Must Market

Yeah I've read that social media is an amazing lead gen tool, but there are some important ways to go about it outlined in this excellent infographic from @Brian Yanish - MarketingHits.com.

POST NOTE
I Scooped this amazing Jeff Bullas article and thought about it more. The tipping point is bigger than just Social Media Marketing. Beyonce worked the album to make it VISUAL. This took 18 months, but she succeeded (not hard when you are Beyonce).

As you read the amazing stats below how Beyonce BLEW UP social media and commerce with her Surprise album read Jeff's post about how she changed her approach too since there may be more than one tipping point here - Social Media Marketing & Visual Marketing on SMM.
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Great Scoop by Mike of a Jeff Bullas post noting how Beyonce may have marked our social marketing roi tipping point. Here are quotes from Jeff's post:
 

The tipping point?

With the evolution of the web there are some events that are small but significant. One of those happened on December 13, 2013. It was when Beyonce launched her latest album with an update on Instagram just captioned as “Surprise”

This broke convention.
 

Normally millions are spent on traditional media. Lady Gaga hyped her latest album by spending millions on bus advertising, billboards, 2 pop up stores and performed countless interviews. The result. She sold 305,000 copies in 2 weeks.

Beyonce, who has 8 million Instagram followers and over 53 million fans on Facebook decided to go straight to her fans. She decided to give the bus a miss. It was launched directly to iTunes and social media. She invoked the power of  ”World of Mouth”

The results

* It sold 828,773 copies in 3 days

* Twitter reported 1.2 million Tweets in 12 hours

* It was the largest single week ever in the Apple iTunes store

* It was iTunes fastest selling album worldwide

Jeff notes implications including

The lessons and what can you do

You may be not a Lady Gaga, Beyonce or a famous singer but the lessons are there. Start building your “own” digital assets. The world has changed. It is digital and it is social.

*Take control of your own digital future and build your own online assets and authority.

* Grow your social networks now. The priorities are still for the most part Facebook and Twitter. It will also depend on the demographic, audience personas, media preferences and industry. So you will also need to consider Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Slideshare and YouTube. It will also be determined by whether you sell to business (B2B) or to consumers (B2C).

* Create the best content you can. Repurpose it in a range of media including visual.

* Publish and promote it everywhere on social media.

* Don’t forget your other digital assets. This includes a blog, search engine optimisation, continue to increase your email subscriber list and keep up your content creation. It also means using content marketing in your mix.

* Boost your marketing with paid and targeted social media advertising. It doesn’t have to be expensive. You may need to get marketing traction fast and can’t wait to build the social networks from day one.

Marty
I agree with Jeff's points, would go easy on the paid stuff until you know what works, and would add these:

* Use G+ Author Rank as a great way to carry your klout with you.
* Crowdfund content - find ways to create community around your content and best way is to put THEIR content on YOUR websites.

* Contests and Games - great social content you can create with low costs and high User Generated Content (UGC) & social value.

* Be SOCIAL on Social Media - say congratulations, thank you and ask for favors. 

* Create video content because it is engaging, highly social and easy to move around the web. 
* Do Hang Outs On Air because they are fun and LIVE and so a little dangerous. 
 

If we are smack in the middle of a digital marketing revolution one of the most important wheels keeping that revolution turning faster and faster is VISUAL marketing. Friends @Scoopit call this "lean content", content that conveys complexity quickly, simply with visualization.

Mobile is another wheel turning the marketing revolution faster and faster AND being accelerated by little screens with their swiping, snipping and spinning of "mobile content".

What is "mobile content"? Some say there is no such thing ad "mobile content". I think there is an opportunity to create "mobile first" websites where content flows evenly, smoothly and in many directions at once.

Content is why the "mobile revolution" is about more than phones. Once we re-imagine content that creates engagement across all platforms (social and owned) we see the need for arresting visuals, great headlines and content snippets.

We are smack in the middle of a revolution. Visual marketing is a monster flywheel driving this revolution faster and faster, better and better. Find ways to make your content leaner and more visual in 2014 to stay up with the game.