postontime

New LOWER Pricing for Karmaback!

Great News for you Social Network Marketing Gurus….

You have a new tool at your disposal… Karmaback!

Karamback is now Free to try for 30-days… and is “all-inclusive!”, including fully custom apps!
It’s just $49.99/month after that!

Yep, that includes ALL our tools:

  • PostOnTime.com which lets you schedule social posts to Twitter and Facebook, and “photo upload posts” to Facebook… for ANY time you want, with fast and deep analytics!  Yep, includes your own branded app!
  • Sweepmaker.com which lets you build a FULLY custom Sweepstakes to run in your Facebook or Twitter, Including your own custom app.
  • Fanpage Tab Builder, which lets you build full HTML Fanpage tabs, with just a few clicks!
  • Referral Contest Builder.
  • Track-able Links
  • Viral Coupons (Social Coupons with any twist you prefer: like-gated, claim-gated, share-gated, etc.).
  • AND MORE!
  • ALL INCLUDED, free to try, 30-days, and just $49.99/month after that.

Social Network Posts… Work.

This week Buddy Media sent an email to their subscribers with advice on how to make good Social Network Posts…  Two interesting nuggets here:  1.) Email Marketing works… I opened it, read it, and liked it.  2.) The advice is right on target.  Post short messages, use full URLs, ask for a call to action, and post outside business hours.  In fact, their findings: 20% higher engagement when posting off-hours, is perhaps conservative, (I’ve seen 75%-100% higher engagement when posting off-hours).

How do you post off-hours? Why not use my PostOnTime.com tool?  It lets you schedule posts for whenever you want (even when you are out of office). It also gives you awesome options such as photo upload posts, and more…  http://postontime.com  Try it Free! 🙂

Skeptical About Fake Social Marketing

Fake Social Marketing = the kind of contrived, half-hearted attention you try to garner by having a Fanpage or Twitter follower… but it serves no purpose other then as a huge mega-phone.

You are just saying nothing to people who don’t care.
Real Social Marketing = when you have people that *actually* care… and that you have an interactive conversation with those people, and actually listen and react to what is said.
I am skeptical of the value of “Fake Social Marketing”.  I think it has ‘some’ value, actually… at least you are making some effort, even if it is not social.  Fake Social Marketing is more like a “Blog” than an actual social site.  I think most companies take this approach because “Real Social” is harder and more risky.  These kinds of companies might use tools (such as those available by my own company: http://karmaback.com ) to rapidly grow fans & followers, then spam them with messages but ignore any responses.  That was NEVER the intent of how to use Karmaback….. I am a much stronger believer in “real social”.
Real Social Marketing is when companies use Karmaback to REWARD their existing fans/followers with a sweepstakes or discount/coupon… and a side-effect of the Reward is that you get a few more fans/followers… (it’s not necessarily the primary goal).  Meanwhile, Karmaback’s PostOnTime tool is used to help coordinate when messages get said/planned messages… but someone STILL should be interacting with the comments/responses after the post has been made.  Incidentally, the posts themselves should be useful/helpful/informative/or conversation starting… A great example would be asking your Fans/Followers if you should have a certain feature or not.
So, consider this when you are planning your Social Marketing campaign… Focus on the “real social”.  Don’t just blindly post… read and respond.  And don’t bribe, but reward.

A Marketing Basic: Speak & Write Plainly!

Speak Plainly.  Seems obvious, but us marketers often get into the habit of “word-smithing” till the text on the page is unrecognizable by normal humans (and worse, by our target customers).  Writing regular Facebook or Twitter updates for your company SHOULD be part of a solid Marketing campaign (try our own tool to help: http://postontime.com… but keep the writing simple.  Here are a few examples to avoid, and better alternatives.

  • Don’t say user:   “Users can now log in via our web interface”
    • Say instead: customer or you.  “You can now log in via our web interface”
  • Don’t say best, most, or other false-ly colorful exaggerations: “This is the Best interface ever.”
    • Say instead: we think you will like. “We think you will like our interface upgrades.”
  • Don’t use acronyms:  “Anyone who wants higher marketing ROI should click here”
    • Instead, use simple terms: “Anyone who wants to get higher profits for their investments in marketing should click here.”
Remember, short is sweet, but complex, obtuse, or marketing-speak is sour.

Research Brief: how to write “engaging” Social Posts on Facebook and Twitter

According to eMarketer.com’s recent study, having a picture and a clear call to action (e.g. request for likes or comments) leads to the most engaging social posts: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008677.  My own research by running social campaigns for 6 Fanpages simultaneously has led me to agree with this, except for 1 additional comment: Keep it short!

Keeping your posts short, and varying the time of their postings (possibly using my companies own tool: postontime.com) is the way to go!  Shorter posts are more likely to get read, and short posts with calls to action (“Like this if…”).

For more tips on making your social campaigns work, check out my white paper here.

Harlan

Top Tips for Social Network Marketing!

My top tips for Social Network Marketing are very simple: * full details and white-paper here

  1. Acquire lots of fans.  (try a Karmaback Sweepstakes to help!)
  2. Engage fans with REGULAR and ENGAGING posts.
  3. Convert fans into customers by making them unique/special offers (only for fans).

It is nice when the marketing industry in general agrees with you!  Check out “Involver’s” top tips as well (note: matches mine very closely):
http://blog.involver.com/2011/10/07/social-media-marketing-tips-to-i

  1. Post Regularly
  2. Time your Posts.

So, how can you do 1 and 2 VERY easily?
For Facebook and Twitter try my new tool: http://postontime.com

Marketers want to better measure Social

Ever wanted to know exactly what Social Network Marketing is doing for you?  You are not alone.
According to eMarketer.com measuring social effectiveness is of paramount concern.

My question is what do you want to measure?

Respond to me here or by email to harlan@karmaback.com

Karmaback builds tools to improve Social Marketing effectivness… tell me what you want us to measure, and if we’re not doing it already, we will be!

PostOnTime lets you post to Facebook and Twitter while you are away.

If you are “into” social network marketing like I am, then you already know that posting to your Facebook and Twitter page on a consistent (and constant) basis is vital to keeping your Fans and Followers active and growing.  A daily or twice daily post is not at all too much.  However, knowing and doing are 2 different things.  My company, Karmaback, has just launched PostOnTime  to make the doing part of posting to Facebook and Twitter on a regular basis MUCH easier.  You can now schedule posts for any time of the day, even when you are away from your computer.  You can even post on weekends, evenings, and when you are travelling or on vacation!  It is free for 30-days, and as low as $4.99/mo after that, so give it a try!  It’s awesome!

http://karmaback.com/tw_postontime/