Musings on Creating a Social Media Marketing Plan

So you’ve decided to move forward in designing your own entrepreneurship and success as an Internet business owner.  You’ve come to the realization that Social Media is the “in thing” and need to make a plan and set goals to achieve that success!

Social media is all about like minded people partnering, supporting, communicating, and sharing information with each other.  I cannot stress enough how important it is to create relationships both online and offline.

The success of Social Media is driven by consumer behavior, not technology.  I believe people are becoming more and more conditioned to learn from the Internet and search for solutions and their needs online.

To be successful in life, align yourself with successful people.  Drive customers to engage with your social media and Web content, nurture customers.

Some important Steps….

·         Plan and Set Goals

·         Determine Target Market or audience.

What are the ages, gender, spending power, # of hours online, what amount of time is spent on social networks?

·         How will you implement reaching your target market or niche?

Select the social networks you will use and how will they be intertwined?

·         Determine and measure ROI

·         Measure your success

          # of visitors to your blog

          $ amount of revenue

·         Check out your competition

Compare your strategy to current competitors in the same niche. 

What makes you better?

·         Brand your specialty!

Create a unified presence. 

Become known as the industry expert.

Attract people to you.

Again I will stress developing relationships here.

Maybe it is all about the superior customer service and insights you provide.  Your brand is an image that observers have in their mind.  It is a belief and an emotional feeling.

I have suggested quite a few steps here to get you started on your own Social Media Marketing Strategy.  These steps all work together and may not be listed in one step before the other order.

The most important things to remember are:

·         If you love your customers, they will love you back.

·         Be real.

·         Make your plan, set your goals, implement and measure success.

Most importantly engage in conversations that are going on.  Join in, contribute and HAVE FUN!

I’ve provided another good resource of information here:  Creating A Social Media Plan by Cory Williamson

Why Are Website Analytics important?

Ok, so now you have done your keyword research, found your product to sell, designed your Website and maybe even placed some ads.  What do you do next?  Just wait for those visitors to “stumble” upon your site and “buy” something?  No, there’s more work to do!  I think this is the FUN part!  Analyzing what your visitors are doing on your site and determining how the site is functioning.  How do visitors interact with your site?

Increasing traffic to the Website is important. Becoming more popular and “known” as an Internet Marketer is important, but even more valuable is making money and receiving huge returns on your investment (ROI).  The way to do this is to use Web analytics.

Web Analytics involve:

·         Calculating the conversion rate

·         Site performance

·         Efficiency of internet marketing campaign

You want the site to effectively service visitors and customers by:

·         Page delivery speed

·         Site availability

·         Transaction processing

For an e-commerce site a conversion is what you what your visitor to do, the action that is desired.  It can be subscribing to a newsletter, registering an account, and ultimately making a purchase.

Google Analytics offers some really neat, free Web analytics services:

·         Revenue reporting - # of purchases and average $ amount of purchase.

·         Conversion Rate

·         Average order value – tracks changes over time of the average order value

·         Product SKU# of items sold per SKU, total revenue, average price and average order quantity

·         Categories

·         Transactions – list of all transaction on your site

·         Visits to purchase helps you understand your sales cycle and the best content to create in order to turn that prospect into a customer.

·         Time to purchase – reports how long it takes for a visitor to convert to a customer.  Gives average time on site.

·         GeoTargeting – reports locations of customers.

·         And Much, Much, More!

More information can be found More about Google Analytics reports and features

Evaluating Website data is not just about the traffic, it is all about “why” are they doing that and “What for”?  The factors can be impeding business growth and success.  Use the insights gained to rectify defects and/or simply improve content.  Improve the overall marketing campaign and increase your conversion rates!

Debra Rapp

Drapp Marketing & Consulting

Why is Web 2.0 Important for Business?

Have you often wondered “What is Web 2.0?” and “How does it apply to me or my business?”

Back in the olden days, Web pages were “static”.  It was basic HTML and a visitor could only read what was on the page and move to the next.  Now Web page content is “dynamic” and sharable. 

For me Web 2.0 is hard to conceptualize because I’m a visual person.  Can someone draw me a diagram?  In short, Web 2.0 refers to the latest and upcoming generation of applications that are social in nature.  How perfect!   We have applications that allow us to create relationships on the Internet that can drive business.  Web 2.0 applications allow for user interactivity with information exchange and collaboration.  Facebook is becoming more popular every day.  I heard somewhere that if your employer or a potential employer does not allow you to use Facebook on the job; don’t even consider working for them.  The other popular Web 2.0 applications are Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare, BLOGS, and the list goes on and on. 

It is important to note that all these apps work together and an Internet business person should not use one without the others.  Your business should be promoted and marketed across channels.  Also, remember I spoke about “establishing those relationships”?  Well, different prospect/people/friends prefer different methods to communicate and interact.    We can invite people to share their experiences and not only with words, but with videos and audio podcasts.

To be a success in Internet Marketing it is imperative to know and understand Web 2.0 and where new technologies may be taking us.  The Web 2.0 offers vast opportunities to extend your brand and offer different channels for customers to find you.  There is no looking back!

Debra Rapp
Drapp Marketing & Consulting

Meet Me At My Blog

Purpose of this blog

I definitely have to say I’m rather new to blogging.  So please be patient and hear me out. 

I am currently and online student at Full Sail University in the Internet Marketing Bachelor of Science program. I have blogged on another Web site with a few posts for class purposes. For the purposes of my current class, Information Systems and E-commerce, I have started this blog.  I plan to continue it to further my professional life.

Blogging has been around for awhile and lately it has become the new craze.  It serves many purposes for many different kinds of folks.  Let me say that for me to start out with, I want to connect with people and establish relationships.  Gosh, the Internet brings us the whole world, why wouldn’t you want to be connected to everything and anything.  And of course I want people to “know” me.

A Little Bit of Background

I’ve been a business person involved in direct selling since 2001.  By that I mean I’ve sold products through the party plan or you may think of it as a MLM’s.  I’ve sold everything from women’s clothing, skin care, craft kits, nutritional products and financial products such as life insurance.  I believe I know something about selling.  My favorite was women’s fashion!  Basically, it is all about finding a prospect’s or potential customer’s “need”.  I also developed Web sites for e-commerce.  I started this back in 2006 under my company name DRapp Marketing & Consulting.

Before that I was a computer programmer working on hospital systems in the corporate world.

Lately, I’ve been discovering my inner creativity.  I’ve developed new technical skills in Web Design after having completed a diploma course at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh. About a year and a half ago, I started actively selling on eBay.  It’s actually pretty crazy what I’ve sold.  Anything goes!  My experience with Full Sail University has been exceptional teaching me the whole realm of marketing on the Internet.

I invite you to post your comments, I am eager to learn from you!

Debbie Rapp

DRapp Marketing & Consulting

Hello and Welcome to my Blog!

Welcome!  I am currently in Information Systems and E-Commerce - Online class at Full Sail University.  Even though I have set up a blog for a previous class, I am designing this blog on http://www.blogger.com/.  I find all the design features very customizable and fun to work with.  So enjoy!

Debra Rapp
Drapp Marketing & Consulting