Forging Online Print Communities

Stelzner’s research at the Social Media Examiner found that more than three-fourths of nearly 4,000 survey respondents are increasing their use of YouTube and other video-marketing activities in 2013. For mobile video content, “‘shareability’ is critical, as it’s been shown that mobile users are twice as likely to share videos than non-mobile users,” Brendan Cournoyer, content marketing manager at Brainshark, told Marketing Sherpa.

When More is More

Integrated marketing for print firms and all businesses still boils down to a multichannel mixture of similar messaging. “Social media, by its very nature, is transient,” wrote “marketing sherpa” Burstein.

One of his favorite analogies about Twitter is that “it’s like a pebble drifting down a slowly moving creek –or, occasionally, [a] raging river. If you don’t look at just the right time, you miss the message,” Burstein explained. “This analogy is even more so true when users on mobile devices are just snacking on bits of information quickly flowing by while distracted by their environment. That’s why while social media can certainly be a way for you to reach prospective customers on mobile devices, it shouldn’t be the only way you reach these distracted customers.”

Where have we heard that before? I can think of a few places -- and mediums.

PIA Integrated Print Forum

Rethink your print, digital, and mobile strategies on May 14-15 in Pittsburgh, PA. www.myprintresource.com/press_release/10879804

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It’s Social Media Time!

Don’t think you have time for social media in your business? Use your employees’ circles of influence to your business advantage, suggested John Foley, Jr., CEO and CMO of interlinkONE and Grow Socially. Employees “are very visible and engage in their own social media circles, which can at times be very large,” Foley wrote in a blog post. “Your employees can all be brand ambassadors. Have [them] get on Twitter and engage with industry professionals, potential clients, and other businesses. The more engagement your employees participate in, the higher their number of followers.”

Foley went on to explain that “Twitter is unlike Facebook in that you can just accrue friends because you will already know a good deal of people using it. You have to do a little legwork to get Twitter followers. And if it’s done right, the followers your employees can acquire will be relevant people to your work, and they will actively engage in conversation about [the] industry and new trends.” Employees should tweet links to new blog posts that go up on your company blog, linking to new videos or podcasts, or any new content, Foley noted. “Use Twitter and your multiple employee accounts to build a strong network.”

He concluded with some cautionary words: “Make sure all of your employees take care of their social media accounts and keep them clean and professional. Understand that irresponsible social media accounts can be very bad PR for your company.”

So how much time should you spend on social media marketing tasks each week? Here’s how the 3,800 respondents to the 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report answered:

59% – 6 hours/week or more33% – 11 hours/week or more15% - 20+ hours/week

(Source: Social Media Examiner)

Putting the Plus in Google

President Obama created a buzz in mid-February when he appeared in a Google+ Hangout, using Google’s group video-chat service. For the remainder of 2013, Social Media Examiner research found that only 40 percent of marketers are using Google+ yet 70 percent want to learn more about it, and 67 percent plan on increasing their Google+ activities. Google+, a social networking and identity service, was launched in June 2011. As of December 2012, it had a total of 500 million registered users of whom 235 million are active on a monthly basis.