Suddenly everyone is a social media expert

I went to a networking function this morning and was amazed that there were four or five people who were suddenly experts in social media.  When I asked most of them what they were doing before, the answers ranged from a landscape contractor to a guy who made soap.  So what is it that makes someone an expert in social media?  The field of social media is so new that pretty much anyone who has a Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare account can stake a claim as being a social media expert.

Just like during the real estate boom when we had tenfold the normal realtors in Las Vegas, we now have way more “experts” in social media.  An expert is defined as, “a person with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject.”  While I sometimes write articles for Ezine as and “Expert Author,” I am gun shy of anyone who professes to be “The Expert in Social Media”  and nothing else.  This is because doing social media well is really an extension of other traditional skills such as writing, photography, and marketing. That being said, I think my company is pretty darn good at social media and we’ll be happy to help you out.  You can contact us by clicking here

Socialize to realize more money per customer

There’s a reason why every company from Coca Cola to Pampers is making friends online.  The more frequently you communicate to your customers and potential customers, the better you burn your brand into their subconcious mind and motivate them to take action.  Facebook and Twitter are the two fastest growing mediums for advertising, building a loyal customer base and ultimately improving your ROI.

However, on Facebook and Twitter saying the wrong thing, not communicating regulary or just being plain boring by quoting famous people everyday shows little originality and does little for your brand or building fans of your company.

At Digitalhipster Inc., for a small monthly investment we can help you distlill down the essence of your company’s individual voice and communicate it across Facebook and Twitter to bring in more repeat customers.

“Kid Eats Wasabi,” an exercise in SEO

Do you own your niche? There has been much talk in recent years about “the long end of the tail.” This concept was originally brought about by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine back in 2004. In online business terms, essentially it states that searches for the most popular products or services are owned by a few big companies. Otherwise know as the 80/20 rule. Think books- Amazon, Best Buy- XBox360, or auctions- Ebay. It is very difficult for a smaller business to break into to such broad categories because the sheer volume or frequency of purchases are already owned by the big players. However, as one moves down the tail to less popular items otherwise known as niches where there is less sales volume or searches, it becomes easier for smaller companies to gain a larger share of this business if the distribution channel is big enough.

Before the Internet, small companies with small ad budgets had limited distribution channels for reaching their niche customers. It was not very cost-effective for a company to market to the “long tail” because the only way to reach out to enough people and ultimately reach those interested in specific niches was to spend money on large audiences where only a small portion was interested specifically in their niche. Even with targeted direct mail, reaching people interested in niche products was not cost-effective marketing. Now with the right SEO (search engine optimization) it is possible for companies to reach people specifically when they are searching for the niche that they provide. The saying, “there is riches in niches,” finally can work for everyone.

As an organic example of this, I placed a video of my son on You Tube eating wasabi for the first time (He knew what he was getting into, he saw his brother try it earlier). When I first put the video on You Tube, it received only a a few views over the course of several months. I later performed a few SEO tricks that I now do for my customers and the video began averaging a thousand plays a month and continues to grow. When you search for “Kid Eats Wasabi” in Google there are over 160,000 results, but I own the top spot or the “long end of the tail.” It would be very difficult to own “Kid” or “Wasabi,” but I was able to lock in on a specific niche and given the limitless distribution channel of the Internet, anyone searching for that term finds me.

Do you know your GRPs from your TRPs?

In today’s economy, it’s more important than ever to be sure you are maximizing your ad dollars. When you buy your online, television, radio, or even print advertising; you need to pay attention to your Target Rating Points (TRPs).  What I mean by this is that if they can get you to run multiple products whether or not they are the ideal fit for your target audience, you are going to feel good because you saw some some ungodly high number of readers/viewers/listeners (the GRPs (Gross Rating Points). The GRPs represent everyone who saw your ad whether or not they were your ideal customer. You don’t want to pay for mainly grandmothers if your target audience is 12-24 year old skateboarders.

Conversely, if you are selling dentures and the show or time period you are in is 75% 18-24 year old college/club hoppers, then even reaching 100,000 people would only net you 25,000 toothless people. You just paid for 75% waste. To put it another way, you paid 4x what you should have! If we could know that the show’s viewers were all hockey players, then you would be batting 1000. Wow! that was a tremendous display of sports’ cliches.

Thankfully, today’s digital technology and people meters are improving the tracking of your message across the entire media landscape. Part of the reason behind the migration of ad dollars from traditional media to online has been the fact that it is more accountable than traditional media. That’s not to say that traditional media doesn’t have its place anymore, but that there are now more targeted options such as Twitter, Linked In, Facebook, SEO, SEM, viral video and Google Adwords to enhance your media buys.

Source:
Target Rating Point
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A Target Rating Point (TRP) is a measure of the purchased television rating points representing an estimate of the component of the target audience within the gross audience. Similar to GRP (short for Gross Rating Point) it is measured as the sum of ratings achieved by a specific media vehicle of the target audience reached by an advertisement. For example, if an advertisement appears more than once, reaching the entire gross audience, for the TRP figure the sum of each individual GRP multiplied by the estimated target audience in the gross audience.

In the case of a TV advertisement that is aired 5 times reaching 50% of the gross audience with only 60% in the target audience, it would have 250 GRPs (= 5 x 50) — ie, GRPs = reach x frequency – TRP in this case should be 60% out of 250 GRPs = 150 TRPs – this is the rating point in the target, 60% of the gross rating.

Function vs. Form (building your website to suit your online needs)

In today’s brave new media world that is overloaded with widgets, tweets, doodads and other tools for showing how cool your company is, it’s sometimes easy to get caught up in the decorations before you plant your tree.

Do you want your business to be an evergreen, a fast-growing Mesquite like the one I have reaching out and touching my house in spite everytime I cut it back, or are you like a desert Sahuaro that only blooms every few years, but is the most glorious bloom you’ve ever seen?

Your website, widgets, tweets, and social media should be built around who you are- not the other way around. It’s easy to get caught up in the rush to keep up and lose sight of what it was you were trying to say in the first place. When we work with clients, we make sure we find the right seed before we sell them how to plant it. We do this by asking the right questions and developing a core brand that they can take with them anywhere the future takes us.

It’s not about the Bike

In Lance Armstrong’s book, It’s Not About the Bike, he stresses that it’s really about the individual and being totally dedicated and aligned to the process of biking.  The same is true of advertising and marketing. 

If you think about the “bike” as all of the technology, media and other gadgets available today for communicating with your customers, you will see that the most successful ad campaigns are completely driven by great memorable creative that transcends all platforms.  Successful advertising works not only because of how it is transmitted (the medium), but what it says and how it motivates people to act.

In today’s New Media world where anyone with a computer and access to a few widgets or a cookie-cutter ad agency franchise (the bike) can declare themselves an expert in their field, it’s more important than ever to make sure the message powering the bike is the best it can be.

At Digitalhipster Inc., we have been quietly riding with some of the biggest local and national advertisers in the New Media world for over a decade.  Let us help you train your message to win the yellow jersey of success.

How do you stretch your ad dollars and maximize your ROI?

 

In a tough economy, it is more important than ever to maximize your return on investment for advertising.  It’s not enough anymore to have “flashy creative.” You have to monitor it for effectiveness and customize each sales inquiry response to drive more sales.

Most successful businesses are moving more of their advertising budget online because it is the only medium that can be 100% tracked, targeted, and measured for effectiveness.  Therefore you don’t have to buy what you don’t need.

The Internet is the only medium that can duplicate all other mediums.  It has the ability to convey sight, sound, and motion to create emotion which ultimately leads to motivation to buy.  In fact, for many industries the web is where most purchase decisions begin and end.

Where do you begin to tap into the world’s largest population?  It’s been said that if MySpace were a country it would be the 11^th largest in the world (between Mexico and Japan).

Let us help you.  Our founders have over 30 years of combined experience in online and traditional advertising buying and selling in the Top 20-50 markets.  They have worked on the media account executive, sales management, director and publisher levels of media.  Unlike most ad agencies whose founders are from the graphic arts or agency side, we know how advertising is sold, how it is valued, and how to best negotiate lower rates for our clients. 

Don’t let “big media” companies push you around.  Media sales reps cannot give you the best buy for your money because they are inherently biased for their product and are often times compensated more for placing you in time slots, locations, or shows that are difficult to sell.

Our years of working with graphic artists, web designers, and writers have exposed us to all kinds of talent levels.  When it came time to choose our “dream team” we were able to choose and retain some of the best in their respective artistic fields from around the country.  Most talented people work as freelancers because they are so in demand.  By building this network we can choose the best creative talent for the job so that we can customize the ideal campaigns for our clients.

If you would like a free analysis of your current advertising campaign along with a free Brandwidth consultation to find out how you may be able to increase your sales and increase your customer reach, please call or email us.  MattRoss@digitalhipsterinc.com