Tampa Business

If you perform a Google search on any big company’s name with the word Facebook at the end, chances are the top result will be the company’s own official Facebook page. The same goes for Twitter and YouTube. CocaCola and Pepsi, Apple and Microsoft, Target and Walmart—they all have a presence on some social media platform.

Last week we reported on the recent statistics highlighting the social media revolution. The Internet was buzzing about the future of social media, media marketing, and how businesses can use social media to their advantage. This week, the results from a survey were released, detailing even further just how much social media has affected business and brand marketing. Within the next year, an astonishing 82 percent of brand marketers will be using social media to promote their brand, said Equation Research’s 2009 Marketing Industry Trends Report.

Now more than ever, it is essential to have a handle on social media. Not every platform needs to be explored, however. It’s about efficiently using your time while creating the most impact. Currently, many brands struggle with engaging users once the space is established. While the Equation report listed some great stats about social media, it also said that 37 percent of brands don’t know enough about social media to know where to begin.

Social media connects businesses to customers and clients in a unique way, engages them in meaningful conversation, and opens doors to options that couldn’t have been explored just a few years ago. One of the biggest doors social media has opened is the ability for businesses to promote social causes and missions, and the emerging trend of social entrepreneurship. Uniting users through a cause built around your brand is incredibly valuable–as it engages them on a high, meaningful level. Through this, the communication can make an impact and also send a message to customers that the company is interested in more than just making a profit.

Here are just a few examples of how social media is leading the way for social good:

Target: For years, the company allocated a certain percent of their profits to charities chosen by the company. This past year, Target announced that they were handing the power of giving to the people. For two weeks, Target opened a poll on its Facebook fan page allowing users to vote for the charity of their choice. At the end of the voting period, the company split up…

To read more about brands and social media, go to Sparxoo, a digital marketing, branding and business development blog.

Media buying is more complex than a lot of people think at first; which is why a lot of people fail to hit the nail on the head with their media planning efforts. Effective media planning consists of several elements: finding the right media to advertise in, positioning yourself within that advertising media to reach your target market, strong negotiation skills and the ability to monitor and track results and analyze them to fine-tune your campaign.

Does media buying still sound easy? Honestly, it’s not – which is why most businesses don’t try to go it alone with their media planning efforts and go to the professionals. There are advertising agencies and consultants who provide media buying services; people who know advertising media inside and out and can get your company the placements it needs to reach the right audience at the best possible rates.

You could do ahead and try to do this all yourself, but it’s going to take up quite a bit of your time – time which could be much better spent elsewhere. It’s usually a much better idea to leave the media buying to an advertising agency that has a track record of getting results for their clientele. Choose your advertising agency wisely. An agency which does a great job with media buying and other services is a valuable partner to have. Meet with agencies and look through their portfolios until you find an agency that offers the expertise and the services your company needs.

Whether you’re trying to plan a campaign of newspaper advertising, radio advertising, online advertising or all of the above, assess the reach of each type of advertising media has in your target market. The next step in your media planning is to tailor your advertisements to the media used in the campaign. Remember, we warned you it wasn’t necessarily easy!

Advertising costs vary depending on the media you choose. Internet advertising is relatively inexpensive compared to other media, though the total cost depends on whether you’re using banner ads or pay per click (PPC)advertising and how many impressions or clicks your campaign includes and/or how often you want your ads to appear. PPC is easy to monitor, track and fine tune (and you can set the budget to ensure you don’t overspend), making it one of the easier media buying tasks, relatively speaking.

National newspaper advertising and magazine advertisements, among other consumer focused print media are more costly. Magazine and newspaper advertising are great for consumer awareness and as a branding or corporate identity vehicle and as such should be considered in your media planning.

Outdoor advertising, including billboard advertising and mobile billboards can make a big impact, but in terms of media buying is a little more challenging. In depth, longer-term demographic information will be required to get the best results out of your outdoor advertising placements.

The most challenging part of your media buying strategy is broadcast advertising. Radio advertising and television advertising are among the most expensive advertisements to produce and purchase placements for. Radio, however is becoming a more cost effective medium with local stations especially often providing very reasonable rates for packages including the costs of production and planning.

Media buying can be a puzzle; but it doesn’t have to be a conundrum for your business. Media buying is one of the things advertising agencies specialize in. Some things really are best left to the professionals – and placing media buying and planning into the hands of experts ensures more effective campaigns and lets you get back to running your business.

Social media marketing (SMM) is the latest buzz in internet marketing.  The increasing popularity of social media websites and the growing number of users on social networking sites has prompted global companies to use the realm of social media for marketing their businesses.  While there is a lot of enthusiasm and optimism regarding social media marketing, the process involved in marketing using this platform remains unclear. SMM is a journey and unlike SEO, it involves smart play rather than hard work.  Here are some tips that can be used to make your social media marketing plan a success.

Always keep the client in the center.  The client’s business niche is most crucial in designing a social media marketing plan.  The network built on a website like FaceBook or twitter should be related to the business of the client. Though this platform may not give you the typical link benefit, the space itself may become a virtual business networking hub that helps you find potential business partners and clients.

Social media websites have great potential for online branding. Many global companies including Coke have used social networking sites to increase their brand awareness. Your profiles on these websites become a connecting point between you and your consumers.  Another important consideration that goes into using this mode of marketing is your definition of success in this platform. Before you plunge into social media marketing, it is most important to set your goals and be clear about what you are trying to achieve through SMM. Once you have decided this, you can take your social media marketing in a direction that takes you towards achieving the goal.

SMM has great marketing potential and there are three simple rules in achieving success through this medium- form the right network, interact genuinely and be focused about your business goal.