cool?

Give it a WOW-factor!
Note that last line above. Whatever you use as an incentive must have a WOW!-factor.


An iPad fits the bill perfectly. It lets the Inquirer apply another old marketing adage, “give them the razor for free and sell them the blades” (or the more modern version of “sell them the printer cheap and make money on the ink cartridges).

Now you have the “buy a subscription and get a tablet cheap” marketing offer.
When the iPad turned out to be too expensive, the Inquirer teamed with Arnova, which offers a great tablet on the Android Gingerbread operating system, the same OS as the Kindle. (My daughter has practically given up her MacBook in favor of the Arnova tablet.)

To recap: Think about your objective and what your desired client wants. How can you combine their current behavior, desires or wants with your objectives?

It takes brainstorming. It takes lots of “what if we….,” and “wouldn’t be great if…” thinking to devise a creative approach, but it results in great marketing.

Test Yourself
So, test your own skills. Answer this: How did Disney World increase attendance by African-Americans in 2010?

I’ll post a link to the answer in the next blog. In the meantime, post your thoughts.
–Paige
MultiPlanet Marketing specializes in creative thinking. Let us work with your management or marketing team to develop solutions for your challenges. Contact me at 610.687.2690. –Paige Miller

Meet the Press Loves Twitter

Interesting to hear so many marketing references on Meet the Press yesterday.  One of the commentators at the roundtable said one of the presidential candidates was an example of "as we say in marketing, resistant dependency.  When customer dislikes you but has to use you--like the cable company." 

(Ted Koppel tapped the guy on the arm and said something to the effect "don't bash the cable company--not on this network."  Everyone laughed.  NBC is owned by Comcast cable company.)  I never did find this sound bit on their website so you could hear it.  But I digress.

I hadn't heard the term "resistant dependency," but it's a good one, and I tucked it away for future use. 

Also, Dick Gregory (1) referenced a tweet sent by a viewer, (2) mentioned Ron Pauls "positive sentiment" on Twitter (wonder what listening software NBC uses), and (3) is seeking input on "What are your ideas for the debate?" on Facebook. 

Looks like Meet the Press Loves Twitter.  Fast, easy way to connect with your audience.  Good job.

How Good is Copy Cat Advertising?

The number of TV ads today that blatantly copy the ad concept of another company seems to be increasing.  Think of Kindle with the young man (Kindle in hand, white background) talking to the young lady about book reading.  Remind you of anything?  How about the Apple Mac ads with Justin Long and John Hodgman.

 

Or how about the Girl in Pink ads?

 

Hey, if it works for one, why not for others?  Obviously it's a low cost format--couple people, blank stage--but, if the actors and dialogue are engaging, that's all you really need or is it?

Quick, without looking back, what company does the Girl in Pink ad?  Sprint, T-Mobile, or Verizon?

I didn't get it right when I first looked on YouTube for the clip.  

So why was the Mac PC and Kindle so memorable, but the Girl in Pink less so?  Could it be the format works for tangible product but not intangible ones?  Did showing various cell phones with different screen confuse the message?  Or is this format losing its appeal?  What do you think?

Got content? SEO Is Great, But Content is King

If your small business has thrived mostly by "word-of-mouth" marketing, you know you need to invest in marketing to go to the next level. Word-of-mouth marketing eventually becomes too slow a sales channel for most companies (except those that come out with disruptive, cool technologies, like the iPhone).

Interactive marketing might be the right next step for your business--but recognize its advantages and, more importantly, its limitations.

Interactive marketing includes optimizing your website (SEO), setting up your Facebook and Twitter pages, building links, buying AdWords and building great looking landing pages.

But, sooner or later, interactive marketing leads to harder stuff: CONTENT, lots and lots of content.

Content is still king. Content builds your brand, your reputation, your persona and the niche for your product. Content lets people get to know your company, what it does, and what it stands for. Social media sites exist to be a show place for your content and a forum for communicating with your customer.

So, before you hire a tech-whiz to jump into interactive marketing, realize that someone in your organization will need to feed that person CONTENT--lots and lots of content.

And who will develop that content? Developing content can be difficulat, especially if you already have a full time job running, say, the product development department or the sales department. If you aren't ready to answer that questions, you aren't ready for interactive marketing. It may be more cost-effective to hire a marketing person and, then, hire a sub-contractor to do the SEO, social media and AdWord set-up and tracking.

Don't let the dazzle of the Internet tools blind you to the need for a solid content

--Paige Miller
MultiPlanet Marketing, Inc. - celebrating our 10th year!
pmiller@multiplanetmarketing.com
Certified Inbound Marketing Professional
If you have not thought about multi-planet marketing, you haven't considered all your marketing options.