Stiff and Slow is No Way to Go


         Pssst. Listen closely. Here’s a secret to being successful with social media marketing.
         First, find out what’s hot. Then, be flexible and fast.
The reason you want to find out what news stories, or industry topics, are hot is so that you can join those online conversations and expose your brand.
Find out what’s hot, then be flexible
and fast with conversation analysis
software like SocialEars HR Edition!
How important is it to identify and join the right conversations?  Really important, according to Indiana University researchers who discovered that messages with the most immediate relevance tend to have a higher probability of resonating. In other words, piggybacking on trending topics maximizes your chances of getting noticed.
         Finding out what’s hot can be as simple as visiting Google News or checking trending stories on your favorite social networking site. But they need to be the right conversations. Sure, American Idol, the botched Facebook IPO and Greece may be trending but do stories related to pop culture, investing or national interests have relevance to your brand? Sometimes, but B2B marketers will find their greatest opportunities are often inside their own industry, where the odds of exposure, with the right audiences, are highest
         Once you know what’s hot, you need to be flexible, as not every opportunity is going to fit your news perfectly. If there is some connection to your news, join the conversation — fast! Don’t twiddle your thumbs because 1. There is a lot of competition for share-of-voice out there, and 2. What’s hot in your marketplace can become cold, and then the opportunities go away.
         Let’s look at a real-world example, from a few weeks ago, to see how this is done.
         PR and communications consultant Jackie Jusko, using SocialEars HR Edition (social listening and “conversation”analysis software for the HR marketplace) noticed that “Background Screening” was trending upward.
         Since her client EmployeeScreenIQ provides employee background-screening solutions, this was of interest to her. She clicked on the topic and discovered that many people were discussing (on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs) and retweeting an article about employers demanding that job applicants give them their Facebook passwords.
         EmployeeScreenIQ had coincidentally just conducted a survey, a piece of which was related to social media, that she was trying to publicize. Using SocialEars, Jackie got a list of the people who were discussing the topic and sharing the article online, then connected with those contacts she wanted to reach, and provided a link to the survey.
The next day, one of the contacts she engaged with wrote a blog post on the survey! An interview was arranged, and, less than a week later, an article that referenced the study and included quotes by EmployeeScreenIQ’s president about the Facebook password issue appeared on the widely read MSNBC and The Today Show websites. And it took off from there. Nick Fishman, EmployeeScreenIQ’s chief marketing officer and executive vice president, called it “a panacea of buzz!”
         Jackie discovered a topic that was hot, related it to her client’s brand/news, and acted fast. And you can too.   
A new white paper by HRmarketer titled “Want People To Hear You? Then Listen” goes into more detail about using Social Listening technologies for marketing and PR pros. Get it here.

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