CBJ Winner



  • I very much enjoyed the interaction with the Informatics team. They were committed, creative and cooperative website partner.

    Susan Assouline

    read more »
  • In addition to the excellence of Informatics’ work, their talented and creative staff provides exemplary customer service.

    Jeff Pollock
    Parkside Partners
    read more »
  • Our website is the first impression that our company has to the outside world and it's of the highest importance that the first impression be a great one. The Informatics team helped is build an online presence that immediately establishes credibility, highlights our technology, and puts us in a position to succeed.

    Robert Kibbe
    Great Plains Diesel Technologies
    read more »
  • After spending months of working with another Web development company, Informatics took over my project and re-built our site from the ground up. The site they designed was more advanced, on time and on budget.

    Dan Quirk
    Find Obits
    read more »
  • Informatics developed a database driven site that has completely enhanced the way we do business.

    Joshua Schamberger
    Iowa City Convention & Visitors Bureau
    read more »
    


Skip Navigation LinksHome > About Us > In The News > Getting the Most From Social Media Marketing

Getting the Most From Social Media Marketing

July 23, 2010
The popularity of social media is undeniable – three of the world’s most popular brands online are social-media related (Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia) and the world now spends over 110 billion minutes on social networks and blog sites.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a form of internet marketing which seeks to achieve branding and marketing communication goals through the participation in various social media networks (MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn), social bookmarking (Digg, Stumbleupon), social media sharing (Flickr, YouTube), review/ratings sites (ePinions, BizRate), blogs, forums, news aggregators and virtual 3D networks (SecondLife, ActiveWorlds). Each social media site can be optimized to generate awareness or traffic.

The most popular metrics to measure B2B Social Media Marketing Success:
  • Website Traffic
  • Brand Awareness
  • Engagement with Prospects
  • Engagement with Customers
  • Brand Reputation
  • Prospect Lead Quality
  • Revenue
  • Prospect Lead Volume
  • Useful Product Feedback
 5 Steps to Developing a Social Media Marketing Plan:

Is Social Media Marketing right for your business? It can be—but only if you begin with a strategy and a plan:

  1. Define your goals.
    1. Are you trying to find prospects? Support existing customers? Increase brand awareness? Setting primary and secondary goals will help you determine which tools to use as well help you further define your strategy.
  2. Assess your resources.
    1. While social media tools are free and easy to use, it takes time to use them effectively. Make sure you can afford to devote at least one hour a day to this effort once you are up and running.
  3. Determine your niche.
    1. Where is the best place for you to spend your time? Forums? Groups? Blogging? Facebook? Twitter? Your goals will help you define your audience and determine the best way to reach your audience.
  4. Establish metrics.
    1. In order to know if you are successful with this endeavor, establish a baseline and establish measurable goals. For example, if you use site traffic as your metric, know what your traffic is before you start a social media campaign and measure traffic regularly once you begin.
  5. Be patient.
    1. Like anything else, it takes time, persistence, consistency and commitment to generate results.
SHARE: