George Clooney

EOnline.com, Sept. 13, 2009

"I'd rather have a rectal examination on live TV by a fellow with cold hands than have a Facebook page."

Having just read a book (Robopocalypse) about computers and machines ganging up on humanity and wreaking havoc, I have to say I can relate to the growing chasm between technology lovers and technology haters.  I'm not sure if the anger/hatred is really about what Facebook, Twitter, iPhones, Google Maps, etc. stand for.  I mean, people still talked, liked what other people said, stuck pins on a map 100 years ago, right?

Basically, I think some people simply prefer old tools to new ones.  Fair enough.  Being an integrated marketing agency, our job is to effectively communicate using many different methods. The communications channels keep changing, as do the people who fall in love with this channel or that channel.  While the essence of the message remains very much the same, each channel (and their fanboys/girls) likes it customized.  Also, each channel has inherent strengths and weaknesses.

Example

Ballistic Beach Balls Inc. wants to promote their balls.

On your website, you'd create a banner on the homepage which links to your product page(s).  You'd also write a blog post that talks about the Beach Ball Sales Event - what it's all about, what makes Ballistic balls so great, and what's up for grabs with your contests, etc.  Think of your website as your digital homebase.  Your other marketing channels should somehow point back home.

In the Newspaper, you'd run a Ballistic Ball Sales Event (including a "signup at www.ballistic.com" or something)

On the Radio, you'd announce your Ballistic Balls Sales Event (including a "learn more at www.ballistic.com" or something)

On Facebook, you'd run a contest for fans to submit there funniest "beach ball" photos.  Winner gets a new Ballistic Beach Ball. (Easy/fun contests get talked about can really take off on Facebook.)

On Twitter, you'd post a link to a crazy YouTube video showing Ernie the sealion playing with 3 beach balls.  Your little button or promo appears at the end. (Funny videos get passed or "Retweeted" pretty often, which is great word of mouth)

In an email, you'd briefly mention all of the above, and provide links so people can follow-up with their preferred communications channels.

In person, you'd tell people about the crazy sealion video and have a laugh, or "Hey, you (or your kids) should enter our Facebook contest!" People don't need a strategy with their friends, they simply share stuff they like.  It's that simple.

On the phone with a reseller, you'd share the awesome stuff you're doing to promote Ballistic Beach Balls which should drive demand - aka, better order a 1000 cuz they'll be popular this summer.

At an event, you'd get your friend George Clooney (or an Okanagan Sun player) to endorse your beach balls, while announcing that your company is donating 100 to Kelowna General Hospital children's ward.

In the local press, you'd submit a story using content from all of the above.  Maybe you'd get free newspaper, radio, or TV coverage... who knows?

On the internet, you'd share your knowledge on other sites, and online communities, promoting your product while being genuine and not a selfish spammer.

Okay, okay... enough!  This is way oversimplified, but you get the idea.  Each channel is treated differently, but they all integrate with each other.

Moral of the Story: Do your customers hate Facebook (or whatever channel) as much as you do?  Lucky! Stick with what works, but it could change pretty fast so keep your eyes peeled. Do your customers love a communications channel that you hate?  Your business is going to suffer, unless you adapt.  Find someone that "gets it" and let them run that part of your business.

Other Famous Technophobes & Haters

President Barack Obama
_{Hampton University commencement speech, May 10, 2010}

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and Playstations - none of which I know how to work - information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation."

Keira Knightley
_{Daily Telegraph, Apr 13, 2009}

"I hate the Internet. I find it dehumanizing to constantly check e-mails or social sites which have become so fashionable."

Prince
_{Daily Mirror, May 7, 2010}

"All these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers, and that can't be good for you."

Ray Bradbury
_{Los Angeles Times, Aug. 16, 2010}

"We have too many cell phones. We've got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.

Edward Albee
_{Vice, Dec. 2010}

"I walk along the streets of New York and I find people bumping into each other, bumping into things, and they have these things in their ears or in their face. They're not seeing anything of the real world."

Jack White
_{NME.com, Apr. 6, 2010}

"In my head, I'm still living and working as if there is no Internet and treat it as a nuisance."

Drew Barrymore
_{Nylon, Aug. 2010}

"Ironically, with all this 'We're now more connected than ever with technology,' I don't think we've ever been farther apart."

Social Media is a hot marketing topic this year in Kelowna! The number of inquiries we get about using social media for marketing has quadrupled in 2011. We have seen some media coverage in the traditional press too (see Face to Face is a click away). In the past year, we've had a chance to leverage social media as a marketing tactic for a number of businesses in Kelowna have witnessed very positive results in general. This article digs into some stats about social media's effectiveness vs. other forms of online marketing. It's interesting to see how the different tactics stack up, as well as the shifts over the last year.

In a recent survey by eMarketer.com, small to medium businesses (SMB) in the U.S. were asked several questions about their online marketing efforts and their effectiveness.

Small Business Still Prefer "Traditional" Online Marketing Tactics

From the survey, SMBs are still more likely to say they found new customers by using websites (85.8%), over email (74.3%), and search marketing (74%). Web sites are considered a more “traditional” online marketing tactic and are well entrenched in the marketing programs of most companies whether a site operates as an online brochure, order system or supports the full sales cycle.

Is Satisfaction in Online Marketing Decreasing?

Despite the rise in use of online marketing, SMBs surveyed indicate that satisfaction with many of these channels is decreasing.

Specifically, large decreases in satisfaction were seen in audio podcasts (-53%), webcasts/webinars (-44%), Twitter (-38%), Linked In (-36%), Banner/display ads (-34%) and Blog (-32%).

Are Internet Users Changing Their Behaviour?

While new online marketing programs by inexperienced marketers are going to be less effective, this doesn’t account for such a huge decrease in so many of the online marketing tactics.  Instead these decreases suggest a change in behaviour by Internet users in obtaining information. This change in behaviour is both a reflection on the increased maturity of the average Internet user, the amount of time users are willing to spend looking for something, as well as the ever increasing use of mobile Internet devices.

• Users are more aware of paid advertising including banner/display ads and search marketing (PPC);
• Users are less tolerant of lengthy sales pitches such as podcasts and webinars however informative. Instead users are turning to quicker ways to obtain the information they need, often on a “just-in-time” basis.
• Use of mobile Internet devices has increased to the point where users aren’t looking for information until they actually arrive at their destination, often using tools like Gowalla and Foursquare which alert you to sales and deals near your current location.  This focus on location based marketing is also seen in the popularity of coupons like Groupon and Twongo, as well as the increased use of Google Places.

In fact, the survey statistics show that new channels made up for these decreases, including emailing offers, Google Places, Groupon and other coupon sites, mobile marketing, and location services like Foursquare. These are all new entries on the list for 2011 and yet they all have between a 25% and 50% effectiveness rate according to the SMBs surveyed.

A Key Advantage When Marketing Online: (Nearly) Everything Measurable!

Many of these new marketing tactics are more measurable than some of the earlier tactics. It is far easier to measure the number of Groupon coupons sold or Foursquare discount coupons used over the number of sales resulting from Blog and Podcast consumption. Similarly, savvy Kelowna businesses are taking more interesting email open rates, click-through rates to gauge newsletter performance.  Perhaps this is why small businesses are jumping on these new tactics in such large numbers.

Popular email management tools like Constant Contact have great tracking and measure the number of email opens and internal link clicks on each email campaign. Website analytics software like Google Analytics enables business to see the number of visitors, clicks, time spent, and online purchases.

What does this mean for Kelowna businesses?

The move away from less measurable and out-of-vogue methods of communication towards new and often more measurable methods of communication will help businesses track the effectiveness of their online marketing efforts.  It's easier to justify spending $ on marketing when you can measure the results!

It's Free, right?

Since many of the new digital marketing channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and so on are seemingly cheap, small and medium sized businesses in Kelowna should certainly consider them.  Beware that "cheap" and "free" are not really good descriptions of these tools.  Your time is worth money!

Here's a few pointers to get started...

• Create clearly defined goals for your online marketing plan
• Identify your audience (Hint: Use the marketing channels, tools, and websites that your customers are ALREADY using)
• Understand that social media is a 2-way communications channel... it's a party line, not a megaphone
• Do a batch process (eg. write a whole week's worth of content for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn on Monday morning and schedule the release using a tool like Hootsuite)
• Measure the results (Who is clicking on your links in the updates? Do people ask more questions? Do they call for an appointment?  Do they walk in the door?)
• Integrate social media efforts with things like blogs posts, email blasts, in-store contests, special events, radio, print, and video
• Consider hiring a company if your time is better spent elsewhere!

by Brad Trites, Account Manager, Twin Creek Media

I am going to make a very bold statement: “There is no marketing tool available to small businesses more powerful than Facebook”. I guess after making a pretty big statement like that, I better support it.

As a small business owner, the last time you took out a really expensive full-page ad in your city’s most popular phone directory or ran a TV or radio ad, did it provide you with constant referrals? Did your clients receive timely updates about new products that you are carrying or your daily specials? What about actively building your brand awareness, did it do that for you? A properly managed business page on Facebook has the ability to do all of these things and a lot more without having to be that word that all small businesses dread, “expensive”.

A Trusted Source
For most businesses the best source of new clients is usually referrals. When a friend tells you that they really like a certain restaurant, you are more likely to try it out. On Facebook, you follow a business’s page by clicking that page’s “Like” button. When you do this, your action is posted in the News Feed of your friends. You essentially just told all of those people, “I LIKE this and you should check it out!”. Since you are an interesting person with great taste, some of your friends will do just that, and guess what? If they hit “Like”, they will automatically tell all of their friends. Some of those people will take things one step further and even visit your website and possibly become a real customer.

Daily Special
Most businesses are constantly changing. They begin to carry new products. They run new promotions. They win an award. They have product tips or advice to share. They land new clients. These are all pieces of information that a small business wants their customers to know about as quickly as possible. Not only that, this is information that your customers want to know about! Facebook gives small businesses the ability to communicate in real time to their customers. This is key in helping you strengthen relationships with your customers and build customer loyalty.

Tag you’re it!
Once your small business has it’s own Facebook page and you have managed to get a couple of hundred people to “Like” it, the next step is to engage your fans and turn them into your own marketing army. If you post compelling content on your page, there’s a good chance that some of your followers will repost your items, “Like” it, Tag it, or Comment on it. Every time someone does one of these things, your brand gets placed in front of another large audience. Even if the majority of those people take no action themselves with the content, the more they see your name the greater their awareness of your brand becomes. If you’re business was given the opportunity to place free ads in front of an audience every day, wouldn’t you go for it? That is exactly the opportunity Facebook provides small businesses.

Lasers are cool…
One of the great things about Facebook for small businesses is that ‘friends of a feather tend to flock together’. If your company’s target market is 16 year old males that skateboard, chances are that those kids that “Like” your page have a Friends List dominated by other 16 year old boys that like to skateboard. Facebook provides an extremely effective way to put your brand in front of an extremely focused intended audience. Traditional marketing tools such as TV, radio, and magazine ads command huge premiums to access such focused target markets.

NOTE: Hey marketers! Did you know that the average age of a Facebook user is closer to 40 than 14!

WARNING!
Simply setting up a Facebook business page is not enough to generate results. Like any marketing strategy, your Facebook initiative requires both commitment and planning. Compelling content needs to be regularly created and posted on your page and a two-way dialog needs to be maintained between your business and your followers. There is both an art and a science to using Facebook as a marketing tool. As such, if you are not prepared to learn what needs to be learned or able to commit the time required to manage your page, then you should strongly consider hiring a social media-marketing specialist.

Bottom Line
Social media marketing creates engaging customer experiences, drives website traffic, foot traffic, and email/phone inquiries. Although social media is primarily about sharing & relationships, it ultimately results in more sales.  Don’t forget: online marketing tactics should be integrated with your offline efforts too!

Next Steps...
At Twin Creek Media, we have setup Facebook pages for many businesses... both B2B and retailers selling direct to consumers. Facebook is just one social network among other notable ones: Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, StumbleUpon, etc. It’s best to have an online marketing strategy that defines measurable goals and uses the best tools for the job. For a primer on the big picture, see our Social Media 101 article or download our Social Media Reference Card.

Need more convincing?
A properly executed Facebook strategy has the ability to generate new customers that are well informed on your business’s developments and willing to actively market your brand on your behalf. Let’s see your telephone directory pull that one off! If you want to chat more about this topic, come visit us at the Twin Creek Media Facebook page and we’ll keep the conversation going!

It's been a very busy Q2 and Q3 at Twin Creek Media.

As a Kelowna marketing agency with a special focus on internet marketing and web design, we never seem to be able to breathe long enough to update our portfolio with new launches and interesting case studies.  In this project update, we'll give a taste of what the team at Twin Creek Media has been doing over the last 6 months.  (We can't tell you all the goodies though... our clients don't want us to spill the beans about their new competitive advantages and we have trade secrets to keep!)  You'll just have to hire us to reap the rewards of an integrated marketing campaign.

We have been creating new brand identities, database-driven websites, corporate brochures, direct mail pieces, running radio campaigns, shooting videos, building blogs, and driving web traffic through email marketing, search engine optimization and pay per click tactics like Google Adwords and Facebook Ads.  Just one item in that list is powerful, but done together, business goals are targeted with a type of marketing synergy that is amazing to watch.

A Sample of Completed Projects

Okanagan Regional Library

Completely redesigned website, photography, animation, print materials, and Facebook and Twitter efforts lead to many people to rediscover the library's relevance in the 21st century | Name the Marmot Contest big hit with 3000+ kids (and their parents!)

Canadian Association of Home and Property Inspectors

Promotional videos and unique email marketing campaigns draw people to national conference at the Delta Grand Okanagan

Case Furniture Gallery

Online contests builds brand awareness & drives retail store walk ins | Local media get VIP treatment at private event

Quantech Software

Online industry survey reveals what customers really want | Targeted email marketing campaign generates many new leads

SJF Sports

Internet marketing strategy leads to blog and intense social media campaign using Facebook and Twitter | Web traffic increased by 109.4% in 2 months

Our Okanagan

New Okanagan business networking website attracts 800+ new business/association sign ups | Employment, investment, and collaboration opportunities excite valley residents Watch the recent by Global/CHBC here.

The Greenery Garden Centre

Massive online photo contest creates a fun customer experience | web traffic soars with 600+ submissions & 3000+ votes

A Sample of Current Projects

Best Western Inn Kelowna

Search Engine Marketing Analysis reveals what Google thinks |Internet marketing campaign begins to take a leading brand higher than ever

Quantech Software

SEO and Website Usability Score Cards uncover the missing ingredients that will turn "tire kickers" into buyers | Web development focuses on amazing user friendly site which supports Sales & Marketing Dept's goals

Impact Radio Accessories

Continued magazine ad design, catalogue, and eCommerce website improvements assist in great sales performance for 2010 | Work done over the last 4 years spur on international expansion

Clement Turf Farms

Strategic research and industry surveys get to the heart of exactly how where the new revenue opportunities lie | Integrated marketing campaign underway involving both digital and traditional marketing tactics

Okanagan College - Green Business Awards

Easy to use Wordpress blog-style website will help students organize and promote the local Green Business Awards competition

by James Shaw and Amelia Penner

Every business has a few "raving fans".  These people are usually cherished individuals who talk about our company or group in such a nice way that more people become customers.  This article is all about empowering raving fans!  Hook up your social media accounts into your email blasts and you'll allow more sharing, recommending and commenting.  Free PR anyone?

Let me ask you a question assuming that you use email marketing and social media.  Are they separate in your company’s mind or do you make sure to bring them together?

As a company it can get tiresome dealing with email marketing and social media separately.  Why have two separate audiences when you can bring them together in one?

Grow Your Audience
The easiest way to connect the two is to make sure that your audiences know about both your email newsletter and your social media.  On your email newsletters add your latest Facebook post or tweet to your sidebar.  Or you can add the logos in your footer with links to your pages.  Using your Facebook Fan Page you can easily add a newsletter signup box and on Twitter you can tweet the link to your newsletter signup.  By doing this you can easily expand your email database and social media followers.

Cross Posting
Constant Contact allows for a handy feature when you send out your newsletter.  You will be asked if you want to tweet this newsletter and you can choose yes or no.  By choosing to tweet the newsletter a tweet will be sent out through your company’s Twitter account with the title of the newsletter and a link to the web version.  This allows for your newsletter to be retweeted by your audience and get more people interested in what your company has to say.

Tips and Tricks
Here are some simple tips you can implement right away to engage your email database and social media audience.

Do you want to inspire a conversation?  Write a question in the sidebar of your newsletter and encourage people to answer it via Facebook or Twitter.  Or you could use survey tools like Survey Monkey and Poll Daddy. This could be a great way to get customer feedback for your business.

Want more interactions on Facebook?  Mention in your newsletter and your social media accounts that the 15th person to post their best experience with your company on your Facebook wall will receive a prize.

Want more interactions on Twitter?  Ask your audience an industry-related trivia question.  Make it fun!  Remember that Twitter is faster paced than Facebook so keep the comments/questions time sensitive.  Don't forget to comment and re-tweet (RT) other peoples' tweets.  JOIN in the conversations already happening!

Want more ideas to expand your audience and increase engagement?  Contact us today to set up an integrated marketing campaign that is the perfect fit for your business!

As part of the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce's Breakfast Education Series, Twin Creek Media was invited to give a presentation on the topic of Social Media Marketing for Business. The presentation is included below for reference. Press play, and use the arrows to navigate through. When you're finished, don't forget to "share" the knowledge with others using the buttons below.

Please connect with us and let us know what you think...
Web: www.twincreekmedia.com
Twitter: @twincreekmedia.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/twincreekmedia

The presentation covers:

• What is social media?
• What's the "big idea"?
• What are the benefits for small businesses?
• How are others successfully using social media for marketing and promotion?
• What are the current trends?
• How do I get started?
• Good tips and tools?

by James Shaw, Creative Director

Are your customers ENGAGED with your message (or bored out of their minds)?

When it comes to engaging your target audience, not all marketing channels are created equal....

You are competing with 1000's of messages everyday. Your "target audience" is being bullseyed with so many random, off-topic, and boring attempts to capture their attention that they've probably tuned out most marketing messages altogether.  Wow, that's a depressing thought for marketing managers and advertisers, right?!  Industry insiders have even gone so far to say proclaim things like, "Death of the Advertising Agency" and other disturbing headlines.

I'm sick of advertising too. [I'm the Creative Director for Twin Creek Media, but since I own the company I'm not worried about being fired for a statement like that! Whew! ]

Aren't we all sick of advertising?  Let's define advertising as: any boring marketing message that we aren't interested in, isn't relevant, and isn't engaging.  No one likes "advertising" in that sense.  So what's the opportunity?  As marketers, business owners, sales reps, and business developers our goal is to communicate our messages so well that they do not come across as ads.  The challenge is to make them the opposite of the definition above:  un-boring, interesting, relevant, and engaging.

The topic of this article is Engagement, so we'll leave the other communication goals alone for now.  Marketing and advertising used to be limited to mostly "push" type messages.  Traditional mediums of print, radio, and TV can be effective if done creatively (and targeted as much as possible) but in general the communication is one way.  Marketers push the message out to sea and hope someone eventually picks up their message-in-a-bottle.  Tradigital mediums are not whole lot better in my opinion, but at least your target audience can find your message whenever they want - it's accessible and searchable on Google for example.  The other advantage of pushing content out online is that it can be interactive.  People can dig, explore, learn and sort of control their experience with your brand, product, or service.

Stop "pushing" and have real conversations on Social Engagement channels. The major advantage of this type of communication is that it's two way.  People talk, and people talk back.  If your marketing message is genuinely interesting and relevant to your audience it won't be treated as an ad.  Instead of being boring and ignored your message becomes a thread in normal conversation.  It's a story worthy of repeating.  This is true marketing success!

Wait! Social Media is not the answer to all your marketing goals. Nothing irks me more than flavour-of-the-day marketing.  It's important to figure out exactly what you're trying to do, and who you're trying to reach.  Social networks are not the obvious answer every time.  Set measurable goals so you'll know if moving in the right direction.  Often it's best to integrate all the marketing channels together.  They each have strengths and weaknesses, and instead of jumping on the band wagon with the latest (untested) web tool, craft balanced campaigns to meet your communication goals.  Use a blend of traditional and digital tactics.  Use one channel to spark awareness and curiosity.  Another to inform.  Another to capture.  Another to have conversations.  Another to sell.  Another to retain.  Another to... well, you get the idea.

Have an opinion on engaging customers?  We'd love to hear them!  Comment below.

by Amelia Penner, Account Coordinator

Last week we had an opportunity to participate in the 2010 Valley Wide Chambers of Commerce Event at the Historic O'Keefe Ranch.  This year's event attracted 500-600 people, and we had a great time meeting business people from across the Okanagan Valley.

As a side note, here's a quick message to the introverted, socially-inept who think that networking is only ONLINE!

Social Media is very powerful, but you cannot forget about those face to face conversations and connections.  All of these social media tools should be used to strengthen those connections - not replace face to face meetings.  We are not knocking social media by any means as it is an extremely powerful tool, but it should be integrated with other marketing tactics.

Bottom line: in local communities like Vernon, Kelowna, and Penticton, nothing replaces getting out there and physically meeting new people.

Below: Cara, Amelia, Thomas and James mix it up with the other great Okanagan businesses.

In a word, yes.

Newspapers have a unique place in the marketing world.  For many, reading the local newspaper is nothing short of a sacred ritual along with their morning coffee and fuzzy slippers.  I would say though that the relevancy of newspapers for the generations below Boomers is increasingly questionable.  My gut feelings tend to go against the data released by NADbank (Newspaper Audience Databank) recently.  Their data is frankly startling, but I'll be the first to admit that hard facts trump my "feelings".

NADbank 2009 Canadian Newspaper Survey

NADbank's website states that the NADbank 2009 Study provides newspaper readership data for 83 daily newspapers in 53 markets and 60 community newspapers in 33 markets across Canada.

The study's authors go on to speak confidently about the relevancy of newspapers, leading with the headline:

"NEWSPAPERS REMAIN AN IMPORTANT RESOURCE FOR CANADIANS

Once again, daily newspapers have demonstrated their value to Canadians. Despite constant rumours of their imminent demise, newspapers continue to be a relevant source for news and information across Canada. Over three-quarters (77% - 14.7 million) of adults living in markets where a daily newspaper is available read either a printed or online edition each week."

Okay, okay.  But a healthy dose of skepticism should be allowed, right?

After all, I can't help but notice that the entire study appears to be a bit self-serving.  NADbank's committees are stacked with newspaper employees and media agency people.  Anyway, I digress...

Mitch Joel, a guy I admire in the digital marketing arena, wrote an interesting article about the topic.  He muses that the future of news may be online.  Joel writes on his TwistImage blog,

"When looking at how these free, digital-only publishing houses work compared to the traditional news media, the differences are staggering.

From how the journalists are found, managed and paid to the marketing and advertising models, to the actual management infrastructure, one would not be hard-pressed to say that they look nothing like the industry that they inherited and digitized. Maybe the newspaper industry has to look well beyond the current model of simply copying-and-pasting their print content and publishing it online to re-imagining what publishing means in a world where 20 people and a WordPress publishing platform can do the job using text, images, audio and video that it used to take 200 people to do in a fraction of the time and cost."

I found Mitch Joel's blog post to be very interesting, not to mention the responses it garnered.  I'll end this article with my highly subjective take on the subject, which I orginally wrote as a comment on his site.

Social Media Marketing is all the rage right now in the business world.

What is Social Media Marketing (SMM)?

Social media marketing is a term that describes use of social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other online collaborative media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service. Common social media marketing tools include Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, Wikipedia, Orkut and YouTube.

Technologies that didn't exist 2 years ago are creating a need for a whole new category of jobs within mainstream companies.  Dollars are shifting on an epic scale from "traditional" advertising channels to digital channels.  The web is buzzing with comments, reviews, ratings, blog posts, photos, videos... people are talking.  Are you listening?
Hmm... So now what? How does this filter down to you, the marketing manager at a small to midsized business?

Click to read original article on eMarketer.com

Start with creating a profile, short bio, keywords, and avatar (a small thumbnail graphic) for use on the major social media platforms relevant to your industry eg. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, your own blog.  More on creating a social media footprint

3. Listen, Engage, Publish, Repeat. Have Fun!

Social Media at it's core is about relationships.  It's about sharing.  As social media applies to marketing, the rules of the game don't change: it's still about relationships, but the intended outcome shifts to meeting your business goals instead of personal.  Please don't think that social media marketing is about advertising!  If you treat it like a one-way communications channel your efforts WILL NOT be rewarded.  In a real-life conversation, listening is just as important as talking.  Social Media Marketing is no different.  Listen to your audience.  What are their opinions about your brand?  What is their feedback about your service or lack of?  Do they have recommendations about how to improve your product?  Engage in the conversation that is happening all around you.  Share your knowledge.  Be helpful.  Be insightful.  Give others feedback.  Be authentic, and understand that whatever you say is always "on the record".

Planning to use social media soon?

If you're wondering how to integrate social media into your marketing mix, please call 250-762-4001 or email us.
The couches in our studio are pretty comfortable and the Cherry Hill coffee is always fresh...