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The New Business of Advertising

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Which Social Media Strategy Is Best For Advertising Agency New Business?

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ss-social-mediaYou have A Social Media Strategy For Your Advertising Agency. Right?

Let’s start with what B2B social media strategy works. I was looking for a universal social media image for this blog on ad agency social media. I found the image at left by asking Google. They took me to Anchor Media’s “Starting Out On Social” blog post. A decent post. But, much better that their social energy got me to this better than average image and then, better, awareness of them. So… social + SEO = works, folks.

Back to my main question: Which Social Media Strategy Is Best For Advertising Agency New Business? I am not going to bullshit you. There is no perfect social media platform for advertising agency new business. Why? Cause ya know… the devil is in the details (and, your very own objectives.) The best I can do is to tell you what my personal experience has been. First, here are my social media objectives.

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Kill It On Twitter And Linkedin

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Twitter and LinkedIn form, along with this blog, the backbone of my inbound marketing program. Easily, 90% of my qualified leads (2-3 per week on average) come from my social media marketing. The other 10% come from speaking engagements and networking / referrals.

Kill It On LinkedIn

I just found the LinkedIn marketing expert Stephanie Sammons via her podcast interview on Social Media Examiner. In the podcast she discusses the marketing benefits of the fairly new LinkedIn publishing platform with the host Michael Stelzner. You can now publish on this platform to reach LinkedIn’s zillions of members. Cool right? Listen to the podcast and then check out Stephanie’s blog Build Online Influence. I could say more but, like me, you are probably ADHD so just do these two things.

Note: I am going to be publishing an in-depth overview of how advertising agencies should be using LinkedIn soon. Stay tuned or sign up for my weekly newsletter below to make sure you see it.

Kill It On Twitter

There are lots of tools to help you get the most out of Twitter. Just Google “Twitter tools” and you’ll see bushels.

StephSammons s profile Twitonomy

One of my favorites is Twitonomy. When you listen to the Social Media Examiner podcast, Michael will start with a quick overview of this great tool. To give you a very clear, visual look at its value, I did an analysis of Stephanie’s Twitter feed and include the full page to the left. Wow, this tool goes deep. Learn about it, play with it and then start to use it to help manage your Twitter expertise. I do and I recommend it to all of my advertising agency clients.

Now, go a bit south on this page and sign up for my newsletter…. thanks.

2 Must Have Social Media Tools

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“Must have” Social Media Tools… “Must Have”, really? Well, ya know, directive copy like that just may have gotten you to click on this post – so there. OK, on to the meat.

Social media is a very hard working marketing tool. But, authoring social media is time consuming and we need to make sure that we are efficient  Now that’s an understatement. Here are a couple of tools that will make your social media campaigns work harder and look better.

Twylah

Get a free Twitter Brand Assessment Action Plan Twylah

Here is a nice freebie. Go to Twylah and get a free brand assessment of your Twitter activity. I filled out the form and a day later got a very revealing report that told me that I was not creating twitter copy that delivered on my core strategy of letting the world know that I am a master at helping ad and digital agencies grow. Oops. I learned a lot. Here is what Twylah says on their website…

YOUR BRAND ASSESSMENT REVEALS

  • Your true brand identity (it may not be what you think!)
  • Which of your brand topics are resonating with your audience and which are not!
  • The simplest and quickest way possible to create branded content that showcases your unique brand and business value

PicMonkey

PicMonkey_Logo

PicMonkey is an online photo editor that rivals the basics of Photoshop without your needing to go to Photoshop academy. I’ve been using Photoshop for years but know that I probably only use 15% of its features. PicMonkey gives me that 15% and its way easier and faster to use. This is a great tool for editing, and adding copy, to your social media images.

Don’t forget to visit my Pinterest Advertising Agency Directory. Is your agency on it?

5 Things Ad Agency CEO’S Need To Do

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Public Data what is it and how does it affect your business SocialMedia.ie Your Social Media Partner in Ireland

Just 5 Things (To Start)

A few years ago, long after Google’s AdWords started to eat ad dollars, I asked a few ad agency CEO’s if they had ever placed an online Google ad. The unanimous answer was… no.

Two nights ago, I asked a similar group if they had ever used a CMS tool like WordPress. The answer… (OK, getting better) was about 30%. (Um, that might be a bit optimistic).

30% is good but not great. I think that this lack of CEO curiosity and hands-on experience is a significant problem. How can CEO’s talk social media, digital media and advertising disruption if they haven’t used the disrupting technology themselves?

So, what should these CEO’s do? Pick a rainy weekend day and play with the Internet.

Go Forth And Tweet

Open a Twitter account, create a simple profile (look at mine for example @peterlevitan) and seriously post for a couple of weeks. Find out what is involved in creating this real-time marketing tool. It isn’t that difficult and you can even use a publishing system like Buffer or a RSS reader like Feedly.com to automatically Tweet about websites that you find. It couldn’t be easier. Use key words and hash tags to drive views (these are those #’s that can look like #advertising for example if you want to actually target Twitter users that follow advertising.)  If after a couple of weeks you love it, sense that you might want to participate in your agency’s Twitter feed then work on your Twitter plan. If you just wanted to see what Twitter felt like, then close your account and now your can truthfully tell people that you really get Twitter.

Blog On

Ask your blog meister to show you how to create blog posts using your CMS system. CMS stands for content management system, but you already knew that. You’d be surprised how easy posting is. The hard part is doing it with consistency and having an actual agency blog strategy that results in a blog that drives agency business. This process should help you gain insight into the strategic opportunities that an agency blog offers. Ask yourself if your agency blog is targeting prospective clients, your industry, your staff or…. well, given how much time blogging takes, figure just who is the target audience after all?

Place A Google Ad

Ask virtually anyone in the agency to take you through the process of creating and targeting a Google AdWords text ad. Google AdWords was the major source of Google’s $42.5 billion in 2012 ad revenues. You really should understand all about this advertising channel. The only way to really get a handle on it is to place an ad. A suggestion. Pick a prospective client and target them. See what happens.

Try Facebook Or LinkedIn

Both Facebook and LinkedIn have very easy to use self-serve advertising tools. Within minutes you could create and place a targeted an ad for your agency that links back to your Facebook, LinkedIn or agency website. You’ll see what works by using their analytical tools. The dry cleaner down the block does this. You can too – believe me.

Go Geek

Speaking of analytics, I’ll assume that your agency website uses an analytical tool like Google Analytics. There is a lot of learning residing in your traffic data. Take a look who is visiting your website, where they are coming from, if they are using a computer or mobile device (this can be surprising), what keywords they used to find you, how much time they are spending on the website and so much more. Its strangely addictive and very revealing and you’ll be on your way to becoming an SEO genius.

There are more things that you, and I mean you, could be doing. But, just start here and you’ll sound brilliant at lunch with your colleagues or next agency network meeting.

By the way, I can help you figure out your social media strategy. Well, what I mean is help you create a plan that uses social media to actually drive agency new business. Talk to me.

OK, OK… Here Is Oner More

Guest blog on high traffic websites to get your agency and yourself out there much fur=ther than you could on your advertising agency blog.

I did and it got me: more new agency clients; speaking gigs; fame and cash. Here is a post on why guest blogging is for you (even if you use a ghost writer).

The Advertising Resource List…

Hey, go here to see lots of online resources you can use to grow your business and personal brand right here…