Written by Corrie Scott, October 19th, 2011
Every question has an answer, or does it? Increasingly popular social networking website Formspring.me may possibly have the answer to that very query. Formspring.me allows users to post questions as well as answer a multitude of questions on a variety of topics such as health, business, beauty, and technology. Recently
releasing a scalable technology in the form of a mobile app with photo sharing capabilities, Formspring.me is truly answering to their user’ needs. By giving their users the ability to respond and receive push notifications on their phones, Formspring.me is encouraging their users to communicate even while on the go. With the addition of a photo sharing capability, they are tapping into their consumer’s desire of proving a point with a visual. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words!
Why Formspring?
Essentially a question and answer platform, you may ask what gives Formspring.me an edge over Facebook or Twitter? Although both social giants Facebook and Twitter allow users to post any content they desire, their primary focus is not centered on questions. By limiting the type of content and type of status updates posted, Formspring.me has created its own niche in the social networking space.
Benefits for businesses both small and large include tapping into the consumer’s mindset and listening to the types of questions their consumers want answered. Every entrepreneur’s dream essentially lies in finding a solution to a problem or question commonly asked among a target group of individuals. Businesses may also gain a substantial competitive advantage by asking the right questions prior to development phases for new products or ventures, essentially saving them a considerable amount of time and money.
Formspring.me is free, easy to use, and easy to understand. Its simplistic design and format create a comfortable atmosphere for users to ask their smallest or biggest queries. The only question left to answer is, what is YOUR question?
Written by Corrie Scott, October 12th, 2011
Thanks Jason Sew of Stickywords Marketing for this great review of our High Tech Communications’ Exchange presentation from last week. If you’d like to see the original, click here.
About the High Tech Communicators Exchange
On Monday October 2, 2011, I attended my first High Tech Communicators Exchange event titled “No Longer a Sidedish: Bringing Social Media into your Marketing Strategy.”
The HTCE is a volunteer-ran organisation that was started in 2001 with the goal of bringing communicators together to network and exchange current best practices in communications. The organization tries to be low-cost and accessible to all, which attracts a diverse group of very grounded communications/marketing professionals.
Indeed, it was a friendly room of writers, corporate communications specialists and Internet marketers exchanging hugs and chatting about things like family and absurd Vancouver real estate prices.
The Speaker
The speaker was Mhairi Petrovic, originally from Scotland with a background in selling software and Internet technologies to Fortune 500 companies. She is the Chief Marketing Officer and Founder of her company, Out-Smarts Marketing Inc. and you can’t help but feel disarmed and comfortable in her presence because of her uber friendly Scottish accent.
The Problem for Communicators
For many of those working in communications, a common problem is justifying the return on investment in social media to the decision makers. The subject of this talk was particularly relevant for corporate communications professionals familiar with social media tools but perhaps struggling to introduce or incorporate social media into an external marketing strategy (this talk did not cover internal social media communications) within a reluctant organisation. The information was also useful for freelancers like myself who spend some time educating small business owners about the benefits of using the right social media tools.
The Opening of the Talk
Assuming everybody in the room was beyond Social Media 101, we started by quickly defining social media simply as a technology used to help communicate with our audiences and stakeholder. In this day and age, this is really something that organizations can and should incorporate in their marketing operations. Mhairi then presented a few objections commonly heard from the social media reluctant.
Objection: Social media is only for young people.
Answer: Actually, the fastest growing demographic of people adopting social media are people over the age of 35. Senior citizens are now using Facebook to connect with old friends and see what their grand children are up to.
Objection: What is the return on investment for using social media?
Answer: You may want to ask what the return on avoiding social media is. Nobody is forcing you to adopt social media in your marketing mix but if you are looking to build networks with a new generation of leads then, it is in your best interest to give it a try. If you don’t have the stomach to jump in with both feet, at least consider listening to the social media channels that your customers visit.
Question: Companies usually have set marketing budgets. How do you suggest we overcome the objection that there just isn’t any money or resources to start using social media.
Answer: You can propose to take a small percentage of money from a different form of traditional marketing that may not be performing to expectation. Start by choosing a single social media channel that you can devote your time and effort into learning, using and measuring for benefit.
7 Tips for Social Media
The rest of the talk was broken up into 7 tips with her own examples sprinkled through the presentation to illustrate how each tip would be applied in the context of an organization.
1) Strategy
Social media should fit within your overall mission, vision and company goals. If you have a strategic plan that includes a description of your target audience and the key messaging, it should guide all of your marketing holistically. Logically then, your social media efforts should be guided by the same strategy. Your strategic plan should specify who you are looking to ‘shake hands’ with online and what information you would like to share with them.
2) Pilot Programs
For organizations that have rigid and unchanging work processes in their marketing or communications department, you can start small, making sure to measure the impact of social media towards your marketing goals. By starting small, you can test whether the results are positive or disappointing without absorbing too much of the organisation’s resources.
Example:
You can pick a single social media channel particularly suited to your service or product and measure the increase in web referrals from that channel. If you have a consumer product or service, try Facebook to start as opposed to LinkedIn, which is better for making business to business connections.
You might also develop social media tactics targeted to a geographical region or a single product or service. Mhairi had a community newspaper group as a client and had them start by using social media on only a certain geographic location with messaging tailored to the audience in that area. The results were positive enough to extend their social media efforts beyond the first test area. Read more
