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Lady Luxe Inc.’s published in Global Cosmetic Industry! Yea. Building Social Media Platforms for Growing Brands.
By: Heather Smith
Posted: July 6, 2009, from the July 2009 issue of GCI Magazine.
Social media is literally the buzz everyone is talking about these days. It is what consumers are doing online, and it is what brand owners need to be doing online. Having and implementing a social media campaign is hot right now, and it is paramount for branding, marketing and public relations. As a business, small or large, learning social media optimization is crucial to reign in potential customers engaging in online social media.
Don’t be Bashful
You’re not alone if you have questions such as: What is social media? What are people tweeting about? These remain very common question across the board. Social media can be described as online tools and platforms that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences and perspectives. Social media can take many different forms—including text, images, audio and video. Examples—and currently popular social mediums—are blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. And some or all of these mediums should make up your social media platform, facilitating sharing and discussions about your brand—as well as creating a community around the brand. To make any given platform a success, it is essential that everyone in the organization is on board, and pushing in the same direction to execute effectively.
This technology moves quickly, so start building your social platform now—first by listening to what people are saying about your brand … and listen carefully. Next, jump in the conversation, and remember that trust, transparency and authenticity are the key to branding and building your brand community. When people follow a brand, they are more likely to both buy that brand’s products and seek more brand information online.
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article about the online research consumers conduct before buying products. Consumers are looking beyond what they are spoon-fed from companies’ Web sites, and they don’t believe TV commercials give enough of the information needed to make a purchase. Of the group surveyed in the article, 92% said they had more confidence in information they find online than what they are told by a sales clerk or other source.
Additionally, from a brand marketing perspective, research published in The 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study showed 60% of American citizens used social media. Of those surveyed, 93% indicated business should have a social media presence and 85% indicated businesses should interact via social networks with their customers.
Considering these results, it is difficult to come up with a compelling argument against the implementation of a social media marketing campaign.
Further, the study indicated businesses should use social media to:
Solve problems, 43%
- Obtain user feedback on product and services, 41%
- Enable consumers to interact with the company brand, 37%
- Market to consumers, 25%
Finally, the companies in this study who were currently using social media reported the following:
- Improved feedback, 78%
- Improved customer satisfaction, 66%
- Improved customer support, 71%
- Increased sales, 40%
- Improved public perception of company, 75%
Keep in mind that although social media is among the driving force behind successful—and economical—sales, marketing and PR right now, there can be a lot of noise out there too. So be strategic and efficient with your social media campaign. It will only be a time drain if you let it, so make a schedule. Be sure to have goals, focus on your brand and your community.
Work Flow
There are four basic elements of making social media flow for your business. As mentioned earlier, the first step is to listen to the conversation. There are many free social media sites and social media book marking tools out there that allow you to monitor what is being said about your company, product, brand and, perhaps most important, your competitors—Twitter, Delicious (www.delicious.com) and Facebook are among them. Listening will be the foundation for your social media marketing strategy.
Secondly, be sure to engage potential customers with interesting and informative branding statements. Third, monitor and filter these tools to be efficient. The numbers of users across all social media are staggering, so creating efficiency is vital. Take advantage of tools and applications to post your message in one place and have it automatically disseminated across all the social media accounts you use. Finally, create your plan and schedule and stick to it. There is simply no better spend of your marketing dollars than on a plethora of free social media tools.
Three Popular Mediums
There are many social media sites available, and many will fulfill the needs of your brand, the niche in which you operate and your target consumers. The number of users on these sites is growing exponentially, so find your community. There are three sites that are strong bases from which to build a social media platform.
Twitter tops the list based on its sheer growth and ability to connect to so many people. Twitter can be very effective to promote something online and get it noticed immediately. Twitter is where you have the best shot to go viral. In addition, Twitter is a fabulous means of providing pertinent updates and interesting news to the followers of your “tweets”—keeping them involved.
Start by using search.twitter.com and hash tags to monitor what people are saying about your brand, your competition and the space or category you are in as a whole. Setting up a desktop application and a handful of these focused searches will really contextualize things and make your Twitter efforts efficient and effective.
Although Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters, it is a very powerful tool to connect your brand with millions of people (as of early spring 2009, there were 14 million people on Twitter), and it is also a phenomenal research tool. Traditionally, businesses have paid exorbitant amounts for case studies, reports, white papers, think tanks and focus groups in the hopes of obtaining insight into their industry and target market. Now, small and large businesses that cannot afford to use up their marketing budget in these studies may use Twitter. It is a free resource reaching a global community, unlimited in scope or focus, that can be used to accomplish many of the same traditional market research tasks in real time.
Twitter, too, is a fabulous place to create a buzz, post giveaways and contests, and create polls. It is also live/digital customer service, and consumers are expressing their appreciation of businesses strategically using Twitter in this way.
Creating a Facebook fan page is an integral part of social media platform. With the new design of Facebook, it is easy to create this page exclusively to promote a brand and build an engaged and organic fan network.
Done properly, a Facebook page facilitates interaction with consumers, i.e., your brand fans. Facebook’s Fan Page is a dynamic tool encouraging participation and interaction of your brand’s fans with the brand. Fan Pages also yield more potential for virility, offer more ways to communicate and is a fabulous way to offer exclusive contests and coupons specifically for your brand fans.
Maximizing a Facebook presence is very timely and imperative. Provide strong content, market the page through your other social media sites as well as your Web site, and make it easy to share. These will be key to organically growing your fan base, and will build a more engaged consumer.
Note that cross-linking a Facebook page to your Twitter account is one of the first steps in creating this page—again, it’s a matter of efficiency. In this way, when you post in either of these two places, both the Facebook page and your Twitter fans will be updated automatically.
Blog
Creating a blog for your brand—or better yet, redesigning your legacy site on a dynamic blog platform—is an important component of branding online and search engine optimization. In addition, a blog is a tool that builds trust, and, therefore, is the cornerstone for a social media platform. This is where you can post any and all updates, in-depth company news, as well as create solid “about us” and “contact us” pages. Furthermore, because blogs maintain a log of posts, consumers can search them to discern where the company has been in the past months or years, becoming more engaged and connected.
Consumers really do want interesting stories. They also want to interact via commenting and providing feedback. So, keep your site simple and clean. Make it your priority to keep it fresh and up-to-date.
Implementation
With the three basic elements of a social media platform in place, the next step is implementation. There is no better time to get started than right now—it is part of any effort to establish a brand as a leader. Realize that patience and scheduling work flow will be paramount.
Start by creating a plan with your team and a social media consultant. Educate the team members on the idea, the objective and the methods, and have them work together. Find someone on your team, or a consultant, who is passionate about the brand, as well as obsessed with the Web, to put the plan into action.
Don’t get carried away with stats, but do track analytics to gauge success of campaigns. There are many tools and applications for each social media medium (from Google analytics to Hoot Suite, www.hootsuite.com) to obtain metrics and gauge the ROI of everything you do. Everything online is trackable.
Be relentless in scheduling time to be online, and, based on the time you have to devote, set realistic expectations. Give yourself a break—this is still a fairly new and exploding area. You won’t get everything exactly the way you want it the first time. Know that every social media medium is customizable and that you can easily change or redesign anything based on your tactics and strategy.
It is evident that social media has become a consumer expectation. Brands that fail to embark on a social media campaign do so at their own peril. Now that you are onboard and ready to go, just hold on for a wild ride.
Heather Smith is the founder of Lady Luxe Inc., a social media, branding and product development firm based in Boulder, Colorado. She is passionate about her clients’ new product launches, creating a buzz and going viral in the digital world. She can be followed on Twitter@peaceloveluxe. heather@peaceloveluxe.com
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I am proud and flattered – the Boulder County Business Report had some fabulous things to say about me & Lady Luxe Inc. Here’s the Scoop.
Getting social with Lady Luxe
By Valerie Gleaton
June 26, 2009 — BOULDER – Most business owners recognize the importance of online advertising, but using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs to connect with current and potential customers is still a new frontier for many. For those who don’t know a “Friend” from a “Follower,” Heather Smith is here to help.
A self-described “social media maven,” Smith is the founder of Lady Luxe Inc., a consulting firm that assists companies hoping to increase their online visibility.
Smith, who recently became the social media strategist for international eco-cosmetic company Weleda, has revamped online marketing for local companies including Rags Consignment, ten20 nail salon, The T-BAR lingerie shop, Bundle Baby Shop and Jessie Walker Knit Goods.
“I call it ’social media for the socially responsible,’” says Smith, noting that the companies share a commitment to ethical business practices such as sustainability and fair trade.
This isn’t surprising, considering her background. Smith began her career in the natural products industry, and was so successful in launching and promoting her own beauty line that other companies began approaching her to consult on theirs. This led her to found JG Consulting (short for Jersey Girl Consulting) in New York. A few years later, Smith moved to Boulder with her husband. On Earth Day 2006, she launched Coco’s Shoppe, which she says was one of the very first online eco-boutiques.
“That was how I became more online savvy,” Smith says. “Then last fall the economy hit everyone hard, especially retail. You had to decide whether to relaunch, close up shop or reinvent yourself. That’s when I started to jump on board with social media. I wanted to use all the opportunities that were out there and also give them to other businesses. That’s what I’m doing with Lady Luxe.”
The economic downturn offered the perfect conditions to establish the new consulting firm. With low start up costs – “My Mac is my office,” Smith says – and business owners looking for ways to weather the recession, Lady Luxe was a fairly low-risk venture. Now, though she still owns Coco’s Shoppe, Smith says that most of her time is spent advising companies on how to take advantage of social media.
Smith says the first step is simply listening to the client to find out where they are and where they want to go. For instance, when Margaret Miner, owner of Rags Consignment and ten20, told Smith that she wanted to make her companies’ Web sites more dynamic, Smith converted them to WordPress blogs that also linked to Facebook and Twitter profiles.
“She’s does a fantastic job,” Miner says. “We’ve gotten a lot more interest in the Web site and feedback and interaction from customers.”
“All of a sudden, items we featured on the Rags site would immediately sell out,” Smith says. Customers who weren’t planning to come in that day would, just because of something they saw on the blog – that’s what’s so great about social media.”
Other companies have more specific goals. Smith says that T-BAR owner Debra Caplin already had a great blog and Twitter presence, but wanted more media attention for the shop.
“We got her on Daily Candy in a month,” Smith says proudly, referring to the popular e-mail newsletter that professes to be “the insider’s guide to what’s hot, new and undiscovered.”
“Give me a challenge, and I’m gonna deliver,” Smith promises. “I work on a case-by-case basis, so whether you want the full service where we build your whole social media platform, or just a la carte, I want to listen to what people are doing already and then fill in the gaps.”
However, though increasing sales and garnering glowing reviews is great for business in the short-term, Smith says the most important aspect of social media is its power to create brand loyalty through communication with customers.
“Businesses just need to get out there and engage,” Smith says. “Find your friends, find your fans, find your followers, and find your niche. You’ll get the customers who love you already, but you’ll also find those likeminded individuals who will soon love you.”
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Global Cosmetic Industry Magazine just wrote our firm up!
