Best Practices- Part 3 of 3: Advertise Your Network
Mon 16 Jan 2012 04:36:15 | 5 comments
Best Practices- Part 3 of 3: Advertise Your Network
“Today there is too much noise in the internet world of advertisement. People have naturally adapted to avoid random messages, banners and irrelevant material. Not only does irrelevant material fatigue your audience but it also disables your audience to engage with your group. Filter your content and provide your audience with what they need. Make your content relevant to your specific audience. With relevant content the crowd will naturally create hype for you. In other words organized content is essential in attracting people.”
Doğan Balamir Nazlıca, Director of Sales & Marketing at GROU.PS
As Balamir suggests you may start off by:
-Ask questions
People love to voice out their ideas. Ask them, and they will respond. It's a great way to start to get to know them. Be creative in the questionnaires. Dont ask them directly what they think. Make the question fun and relevant to your group. For example if you have a group about organizing recycled bins in your neighborhood, then don't ask which restaurant they would like to eat on weekends. You might ask which restaurants they prefer that also use recycled paper.
-Make Contests
As long as the task is not too complicated, people will contribute. Keep it simple. Dont ask them to re-make a film, video or music. Make a contest of simple things. For example: who has the best smile? You would be surprised to see how people forward contests to one another. This would create traffic by itself.
-Comment and respond
Comment and respond to others' comments instantly. Once you engage, people will comment. Respond. Provide links within the comments. This will enable traffic. People would like to share thoughts. Once they do, they forward it to their friends, relatives, and so on. This creates a natural form of advertisement.
-One size fits all
One size fits all phenomena (Think of the Ford cars of the 50's) is a bygone way of the past. Forget one-size-fits-all strategies. Even within your community there will be micro groups within other sub groups. This is called the long tail. Today everybody has the option to choose from a variety of sources. This provides unlimited amount of choices. For some, this gets too complicated. That is why you need relevant material. You need to know your audience. Besides questions and contests, you can use simple tools that GROU.PS gives you a chance to integrate to your network. For example add “Flag counters” to your site and see where your visitors are coming from. The more information you gather about them the more audience segments you will have. Remember that not everybody within your group has the same ability, capacity or ideas even though they might have joined your group for a common cause.
-Free
There is nothing like the power of free. Provide free material in return for something. Simple as that. For example ask them to suggest your site to a friend. In return to this favor, provide them with simple gifts, e.g., desktop savers, allow them to download any relevant content. Be creative on finding gift ideas. Free and interesting stuff will push people to talk about your site.
-Incentive
This is a bit different than free. Give them an incentive to talk about your site or even better, advertise your site. Incentives are different for each individual. For some it could be free goods. For some it could be money. For others it would just be public recognition. Depending on your audience you need to figure out what makes them click.
-Social Media
Facebook and twitter is key to successful advertising. Whether you like Facebook or Twitter is irrelevant. You want to be heard? Then there is no need to fight against the biggest media move of the last decade. Jump on the train. It's here to stay. When MP3s came out there were actually groups of people opposing it. Who talks about CDs or tape cassettes anymore? It's a natural evolution. Be a part of it.
“Today there is too much noise in the internet world of advertisement. People have naturally adapted to avoid random messages, banners and irrelevant material. Not only does irrelevant material fatigue your audience but it also disables your audience to engage with your group. Filter your content and provide your audience with what they need. Make your content relevant to your specific audience. With relevant content the crowd will naturally create hype for you. In other words organized content is essential in attracting people.”
Doğan Balamir Nazlıca, Director of Sales & Marketing at GROU.PS
As Balamir suggests you may start off by:
-Ask questions
People love to voice out their ideas. Ask them, and they will respond. It's a great way to start to get to know them. Be creative in the questionnaires. Dont ask them directly what they think. Make the question fun and relevant to your group. For example if you have a group about organizing recycled bins in your neighborhood, then don't ask which restaurant they would like to eat on weekends. You might ask which restaurants they prefer that also use recycled paper.
-Make Contests
As long as the task is not too complicated, people will contribute. Keep it simple. Dont ask them to re-make a film, video or music. Make a contest of simple things. For example: who has the best smile? You would be surprised to see how people forward contests to one another. This would create traffic by itself.
-Comment and respond
Comment and respond to others' comments instantly. Once you engage, people will comment. Respond. Provide links within the comments. This will enable traffic. People would like to share thoughts. Once they do, they forward it to their friends, relatives, and so on. This creates a natural form of advertisement.
-One size fits all
One size fits all phenomena (Think of the Ford cars of the 50's) is a bygone way of the past. Forget one-size-fits-all strategies. Even within your community there will be micro groups within other sub groups. This is called the long tail. Today everybody has the option to choose from a variety of sources. This provides unlimited amount of choices. For some, this gets too complicated. That is why you need relevant material. You need to know your audience. Besides questions and contests, you can use simple tools that GROU.PS gives you a chance to integrate to your network. For example add “Flag counters” to your site and see where your visitors are coming from. The more information you gather about them the more audience segments you will have. Remember that not everybody within your group has the same ability, capacity or ideas even though they might have joined your group for a common cause.
-Free
There is nothing like the power of free. Provide free material in return for something. Simple as that. For example ask them to suggest your site to a friend. In return to this favor, provide them with simple gifts, e.g., desktop savers, allow them to download any relevant content. Be creative on finding gift ideas. Free and interesting stuff will push people to talk about your site.
-Incentive
This is a bit different than free. Give them an incentive to talk about your site or even better, advertise your site. Incentives are different for each individual. For some it could be free goods. For some it could be money. For others it would just be public recognition. Depending on your audience you need to figure out what makes them click.
-Social Media
Facebook and twitter is key to successful advertising. Whether you like Facebook or Twitter is irrelevant. You want to be heard? Then there is no need to fight against the biggest media move of the last decade. Jump on the train. It's here to stay. When MP3s came out there were actually groups of people opposing it. Who talks about CDs or tape cassettes anymore? It's a natural evolution. Be a part of it.
Link
your site with Facebook and your Twitter account or any other social
media. Twitter and Facebook are easy especially for individual users and
you want these individuals to spread the word as much as they can. So
why not use it?
This is the final part of our Best Practices Blog Series. Note that there is more blog series to come that we think you would find interesting!
Follow us here on Founders Network and do not miss any updates. Stay interacted and connected!
This is the final part of our Best Practices Blog Series. Note that there is more blog series to come that we think you would find interesting!
Follow us here on Founders Network and do not miss any updates. Stay interacted and connected!
Comments
pmary64
4 months ago
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Rafal
4 months ago
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Balamir Nazlica
4 months ago
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saree
3 months ago
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jordan 11
70 days ago
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