Welcome to the world of digital
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So it's your first week of the New Media Drivers License. This class is a great opportunity to learn a massive amount about new media marketing. How much you learn will be determined by the effort you put in.
Weekly blog posts are one of the ways you can get even more out of this class. Each week we will answer questions you have regarding this weeks subject matter. This isn't a place to ask questions about the assignment, rather questions you have about the topic in general.
So this week you're doing an audit of your brands digital presence. You're also learning about why digital is so important.
Here is your change to ask us questions about digital marketing. Next week Graham Davis will answer the best questions and you'll have an opportunity to ask questions about social media.
Leave your questions in the comments section and make sure to check in next week for the answers.
Comments & Feedback
With the immense amount of social media and thousand's of companies attempting to make a presence known and get ahead of their competitors, in what ways can a newer, local, company establish a following on social media against larger, more well known companies? Are their any tips/tricks a brand can do to stand out against the crowd?
I noticed that many of the international companies on have other FaceBook pages or Twitter accounts that pertain to the different countries that they are in. For example, Siemens USA or Nike UK. Do you think it helps when these companies make the different pages and accounts for the respective country or could it possibly draw more confusion and come off as overwhelming since it means that there are so many more pages and accounts to follow and keep up with?
The reading stresses engagement with the web's "underserved audiences" and moving away from marketing in a one-size-fits-all mass-market message. What is the most consistent and effective medium to do so that allows the most back and forth engagement from both the company as well as the consumer?
It is almost universally agreed that social media is a beneficial part of a company's marketing mix, however many companies do not have the internal capabilities to run their social media channels effectively.
Would you consider it more damaging to not be on social media, or to be on social media but using it ineffectively?
With the emerging presence of digital marketing in today's world, what's the most efficient way to promote your brand page and gain followers that are in your desired target market?
How big is the affect of creating a new fan page for the brand? Will it better to only subscribed the official fan page?
When I am lookigng my brand of the Nastle coffee machine page web cite. They give the cutsomer key massage directly. And they use simple and clear words to describe their produt. Is the reason that a brand that give the costomer clear and simple message and it make the company achieve the goal of successfully?
This week in part of our assignment, it asked about they key message about the brand you choose. I spend a lots of time on this question. I was thinking is it really that company need to do a marketing research before they come out a plan to service their customers. In other words, what if they don't follow what their customers want company can bring benefit to them, and try to use their own way because they think that will be best for their customers. Will that bring benefit and succeed to the company?
When I am looking my brand's website, I found there is one brochure in the USA, it is much more detailed. Is it available if I choose both of the websites to discover and talk about my brand.
When I am looking through my brand's official website, I found out there is no key messages appear in the website. And the only sentence show out is not even closely related to the brand. I am curious that will key messages really trigger the desire of customers to purchase the products of that brand? In other words, will key messages really determined the success of a certain brand?
I know that in Saturday's lecture we discussed the ratio of 9:1 for relevance in providing value to the followers of that brand but what would you say is the best way to achieve that ratio? Further clarification is what would you consider to provide value to the customers? Does it depend on the brand?
“Why, How and What” helps businesses to think about themselves differently and Since the “what” limits the vision that you can communicate in your message, Do you think that companies should stop using “what” in their PR messages completely?
A brand's website is the number one source for online presence. When I see most company websites, there social media links ( or hyperlinks) are usually posted toward the bottom of the page. Is that usually the proper way to provide these outlets? Would they maybe be better off placing them more towards the top?
The readings this week stressed the importance of being consistent with your posts across your social media platforms, but can't that also be a bad thing? For example, if your posting the same exact same things on Facebook and Twitter can't it be too repetitive and lose the interest of your followers? Especially if they follow you on multiple sites?
What do you believe is the best way for a brand to either humanize or dehumanize itself to its target market?
Testimonials from real people are a great way to humanize a brand - and online video is a great way to do this. Testimonials from key buyer personas are a great way to sell a product or service. Have you seen any particularly good testimonials online for a brand?
Is it possible for a company or brand to get too much exposure; penetrating markets that may not necessairly "fit" the brands image. Could this make the brand more available to the public and in turn make something such as a luxury brand or item less desirable?
Absolutely! Think about if a brand like Gucci was sold at Walmart. Whie it might be good for sales in the short run, long term, it would make the brand seem less elite and coveted and hurt Gucci's brand image. It's important for brands and marketers to take this into account when thinking about how to market products/services.
In your opinion, what social media platform do you believe is the best for promoting an up and coming brand?
There could be many answers to this, depending on what the particular brand is and who it needs to appeal to. Think about the audiences a brand depends on for its success and where those audiences go online to answer this. For a service targeting DJs and music lovers, a strong presence on Soundcloud might be best. For something appealing to photographers, Instagram would be a really important network to target. For many fashion brands, Pinterest is huge.
In general, Facebook is the largest social network with the broadest audiences. Check out the Pew Internet and American Life Project's latest social media demographics for more info on social media platform demographics.
What aspect of a fan page for a brand stands out most to potential and current consumers?
I think the most important aspect of a fan page is how creative the posts are and how engaging they are for its fans. Nobody wants to like or engage with a fan page that puts out boring content. What are your favorite fan pages and why?
What is the most useful digital PR tool you've used?
It's easy to overlook, but Google is the most useful digital PR tool I can think of. The amount of research you can do by being able to effectively use a search engine is essential to a successful PR campaign – and is something every PR practicioner I know constantly uses.
If my brand is a huge subject, how can i make it simple and clear? and what kind of skills that i can make my fan page more attractive?
You could try focusing on a specific aspect of your brand or a specific audience for that brand. For instance, instead of making a fan page all about "General Motors" - a very broad topic - you could make it about a specific car model, or about roadtripping with a specific car or something more creative.
To make your page more attractive, try designing a creative cover photo and profile picture for your page. There are tons of great resources to designing graphics for a Facebook fan page - try Googling to see some great inspiration!
What kind of incentives should a fan page offer to potential followers in order to persuade them to "Like" the page?
The best possibile incentive to get people to like your page is great, interesting, engaging content. Pages that grow by "bribing" users typically don't do well in the long run. After all, if it takes basically buying someone off with a discount or gift to get a fan to like your page, long-term, what incentive to do they have to actually engage with your brand?
As I researched my brand, I realized they have a fantastic website. It is very well organnized, it includes interactive social media on it, and even is starting a fun hashtag people of all ages will participate in. However, their facebook and twitter arent up to their websites status. My question is, if the importance of their facebook and twitter should be held to the same standard as their website? Since someone like me will look more on their facebook page then choose to just go to their website. Someone who doesn't go to the website for information might not be as impressed with the brand.
I think you should hold them all to the same high standard.
Since having a digital presence is such a huge part of marketing in todays world, do you think it's possible for a brand to succeed without having a digital presence?
I can't think of a major brand that doesn't have a digital presence - can you? A brand might be able to be successful at a very small scale or in a very local market without doing much online, but I don't think a brand can really scale its marketing without a digital presence.
With the growing usage of digital marketing in the advertising world, how does a starting company gain followers? If the company simply creates a Facebook page, do they rely on the hope of customers sharing their page? Or are there tactics to use in order to gain a variety of followers and brand awareness?
There are so many different ways a market can get the word out about a Facebook page – and no limit to the possibilities. Here are just a few ideas:
- Promote the page offline anywhere a customer might be able to find out about it (e.g. signage, receipts
- Promote the page to a company's email list
- Promote the page in TV/radio advertisements
- Create a contest on the Facebook page to create some buzz around the page
- Reach out to pages that might like your company to see if they might help you get the word out
- Ask employees to like the page and tell their friends and family
- Launch Facebook advertising
- Promote the page on a company's Twitter or Pinterest account (I don't mention Instagram here since it doesn't allow for links in individual posts)
- Post really engaging, interesting content to your page that fans will want to share
Do you like any Facebook pages today? What made you like them in the first place?
After I researched my brand’s digital presence, I realized that it uses several social media to communicate with the target market. It uses Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, and Instagram. Also they uploaded the same images and information on some platforms. My question is especially for big brands, will it be more effective if they use several social media to reach a number of customers or should they focus on only a few platforms so they can put more effort into each one and build strong connections with their customers?
I think it's best for brands to focus on each network and make sure everything going out is high quality and interesting. In general, putting the same content out on every network in the exact same way doesn't take advantage of the opportunities each one provides.
In the text, it says the current communications revolution started in 1995, and the author mentions that he believes we are “halfway through it (p. 27).” He proceeds to mention that the later half of this revolution will be fast paced, but he doesn’t go into detail about what he thinks it will bring. Since the duration of this revolution has lasted nearly my entire life, I am interested in your thoughts on how this revolution will continue to progress. What do you think the future will bring for web-based marketing and PR strategies?
I disagree with DM Scott in that I think it's hard to say when this "revolution" will end (I don't think we'll ever stop seeing new ways to get information out), and wouldn't necessarily say it's just a 40-year thing that will end. That said, I think marketing and PR campaigns will continue to become more and more targeted toward individuals instead of toward giant groups of people. The "one size fits all" approach to communications is less and less useful as it becomes possible to customize messages and tactics for individual people. It's an exciting profession to be in given all the change happening month to month!
I couldn't agree more! Part of what brought me to the field of public relations is how fast-paced it is. Things are constantly changing and new ideas are revolutionizing the way that practitioners are going about targeting their audiences. Ironically, one of my professors was just discussing the same idea today. The idea that we are no longer blanketing our audience into one group or even multiple groups. We are targeting people as individuals and tailoring the content towards them. It's fascinating! Thank you for your response.
Of course since the introduction of the Internet, there has been an exponential increase in advertising and marketing in the digital media world. It would be hard to think that without the use of the Internet today, some companies (digital or not) may not be faring as well if they were to use traditional media, however, I do believe a balance of both is optimal for said companies/brands. My question is, do you think years down the road, new media will completely take over the marketing/advertising world, or do you think we will continue to utulize both traditional and new media as equally-ish as we do now?
Years from now, I don't think we'll be talking about "new" media - it's already kind of an outmoded term. (After all, the web isn't so new anymore!) I don't think "traditional" media like broadcast/cable TV or radio will go away, but will continue to evolve to be more targeted and online (e.g. you can watch something like CBS' Late Show with Stephen Colbert online without owning a TV set; an advertiser can target individual homes through some of cable TV's new commercial targeting tools; etc). I think newspapers will probably continue to decline in print form, but think there will still be a demand for quality journalism regardless of how it might be distributed. Marketers will go to wherever audiences go, regardless of how tools evolve.
After looking at all of the social media sites that my brand is a part of (Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube), I couldn’t help but notice that there are many pages dedicated to a country’s brand (Brandname_Italia) and they’re posting in the native language. My question is how important is it to create a universal Facebook/Twitter/YouTube page, so everyone can follow it?
It's important to communicate in a way that audiences can respond to it - so individual pages devoted to specific languages are important for global brands. For example, I'm a fan of the Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo. They're all over the world, but not knowing Japanese, I can't really get much out of their main Japanese page – so I like their Uniqlo US English language page instead. (It's nice to be able to understand what a page posts about!) :-)
IKEA is another great example. They sell the same products all over the world, but market them in different languages and on different pages around the world.
According to our textbook, digital media is really fast growing and take an increasinglly important role in communication world, is there any possibility that digital media completely take the place of traditional media?
I think the line between "digital" and "traditional" media will continue to blur until it's not a very useful distinction. After all, is a TV show that you watch online digital, or traditional? Is a newspaper that drops print publication for online-only publishing digital, or traditional? Is an online radio station like Apple's Beats 1 (which has more in common with FM radio than it does something like Pandora) digital, or traditional?
My brand's social media presence is pretty average. On their website, they mention that they have a Facebook page, Twitter page, Pinterest page. and a mobile app for website. Just about everyone has a smart phone, and are very active with their mobile usage. They do post pretty frequently on Facebook, but they don't seem to be too overbearing with their posts. While digital marketing is essential to expanding a brand, how much is too much? I want my brand to have a great social media presence, but where is the fine between a very active account with good posts, to just being plain annoying with constantly updating their fans?
You can look at Facebook Insights as a page admin to see how your audience responds to posts, which will give you a great indiciation of whether you're going overboard or not. If you're posting all the time but nobody likes your posts or responds to them, it's a good sign that you should retool your efforts (which might mean finding more engaging content to post, or posting more/less frequently). Good content is the key to making people interested in your page.
In those few days I learned something about the advantages of digital marketing. Basically it has lower cost than traditional marketing and it is wide-ranging to get more consumer involved. Furthermore it is easier to measure the result. I think measuring the number of clicks or followers online is not enough. Because those can not totally show how many people are insterested in the product. So one thing I want to ask is that what is the most effective evaluation method to track the result of digital marketing?
I think one of the most effective evaluation methods is actual sales (for brands/companies that sell a product or service). Tools like Google Analytics make it easy to see how online marketing efforts affect sales (for instance, you can see how many transactions resulted from a blog post on the site, and what $ they generated for the company).
Other interesting things to look at include time on site (if you're trying to inform people about an issue, making sure they spend enough time on a page to understand the topic is important), or people sharing a page with their friends (since this shows that your content is engaging and that people want to spread the word about it).
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After I finished my digital research on my brand, I felt that people are rely on the internet nowadays because of technology. For example, since everybody has a smart phone and each of us all have some kind of social media account; we are more capable on technology compare to older generation. I felt like digital media is more convenient for this society because people can gather information from all over the globe with instant speed. But it also reduces people's face to face communication. My question will be: How does digital marketing affects our life in a negative way? Like a company towards to a customer with no technology experience. How do we make it better?