More on Social and How to Get All Your Participation Points
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Hello students,
I'm up to bat on answering your questions!
First and most important, some of you have misunderstood the purpose of these Q&A's. For these blog posts you are supposed to ask questions regarding the subject matter of this weeks lesson. This is not an area for questions about your grade, your specific homework assignment the midterm or the final. You need to ask those questions on the assignment comment area itself.
Make sure you ask a question this week about building a following on social media, creating an effective social media account and other things related to your Facebook Fan Page midterm.
Q: I noticed that my brand, Heineken, is very internationally focused. Because of this, I noticed they use more than one brand homepage. Is that a smart thing to do, as an international brand? Also, will this give Heineken a boost with their SEO statistics?
This is a very smart thing to do for international brands. When you have an international brand your end up with many very different target markets. Different cultures have different values, meaning that a message that is effective in the United States could be totally ineffective in other countries.
Having multiple homepages not only allows you to communicate in the cultures native language (another huge benefit) you can also tailer the message as needed.
You are right that there is also a SEO benefit to having location specific landing pages. If you're searching using Google.ru (Russia) Russian sites are prioritized over other languages or .coms.
Q: My brand is Heinz, it is a food company, and it is a low involvement product. i don't think customer would go the website and search for information. i just wonder, how to attract people to go to the website at the very first time? since if customers don't even try to visit the website, no matter how prefect the website is, no body knows.
This day in age people will assume a company the size of Heinz has a website and people do actually visit the site. The question really is "Why do people visit Heinz.com?"
While you'd have to do some fairly in depth research to find out for sure, just looking at what information Heinz chooses to put on their site you can get a fairly good idea.
They talk about their health, wellness and sustainability. So Heinz.com isn't a site that a college student would likely visit in their spare time in between homework assignments, nor is it something that you'd e-mail all your friends. It's more likely targeted towards older folks with families who want to know if Heinz are safe and wholesome products for their children.
Heinz is also a publicly traded company so there is a good portion of the website with information for investors. This section of the site is geared towards keeping and attracting investors, communicating why purchasing Heinz stock is a good investment.
Q: I was very interested to see in this weeks blog post that there can be legal ramifications to a website if it is not accesible enough? What exactly does that entail? Meaning the colors have to be able to work for color blind and not color blind? What if a website is not updated, I know that is bad strategy all together, but an older design might make it unaccessible?
Eight years ago or so there was a lawsuit against target.com by the National Federal of the Blind which set some of the first legal precedent in this space. The argument was that because Target.com was built in such a way that screen readers (software that actually reads off what's on a page) could interact with it Target.com was violating national accessibility laws.
Despite the ruling in favor of the National Federation of the Blind this is really only a concern for large brands like target and government agencies. There is an accessibility law called Section 501 that requires any website that receives government funding to be accessible.
Big brands that would be targets for accessibility lawsuits should have the funding necessary to make their websites conform to accessibility guidelines. Smaller brands and companies are unlikely to be a target but should still realize that by not being accessible they are turning away customers (1 in 10 people in the US have some accessibility issue.)
In terms of what one should consider when making their site accessible there is a whole host of considerations, such as:
- Making the site usable for blind or low vision users who need a screen reader
- Making the site usable for those with motor impairments and can't use a mouse or keyboard
- Making the site usable for color blind users
- Making the site usable for those with cognitive impairments
- Making the site usable for those who are deaf (closed captions, translations, etc...)
- Making the site usable for those with old technology (text based browsers, etc...)
Q: In completing the audit of my company's website I found that their search tool is not functioning. How big of an impact do you think this can have on the popularity of a site? Do you think it would be significant enough to lose consumers? Would my brand's IT department be to blame?
This could have a huge impact on website success. A large portion of users will use the search function rather than try and find content using a menu system. This could be the IT department's fault or the agency that built their website if they hired an outside firm.
Q: I have fedex for my company. It is hard to communicate with its costumers becuase shipping isnt a everyday activity for majorty people. How can I make it revelavt and start converstaion with them?
Shipping is an everyday activity for most people! Consumers are having items shipped to them more than ever before. Recievers of packages are just as important to Fedex as those who are shipping items.
Thus starting a conversation is easy. All FedEx needs to do is first listen to what people have to say about their shipments. What excites them, what frustrates them. Once they understand how people feel they can respond, learning how to improve or what they can do to make their service even better.
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Now it's time to ask more questions related to this weeks subject matter, building a following on a social media platform. I'll answer questions next week.
Comments & Feedback
What would you want your students to say if they were asked "why should I take ADV 420?"
So, do we all present in class on the final in-class day? Or is only the 15 selected, best presentations that present?
I am unsure of how to check the feedback on my assignments and exams. How do I check this? Thanks.
Pinterest seems like an odd social media platform to promote my company, Mobil 1. Would the incorporation of a link the Pinterest board from a Tweet be beneficial or should these two seperate media platforms be kept completely seperate? Thanks.
Mobile marketing is an extremely important aspect of branding and marketing in this day and age. Would you say that it is more important to market on mobile devices through search engine marketing and ads or through the use of snapchat and other social media platforms?
Would it be different to make your own keywords up when trying to market your brand or should you always keep it basic and non specific?
What should you do if your company does not actively engage with its audience?
My company is Harley-Davidson. They already utilize Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and emails to share their content. However, I have noticed on the social media platforms they do not really engage with the followers. They do not respond to posts made by followers. They themselves post pictures and videos, which people comment on, but once they (Harley-Davidson) make their original post they never return to it. Do you think this is a bad idea on their part and that they should be more engaged with their following base? To me, from all the readings and lessons, it seems they should be more engaged with their customer-base. I had suggested that they add a blog to their inbound marketing, but if they do not or are not willing to engage with their customers, I am not sure it will be successful or add value.
How would you suggest increasing social media following with more than just following others?
How would you increase the visibility of a newly build social media platform? How do we get more followers and able to get people's attention?
How do you build a following quickly on a new social media site? Like for example I dont have an Instagram, but if I made one, how would you gain followers quickly?
What is the most effective way to use Pintrest board when trying to promote a finacial business?
It's interesting to know that there are legal ramifications that have to deal with people who are impaired to be able to use a website. I'm glad to know they consider those who have trouble seeing or with motor issues but what techniques do they use to accomodate them? like voice automated responses for those who cannot see?
I get emails from different companies multiple times a day and usually end up just deleting them without even opening them. What do you think is a good strategy to get people to open them? And what kind of content do you think is best to send out? Sales? New product releases? Also, how often is a good time to reach out to customers with emails? Every few days? Once a week? Monthly?
My brand is Kroger. I see that the family of Kroger comprises of almost 25 other brand names operating from different locations. For example; in Colorado and Wyoming Kroger operates as King Soopers. When the weekly ads, in-store display and offers are compared, they are the same as Kroger's. All their websites look the same. In some cases, they are using the same images and content 
Would this not be a cause of concern that may affect increasing customer base on social media? When everything looks the same, will not one be mistaken for another? How does a brand create its own identity and yet be included in the parent brand?
Even if someone is subscribed to receive marketing emails from a company, most of the time it will just be ignored or deleted. What is the best way to get users to actually open the emails?
My brand is Publix. Publix is a grocery market chain in the southern part of the country. They basically dominate the grocery market in the states they are located. Publix does use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and they're audience on each platform is very large. My question is, Publix is clearly a dominating brand and they have proved their success, so why are they not expanding throughout the nation? Basically, what holds businesses back from expanding when they have proven their expansion would benefit their brand and their profits would increase dramatically?
My company, Amazon.com, utalizes almost every advertising platform mentioned in this weeks assignment. Should I just discuss the methods they already use and improvements they could make?
When we are creating our pinterest page, what is the best way to make it look "professional"? I've never used pinterest before this class, so it is still somewhat unknown territory to me.
do we still need to keep building on our facebook fan page?
Personally i hate display advertising or pop up advertisments, are there any special techniques or methods you should use to minimize this customer frustration?
For the Pinterest board, since my brand is Discovery, if i just pin some pictures of pure natural views (nothing related to the brand itself but my own photography) will I get points off for doing that?
For the Pinterest Board, we need follow ever week's learnning or we can change the oder of the information?
Is content marketing and inbound marketing have something related to each other? Can you explain more pros and cons about this two?
I am courious because our Facebook page is graded. I was wondering if this is now being tied into our final project as well? What would the importance be to keep building our fan page if it is not?
Since the Facebook page is already checked as midterm grades, do we still have keep building the fanpage?
I am curious about do we still need to keep building our facebook fan page? It count towards parts of the final grade or not? Thanks
Display advertising could be annoying for viewer of pages sometimes because it will influence their viewing experience and their mood. My question is that what is best way to decrease the degree of annoying in display advertising. In other word: make it more viewer-friendly.
What other metrics should you use when seeing if you are emailing people too much?
My brand is Hermès, and since I have added myself to their newsletter email list, I haven't received one single email from them. Do you think there are still many people who are using Email every day? Do you think this influnce their website clicks?
For some brands there are social media platforms that are more effective than others. How does a company find what works best for them?
As a company or brand, how should they choose which social media to use to build their official page?
Is inbound marketing more important for a new brand that's small in the marketplace or an existing brand that dominates the marketplace?
What is considered to be the most effective form or method of content marketing and why?
For our final project, the pinterest board, I want know do we only share pictures and informations, or do we also need share some articles？
How do you recommend we stay on top of New Media trends in the future? Also, inbound marketing is meant to attract qualified prospects.... what if there is a market you didn't know what qualified? What if your persona covers only a small chunk of prospects? Is there a limit to how many personas you can create?
Inbound marketing emphasizes the importance of blogs, which I completely agree. That seems to be the most productive way in sharing content and attracting a following. However, wouldn't inbound marketing tie into social media marketing? We have been taught to share content on social media that our fans would want to read. Isn't that very similar to inbound?
i don't think email marketing is a useful marketing practice, since for me, i usually delet every promoted email in my inbox? since sometimes we sign up for the email list just because the website ask us to do so. but the content they send to us also being irgoned. i want to ask, whether mail (paper version) marketing would be more useful than email marketing?
In terms of the Pinterest board, I am confused as to what we should exactly be posting to it. We are supposed to post what we learn, but could you provide more detail or an example of a past one? Thanks!
When it comes to creating a brand persona, what aspect would most stand out to consumers?
Since I am a new user to Pinterest, I kind of did not figure out the point of using Pinterest. Is there any specific things from Pinterest that I think it is good to use for my brand advertising? Or anything else that can be benefit to my brand?
I was wondering what some good/smart approaches are to people leaving bad reviews/comments on your businesses social media would be. I noticed a few bad comments left on my companies page and that the comment gained alot of views and feedback from other customers as well. When this occurs, what is the best way to make the situation better?
For participation points (10/13-10/19)
This week I was having trouble modeling an inbound marketing campaign around my chosen brand. My brand is a pretty broad product meant for just about anyone. How do companies which have a large audience tailor their inbound marketing campaigns to certain buyer personas without alienating other potential customers?
What branch of marketing do you usually find companies using things like SEO and AdWords? And how plentiful are the positions usually?
When developing a buyer persona, what different analytics and research must you look into beforehand?
I've a question about persona.
When we make a buyer persona for our brand, what kinds of matrix do we need?
I have similar question as others studetns might have. With the increasing usage of digital marketing, is there any chance that print is slowly off the plan since its audience reach is not as eeffective as digitals?
I read that a problem that advertisers face with display advertising is that people have installed ad-blockers on their computers. How do advertisers fight this--or is there simply no way to go around these softwares? Can an advertiser ever overpass an ad-blocker software and still use their display ads on users?
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I like to read the resource and it gaves me many ideas about how to use social media to promote my brand!