Social Media for Small Business Supplement: Cross-Pollination
Posted on 28.04.2010
Case Study: The INTRODUCTION to this series was published on April 1st, 2010, and at the time of writing this article, has been viewed 1221 times – an average of 45 views per day.
PART 1, however, has only had 83 views since April 20th – an average of 11 views per day. By applying cross-pollination techniques to the INTRODUCTION story, but not to PART 1, we saw a jump in impressions of over 400%.
How did we do it and why the big effect? Read on…
Our last post on Social Media Marketing for Small Business gave a brief overview of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, and what differentiates one from the other. Part 3 (coming very soon) will look at the practical application of these platforms for business owners – a list of 10 steps and habits to be practiced. Our last post also garnered a comment from Shashi, in response to the following:
“For businesses using these tools for marketing purposes, the name of the game is how we integrate all 3 platforms, to cross-pollinate content and re-transmit messages and unique pieces of information to a mass audience.”
Shashi’s question was, “Love the points you make and the advice to integrate and cross pollinate is spot on. I would suggest you add a recap paragraph with the points laid out as a list to make a plan :)”
Alright, Shashi, here it goes.
It all starts with original, proprietary content that your company has created. As the bases for our example, let’s say your company attends a trade-show in Vancouver at the Vancouver Trade and Convention Center:
BLOG:
Write a blog for your website reviewing the event.
Post a link to this blog on your Facebook Fan Page as well as your Twitter feed.
Ask your staff who have private Facebook and Twitter accounts to do the same. Share the link from the Fan Page to as many personal accounts as you feel comfortable with.
IMAGES:
Your company’s representative brings along a small digital camera and takes pictures of anyone visiting the booth that consents to having their image shared on Facebook. MOST IMPORTANT – collect e-mails and names for future reference.
After the event concludes, you create a gallery on your Facebook Fan Page populated with the images of participants standing in front of your booth (your company’s name and logo should be well visible, by the way).
Go through the images and USING THE E-MAIL ADDRESSES YOU COLLECTED, connect with the individuals and tag them in the images they appear in. This will create a wall posting on that individuals Facebook stream, making their entire network aware of the gallery, the event and the attendees.
VIDEO:
If you’re REALLY ambitious, you’ll bring a small video device along (for instance, a FLIP camera), and gather additional content. Interview attendees, delegates, tour the show; there are lots of creative options.
Edit this footage down into short, bite-sized clips. You should end up with 5 or 6 pieces that are no longer then 120 seconds each.
Publish these videos to YouTube, THEN link those videos on your Facebook Fan Page, create a play-list and embed it in your company’s blog, post a link to Twitter, and optionally e-mail those same links to your mailing list.
So to recap, the principal behind small business social media marketing cross-pollination, is to create original content, then get that content out to as many people as possible through as many different channels as you have available to you. We all have different media-usage habits; one individual may love Twitter but never touch Facebook. By cross-pollinating, we increase the likelihood that our message will reach into every corner of the web.
And the end result? More traffic to your website, increased impressions of your brand and the opportunity to convert those impressions into sales.
