Understanding whether or not your business needs to be using social media is a critical component in the development of a strategic marketing and public relations plan. To make this decision, you need to understand who your customers are by segment and then comprehend where they place their attention and how or if they use social media.

Do they use SM?

Not every business’s customers are using social media or are spending the majority of their time there. As an example, I don’t believe a wholesale lumber yard’s customers (who are general contractors and homebuilders) are spending time engaged in social media. But research can tell you whether or not they do.

Flowtown posted a blog article that makes the point eloquently:

Not everyone has the patience for the cultivation and care social media marketing requires to do it well. They look for short cuts because they are fixated on the wrong numbers and placing value on the wrong things. For those with patience there are rewards, though: There are many case studies out there to prove that social media marketing can be a valuable addition to a company’s marketing mix; it can enhance and amplify their traditional and online marketing efforts and can have a positive impact on a company’s brand, customer service capabilities and, eventually, sales.

In the race to social media and the rapid adoption in the past years, many have “jumped on the bandwagon” who mistake the reasons to be involved in social media.

Social Media Truth

Social media is not about saving money, using free tools or broadcasting messages. It is about creating a positive relationship where one receives permission to converse and share interesting content, ideas, and thoughts. Sometimes those are about our core business, and sometimes they are about where to find the best priced business lunch.

*Photo Credit: Flickr Creative Commons user Intersection Consulting

Is your blog like a field of dreams? If you write it they will come? Readers can be developed with promotion.

So you write posts for your corporate blog or your personal blog. And you’ve learned how to make your posts interesting and have been writing regularly. Hopefully you are doing this to provide a body of information to your clients and attract new clients as well. You may be doing this to enhance your SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) and bring traffic for your targeted keywords.

Blogging, is not an “If you build it, they will come,” sport. You must do as the newsboys of the last century did and stand on the digital corner and promote your blog. If you don’t you’re wasting your valuable writing effort and time. You can dramatically increase traffic to your blog by using a few tools.

It only takes a small bit of effort to get your posts promoted.

The most effective promotions tools that I’ve used are grouped in three categories:

• -Social Media

• -Blog Feeds or Syndication

• -E-mail marketing

Let’s look at each way to promote your blog content:

Social Media:

Facebook Pages

You can easily link your blog content to your Facebook Business Page with the application Networked Blogs or at a minimum you can manually post links to your blog’s latest articles.

Twitter

Using either Twitter or preferably HootSuite you can write interesting leads and connect them with shortened URLs that provide trackable stats to measure your results. You can schedule your tweets to show up in your stream so you know they go out when your readers are most often reading.

Su.pr

Su.pr is a syndication service that allows for link shortening and tweeting. You can immediately tweet or schedule the tweet about your blog content. Write a very compelling headline and watch the stats. You can download them and you can also see what suggested posting times will get the more response.

Blog Feeds and Syndication:

RSS

Almost every blog has a built in RSS feed. If yours doesn’t, you need to be sure to make that happen. This allows readers who find your content of value to subscribe in their choice of reader, pulling your content to them. One of the most popular readers is GoogleReader. Personally, I use Bloglines, but to each her own.

Feedburner

Feedburner is the most often thought of feed distribution service. Now owned by Google, it provides great stats and shows how your feed has been used and how many clicks back to your site have been taken to interact with your post.

BlogBurst

This syndication service promotes qualified blogs to high traffic websites. BlogBurst says, “We promote your blog…Our top-tier publishers display your blog content on their sites. Clicks on your byline drive referral traffic to your blog. It is a distribution and matching service designed to widen your blog’s reach and drive traffic to your blog regardless of other affiliations you may have.”

E-mail:

Signature
How many e-mails to you send a day? While the usage of e-mail has dropped off, it is still a primary business communication tool. Provide a link to your blog in your e-mail signature. Feedburner provides code to allow you to have an animated badge with recent headlines, so e-mail recipients will actually see your blog’s headlines and be enticed into reading.  But if you choose not to use the Feedburner animated headline rotator, you can at a minimum provide a hyperlink to your blog.

By using these tools I can guarantee you will dramatically increase your blog’s readership. And isn’t this exactly what you want to do?

Start on the right foot.

Once you’ve come to the realization that you need to consider multicultural marketing – targeting different consumer segments on the basis of ethnic, racial, or cultural group membership – you need to figure out how to get ready to do it.  If you want to do a mediocre job, simply read an oversimplified demographic profile of your target group on the internet, reinforce marketing stereotypes that may or may not hold true for the group, replace a few white characters in your ads with members of that group, and translate directly your existing communications into their language

On the other hand, if you want to know how to do a really good job – one that resonates with your subcultural target and has a positive ROI – you need to do a little background work first.  Here are five things to do as you consider how you are going to do multicultural marketing.

How #1:  Assume nothing, research everything.

As members of the dominant culture, we white Anglos have a difficult time knowing if, when, and how the beliefs, values, and behaviors of other cultural groups differ from ours.  (The converse is not so, but that’s for another post.)  We may erroneously assume that members of another culture behave just like we do, or that they behave completely differently from how we do.  Successful multicultural marketing starts by checking both types of assumptions at the door.  Research, particularly qualitative, is absolutely essential for understanding the consumer beliefs about, motivations toward, uses of, and propensity for different product categories and brands among diverse cultural segments of which we are not members.

How #2:  Learn the culture of your target.

Not learn about the culture of your target market, learn the culture itself.  Read the literature of your target – be sure to include a biography or two, fiction, and non-fiction of different historical periods.  Take a history, sociology, or anthropology course about your target to learn the culture’s ethos – what makes its people tick.  Identify what popular media your target consumes (television shows, online content, magazines, radio, news, etc.) and consume them yourself to learn what current issues within the community are.  You’re doing all this not to learn how to market to them per se, but rather to understand their values and beliefs (see How #1 above).

How #3:  Diversify your capabilities.

Marketing to diverse consumers requires a diversity of thought, and you get this diversity of thought from having diverse employees.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that if you would like to target subcultural segments X, Y, and Z, you have to have employees from subcultural segments X, Y, and Z (though it doesn’t hurt).  It does mean, however, that you have to have different types of people in your firm with a diversity of experiences and backgrounds so that they can question assumptions (see How #1), tap into a broad network of connections and resources that a narrow employee base might not have, and generate more, better ideas than a homogenous group could.

How #4.  Understand diversity within diversity.

There is substantial heterogeneity within any segment, and failure to acknowledge it could be disastrous.  An African American mom with three kids and a minivan is probably more like her white soccer mom counterpart than she is like a black Caribbean hip hop artist when it comes to purchasing an SUV, and a fifteen year old Hispanic boy is probably more like that same hip hop artist than he is like his own Mexican grandfather when it comes to choosing clothing.  Individuals in ethnoracial subcultures differ substantially with regard to how much they identify with their subcultural groups, and these differences influence how they respond to targeted marketing efforts.

How #5:  Commit money and talent.

Too often when firms decided to target a particular cultural subsegment, they name someone within their organization of that same subsegment to lead the effort (without regard to his marketing acumen), fund the effort from ad hoc sources (without regard to how much money it will require), and expect immediate results (without regard to how long it will take).  Though firms seem reluctant to redeploy their best assets on cultivating a new, unknown, smaller, riskier subsegment than they are used to, successful multicultural marketing requires that they do so.  If you’re not going to commit these resources to the effort, you may not yet be ready for multicultural marketing.

Anne M. Brumbaugh is the founder and owner of Anne Brumbaugh Marketing, a marketing consultancy in Charleston, SC, specializing in marketing research, marketplace diversity, and marketing analysis and planning.  Dr. Brumbaugh is also an Associate Professor of Marketing at the School of Business, College of Charleston, and holds an MBA with a specialization in marketing and a PhD in business and consumer behavior.

*Photo Credit:  Image courtesy of foundphotoslj on Flickr Creative Commons

The Connection Maven continues a series of guest blogger posts from a few of our more connected colleagues.

This guest post is from the desk of Anne Brumbaugh who is a marketing guru if I ever met one. When it comes to marketing know-how, Anne is one of the best. Anne’s speciality is multicultural marketing. In this first of a series of blog posts, she clues us all in to the five reasons we must market multi-culturally. In the coming days, we’ll share Anne’s tips on how to implement multicultural marketing.

Why Multicultural Marketing?

The terms “multicultural marketing” and “marketplace diversity” strike fear in the hearts of many marketing managers who have been wildly successful in targeting mainstream customers but who are now facing an increasingly diverse body of consumers and little experience to serve them.  Their fear is well founded because they don’t know why, how, who, or what to do about it.

First things first.  Why consider multicultural segmentation and marketing?  Absolutely not because it’s the feel-good flavor-of-the-day and the “right thing to do.”  Poppycock.  Here are five reasons why it’s going to be good for your bottom line.

Why #1:  It’s where the customers are going.

The 2000 census projected that white non-Hispanic Americans would become a minority majority (i.e., plurality) by 2040 or 2050.  Newsflash:  I predict that will be more like 2030 as more people intermarry, have children, travel and work here and abroad, and choose to identify with more than one ethnoracial group on the census and other polls.  Some white non-Hispanics seem to be on the edge of panic that this day will be some cultural Armageddon.  Again, poppycock.  It will simply be one more day in a long, inexorable trend that started back when our forefathers (may of whom were ethnic minority outcasts themselves, for the record) came to this land and will be as glorious and full of opportunity (business, marketing, or otherwise) as ever.  Embrace it, or at least get over it.  If you don’t, your customer base will shrink.

Why #2:  It’s where the money is going.

Ethnoracial minority groups that have, for one reason or another, fallen into the lower tail of the socioeconomic distribution are making great strides.  Not only will there be more consumers of diverse backgrounds (see Why #1), but they will have more money.  No, they will not be buying the upscale homes and fancy sports cars with extra piles of money that wealthy white non-Hispanic Americans (allegedly) have, but they will be buying more and buying better than they ever have in the past.  And they remember companies that targeted them with respectful, value-added offerings on the way up.

Why #3:  It’s where your competition is going.

Both nature and business abhor a vacuum, and underserved markets will not remain underserved for long.  If you don’t get with the program and learn how to target diverse consumers, your competition will.  It may not be your biggest, closest competitor, but rather a small shop that’s willing to end run you but good with a little extra effort, creativity, and heart.  The customers are there and the money is there.  Go for them before someone else does.

Why #4:  It’s where the mainstream mindset is going.

Have no fear – white non-Hispanic consumers will remain the largest ethnoracial group even after becoming a “minority.”  The problem is, some of them will be gaining an appreciation for the range of ideas, assortment of goods and services, and spice of life that a more diverse America brings to them, and they will want to patronize firms that embrace that.  Terms like the “New Mainstream,” “Cultural Creatives,” and “Diversity Seekers” reflect an evolving ethos among current majority white non-Hispanic consumers who value diversity in their lives.  Companies that don’t update their appeals to be more inclusive toward everyone may lose these folks as well.

Why #5:  It’s where your opportunity to differentiate will be.

It’s Economics and Marketing 101.  If all your consumers are the same, seeking the same source of value for the same reasons, you can’t differentiate and you end up playing a price game in a commodity market.  On the other hand, the more diverse your consumers are, the more opportunity you have to differentiate – do more, do different, and do better than your competition in the eyes of your consumers.  Unfortunately, it’s going to take more money, more knowledge, and more effort than it has in the past, but if misery loves company, at least everyone’s in the same boat.  If you can figure out how a particular consumer segment is different, cater to that point of difference, and then deliver on it, you’re going to thrive in this new, multicultural marketplace.

Anne M. Brumbaugh is the founder and owner of Anne Brumbaugh Marketing, a marketing consultancy in Charleston, SC, specializing in marketing research, marketplace diversity, and marketing analysis and planning.  Dr. Brumbaugh is also an Associate Professor of Marketing at the School of Business, College of Charleston, and holds an MBA with a specialization in marketing and a PhD in business and consumer behavior.

*Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons user Ray_from_LA

A guest post from Andra Watkins of Positus Consulting.

You DO want to grow your business

You want to grow your business. It’s what everyone wants, regardless of the season, ebb and flow of the economy or challenges presented by pesky competitors.

One of the keys to growing any business is knowing how and when to ask the right questions of key people. Sometimes, a focus group is the only way to get the biggest group of participants, but at POSITUS, we like to conduct individual interviews whenever possible.

By hiring a third party to individually ask a customer, vendor or employee key questions about your business, you are communicating several things to them that matter. Let’s take a look at each one of them.

Ask!

Your input is important to me. It is so important to you as a business owner that you hired someone to contact people individually to get that feedback. You’re conveying that the interviewee matters to your business by underscoring the crucial nature of their opinions and insights.

Your time is valuable. Individual interviews can often be conducted by telephone, and they can be timed for the convenience of the interviewee. By taking this approach, you’re communicating that time is precious; that you want to make giving feedback as simple as possible for the participant.

Your confidentiality matters. Lots of folks won’t participate in focus groups because they’re intimidated or they feel they cannot reasonably convey what they have to offer in front of a group. As a research tool, individual interviews with a third party allow each participant to speak freely and candidly in a completely confidential setting.

All of your comments are welcome – even the critical ones. By giving a participant a one-on-one forum with an impartial third party, you are underscoring that you want all relevant feedback – the good; the bad; and the ugly. The beauty of a third party is that the information can then be distilled and worded into relevant, meaningful input for dynamic business change.

I want to keep your business. Customers always like to feel special, and seeking out their opinions one-on-one is an ideal way to underscore that you want to keep their business for the long-term. With key customers, individual interviewing can be the key to keeping them in the “key” position for the life of your business.

You have been an instrument of change in my business. Getting one-on-one feedback is worthless without follow up. Once the information has been reviewed and crafted into specific strategies for growth and change, show people AND tell people how their input made a difference. Announce the changes you’ve made. Thank people personally. Be transparent about what you’re doing, helping everyone to see the value of their individual contributions.

Research is like concentrated dynamite

In every case where POSITUS has helped a client achieve double or triple digit growth, individual interviews have been a non-negotiable component of the strategic process. They are more affordable than a focus group, and the input gleaned is like concentrated dynamite. On more than one occasion, we’ve taken an entirely different strategic growth stance based solely on individual feedback, and that information is what helped the business explode with new growth.

And, isn’t that where you really want your business to be?

Twitter is a great tool to help you connect to current and potential customers, just be careful what you say.

When playing chess, strategy is the key to winning. It's no different when it comes to planning public relations for your business.

Just as Shira Levine writes in American Express Open‘s blog post on why you need strategic public relations, we’ve long championed knowing what you want to happen when planning your public relations campaign. Know your brand. Stay current. All your public relations must be aligned with a carefully planned business goal.

Levine’s six points to guide you in the development of a strategic pr campaign bear repeating:  (I’ve added my thoughts in blue beneath her thoughts.)

1. Be message-driven. Have goals and stick to communicating the most important message of your brand. Focus on driving mind share.

To which I add, know your message! Take time to comprehend your brand and don’t begin promoting your company just because you are “open.”

2. Consider geographic components. If the product is locally focused and distributed in specific places, don’t waste coverage in places where the product or service can’t be bought. Win the markets you have!

While it’s nice to get kudos from a national magazine, if you aren’t selling a product that is available across the country or on your website, you will not be growing your business. And isn’t that the goal?

3. Have a call to action. Your editorial should have a call to action for the consumer; for example, to visit your website or store. Focus on communicating the message of what exactly you want your consumer to do.

When developing a strategic campaign, it’s great to tie your publicity to an event, contest or limited time frame.

4. Understand what type of media you want and need for your message.Ten years ago the media landscape was much different. How you target print vs. electronic media is different. Weekly and daily publications operate differently.

“Recognize unconventional target audiences,” says Olguin. “That’s how we deal with our client: New Castle Brown Ale. For that client, a blogger or blog site like Thrillist works better strategically than USA Today.”

Recognize that media aren’t targets! You want to cultivate relationships, not just shoot news to them. Don’t let your press release become like a message in a bottle, cast out there just to see where it washes up.

5. Be time-driven. Have something in your PR campaign to tie the news back to. It could be a news peg, a hook, something newsworthy, etc. The launch of a product is always good. A new message for the marketplace can work. Just make sure it coincides with your business objective.

Just remember, public relations is like spring! It’s about news.

6. Recognize the power of the blogosphere. “Peer-to-peer communication is more valuable than category experts,” says Olguin “Tripadvisor and Yelp, for example, are incredibly important, but so is a blogger in Syracuse who says a restaurant is cool. So is Jason Chen from Gizmodo. Vertically-oriented blog writers live and breathe their category. Even if they aren’t trained on their topics they are super influential with the leverage they have over their followers. They can bring multiple placements, are easy to find, and you don’t have to spend much money to have a measurable impact.”

Blogs are a powerful and reach those who make purchasing decisions.

Know your brand. Know your message. Know your audience. Then strategically plan your public relations campaign.

Public speaking is proven, time-tested way to position your company as a knowledgeable, credible authority in your business segment or industry. It is one of the public relations tactics that continues to provide great return on your time-investment.

Develop a presentation

It is important to develop your talk or presentation on topics of interest to the audience. Your talk must not be an advertisement for your company. It must always be a way to share knowledge and leave the attendees more knowledgeable than when they arrived.

Get over your fear

Public speaking is a fearful thing for many, but there are many ways to lessen your fear. Start small and offer to contribute to meetings you attend. Practice speaking out when you are comfortable or join Toastmasters.

10 Tips to Gain Public Speaking Opportunities

1. Develop one or two talks of no more than 20 minutes length on current topics that are important to the types of buyers your firm serves.
2. Practice your presentation with colleagues, employees or friends. Ask them what they learned from your presentation and adjust your presentation so that your audience takes away what you intend that they take away.
3. Write a summary of your talk outlining your topic, what the attendees will learn or what benefits they will gain, the desired audience size and type, resources you provide (such as books, or take-away-notes), and facility / audio visual needs.
4. Make a list of the organizations, clubs and associations that have members who may benefit from the information you have to share.
5. Learn who books or plans programs and speakers for each of the groups.
6. Establish a relationship with these planners either by contacting them directly or asking a colleague or member of the group to introduce you.
7. Attend a meeting of the group, if meetings are open, or ask a colleague to invite you as a guest.
8. After gaining familiarity with the group and their normal procedures, adjust your summary to fit the group and send it to the program chair person with your request to be considered as a speaker, suggesting how you feel your presentation may be of benefit to the attendees.
9. Continually be aware of new groups and organizations and add them to your list.
10. Continue to attend association, organization and group meetings as possible, being aware of trends that effect members of the group so that you may be aware of new opportunities to speak.

You’re the winner!

One of the most beloved of all time is the contest. Some contests are sweepstakes where a winner is selected at random after you “enter” a pool of qualified customers. The most famous of these is Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes. Others are simple fishbowl lotteries of all entrants, such as the drawing of a business card at your local business networking group meeting. Still others are contests where entrants must comply with a set of rules. The most famous one of these that comes to mind is the Pillsbury Bake Off.

Marketing contests for small businesses

While these examples are associated with large corporations, there are many ways small businesses can implement these same concepts.

Charleston Magazine's Get Cooking Charleston contest requires entrants to use ingredients from Charleston

In Charleston for example, our local magazine just announced their Get Cooking Charleston! competition, a recipe contest and cook-off. The qualifications require all entrants to use ingredients that are either historically or geographically tied to Charleston. One of the sponsors is Piggly Wiggly Carolina whose marketing always makes the connection to Charleston’s culture and way of life. It’s smart of them to sponsor this competition. It supports their brand and positioning in the market. Same for Charleston Magazine.

Contest must be aligned with products & positioning

Your small business can do this too. If you are the maker of a product such as hand painted note cards hold an old fashioned letter writing contest. Perhaps you are a bar, you could hold a competition for the next new menu item or specialty cocktail.

Partnerships extend your reach

When you set up your contest, seek partners who may extend your reach into a new demographic, but perhaps have not yet reached. The classic example is a restaurant who wishes to reach wine aficionados and partners with a local or regional winery. You can share expenses, accomplish a common goal and cross market to each others lists.

Your company’s vendors can be your contest co-sponsors and larger vendors often have partnership marketing dollars that they can share with your small business. Homebuilders do this with their vendors quite frequently.

Enter rather than sponsor

However, you don’t have to hold the competition, you can enter a competition! The Get Cooking Charleston competition is a wonderful opportunity for businesses in the food and beverage industry segment.  Want to enter? Begin to look for local, regional and national competitions. You can enter them as an individual or as a representative of your business as Charleston entrepreneur Margaret Bjork of Private Eyes Undies did when she entered the “I am Free Enterprise” contest or just as Charleston singer Amanda L. did when she entered the Folger’s jingle contest.

Enter to win

If you enter a contest, enter to win; advice offered by internationally renowned opera singer Shirley Verrett during an opera master class. She said, “Don’t just try, bring your very best! Believe you’ll win and do everything you can to be the winner.” Do your business and your self proud.

And remember the advice of Thomas Jefferson:  “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”