I’ve noticed a number of disturbing posts from brands I follow on Facebook lately, and that is to request “I need X number of followers by Monday – please help us and ask your friends to like us!” Said once, it’s kind of… icky. Said repeatedly, downright annoying and embarrassing. This isn’t just coming from small businesses or amateurs. Everyone from major brands who already have a fair amount of followers there, to city governments, to event organizers are making these unseemly requests for no real reason except they WANT more fans.
Some people feel compelled to raise their fans and follower numbers, and often forget about nurturing and interacting with those they already have. One of our clients, Spa Insights, has the following stat they share with clients: “The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%. The probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20%.” Even if those numbers are specific to their industry, that likely is similar for others. Think about that, and then think about what it says to your existing fan base when you spend your time (and theirs) begging for new fans.
Continue Reading →
All posts tagged social media marketing
How Not to do a Social Media Promotion
On February 1, 2011
In Advertising, Customer Experience, Social Marketing, User Experience
With 2 Comments
Permalink
Permalink
I was excited, then disgusted last night, in fairly short order. I learned that there is something called SocialCam coming from Justin.tv, the video site. SocialCam is a mobile app that lets iPhone and Android users take some video, upload it, tag people in it and share it swiftly with their social pals. Sounds awesome, right?
So I marched over to the little site and put in my email address for “early access” which I liken in my mind to be Beta testing, although I realize that may not be accurate – maybe they have already done Beta and this is a pure marketing play. If this is their beta testing process, it is WAY off base, so I will assume for the sake of argument it is not.
Continue Reading →
Social Skills for Restaurants & Hotels… Hospitality Talk with Jeffrey Summers
Jeffrey Summers is a seasoned consultant in the hospitality industry, and I caught a portion of his online radio show, Hospitality 101 yesterday and found it really interesting so I wanted to post it for you here. It’s a two hour show I think – our friend Olivier Blanchard is on at the end and makes some interesting points about the type of cultural differences between America and Europe, and how social media can be utilized by restaurants and hotels to achieve the same levels of relationship they have there, increasing the transactions and loyalty of customers by simply getting to know them better via ongoing engagement.
So many of the lessons here apply to other industries as well, but especially if you have a restaurant, hotel, dry cleaner or other service-based business with regular clientele, you should check this show out and listen to the others as well. Also follow @JeffreySummers and @thebrandbuilder on Twitter for regular doses of social marketing advice!
