72 Fascinating Social Media Marketing Facts and Statistics for 2013

Social media and inbound marketing techniques have been a boon for marketers. Not only do leads generated through social and content marketing cost half as much as traditional outbound-generated leads (see below), they also close at higher rate (again, see below).

And social media isn’t just about lead generation of course. While prospective buyers are using search and social to research products and services before making purchase decisions, marketers and PR professionals can use those same tools to research buyer wants and needs. And their competition. And…even social media itself.

Which brings us to this post. Wondering which social network is most effective at generating b2b leads? What marketing technique generates leads with the highest close ratio? What the best day of the week is for Facebook posting? Which U.S. city produces the largest share of “pins”on Pinterest?

Find the answers to those questions and many, many more in this collection of 72 fascinating social media marketing facts and stats for 2012.

Social Media / Social Networking

1. The average midsize or large company (1000 employees or more) has 178 “social media assets” (Twitter handles, employee blogs, etc.)–yet only 25% of companies offer social business training to their employees. (Marketingeasy)

2. B2b marketers believe social media is critical to organic search success. Marketers rate social media as the second-most imporant factor (64%) in search, behind only strong content (82%). (BtoB Magazine)

3. Although Facebook is the most important social media lead generation tool for b2c marketers (with 77% saying they had had acquired a customer through Facebook, compared to 60% for a company blog), among B2B companies, LinkedIn was the most effective, with 65% having acquired a customer through the professional network, followed by company blogs (60%), Facebook (43%), and Twitter (40%). (Marketing Charts)

4. The best way to “go viral” is to engage millions of users, each of whom share through small networks. “Online sharing, even at viral scale, takes place through many small groups, not via the single status post or tweet of a few influencers…Content goes viral when it spreads beyond a particular sphere of influence and spreads across the social web via ordinarily people sharing with their friends…the median ratio of Facebook views to shares (is) merely 9-to-1. This means that for every Facebook share, only nine people visited the story. Even the largest stories on Facebook are the product of lots of intimate sharing—not one person sharing and hundreds of thousands of people clicking.” (Ad Age)

5. LinkedIn generates more leads for b2b companies than Facebook, Twitter or blogs. Yet only 47% of b2b marketers say they are actively using LinkedIn vs. 90% on Facebook. (Social Media B2B)

6. One-third of global b2b buyers use social media to engage with their vendors, and 75% expect to use social media in future purchases processes. (Social Media B2B)

7. “Best in class” b2b companies are significantly more likely than average firms to integrate their social media efforts with their email marketing (65% vs. 51%), SEO (61% vs. 49%) and webinars (47% vs. 31%). (MarketingProfs)

8. As for “best in class” practices, 51% of best-in-Class companies use website social sharing tools, compared to 36% of average firms while 49% use keyword-based social media monitoring, compared with 39% of their more average peers. (MarketingProfs)

9. Top executives need to be involved in social media. 77% of buyers say they are more likely to buy from a company whose CEO uses social media. 94% said C-suite social media participation enhances a brand image. And 82% of employees say they trust a company more when the CEO and leadership team communicate via social media. (eMarketer)

User Experience

Want more registrations on your website? Consider offering a social login (i.e., the ability for visitors to register at and log in to your site using one of their existing social network profiles rather than creating a new login):

10. 86% of people say they are bothered by the need to create new accounts at websites. (MarketingSherpa)

11. 77% responded that social login is “a good solution that should be offered.” (MarketingSherpa)

12. 21% of “best in class” companies use social sign-in, compared to 8% of average-performing firms. (MarketingProfs)

Lead Nurturing

13. Only 27% of B2B leads are sales-ready when first generated. This makes lead nurturing essential for capitalizing on the other 73%. But 65% of B2B marketers have not established lead nurturing campaigns. (MarketingSherpa)

14. SEO-driven leads have the highest lead-to-close rate (15%) among common lead generation sources. Paid search leads average a 7% rate, while outbound marketing leads (e.g., direct mail, telemarketing) close at a 2% rate. (Econsultancy)

Facebook

15. B2C Facebook interaction is 30% higher than average on Sundays. (Mindjumpers)

16. Though nearly every large charity and university in America has a Facebook presence, less than 60% of the Fortune 500 do. (Mindjumpers)

17. 95% of Facebook wall posts are not answered by brands. (Mindjumpers)

18. Though Facebook continues to add users, U.S. members are becoming less active there. Between mid-2009 and late 2011, “messaging friends declined 12%, searching for new contacts fell 17% and joining a group of Facebook users dropped 19% in the U.S.” (MediaPost)

19. 70% of local businesses use Facebook.The U.S. has the largest number of Facebook users. The country with the second-largest Facebook population: Indonesia.  (Jeff Bullas)

20. Facebook is the leading source of referred social media traffic to websites, at 26%. Twitter is second at 3.6%. (Pooky Shares)

21. Facebook marketing is a specialized skill. For those looking to outsource this function to a professional consultant, expect to pay $500-$1,500 for initial page setup and anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 per month for ongoing content management and curation. (Mack Collier)

22. 52% of consumers say they have stopped following a brand on Facebook because the information it posted had become “too repetitive and boring.” (SMI)

Twitter

23. There are now roughly 100 million active Twitter users (those who log in at least once per day). (Mindjumpers)

24. 34% of marketers have generated leads using Twitter, and 20% have closed deals. (Mindjumpers)

25. 40% of Twitter users rarely post anything but primarily consume content there. 55% access Twitter via a mobile device. (Mindjumpers)

26. 92% of retweets are based on “interesting content.” Only 26% are due to inclusion of “please RT!” in the tweet. (Mindjumpers)

27. Twitter now has 200 million users, including 8% of the U.S. population. About one-quarter of all users are considered “extremely active,” checking in several times per day. (Jeff Bullas)

28. 55% of all Twitter users use the service to share links to news stories, and 53% retweet others. (Jeff Bullas)

29. 77 of the world’s 100 largest companies maintain a corporate Twitter account. But media outlets are the most active users. (Jeff Bullas)

30. Most professional consultants charge $500-$1,000 to set up a Twitter account (optimized bio, custom background etc.) and $500-$1,500 per month for ongoing management (dependent on level of activity and amount of content). (Mack Collier)

Google and Google+

31. Google’s search engine is used by 85% of global Internet users every month. (MediaPost)

32. Google+ is expected to reach 400 million users by the end of 2012. It’s membership is 63% male, with the largest cohort in their mid-20s. While the largest block of users by country are in the U.S., the second largest is India. However, only 17% of users are considered “active.” (Jeff Bullas)

Pinterest

33. The image-based social network has grown 4,000% in the past six months, now boasts more than 4 million users, and keeps those users engaged: the average Pinterest user spends nearly an hour-and-a-half per month on the site, behind only Facebook and Tumblr. (Jeff Bullas)

34. 83% of Pinterest users are women. In the U.S., the most popular categories are Fashion, Desserts, Clothes and Birthdays. (MediaPost)

35. But in the U.K., the five most popular topics on Pinterest are Venture Capital, Blogging Resources, Crafts, Web Analytics and SEO/Marketing. (Pooky Shares)

36. 22% of all pins come from New York, followed by Los Angeles at 15%. A higher percentage come from Minneapolis (10%) than from San Francisco (8%)–even though Pinterest is based in Palo Alto. (MediaPost)

37. Pinterest is virtually tied with Twitter (at 3.6%) for the amount of referred social traffic it sends to websites. (Pooky Shares)

Tumblr

38. Tumblr grew 900% in 2011 and now has 90 million users. However, just 2% of members account for more than 40% of all traffic. (Jeff Bullas)

39. The five most popular tags for Tumblr posts are GIF, LOL, Fashion, Art and Vintage. The U.S. has the largest share of users, followed by Brazil. (Jeff Bullas)

Mobile Marketing

40. 4.8 billion people now own mobile phones. Just 4.2 billion own a toothbrush. (Mindjumpers)

41. One-third of smartphones globally use the Android OS. (MediaPost)

42. The number of tablets in use in the U.S. rose from 34 million in 2011 to 55 million this year and is expected to reach 108 million by 2015. (TMGmedia)

43. Mobile commerce is projected to ten-fold from 2010 ($3 billion) to 2016 ($31 billion). (TMGmedia)

44. While three-quarters of b2b marketers are aware of the growing importance of mobile devices, only 23% rate mobile search as either “important” or “critical” to their search marketing objectives. (BtoB Magazine)

45. Just 16% of b2b marketers are producing mobile-specific content as part of their content marketing efforts. (Smart Insights)

46. Although the percentage of visits to b2b websites coming from smart phones has increased nearly 50% in the past year, they still represent only about 1 out of every 24 sites visits on average. (Webbiquity)

SEO and Search Marketing

47. 57% of B2B marketers say SEO has the biggest impact on their lead generation goals. (Mindjumpers)

48. Though half of all b2b digital spending is focused on search and most websites are organically optimized, only 65% of b2b marketers have ever used pay-per-click advertising. (BtoB Magazine)

49. Search provides the highest quality leads. According to research by HubSpot, “SEO leads have a 15% close rate, on par with the close rate for direct traffic, and ahead of referrals (9%), paid search (7%), social media (4%), and outbound leads (2%).” (Marketing Charts)

Blogging

50. Social media sites and blogs reach 80% of all U.S. internet users. (Mindjumpers)

51. Social networks and blogs account for 23% of all time spent online — twice as much as gaming. (Mindjumpers)

52. “Increased frequency of blogging correlates with increased customer acquisition, according to…HubSpot. 92% of of blog users who posted multiple times a day acquired a customer through their blog, a figure that decreased to 66% for those who blogged monthly and 43% for those who posted less than monthly.” (Marketing Charts)

53. The most popular frequency for blog posting is weekly (60% of bloggers). Just 10% post daily. (Marketing Charts)

54. Blogs are the single most important inbound marketing tool. “When asked to rank the importance of the services they use, 25% of users rated their company blog as critical to their business, while a further 56% considered them either important (34%) or useful (22%)” for a total of 81%. (Marketing Charts)

55. B2B companies with blogs generate 67% more leads per month on average than non-blogging firms. (Social Media B2B)

56. For those looking to outsource, a professional consultant will generally charge $1,000-$3,000 for setting up a blog, $1,000-$3,000 per month for ongoing content development/editing, and ballpark of $200 for a single guest post. (Mack Collier)

Video and SlideShare

57. 52% of b2b marketers use video as part of their content marketing mix. (Smart Insights)

58. Video production costs vary widely, depending on length, quality, type of content and other factors. High-end animated videos can cost $20,000-$30,000, while simpler interview-type videos can be under $1,000. Common 2- to 3-minute videos with a mix of live action and simple animation typically cost $2,000-$5,000. (Mack Collier)

59. SlideShare draws 60 million visitors per month; but most importantly for b2b marketers, it attracts 3X more traffic from business owners than any other social media site. (Jeff Bullas)

Social Demographics

60. On social networking sites, men and women are about equally willing to share their real names (both about 87%), political and religious affiliation, and the brands they like (~77%), but men are far more likely than women to share their physical address (11% vs. 4%), their current location (35% vs. 20%), their phone number 15% vs. 4%), and their income level (16% vs. 5%). (AllTwitter)

61. Contrary to what you’ve probably been told, longer format video may actually drive higher engagement: “different types of content yield different sharing behaviors. Breaking down video behavior within StumbleUpon, videos viewed between two to three minutes found a spike in sharing out to social media, whereas videos viewed beyond four minutes see direct shares increase by five times. Longer, arguably more involved, content may drive viewers to more intimate sharing routes.” (Ad Age)

Inbound and Content Marketing

62. 90% of b2b marketers do some form of content marketing. 26% of b2b marketing budgets are invested in content, and 60% of b2b marketers say they plan to spend more on content marketing in the coming year. (Smart Insights)

63. The most popular content marketing tactics used by b2b marketers are article posting (used by 79% of b2b marketers), social media excluding blogs (74%), blogs (65%) and enewsletters (63%). Just 10% use virtual conferences. (Smart Insights)

64. The average cost to generate a lead through inbound marketing ($143) is about half the average for outbound marketing ($373). (Econsultancy)

65. Small businesses, on average, spend twice the share of their lead generation budget (43%) on inbound marketing as do large companies (21%). Small organiations spend more than twice as much on social media and 3X as much on blogging as their larger counterparts, while big businesses spend three times as much on trade shows and nearly twice the share of their budget on direct mail as do smaller firms. (Econsultancy)

66. More is (often at least) better. Businesses with 40+ different landing pages/offers generate 10X more leads than those with five or fewer landing pages, and those with 200 or more total blog posts generate 3.5X more leads than those whose blogs have 20 or fewer posts. (Econsultancy)

67. 84% of b2b companies are using some form of social media marketing. However, “best in class” companies generate over 3X their share of all leads (17% vs. 5%) from social media as do average performing companies. (MarketingProfs)

68. 90% of b2b marketers are doing some form of content marketing, and b2b marketers spend on average 26% of their marketing budgets on content. The most effective content marketers spend twice as much as their less effective peers on content development, and consider buying stage when developing content. (B2B Marketing Insider)

69. It shouldn’t be a surprise, but content has to be good in order to be effective. B2b buyers say that less than half of vendor content is useful–and vendors who produce such low-value content are 27% less likely to be considered and 40% less likely to win the business. “Good” content is concise, entertaining (includes stories), more educational than promotional, and is contextually personalized. (B2B Marketing Insider)

Media and Online Advertising

70. Most “national” newspapers are still quite regional: the Chicago Tribune gets socially shared at above average levels only in Illinois, the Washington Post only in Virginia, D.C. and Maryland, and the New York Times only in a clump of northeastern states and Hawaii (though the Wall Street Journal is very popular in Arizona). Fox News is most popular in the southeastern U.S. plus Nevada and Alaska, while the Huffington Post is widely share along the Interstate 35 corridor (Minnesota to Texas), Florida, Oregon, Maine and the rustbelt. (Forbes)

71. Online CPM rates have little correlation with actual advertiser value delivered. Nearly one-third of all display ads are never seen (defined as 50% of the pixels in view for at least one second). But contrary to popular belief, “below the fold” ads don’t necessarily have lower impression rates than those placed high on the page. (MediaPost)

72. Leaderboard (728 x 90 pixels) and medium rectangle (300 x 250) ad sizes have the highest view-in rates. Coupon and directory sites have the highest ad view rates, both over 80%. In contrast, a sponsor’s ads had just a 27% likelihood of being seen on pet-oriented sites. (MediaPost)

FaQ on On-page...

1. TRUE or FALSE or BOTH: The ‘nofollow’ attribute is good for SEO.
2. When are drop-down menus bad for SEO?
   1. Always
   2. Never
   3. If they cause unnecessary pagerank ‘leaks’.
3. How many times should you repeat a key phrase on a page?
   1. Come off it, Ian, there’s no right answer to that.
   2. 3% of the total words on the page.
   3. 5% of the total words on the page.
   4. GO FOR IT. KEY PHRASE MANIA BABY!
4. What’s the most important on-page SEO element?
   1. The DESCRIPTION meta tag
   2. The TITLE tag
   3. If they cause unnecessary pagerank ‘leaks’.
5. What’s the best choice for a server response code if a page no longer exists on your web site?
   1. Not here
   2. 404
   3. 302
   4. 200
6. What’s the correct way to redirect visiting browsers and bots from a page that is permanently gone to a replacement page?
   1. 301
   2. 200
   3. 302
   4. 666
7. Under Google’s Panda update:
   1. The overall quality of an entire web site no longer matters.
   2. A site with 10 great pages and 1,000 lousy ones is in trouble.
   3. We should all have pictures of bamboo on our web sites.
8. TRUE OR FALSE: Site performance can impact search rankings on Google and Bing.
9. Pick the most important SEO performance indicator, if your client is an e-commerce site:
   1. Rankings.
   2. Sales from organic search.
   3. Visits from organic search.
10. Pick the most important SEO performance indicator, if your client is a lead generation site:
    1. Rankings.
    2. Leads from organic search.
    3. Time on site.
11. What are the first 3 things you check when doing an SEO audit?
12. List five things that impact a site’s authority.
13. You got something totally wrong. What do you do?
    1. Hide it at all costs.
    2. Find the solution, then tell your manager what happened and how you’re fixing it.
    3. Call the client right away and tell them you screwed up.
    4. Blog about it.
14. A client’s confused as heck. You’ve tried explaining something to them 3 times via e-mail. What do you do?
    1. Call them on the phone.
    2. Keep e-mailing.
    3. Stop e-mailing and have someone else at Portent give it a try.
15. What’s a fast way to add links to a web site’s link profile that won’t violate the Google and Bing Terms of Service?
    1. Buy links.
    2. Start a content campaign.
    3. Fix broken incoming links.
16. Define canonicalization.
17. Describe blended search.
18. A client is panicked. They’ve just fallen out of the rankings for the phrase “foo bar”. That was their top traffic generator. They want to shut down all onsite content and technical SEO and focus 100% on links. What do you tell them?
19. Tell me what you think PageRank is.
20. What’s a “headless browser”?
21. What’s a reverse index?
22.                                           
    
    1.  * How often should you refresh the content on a website?
       * How many inbound links are required before SEO is positively affected?
       * Do live pages hidden from the main navigation factor into SEO?
       * Can PDFs be indexed?
       * what’s the best way to re-publish a post on your site that you first wrote for someone else’s site? Is a simple citation and link out to the original acceptable?
    2. What technical aspects of a website would you look at for auditing a website ?
       How can you choose keywords for your customer ?
    3. 
       

New updates from google

Receiving an email like this is scary. At best, your business won’t receive any organic search traffic from Google for weeks. At worst… well, you get the idea.
What follows are the best practices for minimizing the amount of time that you spend outside of the Google search index.

Don’t Panic

Panic causes people to do stupid things – like filing a reconsideration request before taking any meaningful action to correct the problem. Simply downloading your backlinks from GWT, then uploading some or all of them to the Disavow Links Tool is not a solution. You have one chance to make a good first impression on the spam team – don’t blow it.
Your link removal efforts need to be proportionate to your link spamming efforts. If you’ve built thousands of unnatural links, then you’ve got a lot of work to do before you even think about filing a reconsideration request.
The following methodology will also work if you have been affected by Penguin. The only difference is that there is no need to file a reconsideration request. Since Penguin is an algorithm and not a penalty, there is nothing to reconsider.

Conduct a Link Analysis

Your first priority is to identify those links which are suspicious or potentially toxic (unnatural). Since all of the major back link services have their own version of Google PageRank, we’ll start by exporting the data from your link checker into a spreadsheet.
Next you will sort the links from low rank/low authority to high. Once your sort is complete, it’s time to review each link to see if it passes the “natural” link test (a.k.a. – is it real?)
The types of links that need to be reviewed and considered for removal are those that:

• Appear on a domain that isn't indexed in Google. This usually signals a quality problem, but it could also indicate a new website or a muffed up robots.txt like:
  • User-agent: *
  • Disallow: /
• Appear on a website with a malware or virus warning:

• Appear on the same page as PPC links – in this case, I mean porn, pills or casinos (or any number of non-related and/or spammy niches). This is the classic “stay away from bad neighborhoods” warning that your Mom gave you.
• Appear on a page with Google PageRank that is gray bar or zero. This usually signals poor quality or low trust, but it could also indicate a new page.
• Appear on a domain with Google PageRank that is gray barred or zero. As with non-indexed pages, this usually signals a quality problem, but it could also indicate a new website. Many low quality, made for SEO directories, share this characteristic.
• Are coming from link networks (a group of websites with common registrars, common IPs, common C-blocks, common DNS, common analytics and/or common affiliate code).
• Sitewide – especially blogroll and footer links. Most are unnatural and none pass the juice that they once did. The payback isn’t worth the risk.
• Automated. Many sites hit with a manual link penalty use SENuke or something similar.
• Paid. Now is not the time to be clever and try to “slip one by” Google. There are countless stories of people not disclosing select paid links, resulting in a rejection of their reconsideration request. They didn’t think Google would notice. But Google did. Just assume that Google knows it’s a paid link.

Create a Spreadsheet

Once you've identified the bad links, it's time to drop them into a spreadsheet with the following information:

• Link From URL: URL where the link resides.
• Link to URL: The page (URL) on your website the link points to.
• Anchor text used.
• Email contact: For the “Link From” website.
• First Link Removal Request: Insert date of removal request.
• Second Link Removal Request: Insert date of removal request (One week after request one).
• Third Link Removal Request: Insert date of removal request (One week after request two).
• Link Status: Live or removed.

Keep meticulous records on this spreadsheet. This is the supporting documentation that you will be submitting with your reconsideration request to prove to Google that you have made a serious effort to resolve the problem.

Request Link Removals

Now it’s time to get those toxic links removed. Begin by creating a dedicated Gmail account for nothing but your link removal campaign.
Later, you will include the login credentials for this email account to Google when you submit your reconsideration request. It will provide further documentation of your efforts and provide additional evidence that you're serious about your link clean up.
For the sake of efficiency, you’ll be using an email template for link removal requests. Every email will require some level of personalization, in order to be most effective.
This is done by setting up as a “canned response” in Gmail.
Start by logging into your new Gmail account, click on the gear icon in the upper right corner of the window, and select Mail Settings from the menu.
Next, click on the Labs tab and scroll down the list of options, clicking the Enable button for canned responses. Don’t forget to click the “Save Changes” button.
Next, create a template. I’ve had good success with the following:

By including the unique details shown above in red, you increase the odds of being perceived as human and also make it easy for the webmaster to find and remove the link. It also provides a compelling reason for the webmaster to take action.
After you've composed a template that you want to reuse, click on the Canned Reponses menu, choose “New canned response,” give the reply a name like “link removal request”, and click OK.

Let the Emailing Begin!

Using the information on your spreadsheet, add the necessary details, and then send. Record the send date on your spreadsheet. In some cases you will need to submit a web form in lieu of an email – remember to record these form submission dates, as well.
Record all link removals and stop emailing the webmasters after links are removed. Wait a week and resend a “second notice”, to those who failed to respond the first time.
Once again, record all link removals and stop emailing the webmasters after links are removed. Wait one more week and send a “final” notice to any holdouts.
Finally, let another week pass and any links still remaining will be sent to Google via the “Disavow Links tool.”
Yes, a month seems like forever, but failure to show a good faith effort to resolve the problem will only extend your penalty time. A rush job doesn’t show good faith.

Disavow Links & Submit Reconsideration Requests

Log into Google Webmaster Tools go to the Disavow tool and select your domain.

Clicking ‘Disavow Links’ prompts a menu asking you for a file containing the links you want to disavow. This is the list of any remaining links that you could not get removed manually. Upload the file and you’re done.
IF you're under a manual penalty, now it’s time to file a reconsideration request. When filing your request, here are some key points to consider:

• Be specific. Carefully review Google’s webmaster guidelines. Disclose all activities that you were engaged in that fell outside of the guidelines as well as the steps taken to come into compliance. This is where your spreadsheet and email documentation will be helpful.
• Confess everything and hide nothing. This is the time to be completely honest and upfront. Nothing bugs the spam team more than a reconsideration request that simply says, “My site now adheres to the guidelines.” Avoid wasting everyone’s time and burning goodwill. If your link building efforts were centered on SENuke and the BuildMyRank blog network, then say so. You won’t be telling Google anything they don’t already know. (Yeah – they know about that really juicy paid link too – it must go).
• Accept responsibility and promise it will never happen again. Explain what you're doing differently now and why it will never happen again (e.g., you fired the person who was doing your SEO or you’ve changed your policy). If the spam team doesn’t get the sense that you have put the effort in to change, don’t expect a quick resolution.
• Don’t bring up your AdWords budget, expecting to get preferred customer status.The spam team couldn’t care less about your PPC budget. It’s irrelevant.

Keep in mind that there is no need to file a reconsideration request unless you have been assessed a manual penalty. The best way to get back in the index is to follow these steps. Trying to cut corners or being less than forthcoming will only prolong the pain.

The Most Important Point to Consider

You get one mea culpa – once you get penalized you must adhere to the webmaster guidelines, religiously, from that point forward. If you get penalized a second time, there will be no quick re-entry.

How to Extend the Shelf Life of Your Content?

No matter what the goal of your strategy, if you want people to sit down to read and interact with your content, think about how you can incentivize them to do so. Why should they choose your content over the hundreds of others vying for their attention across the Internet?

We saw some big changes this past year in the way people use the Internet, with continued increase in social media use, and people engaging with content in a variety of new ways. Stellar blog posts are a good start, but it’s time to start thinking about how you can offer your readership some real value.

Use Social Media More Intelligently

You could write an entire blog post about using social media more intelligently, but what do you need to be thinking about right now?

While most big brands have a social media presence at this point, the big mistake that I see made across these channels is they exist solely to publish links to new posts, or even worse – shop listings.

It’s become something of a tired cliché to say “Social media is a conversation, not a campaign,” but no matter how many times people say it, it’s still ignored as corporate Twitter accounts shout their messages at followers.

Betfair Poker@Betfairpoker

In hindsight, building our offices over the foreboding subterranean lair of the Mole People was probably a mistake.

4 Jan 13

• Reply
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Dave Allain is a marketer in Berlin. He was doing some freelance work for Betfair Poker when he offered to take a look at the Twitter account as a way to drive traffic to the work he was doing on the main site. “My style of tweeting was not working,” Dave said of his earlier attempts. “I marvelled at the creativity of some of the people I followed and came up with the idea of a fictional character who tweeted anything but poker in the hope of increasing the follower count and gaining some awareness of the brand.”

The plan worked, and Betfair Poker went from a relatively unknown on Twitter to 24,329 followers (as of January 2013). But more importantly, according to Allain, many members of the broader poker community and media follow and retweet material Betfair publishes. This is not only great for branding, but also has knock-on effects for Betfair Poker — one example being more prominent display on affiliate sites. The account has had a positive impact on the Betfair sports betting brand as well.

Betfair managed to find a unique slant for their social media marketing that fits their audience’s interests and drives viewers to their content. What we can really take away from this, is that Allain identified what wasn’t working, and wasn’t afraid to try something new. Content marketing isn’t an exact science — don’t be afraid to try something novel if you’re not getting the engagement you want.

Think about how you can use social media to add more context to your blog posts:

• Share some of your additional thoughts on a post you’ve recently published.
• Link to content from an outside source that adds something to a recent post.
• Repost a few gems from your archive.

Try using social media to build interest in the content you’re delivering while showing your followers a flash of personality.

Target your social media presence well; it’s better to have no Facebook page at all than to have one filled with poor content and a muddled identity. Don’t be afraid to pare down your social accounts if they’re not used.

Recycle Evergreen Content

If you’re lucky enough to have some well performing evergreen content on your blog (which hopefully you do as part of your content strategy), why not repurpose and recycle it for your readers?

Kevin Gibbons wrote a great post on identifying your best performing content. From there, creating something special with strong content is easy, as long as you play to the content’s strengths:

• Data-intensive posts could make great infographics.
• A solid case study could be republished as an e-book or white paper with extra information.
• If you’re feeling brave, you could pitch a popular blog post as a presentation or podcast.

When it comes to delivering this “bonus” content, use it to work towards a goal:For example, YouTube repurposed data collected on user interactions with videos to make attractive content like this infographic produced for their end-of-year review. Visual Economics regularly pairs up research with infographics to make the sometimes dry topic of economics more palatable. If you’ve done it right, you’ve delivered two great pieces of content for one idea, which is a win-win situation for you and your audience.

• Encourage subscriptions by offering exclusive content only to subscribers.
• Promote liberally on social media with the aim of boosting brand awareness.
• Tap a whole new niche with retargeted content.
• Attach the content to your brand’s new e-book so people want to download and share it, furthering the reach of your content.

Encourage Your Community

A great community that engages with your blog posts is one of the more valuable assets a brand can have. But you’ll need to give your readers value before asking them to interact with your posts via comments or shares.

While you could have many reasons for wanting to harness and engage your community, I’ll assume here that it’s solely to build a strong following around the brand. To do so, you’ll want your followers to share your stuff, enter your contests, and link organically to your content. For many digital marketing agencies, this is usually a good indicator you’re doing something right, rather than the artificial vanity metrics like followers and “likes.”

Encourage reader buy-in by turning the last sentence of your post into a textual call to action, where instead of selling to them, you ask for their opinions or feedback around the topic covered.You want to get your readers to add their own voices to the mix. Once you’ve got this conversation going, keep talking by responding to comments and sharing thought-provoking comments via social media.

Finally, in this emerging community, keep an eye out for your key influencers and embrace them. Don’t be afraid to offer them something valuable in return for their help. Using a select few key influencers brought big success for the PR team behind the wizarding world of Harry Potter.

The firm decided to make their initial outreach to online Harry Potter communities rather than traditional media. They invited the owners of the ten biggest Harry Potter fan-sites to a live webcast where they announced the new park. Because they had targeted the enthusiasts directly and offered them exclusive, valuable insider information, they received attention from both their target audience and the mainstream press, with more than 1000 articles appearing internationally within 24 hours of the announcement.

Ford had similar success with their Fiesta Movement, putting the new cars in the hands of 100 people and letting them promote the car for them via blogging and Twitter. Mashable reported that after a six-month period, the campaign had achieved more than 3 million Twitter impression and they had 50,000 interested customers, 97% of whom didn’t own a Ford at that time.

Leveraging support from the more vocal members of your community could be a great way to make waves while also showing your community that you care.