4 Ways to Create A Successful Online Presence Effective Social Media

I recently had the honor of presenting a case study to the executive management team from Wegmans. For those not familiar, Wegmans is the pinnacle of grocery shopping, having created a shopping experience unlike any other.

People leaving the Rochester area actually include Wegmans as a must-have when deciding where to move.

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The case study presented include some of the online technology solutions and social media guidelines I created for Auction Direct USA. Regardless of the market segment, basic underlying tenets can be applied to creating and managing a successful online campaign.

Create A Unique Online Experience

Does the design stand out above your competitors?
Is your website memorable?
Are key items easily called out and identifiable?
Can visitors provide instant feedback?
Are you leveraging social channels and tools to extend your online reach?

Create a Continuous Improvement Process

Are you actually listening to your visitors feedback and comments?
Are you gaining real-time feedback with questions and polls via blogs and micr-blogging platforms?
Who will manage customer feedback; is there an escalation process?
Is the feedback directed to the appropriate contacts and departments?
Is your online brand being managed (ie: Brand mentions, keywords and competitors?)

Create Metrics to Measure Performance & Ensure Growth

Have you implemented a management process to measure past performance, marketing results and benchmarks for your segment?
Are you measuring traffic performance with items such as visitor locations, exit/entry locations and bounce rates?
Are you monitoring analytics to ensure efficient web activity? (ie: Key sections, effective ad channels, conversions)

Create a Social Media Presence with Specific Objectives

Activities on the major networks are a must: Facebook, Flickr, Twitter & YouTube
Communicate the overall plans with your internal staff; be sure everyone is on the same page
Keep the message congruent between online & offline channels – consistency is so important
Emphasize your visitors – not you or your company; create authority, build confidence and earn their trust
Develop specific objectives and measure them. (ie: New sign-ups, leads, appointments, revenue, etc.)

What has helped improve your online presence?

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Let’s define quality twitter followers – everyone wants them. A quality follower for me:

Follows back
Has a full bios with link(s)
Engages and participates
Has a nice balance of self-promotion & re-tweeting
Has positive energy

Keep in mind, my activities center around providing valuable automotive content, among other things, to help consumers. I’m always trying new stuff, always measuring things and just making sure our hits outweigh our misses. Here’s a random list of my activities for @AuctionDirect.

Address people by their names in direct messages
No automatic direct messages
Try to get to know people – I ask everyone to take my twitter interview
End Game full
Promote others when possible; Re-tweets are good, FollowFridays are cool and links to other people’s sites are awesome!
Provide informative, relevant links
Humor which doesn’t attack or offend. (Especially when tweeting from a business account)
Help people and answer quick questions
Acknowledge other people’s awesomeness
Meeting people face-to-face; get out from behind your screen and talk to some of your followers – Meet-ups really help
Don’t RT content from people with say, 350k followers. Odds are a ton of people have already seen it
Don’t to talk about money, sex or religion. (I try not to at least…)
Follow people my followers follow. Birds of a feather…
Don’t complain

Thankfully, most of the people I know do these things very nicely. @JasonFalls is a great example of someone who applies tactful, real-life common-sense to his twitter stream.

Sometimes, people just aren’t interested in automotive content and I can appreciate that. I’m not there to sell to anyone a car; just trying to educate and inform consumers. Its another place I can help change the way people buy used cars.

What are you doing to get and maintain quality twitter followers?

13: Game of Death movie Rocky IV the movie

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