Designated Editor Blog | Demystifying search, social, strategy, tactics

Video book review: 30-Minute Social Media Marketing

Master social media in 30 minutes with marketing pro Susan Gunelius

With more than 20 years of marketing experience, Susan Gunelius, author of the book “30-Minute Social Media Marketing,” breaks down the vast social media realm into short chapters: “Giving you access to anything and everything you want to know about social media.”

Susan says 30 minutes of social media practice a day for a beginner is a reasonable time allotment. But, if you are doing it right, the time you invest will increase because you will be more engaged in conversations with your connections.

“30-Minute Social Media” book’s sidebars are quick and easy to digest

5 tips for writing amazing SM content
15 ways to jump-start your campaign

Highlights

Tips like setting up a timer
Twitter terminology and types of tweets
How to do social media for a startup
Do’s and don’ts for Facebook and Twitter
Various platforms for audio and podcasts
How to buy tiktok likes
Where and how to find freelancers
How the Google Panda update changed social media

Social Media Strategy recipe

Identify your overarching goals
Get inside the head of your customer
Solidify brand image, web messaging, promise-making
Find audiences
Create messages that consistently maintain brand promise
Broaden audiences across multiple platforms
Build brand advocates
Enable your network
Be engaging, real, true
Test, analyze, repeat
Be consistent and persistent

And Part 3 of the book dives into social media in 30 minutes a day: weekly “to-do’s” that will help you spend your time wisely. This section includes tips on direct marketing and cross promotion. If you don’t know what these are, check out Susan’s book.

Published in the Fall of 2011, Susan Gunelius’ 30 Minute Social Media Marketing is a great guide for beginners and experts who are seeking new ideas. Susan ends her book with a written kick-in-the-pants to go forth and prosper.

30-Minute Social Media Marketing: Step-by-Step Techniques to Spread the Word About Your Business
By: Susan Gunelius
Published: Oct. 25, 2010
Best for: Small businesses, startups, social media beginners

Group Deals Begin to Grow up: Tips for Retailers, Restaurants From South by Southwest Interactive

How can small businesses benefit from group deals like Groupon?

Kara Nortman Senior Vice President of Publishing CityGrid Media

Kara Nortman, CityGrid Media

One of the best South by Southwest Interactive 2012 talks was jam-packed with lessons, tips, and stats on the state of group buying. With fatigue setting in on both sides of the equation, consumers and merchants, how can everyone get what they want?

Kara Nortman, senior VP of publishing at CityGrid Media, took the stage solo and wowed everyone attending.

Here are some highlights

Group Deals Are Killing Your Small Business: How small businesses can uniquely and effectively tap into group deals as a key piece of a smart overall marketing strategy.

Have you heard about Groupon?

Groupon brought a lighter, more fun tone to what was a dry business (couponing)
Groupon works best for new business, new concepts, travel and tourism
Groupon is the fastest company to grow to $1 billion in revenue, but mistakes happen with fast growth & are being widely reported
61% of deals expire before people redeem their Groupons
Study shows review ratings drop after businesses offer deals with Groupon-like services
How does Groupon recover from email fatigue?

Only send 1 email a month with best deal. Offer concierge services and collect data

Create a more effective group deal strategy

SMBs and deal sites are at odds … SMBs must show clear return on investment. Businesses are being more critical
Prior to 2008 there were 2 personas: enjoy a high-price experience (get-what-you-pay-for) and the couponer
Prepaid transactions are not dead. Consumers will get more relevant deals through them
Deal sites need to provide their clients with great analytics
Correlating behavior with credit card data is commencing, but it still needs consumers’ trust with data and privacy

Proximity marketing and credit are going to be the most exciting developments in next few years

Deal sites to consider

Think Near

Pulls in demand patterns, weather, traffic, and events reports. It allows you to auto-generate 5-10 campaigns each week for each business
Targets local, high-quality customers
Became bigger than Groupon in NYC

Savored

Targets high-quality restaurants and has focuses on experience and high value – creating a clear brand can help your deals succeed
Forces users to commit to reservations and align them with restaurants’ slow times. Offer 30% off with no embarrassing coupons
Encourages diners to post pictures of their receipts that shows their discount

Punchcard

Aims to collect who loyal customers are without merchant cooperation, then present to the business owner
Users take photos of receipts to collect data for PunchCard
Targets low-frequency and high-spend customers

The truth is in the numbers: Group deals statistics

44% subscribe to 4 or more deal services – often causes user fatigue
44% of daily-deal customers will come back, but some might have already been customers
66% of people let their deals expire before redeeming
A third of all Americans shopped on Small Business Saturday and saw 23% boost into small shops. This is Amex taking a long-term approach
15% of Punchcard customers generate 50% of revenue – you consolidate loyalty cards and even redeem at businesses that don’t offer cards
20%-30% of Groupon’s 10,000 employees are in sales
Studies show it didn’t matter whether you offered 50% off or less, the majority just want some discount and will convert

Thanks to @mauriciopina, @journalynn, @DeeSwartz, and @lorennoel for sharing their insights!

Designated Editor CEO Suzanne McDonald featured on CEO Coach

Secrets to a Successful Transition with Designated Editor’s founder & CEO Suzanne McDonald featured on WebmasterRadio.FM’s CEO Coach with Gillian Muessig

Catch the interview here.

CEO Coach Gillian Muessig of SEOmoz and Suzanne McDonald of Designated Editor. Photo by Dan Shure of Evolving SEO.

At the 2012 SES New York (Search Engine Strategies) conference, Suzanne wanted to thank Gillian for the valuable advice she shares each week on her WebmasterRadio.FM show “CEO Coach.” Sometimes Gillian takes on the mike solo to discuss how to pitch investors (all the way down to the nitty-gritty of what to wear and how women need to be aware of their tone and pitch).

Other weeks, Gillian interviews CEOs from other companies to uncover how they launched and why they’re successful.

At SESNY, after chatting for a few minutes about Designated Editor, Gillian said: “Wait, we need the mic.”

Gillian told Suzanne: “I promised myself that when my company was successful, I would give back and share what I know to help others.”

And that she does, asking questions, pointing out how you can replicate what Designated Editor has done to become an established and successful company.

How does Suzanne keep up with everything clients need to know to leverage the web & social media?

Conferences, blogs & many, many podcasts.

But not all podcasts are worthwhile in today’s time-starved society. If you follow Suzanne on Twitter, you may already know about her favorite podcasts:

CEO Coach with Gillian Muessig of SEOmoz
Landing Page Optimization with Tim Ash of SiteTuners
Ideasicle podcast with Will Burns, who’s worked with Arnold Worldwide, CVS, and more

For followers who aren’t familiar with SEOmoz, CEO and co-founder Rand Fishkin is arguably the most recognized and respected authority in the industry.

“SEOmoz is the most popular provider of SEO software. Our easy to use tools and tutorials make search engine optimization accessible.”

Launched in 2004, SEOmoz initially offered SEO consulting to businesses. An entrepreneur and business owner since 1981, Gillian recognized the future of marketing was on the web. And her son, Rand Fishkin is its leading technologist. In layman’s terms: SEOmoz offers tools to get to the top of Google.

SEOmoz now focuses exclusively on creating SEO software and tools that anyone can use to help navigate the wily world of search marketing. There’s a freemium model as well as a pro plan.

SEOMoz also has “the Internet’s most vibrant SEO community with over 250,000 members willing to discuss and share the latest news about what works and what doesn’t.”

Now founding CEO, Gillian speaks around the world and hosts CEO Coach, giving back to Suzanne and so many listeners, each week. Thanks for all your hard work and enthusiasm, Gillian!

Designated Editor founder Suzanne McDonald offered these key takeaways in her ‘CEO Coach’ interview

Don’t forget online and offline interactions are intertwined: Social media only goes so far.
Conferences and networking events are ideal ways to grow your network and your knowledge base.
Websites age in dog years; it’s not long until visitors think your site was developed by a Nigerian prince.
Set goals and try not to get frustrated if things take longer than you’d like.
It doesn’t mean your efforts aren’t working, everything takes time, especially in this economy.
Social media is about people: You have to offer them value and a reason to care about you.

For more tips and how to actually get it all done, sign up for Designated Editor’s newsletter.

Nonprofits’ Tools, Tactics and Strategies for Web, Search and Social

Designated Editor teaches nonprofits new media time-savers

Nobody knows the bottom line better than those in the fundraising and development industry. To remain connected to donors, sponsors, and other key publics, nonprofits must use weigh resources wisely and efficiently.

The Rhode Island chapter of the Association for Fundraising Professionals centered its March education session around these challenges.

Content and Social Media Strategist Suzanne McDonald shared her insights on how to make the most of limited resources within an organization through social media.

The first step is to be able to identify the best ways to use these tools. Designated Editor has worked with many clients to help make sure strong, concise message reach the intended audience.

You may be asking: “How do I not just reach, but ENGAGE my current donors and constituents?” There are many tools to engage current donors, but also ways to use social media to reach new ones. Some free tools (based on your needs) include:

Saves you time Great for analytics easy website updating

SEO, Google rankings

Professional, easy to use Easy to share

Sponsor-partner research Representing your brand visually

Engage with media Engage with advocates and supporters

& major influencers make it interactive, use photos & video.

on a public platform

How can you equip your advocates with the tools to create income for your organization?

Try creating video contests and sharing Facebook invites with friends
Email tools like MailChimp can bring the relationship closer (email converts better and people are more likely to see it than social media or on the web)
Make the time to access these easy – and often FREE – tools to gain efficiencies that will save your organization time and effort.

Which time-savers do you use and recommend?