Throughout the “Social Media Sales Tips” article series, I will shed light on some very effective (yet often forgotten!) SM sales tips.
Previous posts in the series:
Today, I will focus on intelligent content marketing strategy as a key component in driving social media sales.
I firmly believe that the magical formula for content marketing success lies in one word: DIVERSITY
How To Incorporate Diversity Into Your Content Marketing Strategy
Here are some tips to create a diversely effective content marketing strategy:
- Diversify your social channels (We always recommend focusing on driving traffic to your evergreen social asset: your blog. To do that, you need to promote your blog content in different social channels)
- Diversify your blog topics as well as their digital format. (Take Garious blog as an example: In order to cater to our visitors’ different tastes, we are not limited to textual articles. We also have “Podcast Mondays” and “In the Reel” posts that we publish on a regular basis.)
- Leverage and encourage third-party content and user generated content
We already touched upon the first two tips. Let’s discuss the two main types of UGC – user generated content:
- Proactive UGC
- Reactive UGC (By reactive I mean UGC that is created in response to a call to action that you initiate.I will dedicate the upcoming article in the series, “Social media Sales Tips 7″, to discuss this part. )
How To Leverage Proactive UGC
Proactive UGC is a content that users generate on their own without any kind of stimulation on your behalf. It can have different forms:
- Product reviews/testimonials
- User’s emails
- User’s social updates about your brand (tweets, blog comments, Facebook page updates..etc.)
All these types of UGC, if used intelligently, can be goldmines for your social branding.
For example, if a happy customer tweeted a testimonial about your product, you can favorite his/her tweet and retweet it to your network.
In some cases, you may receive an email from a user who managed to use your product in a new way. Grab the opportunity and blog about his/her story.
What if a user emailed you a question, instead of taking the easy route of answering him/her privately, why not create a video tutorial or write a blog post to answer the question?
In all of the above examples, do NOT forget to publicly acknowledge * the user who proactively reached out to you.
For example, when you respond to a user’s question in your blog, make sure to mention his/her name and link to his/her social profile.
Then, reply to him/her with an email containing a link to your heartfelt post and rest assured that s/he will gladly share the post with the world.
Sharing your post will be an instant reward you will receive for acknowledging proactive UGC.
What really counts is the long term value of sending the “your contribution is valued and appreciated” message to your proactive users. The simple act of giving them credit will turn them into devoted brand advocates. I love that thought!
Where Do We Go From Here…
Stay tuned for the upcoming post in the series as I will be detailing how you can inspire and stimulate reactive UGC and reap amazing branding and SEO rewards.
For now, I would love to know your take on proactive UGC tips. Did they make business sense to you? Do you have additional tips to share in that regard? Thanks in advance for your valuable contribution.
Social Media Sales Tips (6) – Leverage “Proactive” User Generated Content
In: Tips and Tricks
Author: Heba Hosny
17 Nov 2011Previous posts in the series:
Today, I will focus on intelligent content marketing strategy as a key component in driving social media sales.
I firmly believe that the magical formula for content marketing success lies in one word: DIVERSITY
How To Incorporate Diversity Into Your Content Marketing Strategy
Here are some tips to create a diversely effective content marketing strategy:
We already touched upon the first two tips. Let’s discuss the two main types of UGC – user generated content:
How To Leverage Proactive UGC
Proactive UGC is a content that users generate on their own without any kind of stimulation on your behalf. It can have different forms:
All these types of UGC, if used intelligently, can be goldmines for your social branding.
For example, if a happy customer tweeted a testimonial about your product, you can favorite his/her tweet and retweet it to your network.
In some cases, you may receive an email from a user who managed to use your product in a new way. Grab the opportunity and blog about his/her story.
What if a user emailed you a question, instead of taking the easy route of answering him/her privately, why not create a video tutorial or write a blog post to answer the question?
In all of the above examples, do NOT forget to publicly acknowledge * the user who proactively reached out to you.
For example, when you respond to a user’s question in your blog, make sure to mention his/her name and link to his/her social profile.
Then, reply to him/her with an email containing a link to your heartfelt post and rest assured that s/he will gladly share the post with the world.
Sharing your post will be an instant reward you will receive for acknowledging proactive UGC.
What really counts is the long term value of sending the “your contribution is valued and appreciated” message to your proactive users. The simple act of giving them credit will turn them into devoted brand advocates. I love that thought!
Where Do We Go From Here…
Stay tuned for the upcoming post in the series as I will be detailing how you can inspire and stimulate reactive UGC and reap amazing branding and SEO rewards.
For now, I would love to know your take on proactive UGC tips. Did they make business sense to you? Do you have additional tips to share in that regard? Thanks in advance for your valuable contribution.