Mark Murnahan's SEO and Social Media Marketing Blog

Social Media Tactics Without Social Media Strategy Fails

I look around the Internet and see a lot of social media tactics without any overall strategy. It often leaves me shaking my head when I see so-called social media marketers who offer nothing but setting up a couple of social media accounts then find a handful of people for their client to spout advertisements to. Maybe they even offer to do the spouting, but often without a real sound plan. It leaves little wonder why so many people are left to question the usefulness of social media in their business. It is a sad fact for many companies, but it can be fixed.

For the purpose of this article, let us look at the words tactic and strategy like the military does. A military tactic is an action that is implemented by a group of no larger than a division. A strategy addresses the planned outcome of the entire military operation. In social media terms, one way to look at a tactic is sending tweets on Twitter, while a strategy addresses how those tweets fit into the overall business plan and marketing objectives.

I suppose it should not be surprising that many people do not understand the difference between a social media tactic and a social media strategy. After all, most of the people implementing social media today are not marketers by trade, nor have a significant stake in the outcome. Many will say that they are marketers, but most really are not. They are technicians of marketing tools, but not practitioners of the trade. If this insults you, it shouldn’t. It is not saying that the receptionist who was put in charge of tweeting is any less important, or that the guy in accounting who created the last ad campaign is any less valuable as an accountant. We all have our own skill sets, and just because it is popular, you can still be cool if you are not a marketer.

Social Media Tactics Examples

I witness many social media consultants who promote setting up Twitter and Facebook accounts, fancying up the profile pages, and helping customers to find followers or fans. Sadly, this is about as useful as a hammer without a carpenter. These tactics are just creating tools, and without a strategy … an actual understanding of what to do next and why, companies are often left to receive terrible results and disappointment. A tactic without any function or objective in place is only useful on a very short term basis, and that is if they have luck on their side.

A common tactic I see is the social media consultant who tries very hard to reach a lot of people with entertaining messages like a funny video, a joke, or inspirational quote. They tell their clients to be fun, interesting, and engaging. They promote making a lot of friends by being themselves and making it personal. This is all just fine and dandy, but it is only a tactic. In the end, you may have a lot of people who like you but still lose a lot of time and money. The overall strategy of this social media tactic is that if you have a bunch of friends and they like you, it will be easier to sneak in your advertisement now and then and get your friends to help you spread it to the world. The problem is, these are only tactics, and there is really not a sound strategy. Friends are great, and we can all benefit from having more friends. I love the friends I meet via social media. I met my wife back in 2000 using social media. All the friends are fantastic, but those friends alone are not likely to come running make your mortgage payments. You need more to your strategy than this.

In an upcoming article I will show actual statistics which I have compiled regarding the effectiveness of tactics in contrast to strategy, but for now I want you to think about strategy more in terms of short and long-term objectives, and how you can improve yours.

Social Media Strategy: A Plan for Success

Let’s just say that you have a bunch of people following you on Twitter and a squillion fans on your Facebook Page. What are you going to do with that? Will you provide something that nobody else is doing? Do you have a strategy that is sustainable beyond the next Facebook update?

Let us use a restaurant as an example. If you have a restaurant, will you blast out your specials every day and hope people come to see you, then perhaps just keep lowering your sale price until this tactic begins to work? I hope that you don’t think that is a useful strategy. Try to think of strategy more like this: Create a contest among waiters to see which one will have more customers tag your restaurant in a Facebook photo or upload a picture of their good time with your awesome waiter on TwitPic and send it to you as a reply on Twitter. Create a special inauguration party for your latest “Mayor” on Foursquare. Integrate these tactics into an overall strategy to produce a sustainable marketing force of people who love what you do and love to tell their friends. Reward them with something fun, interesting, and preferably delicious. These are things people will remember, and ways to have other people interested, rather than just wasting time with basic advertising tactics.

Even Good Strategy Fails Without Implementation

A good strategy will still not benefit your company without implementation. If you find that you have a handful of tactics without a really solid and productive strategy, stop and take another look. It is not too late to start doing things better, but each day that slips by will mean more money down the drain.

Here is one more example of a strategy. My strategy is to provide something useful. I want to give you something you did not get elsewhere. I want to give you something valuable that you can use today and receive benefit. Using this strategy, a small portion of my readers contact me when they are ready to create and implement a strategy using tactics that work.

What Do People Want and Where Do You Fit In?

Knowing what people want is an important part of effective marketing. Knowing where you fit into the customer’s plan is critical to success. It is not a simple one-answer question and it requires a close look at what people want, why they want it, and how you can help them get more of those things they want. Knowing where you are in this big picture is often difficult, because you are on the inside and trying to find a view from the outside. I want to offer you some help.

Note that this is not a matter of fitting your product or service into what you think people want, but what they actually want.

Humans Are Highly Evolved and Sophisticated Creatures

We humans are highly evolved. We think differently than most animals. We think differently enough that we have sometimes even become arrogant about it. We think we can fight what is in our nature, and that we are totally in control. We even came up with a word to make instinct seem more evolved, and we called it “emotion”. Emotion is what drives us to many of the choices we make, whether we like it or not. Emotions bring us closer to our friends, emotions cause us to argue with our friends, and emotions help us to find the right mate. Wait, but couldn’t the same things be said of instinct? Instincts drive us to be with others like us, instincts cause us to compete and fight within our packs, instincts are what make this mate or that mate right for us, and instincts are what drive us to buy things. Seriously, emotions are synonymous with instincts, and I make this point because we cannot fight our instincts. If I tell you that you cannot fight your emotions, I may reach some of you, but when I put it in terms of the lion with the biggest mane, it is because I want you guys to hear me, too.

Let us just consider, for a moment, that we are each hunters and gatherers. Like it or not, that’s where I am going with this. If I am a better hunter and gatherer, I will be rewarded. OK lions, that means I will have the best den, the best mate, and the best and most delicious gazelle. If you do not believe me on this, take a look at statistics on divorce. When a lion has a broken ankle, (not providing well) the mate (male or female … because ladies, you really are the ones who rock my blog) is far more likely to kick you out of the den or at very least to the other side of the den until you can show them the gazelle. I hope we are clear on this, because I want to tell you a little more about instincts and why some things sell so much better than others.

We have all heard that “sex sells”, but have you really looked deeper into why sex sells?

Why Does Sex Sell? Because People Instinctively Want Sex!

There are very basic non-sexy reasons that sex sells, and the sooner you realize it, the better. Aside from finding something to eat, there is not a single more instinct-driven action in our world than to pass along our genetics and keep our species alive. Without sex, nobody would be here and reading my blog. Yes, like it or not, your mother and father had sex … probably a lot.

People beat around the bush about the topic, and it is taboo for some people which makes it even more desirable. We avoid talking to grandmother about it, but let’s face it: sex sells. It sells news, it sells products, and it sells hope … in numbers that nothing else can compete with … not even close! There is no need for you to be shy when I tell you that sex sells, because grandmother is not watching. Even if grandmother was watching, she could probably tell you a good thing or two about sex. I know, it seems impossible, right?

In case you have any doubts on this topic, let us consider how you feel about the words mastectomy, castration, hormone disorder, or erectile dysfunction. I don’t mean just clinically, but how they affect people. These are some of the most frightening things that can happen to a human being. Castration is often considered one of the most cruel and unusual punishments possible, and in case you have not noticed, plastic surgery (namely fake boobs) is a pretty profitable field. On top of that, “erectile dysfunction” could easily be the overriding view of our life and time if we were dug up by anthropologists in a couple thousand years.

When a company embraces a market directive of not only the fact that sex sells, but how they can position themselves such that others are instinctively driven to their product, they win! They have the biggest profit margins and they have the biggest market, and all because they give us what we want. Just look at Calvin Klein as an example of this. Have you ever purchased one of their products or had sex with somebody who did? They offer jeans to make butts look better, scents to make people smell sexier, but really, above all, they market to instincts. They are not conning you, but rather simply understand what people want and they know how to deliver it.

So you may ask “what of other markets”. Instinct holds answers there, too. If you are a successful plumber, instincts tell us that backed up sewage is not healthy and that we should call you. If you are a successful restaurant, instincts tell us that your food will make us more satisfied than the others. If you are a successful car dealer, instincts tell us that you have a better way for us to go out to hunt and gather. As crazy as it may seem to you, even the seemingly least desirable or ridiculous things you may ever purchase are there because somebody had a better way to appeal to your instincts (emotions).

How Can I Harness Instincts?

Since you read this far, you are probably wondering just how you can harness instincts to explain how very valuable and useful your products or services are. The good news is that it is not as ugly or difficult as you have probably imagined. It takes a careful look at what you do and how it really fits into things that people want and need. Knowing where you are in this big picture is usually pretty hard, because you are on the inside and seeking a view from the outside.

My tip is to realize where and what you are. Be aware of yourself and why you do the things you do. It is a huge step to understanding where you fit in the pack and how you can help the rest of the pack survive stronger than without you. When the pack is stronger because of what you do, you become a success.

From my standpoint, I realized a long time ago that I do things because I am a lion with huge claws and teeth, and I know why I do things. There are instinctual reasons that I ride a motorcycle that is ten feet long and why I purchase amazing items. In my case, I want sex … just like nearly everybody else.

How this works into the pack and makes my pack stronger is that I help them to do the same. I help people to earn more money, which helps them to have more of the things that they want. I help people to find where they fit into the pack. I hope that I have helped you. If you need more help and want to grow your pack, just ask me.

Tylenol Cyanide Murders Reflected in Social Media

In 1982 when the world heard that somebody had laced Tylenol products with potassium cyanide, many people were terrified to take a Tylenol for their headache for fear it would kill them. Some caution was in order, for certain. I remember my mother dumping out any Tylenol we had in the house after watching the reports on television. Was it realistic to believe we actually had laced Tylenol in our own home? Probably not, but similar types of unrealistic caution and chaos are still happening every day in social media. Can you imagine how many more people would have been trying to capitalize on those news stories if Twitter was around back then?

The Tylenol cyanide murders of 1982 changed a lot of consumer views. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the packaging of nearly any product. Before 1982, product packaging was much less secure. Many products could easily be tampered and you would never know it. This created a lot of change in the world, and it resembles changes that we see in social media. From location-aware service causing home burglaries to swine flu (H1N1) killing millions, to social media marketing, the Internet is wrought with fear-selling. I will give you some examples and hope you see the similarities.

Location Aware Social Media

There have been a handful of reports of people’s homes being burglarized after they made a Foursquare, Twitter, or other social media service update while away from home. This is a very personal matter that I neither strongly advocate nor oppose, but as an observer, I think the reactions are a bit overzealous. All of the sudden, there is a huge wave of concern for home security making headlines. It didn’t take many burglaries to see a mob mentality take shape and for people to use fear to spread a message. A smaller number of people made the point that only because you make an update away from home does not mean that nobody else is home. Even fewer made the point that it may be better to be away from home while the burglar is at work.

Swine Flu Put Twitter Over Capacity

I blogged about the Swine Flu (H1N1) spread on Twitter very early, on 25 April 2009. It was an amazing case of how quickly things can be passed along, but also how little vetting and how much corruption can happen in communications. I also wrote about concerns of real-time social journalism vs. professionally vetted journalism. Fears are easy to promote, while facts are often a bit harder to produce.

Social Media is a Great Marketing Tool

When the world heard that social media is a great marketing tool, the masses rushed in. It seems that every public relations rep, advertising rep, or SEO who was starving in their line of work decided to starve selling social media services instead. Note that those fields are not dead. There are still successful PR firms, advertising agencies, and even SEO who do not sell social media consulting and marketing services at all. Although each of these services are deeply intertwined, many of the people who made significant efforts to focus on social media above their previous focus did so because they were already at a low production level. It seems that since many of them saw a bunch of people talking about their business on Facebook, they signed up for everything they could get their hands on and hung their shingle as a social media expert. That should get them rich beyond all belief, right?

This can initially create more of a problem than a solution for the industry. It creates great challenges for people to filter quality. At the same time, there is the positive side, in that it causes the cream to rise to the top, so to speak. Business uses the same law of nature that we call “survival of the fittest” and the weak will starve and eventually die.

As we wait for the weak or less talented to die their slow miserable death, we endure these times of turmoil. Saying that anybody can provide a justifiable service to a company in social media is like saying that any guy off the street can be Tom Brokaw or Walter Cronkite. Sure, they can report something, and they can even make it believable, but is there a sustained value? We shall see, but in the end, I believe it all comes out well.

In the famous words of Walter Cronkite, “… and that’s the way it is.”

The bounce rate of a website, or of any given page, is an important measure of whether you have captured a reader’s interest enough to click and visit another page on your site. It is more important to some types of sites than others, and is often dismissed by considerations of the ratio of returning visitors to new visitors, but it should not be ignored. I know a lot of people understand bounce rate, but I still thought it was worth blogging about because you should hear it from somebody, and maybe I will give you a different angle on this.

Does Bounce Rate Affect Search Engine Rankings

The answer is no … and yes. Although bounce rate is purportedly not used in the ranking algorithm of Google or other search engines, some people will still try to insist that it is. I have heard arguments that even if Google used it, they would keep it very secret because it is too easy to cheat in the ways people have cheated to have higher Alexa rank. I think it is worth considering what Google has to say about bounce rate, and how true it is. According to Google’s Matt Cutts, it is “Spamable and noisy” data, and I agree. There are many things that can cause a higher or lower bounce rate that it is not useful as a single measure and requires other factors to become useful data. The ways that bounce rate can affect search engine ranking are outside of the search engine algorithms, and come down to how useful your site is to people and if it is not useful, they are probably not linking to it. Bounce rate is a symptom and not a cause.

Bounce Rate Factors

Bounce rate is subject to many different diluting factors, and a good example is Wikipedia. If I search for something and I find the answer at Wikipedia, I will likely not visit another page in that same browser session, thus creating a “bounce” for Wikipedia. This is an example of a high bounce rate being a good thing, because I did not need to click around to find my answer. I found it, Wikipedia’s job was done well, and I will still return often. There are a lot of things which may cause a high bounce rate, and it is not all bad. This does not mean you can ignore it, though.

You really should not ignore your bounce rate, because it can still play a role in your SEO efforts and make a difference in your rankings for other reasons. For example, if your bounce rate is on the rise but your site has not changed, it would be best to determine why before you start losing people’s interest any further. Is the information less relevant than it once was? If so, you really should pay attention to this. If people lose interest, they will probably stop returning to your site, linking to your site, and sharing it with others. If it is a blog, maybe you need better content, or maybe the content is so good that they come back every day to read more. Whatever the instance, you should be measuring this and know the answer. An important measure is not only whether the bounce rate is high or low, but whether it is changing.

How Bounce Rate is Calculated

Bounce rate of a website is calculated based on the total number of visitors of only one page in a session divided by the total number of visits to the site. Because it is based on a “session” there are several ways a bounce can occur. Things that can cause a bounce are clicking a link to another site, closing the browser window, clicking the back button to try their search again, or a session timeout, which could mean they just left your page open and went to lunch.

Don’t Bounce Me Just Yet!

I did mention the ratio of returning visitors to new visitors. If you have a high bounce rate, but you still have a very high number of returning visitors, it is easy to be relaxed about this. There are a lot of instances where a high bounce rate can still be a sign of potential improvements, such as emphasizing a further call to action. If you give people a reason to stick around right now, you will also improve your chances of a return visit, that they will bookmark your site, subscribe to your blog, or better yet, share it with friends.

The bottom line is that if you are not doing all that you can to make your website more useful, you are leaving the doors open for the competition. Knowing your bounce rate and knowing why it is high, low, or on the move can be a good step in the right direction.

By the way, while you are here, you may like to take a look at my “Recent Articles” listed to the left of the page. I would also invite you to visit the list of articles in my blog archive. I have worked very hard to make it useful for you.

The answer to this question is not always yes. Here is an even better question for you to consider. Will presenting an appealing message to thousands more of the right people who are interested in your products or services be beneficial to your business? Maybe your answer is “no”, but I really doubt that.

There are a lot of questions to be answered about reaching a targeted audience that is important to your business. There is a lot of fear of failure and loss. Sometimes I think the people who doubt potential for increasing business using the Internet the most are often convinced that it only happens for the lucky ones. I have good news for you. You have the luck of the Irish on your side today, and they don’t call me “Murnahan” for being French.

Tough Marketing Questions for Many People

Marketing is a scary thing to a lot of people. I mean, it all seems so speculative, right? Maybe you think it seems like a bunch of guesswork, and some people just get lucky.

Marketing is not so speculative at all. This is not like rolling dice on a craps table and gambling with your company’s money, except for the newcomers to the marketing industry who are trying to earn as they learn. There is a lot of math and science at work. Doing it right sometimes just means making proper calculations. On the other hand, the message you deliver requires marketing creativity, but even creativity is not as speculative as you may imagine. There really are a lot of safeguards in proper marketing, and it does not need to be risky.

The truth is that there are a lot of people who just don’t hit the mark. They don’t get the marketing right the first time, and that opens a floodgate of fears and apprehension. It begs some tough marketing questions for many people. Some of the hardest questions running through people’s minds are as follows:

“Is it really likely that I can reach thousands more people interested in what I offer”
“How much will it really help my business?”
“How much it will cost?”

These are troubling questions that hold a lot of people back from the much more important considerations of what happens if you do nothing, or keep doing the things that do not work. I will offer you some answers to each of these. Please pay attention.

Now Seriously, Would Exposure to Thousands More People Help Your Business?

When you hear something like this it is really easy to assume that it is just hype, or that it will not be worth the expense, right? Often, it truly is just hype, but it is true that there really are thousands of potential customers out there. If you have the right message, at the right time, and deliver it properly, those can be your customers. This is not a myth, and it is not a unicorn hunting expedition. It takes some well crafted effort to achieve, but it really is not all that hard to gain huge amounts of new business with proper Internet marketing.

Is it really likely that I can reach thousands more people interested in what I offer?

Are there really thousands more people out there on the Internet who are interested in what you have to offer? Yes, people have actually even been successful selling dog poop online! Is it likely to reach the right audience with a proper marketing plan? Yes, but a weak plan with little effort will just disappoint you, again.

You can rest assured that there are not very many of the tens of thousands of readers that come to my blog each month who are seeking tips for knitting pajamas. They come because they want ideas, and they want to know what I know about SEO, social media, and other Internet marketing topics. Now what percentage of Internet users do you think are really interested in marketing? Seriously, this isn’t the most fun you ever had. Most people try to ignore marketing until the competition destroys their business. Don’t you think some people will be interested in what you have to offer, too?

How much will it really help my business?

Here is one of those easy questions to answer with math. You know how much each customer is worth to your business, right? You know how much you spend to acquire each customer, right? With this information and other vital data, it is pretty easy to calculate the actual gain to your business. If you do not have solid numbers, you really need marketing help more than you realize.

I understand that you hear all of the talk about the Internet being like the big California Gold Rush of 1848. You are surely hit by hundreds of Internet marketers trying to sell you SEO snake oil or proposing that you will make millions of dollars using nothing but Twitter or Facebook. Yes, most of these offers are crap, and easy to see through.

Now let’s stop being silly and answer this serious question. If it is true that you can realistically reach a targeted audience of thousands more people with an interest in what you offer, wouldn’t it be absolutely absurd to ignore it? Here is the answer: Yes, it would be absolutely absurd, and the scary cost is that your competitor will probably reach the people you missed. Question answered? Yes, I think so.

How much will it cost?

If you see marketing as a net loss, you are really not getting the point of it at all. Perhaps you have just tried all the wrong things and you are tired of trying.

If you think of Internet marketing as an investment in your business, you are on the right track. Like an investment, you must consider how much you want to gain. The consideration of a well thought out and effective marketing plan should be more along the lines of how much money you can get your hands on to do the one thing that will grow your business more than anything else. When people ask me the question of cost before any considerations of the objectives and directives involved, I tell them “You had better bring your lunch money.” This is for two reasons. First, because the more you put into marketing, the more you get out of it. Second, because I have a whole lot to teach this person about how marketing really works.

I have written many articles on the topic of Internet marketing and development cost. Here are a couple of them that you may find interesting:

One More Question!

Oh yes, I already asked you this one, but now it is time for your answer. Will presenting an appealing message to thousands more of the right people who are interested in your products or services be beneficial to your business? I ask this, because it is what makes my telephones ring. It is what I do for my clients. This is not a rhetorical question. Find me here if you want more answers.

SEO and Social Media Marketing by Mark Murnahan

Bounce Rate? What is a Bounce Rate?

Does Bounce Rate Affect Search Engine Rankings

Bounce Rate Factors

How Bounce Rate is Calculated

Don’t Bounce Me Just Yet!