Earlier this week, we took a look at what we termed the "positives" and the "challenges" to one local government social media initiative. We generated some good feedback from the readers of the post, and we were also contacted by the IT Manager for the City of Mansfield to chat some more about their foray into social media. A big virtual pat on the back to the IT Manager for listening! Wish more people would do that! We couldn't be happier that the City of Mansfield has taken on the task of engaging their community through social media. Our hope is that they're successful and that other municipalities develop their own presences.
The positives we mentioned are just that: positive. The challenges, however, could have extremely negative consequences for the future of the City of Mansfield's social media efforts. We want to offer three tips to the City of Mansfield for their social media campaign that could help them achieve the goals they set. For the sake of full disclosure. We've been contacted by, and will have a phone chat with, the IT Manager for the city, but are in no way affiliated with them.
- Give It Time - Unfortunately, social media isn't the "be all, end all" of communications. Unless you're Lebron James, Lady Gaga, or some other famous celebrity, you won't get 1,000 followers or fans in a short period of time. There's a saying that applies really well to social media. "Anything worth having is worth working for." Social media growth, and more importantly engagement by fans and followers, takes a great deal of time. It won't happen overnight. If there's one thing that plays into Mansfield's favor, it's emotion. Citizens of the city have an emotional attachment to what happens in their local government. Use that attachment, not in a bad way, to help you achieve your goals. Don't be afraid to throw a little gasoline on the fire every now and again just to make sure people are listening. But have the fire hose on standby to make sure the blaze doesn't get out of control!
- Bring It All Together - While we're not priviledged to the City of Mansfield's website traffic, our guess is that they have a fairly high volume. If you visit their website, you'll see that they have some really great video content in the form of a Video TourBook. One really easy thing for them to do is to provide links on EVERY SINGLE PAGE of their website to their Facebook Fan Page and Twitter account. Heck, why not create a separate landing page with widgets from Facebook and Twitter and invite people to "like" and follow. Ultimately, the city's website needs to be the central hub of all information, and the social media "outlets" are venues for driving more visitors to the website.
- Patience is A Virtue - We sort of touched on this in the first point, but it's so critically important that it's worth repeating. Success in social media requires a great level of patience. You're not always going to make the right moves or post the right content. Anyone who says they are a "guru" is crazy. Social media is still so young and still evolving. Don't be afraid to fall down, because you will. If your strategy is sound and your determination strong, you will succeed in social media.
What tips or ideas would you give to the City of Mansfield based on the newspaper article and their current efforts on Facebook and Twitter?
A story recently ran in the Mansfield News-Journal that highlighted the City of Mansfield's venture into the world of social media. The City has launched a Facebook Fan Page and a Twitter account. To say we're pleased by this development would be a massive understatement. Mansfield is about 25 minutes from our headquarters, and is the largest city within the North Central Ohio region. Their presence in the social mediasphere could have a positive effect on other entities, both private and public, and encourage these groups to take the "leap" into utilizing Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools.
Before we give too many more virtual high-fives or pats on the rear, we need to take a deeper look at Mansfield's social media efforts. The good and the bad. We'll start with the positives and then identify challenges Mansfield will need to overcome to achieve success.
The Positives
1.) In the Game - No matter what people say or think, positive or negative, about the social media efforts by Mansfield, the mayor and his staff are to be commended for taking the leap and getting in the game. Many of the city's contemporaries are still "scared" to make the jump because of fear of public criticism, among others.
2.). Goals Set - One of the biggest challenges of many organizations lies in goal setting. Social media is such a new venue that goals are difficult to set. According to the article, the Mayor's goal is to "inform citizens and area businesses of fun happenings in Mansfield, by showcasing the best of what Mansfield has to offer to the current residents, visitors and future residents." So the tone of the page has been set, and visitors have an expectation of what they're going to find. Excellent.
3.) Media Coverage - The only reason we found this story was that the News Journal ran it in their online edition. While the article didn't provide a direct link to Mansfield's Facebook Fan Page, it did cause us to open a new browser tab, log in to Facebook and do a search for "City of Mansfield". So, if for no other reason, the buzz that's been created from the article should help this local government social media initiative gain momentum.
The Challenges
1.) Timing - After finding the Page, we discovered it had actually been created at the end of May. The article ran at the beginning of July with the statement that "Mayor Don Culliver launched a campaign Thursday to use social media websites." So the Page was started over a month ago, but yet it is just now showing up in the media? A press release should have been sent the day the Page and Twitter account was launched. In an area like Mansfield, or North Central Ohio for that matter, organizations are still gun shy about using social media. Make a big deal about it.
2.) Expectations - This one is HUGE. In the course of the News Journal article, the city's IT manager (we'll get to that one next) was quoted as saying, "the campaign's future will depend on how well people respond. If the Facebook page hasn't attracted a certain number of friends by Aug. 1, the city won't put any more effort into it." First and foremost, how are you measuring "how well people respond?" Is it an arbitrary number of followers? Where are you getting those figures? Hopefully the IT manager didn't pull those numbers from his rear end. Another point is the length of time. The City is only going to give this initiative a month, really, to work. Story runs July 1, one and only measurement will be taken August 1. Final piece to this is that the IT manager only mentioned Facebook and didn't mention the Twitter account. He doesn't seem to have much faith in either channel.
3.) IT Manager - You waited for it, and here it is. Why the hell is an IT manager running a social media campaign? A great friend of our company is the IT Manager for a professional sports franchise in Columbus, and the last time we had drinks, he never mentioned running that franchise's social media efforts. If you read his initial comments in the article, which we quoted in the last point, it would seem he doesn't want this campaign to be successful. Why would he? It takes time away from his switches, ethernet cables, hard drives and spyware. Don't get us wrong, we love "propeller heads", but their job shouldn't be to manage communication channels with the general public. Nor should it be his place to comment publicly in the local newspaper.
Ok, so where do we see this going? Frankly, if Mansfield's presence on Facebook and Twitter still exist after August 1, we'll be shocked. There are too many challenges and roadblocks that the city's administration has put in front of this campaign for it to be successful. We want it to be a success, please don't misunderstand our statements. There are just too many factors and indicators that point to this campaign's demise before it even really gets started?
Read the entire Mansfield News Journal article, and then check out the City of Mansfield on Facebook and on Twitter. What do you think? Do you agree with our perspective? Are there other challenges to, or opportunities for, success? We'd love to get your feedback.
And if you're reading this and happen to be Mayor Culliver or the IT Manager for the City of Mansfield, feel free to give us shout. We'd love to chat more!
At it's very core, inbound marketing is all about pulling prospective clients to your great content, converting those prospects to leads, nurturing them, and then closing the deal. When you go bass fishing, you have to lure the fish to your hook, react to the bite, set the hook and land the fish. So bass fishing and inbound marketing are the same? Not really, but there are 3 areas that bass fishing and inbound marketing resemble one another!
Lures Are A Start
Look in any bass angler's tacklebox and you'll find a myriad of different lures for different situations. Spinnerbaits are great early spring/fall baits to use when bass are chasing shad and other bait fish. Jigs are pretty much a good all-purpose lure when your looking for the "big bite" Plastic worms are perfect for those hot summer months when the bass are a bit more lethargic. Ultimately, all these baits are great for catching bass, but you have to know when to use them.
An inbound marketers "tacklebox" isn't much different from a bass angler's tacklebox. Different tools for different situations. Blogs are great content to show a business' expertise in a particular area. Whitepapers are even better content than blogs because a business can actually go into more detail about a particular service or a client success from implementing a business' product or service. Videos are great content because viewers can instantly build a connection with a face, or a business can show its product or service in action. These are just three examples of "lures" available to an inbound marketer. However, just like a bass angler, an inbound marketer must know when to use them.
Location, Location, Location
Bass anglers may have the greatest lures in the world, but if they aren't around fish, they'll never catch a single bass. Bass anglers use lake maps to locate ledges, points, and other structure that could hold bass. Then, once their on the water, they use pretty sophisticated depth finders to find these structures and determine if they have the right elements (brush, logs, pea gravel, chunk rock) to hold bass. Once they've found a "spot", they then start fishing to see if any bass are in these locations.
Inbound marketers are no different, except their "lake maps" are the internet and social media. Once a company is on the "lake" they have to do some research to find the right elements. Inbound marketers do this through tasks like keyword research and social media research. Once they've found the right elements, inbound marketers start optimizing their website for the best keywords and start listening to social media conversations to find out what others are saying about the products or services that are similar to those of their business. Inbound marketers then start "fishing" by sharing their great content with the social mediasphere, through lead nurturing campaigns, and pay-per-click campaigns just to name a few.
Rinse & Repeat
Once a bass angler has located fish on a structure with certain elements using a certain lure, they'll start looking for other areas on the lake with the same attributes. Once they find areas with these attributes, bass anglers will start trying to build a "pattern". Once they've found a pattern, they can start catching bass by the barrel full!
Inbound marketers are similar, in that once they've started to convert visitors to leads, they start analyzing the data to find how the visitors found their content and how those visitors converted to leads. The name of the game in inbound marketing is lead conversion. Once an inbound marketer starts converting site visitors to leads, they can hand the leads to the sales team to close the deal.
So, bass fishing is a lot like inbound marketing. They both have tools, are all about location, and require a great deal of analysis to experience success. What other ways do you think bass fishing (or fishing in general) and inbound marketing are similar? We'd love to get your feedback!
Photo courtesy of my personal tacklebox
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Since the beginning of May, we've been working behind the scenes with a project called the Crawford: 20/20 Vision in Crawford County, Ohio. More specifically, we've been mentoring an intern that was hired by one of the major financial backers, the Bucyrus Area Community Foundation, of the Vision project. The Crawford: 20/20 Vision is "an unprecedented effort to bring together the people of our county to take charge of our challenges and turn them around. The initiative will develop and implement a Crawford Vision that will guide our county for the next decade."
Since March, the committee leading the Vision project has held a series of meetings throughout Crawford County. During each of these meetings, it became apparent that the demographics of the attendees was skewed very heavily to the age 50 & older crowd. This wasn't a huge surprise, considering that data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the county has an aging population and that this aging population (50+) will outnumber the younger population (50 & under) by 2018. The charts below show age demographics of meetings held May 17 & May 18, respectively.
May 17 Mtg
Age Demographics
| May 18 Mtg
Age Demographics
|
 |  |
Based on this data, Janet Pry, Executive Director for the Bucyrus Area Community Foundation, hired an intern to implement social media and permission-based email marketing to reach the under-represented under 40 age demographic. Janet recently shared some insights about social media and this project.
RSM - What were the initial challenges you faced in implementing social media with Crawford: 20/20 Vision?
Janet -
Skepticism. Most of the people on the (Crawford: 20/20 Vision) committee are over 45 years of age. They know of Facebook, Twitter, blogging - but they have not really used them in any sort of business capacity. I don't think they understood the power that could be unleashed by using the various media outlets. Even e-newsletters via organized, web-based programs were not something that they used. Social media has come into the business world with such speed that many people are intimidated by the technology.
RSM - How did you overcome those challenges?
Janet - By hiring a young, intelligent student to initiate its use and "forcing" the issue. The only way to truly overcome the challenges, fear and skepticism of social media is to start using it and see the power it brings to the table.
RSM - Since implementing social media as a part of the Crawford: 20/20 Vision community engagement efforts, what's been the response you've received from individuals in the community?
Janet - Very positive, I believe. It allows so many more people to participate in the discussions. Going into this process, we knew that one of the hardest aspects of the process would be communications. One thing that is obviously lacking in Crawford County is one or two powerful media outlets. The newspapers' readership is dropping and their coverage of local issues is meager. We could not rely on the print media to get the word out. Crawford County does not have a television station. The radio station has been very helpful in airing news of the events, but it is hard to know how many people listen and take in the dates, times and places of the meetings when they hear it on the radio. We told the consultants right at the beginning that communication would be difficult. The social media outlets really provide a powerful communication tool.
RSM - What role do you envision social media having as you continue moving forward with Crawford: 20/20 Vision?
Janet - I think it will be vital in the implementation process. Again, we have known from the start that the planning part of the process is just the beginning and in many ways the easiest part to accomplish. Implementing a plan takes ongoing energy and by-in from community members. I think the social media outlets will provide the forum for ongoing discussions. And, there is nothing better to "nudge" someone to action than to be reminder of things on Facebook!
Besides the Facebook Fan Page, they've also started a blog, a Twitter profile, and a YouTube channel. Plus, they started using e-newsletters to engage subscribers from their social media outlets and attendees at the community meeting. We strongly encourage you to check out at least one of their social media tools.
Has the effort to engage the under 45 population using social media in this rural Ohio county worked? We think so, especially given the Insights from the Crawford: 20/20 Vision Facebook Fan Page and age demographics of a recent online survey conducted through the Facebook Fan Page.
Facebook Fan Page
Insights
| Recent Survey
Age Demographics
|
 |  |
What other ways can the Vision project engage the under 45 demographic through social media? We would like to hear your thoughts, ideas and suggestions!
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Up until 3 years ago, I was an avid fisherman. So much so that I actually traveled around Kentucky and Ohio and fished tournaments on the weekend. I was even lucky enough to fish in 2 national tournaments; one in Louisiana and one in Kentucky. I even had sponsors to help me finance my passion. Some paid cash, while others provided products. Life changed after my last national tournament in Kentucky and I've since not fished a single tournament. But, I still fish. Not as often, but my 4 year old daughter likes to go fishing and so I take her to one of the local reservoirs.
Despite my absence from competitive fishing, I still keep up with what's happening on the professional tournament trail via BassFan.com. On this website, they keep a running tab of the Top 10 World Rankings in the sport. These point rankings are based on a "proprietary method" that isn't disclosed on BassFan.com. However, they do list several contributing factors that include pervious tournament performances, strength of the field, and various others for the top-level events in the BASS (Bass Anglers Sportsman Society) and FLW Outdoors tournament circuits. And yes, there are professional leagues for bass fishing.
Very few pro bass fishermen live off their tournament winnings, although one tournament win can have a profound effect on a pro's financial well-being. The majority of pros either finance their career from personal funds, or they have large sponsorship deals to finance their careers. With the current recession we're experiencing, many of these large sponsorship deals are becoming increasingly difficult to land. Companies involved in professional bass fishing sponsorships include fishing tackle companies (Lucky Craft, Berkley, G-Loomis, etc.), fishing boat manufacturers (Ranger, Triton, BassCat, etc.), boat engine manufacturers (Mercury, Evinrude, Yamaha, etc.) and main stream companies (Toyota, Wal-Mart, Land-O-Lakes, etc.). All these companies sponsor fishing pros because they want to increase brand awareness with the nearly 40 million people, according to the American Sportfishing Association, in the United States who fish. There are other reasons, but I need to get to the point.
Back to the BassFan World Rankings, and more specifically the Top 10. Given my affinity for fishing and the nature of my business, I decided to do a little non-scientific research to see how the pros in the Top 10 are using social media to help extend their brand beyond the boat launches, weigh-ins, highway mileage and traditional website presence. Below is a quick table that breaks it down by angler rank, website, Facebook Fan Page and Twitter profile.
| | Angler
| Website?
| Fan Page?
| Twitter?
|
1
| Skeet Reese
| Yes
| Yes-2
| No
|
2
| Brent Ehrler
| Yes
| No
| No
|
3
| Kevin Vandam
| Yes
| No
| No
|
4
| Tommy Biffle
| Yes
| No
| No
|
5
| Bryan Thrift
| Yes
| No
| No
|
6
| Mike Iaconelli | Yes
| Yes-multiple
| Yes
|
7
| Aaron Martens
| Yes
| No
| No
|
8
| Cliff Pace
| No
| No
| No
|
9
| Greg Hackney
| No
| No
| No
|
10
| Gary Klein | No
| No
| No
|
You Won't Catch a Thing if Your Line's not in the Water
The findings, while non-scientific, are very alarming. 7 of the top 10 have a website. I wonder why the 3 at the bottom are waiting to start with the most basic component of internet marketing. After all, it is 2010. Simply developing a static website with sponsor logos and links to sponsor websites can help build both the angler's brand and their sponsors' brands. Don't worry, initially, about developing new content. Just get with the times. Sort of sounds like some small businesses that are reluctant to develop a website. Most that I talk to cite cost as the primary reason for not having a website. Again, it's 2010 and phonebooks are on the verge of being extinct.
Find the Bait, You'll Find the Fish
As I dug deeper, I found that there are huge opportunities for these professional athletes. Only 2 of 10 are utilizing a Facebook Fan Page. Facebook is close to hitting 500 million users worldwide, with over 113 million in the US alone over the age of 18. Then, if you drill that down to the number of US users 18 and over whom either like, or have an interest in, fishing you get just over 2 million people. Not all of the 2 million people may like bass fishing, but it should give these pro fishermen (and women) some incentive to embrace social media. If 2 million isn't enough, Facebook also provides a great set of analytics tools called Insights. This is where a pro angler can start to really impress potential sponsors. They can show sponsors their fans' demographics, their fans' interactions with media, and the Page's growth over time just to name a few. The one thing sponsors want to know, at least in my experience, is what the angler's reach is. Now, at least with a Facebook Fan Page, a pro angler can provide these statistics with ease and accuracy. Plus, they can provide some really unique content that extends their sponsors' brands into the space. So, there are 2 million people in the US on Facebook that "like" fishing. How many do you think like coffee? How about cars? Flowers maybe? I think you get the point.
Don't Ignore What Others Use to Catch Fish
The other thing that raised an eyebrow was these anglers' use, or lack thereof, of Twitter. Only 1 of the top 10 is currently using Twitter. And, the one using Twitter, hasn't "Tweeted" in nearly a year. But, that's beside the point. At least he's created an account and "squatted" on his name. Twitter, while not providing the any level of reporting, still serves as a great tool to spread a message and build a following. Plus, it can help to extend an angler's reach to another group of people who share similar interests. It all comes back to one thing. Creating, building and maintaining a following on Twitter adds additional value to the angler's brand, thus providing additional value to the angler's sponsors' brand.
Lures are Great, but Understanding How They Work is Essential
A website, Facebook Fan Page and Twitter profile are all simply tools that when combined, can be powerful tools for small business marketing. These tools that can be used to ultimately strengthen an angler's brand and further strengthen the angler's sponsors' brand and the same can be applied to a small business. The only difference is that small businesses don't have sponsors. Instead, they have customers. And a small business' customers are the same as angler's sponsors. The real challenge that exists is deciding how you're going to be social, not why you're going to be social. How you engage with fans and followers can ultimately dictate the success of your social media marketing efforts. The best way to figure out how you're going to be social is experiment. But, before you engage you have to listen to understand what people are talking about and how you can engage in the conversation! It's a big pond, but don't be afraid to go fishing.
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Before I get too far in to this post, I want to say that this is not meant to smear any company or business. I had a bad personal experience with service at a local restaurant, which prompted me to post my experience on Facebook and to talk about it in the video below.
Customer service is the key to any business' success. Period. Poor customer service, especially for a small business, can lead to poor reviews on Yelp, Facebook, Twitter. The entire social mediasphere.
Get more of my thoughts by watching the video below. I look forward to your comments & thoughts!
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Inbound Marketing utilizes techniques focused on getting found by your small business' best prospects. This form of marketing is more efficient and cost-effective than traditional "push" marketing. By combining great content with social media, landing pages, conversion forms and website analytics, companies and organizations are able to reduce their cost per lead by nearly 60% based on data from Hubspot's 2010 State of Inbound Marketing.
Inbound Marketing University is a training program focused on teaching the inbound marketing methodology to marketers around the world. IMU involves 16 online courses that provide you with in-depth information and knowledge about the methodology of inbound marketing, and how you can apply these methods in your current marketing efforts.
Becoming an Inbound Marketing Certified Professional has many advantages, least of which are the five listed below.
- It's FREE - Inbound Marketing University is a FREE training program designed to teach you the methodology behind inbound marketing. Who doesn't love FREE certification programs!
- Learn from the Best - Inbound Marketing University has built an A-list of instructors to teach you the ins & outs of inbound marketing. Blogging, SEO, email marketing and other topics are covered by seasoned industry veterans. And, you don't pay a dime to learn from them!
- Increase Your Knowledge - It is said that knowledge is power. By completing the training courses, 16 total, you will have the knowledge about inbound marketing methods to start incorporating them into your company's overall marketing strategy.
- Expand Your Opportunities - Becoming an Inbound Marketing Certified Professional can open up doors for new opportunities for yourself within your present environment. The IMU certification shows that you've achieved a great level of understanding, and are capable to lead the inbound marketing efforts of your company.
- New Career Possibilities - The IMU Certification, like it or not, looks AWESOME on a resume. Plus, when you interview for jobs with companies that just have a "brochure" website, you can knock them off their feet with your knowledge about the benefits of inbound marketing. It's definitely a leg up in a challenging job market.
At the end of the day, the value you'll get from becoming an Inbound Marketing Certified Professional is priceless. Opportunities for growth and advancement are endless because companies large and small will need to start implementing inbound marketing methods to grow in this changing economy.
Start Your Journey Today
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One of the facts that we'll never deny is that we're a small business. This helps us have a better understanding of the challenges our clients face on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. When it comes to website performance, we're like every other small business in that we strive to generate a return-on-investment from our website.
In March 2010, we started using Hubspot and its full suite of products for small business. We now have the ability to update & change every single part of our website based on data, and you can't refute data. More important than using Hubspot's software is the fact that we have fully entrenched ourselves in the practice of inbound marketing. We've bought in, hook, line and sinker, to the inbound marketing methodology in that same time period and have started seeing small successes.
Baby Steps
One of these "small successes" has been a pretty significant increase in our website traffic from organic search, referrals, social media and email marketing. Here's a screenshot straight from our Analytics. You'll notice the May 2010 data is slightly faded, when compared to March & April, because we're still collecting data.
Here's a month over month breakdown based on each reporting metric.
| | Organic
Search
| Referrals | Email
Marketing
| Social
Media
| Other
Campaigns
|
March-10
| 44
| 27
| 0
| 42
| 0
|
April-10
| 42
| 35 | 6
| 59
| 0
|
May-10
| 58
| 34 | 16
| 98
| 2
|
How We Did It..So Far
Two areas that have grown significantly in the last 3 months are organic search and social media. This growth can be attributed to 3 things we've done as part of our inbound marketing strategy, and can be applied to any business.
- Blogging - Blogging is one of the central activities to any successful inbound marketing strategy. By creating and maintaining a blog, we've been able to share insights into our industry, client success stories and our own success stories. One of the biggest challenges we've overcome centers around the topics and information we share in each blog post. We'll save how we overcame this obstacle for another blog post!
- On-Page Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - We'll never claim to be SEO experts. But, we think we're pretty darn good because we've increased our organic search traffic over the last 3 months. When we started using Hubspot, we utilized the Keyword Grader function to figure out which keywords we ranked for at the time, as well as uncovering keywords we wanted rank for in the search engines. We've also focused on long-tail keywords and monitoring the keywords visitors are using to find our website. Finally, we've started optimizing our old blog posts for SEO. Again, very easy to do all these tasks with the Hubspot software. But, it's something we've made a commitment to reviewing on a regular basis.
- Social Media Marketing - In a previous post, we looked out our website traffic generated from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. If you didn't read it, you'll be surprised at the data. From a more macro-level, we've made our blog, and other content, the focus of our social media marketing efforts. Our goal is that our blog posts will spark a conversation with our friends, followers and group members. These conversations are what's critical to social media marketing success. Good, bad or ugly, we've made a commitment to be involved in the conversations that take place everyday in the social media world.
The Next Steps
The last step in the inbound marketing methodology is to analyze and repeat. So, we're going to keep applying the same strategies we outlined above, while at the same time increasing our content. Will we make some small changes? Sure. You have to evolve to stay relevant. We have a checklist of items that we want to create based around our goals of getting found and converting visitors into leads. After all, leads turn into sales, and that's what every business needs and wants!
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If you don't believe that LinkedIn works for marketing a business, then stop reading this RIGHT NOW.
Leave. Go read the Wall Street Journal.
....
Are you gone yet?
....
No.
You're still here?
Good. Then it's obvious that you've got some brains about you when it comes to social media marketing. One of the driving forces behind an effective inbound marketing strategy is promoting the great content that you create on your website. Whether it's a blog, whitepaper, video, e-book...whatever. You need to promote your content. The easiest and most cost-effective venue for promoting content is social media: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Buzz.
Let's focus on LinkedIn. Here's a REALLY brief history of the growth of LinkedIn. Check out LinkedIn's company history for a closer look, if you have the urge.
- 2002 - Started in a living room with 5 guys
- 2003 - Ends the year with 81,000 members
- 2004 - Ends the year with 1.6 million members
- 2005 - Ends the year with 4 million members
- 2006 - Ends the year with 8 million members
- 2007 - Reaches 15 million members by September
- 2008 - Ends the year with 33 million members
- 2009 - Reaches 40 million members by May 5
- 2010 - Currrently boasts over 65 million members
In less than 10 years, LinkedIn went from an idea to a power-player in the social mediasphere. One of the best parts about LinkedIn is that they've built a membership base around the idea of business networking. Business Networking. It's repeated for a reason. LinkedIn, simply stated, is all about building you social business network. It's a virtual business after-hours event with no time restrictions.
Why are we talking about LinkedIn? Couple reasons. First, we're born-again believers in the power of LinkedIn. Since our partnership began with Hubspot 3 months ago, we've realized, first-hand, the power that LinkedIn has to help drive traffic to your website. As of the date of this post, LinkedIn is our number one source of social media traffic to our website. Check out the numbers below.
Second, we want more people to not only join LinkedIn as members, but also to be active participants in the discussions that occur within the LinkedIn groups. We're a part of nearly 20 different groups on LinkedIn today. There are some great conversations taking place about anything business-related you can imagine. Get involved in these conversations, especially when the topic is related to your expertise.
Are our numbers going to compel you to run over to LinkedIn and start networking with other business professionals? Maybe, but probably not. That's okay though. We see a big opportunity to promote our content on LinkedIn, and you not joining is one less voice that we have to compete with for people's attention!
Few movie scenes tickle my fancy quite like the legendary scene from Good Will Hunting that spawned the phrase "how you like them apples." For those of you not familiar with the scene, give it a quick watch! It's only 40 seconds.
Good Will Hunting first hit the big screen in 1997, and even after 13 years of technological evolution, businesses across the country are still struggling to ask the "pretty girl" for her number.
Ok, so times have changed and in 2010 no one would write a girl's number on a bar napkin unless their smart phone was on the fritz. Today it isn't a phone number that businesses want from the "pretty girl," it's their email address. According to a 2009 study, "View from the Inbox", conducted by Merkle, Inc., email is the #1 preferred method of communication from companies among people ages 18-65. And to be honest, it's not even close! Here are the numbers to prove it!
Unfortunately for business owners, customers have been bombarded by countless organizations trying to push their message through to their inbox involuntarily. This has made people extremely hesitant to hand their email address over to just anyone.
Much like when you were dating, it is easy to strike-up a conversation with a potential companion, the problem lies in knowing how to ask for the crucial contact information. You want to be sure he/she knows you're interested, but you don't want to be the "Stage 4 Clinger" who thought dinner and drinks would lead to a trip down the aisle.
If getting email addresses is as complicated as post-pubescent dating, how can businesses effectively obtain customer email addresses? The answer is simple; ask politely, but don't be pushy. Don't be the guy or girl who calls with nothing to say, be the company who uses customer emails to provide an engaged audience with valuable information. Don't use shady antics to trick your customers into opening an email for a false promotion.
Over 83% of North American email users view false promotional items just as invasive as spam. (Source: Epsilon Global Consumer Email Study) Once you have lost the trust of your audience, whether it is a pretty girl or a list of current customers, regaining that trust is an almost impossible task; and with a single email address being estimated at a $47 value, you can't afford to break customer trust.
When trying to grow your email marketing list, stick to the basics. The more customers feel a personal connection to your brand the more likely they are to give you their email address. You wouldn't walk up to the most beautiful person at the bar and ask for their number right out of the gate, don't do the same thing with email addresses. If you want the pretty girl to give you her number, you have to prove your worth. The same thing can be said for customer email addresses.
The next time you or your organization think about asking for a customer's email address for your small business email marketing, think about Good Will Hunting. Think about how Damon did it. Prove your worth, be polite instead of pushy, and the emails will come to you. Then you can ask the competition; "how you like them apples?"
