Anatomy of Social Media Marketing Success
Many people often ask me exactly how does social media/virtual marketing work? Why is everyone saying it’s so great? It made me realize that I needed to sit down and diagram it out to make it easier to understand. The diagram below this article is the result.
Patty Sadallah of Redwood Sisterhood recently had a tele-seminar on the “Anatomy of Leadership.” While we were talking, she asked me about how important an email list was to her marketing plan. Of course, I answered that it was crucial – but then an analogy hit me that really made the importance clear. I shared with her that the email list is essentially the circulatory system/blood of your marketing efforts. It is what caries people to all of the different components of your social media marketing plan. Further, if you are using your email list effectively, you are actively encouraging your readers to forward the message on to others they know, which constantly brings “new blood” into your social media system. This method of email marketing is called “viral marketing” for just that reason – it allows your exposure to grow exponentially unlike any other communications method.
So that got me thinking…from an anatomy standpoint, how would I describe the rest of the key components in a social media marketing plan? Here’s what I came up with. Please share with me in the comments section if the analogies help you!
Website = Heart
Your website is the heart of the operation. It is the digital identity of you/your business on the internet. The goal of the whole system is to drive traffic to your website because that’s where you offer your services/products and it is the door to doing business with you.
Your website also has a sign up for your email list. The two intrinsically work together. Think about it…a beating heart with no blood to pump does little good, and neither does blood without a beating heart. Further, the two have to be in relative size to each other. If you are low on blood, the heart has to beat faster and faster to keep it moving. Eventually it will not be able to keep up that pace and will die. Having a strong blood stream without a strong, beating heart causes the blood to stagnate (it can’t get oxygen) and it too will die. Having a strong website with a weak email list causes the same phenomenon. Initially, the email list will drive some traffic, but without new subscribers to keep the traffic going, it will become insignificant – new people aren’t finding you and you drop off the radar of search engines. Equally, if you have a strong email list and weak website, your subscribers will get bored and possibly even frustrated by not having new content to see on your website and they will begin to unsubscribe. Bottom line – if one is missing or not working, the body is dead.
Blog = Stomach
I liken a blog to our stomach. We have to “feed” our blog new content. The blog then breaks down the content and turns it into things like loyal followers (people who regularly read your blog), happy search engines (search engines love new content and good keywords), greater credibility, and increased traffic to your website – just as our stomachs break down our food into the essential nutrients our body needs. The quality of what we feed our blog is as important as the quality of food we eat. A blog full of sales pitches, blatant self promotion and teasers is similar to a diet of fast food and empty calories – not only does it not help, it also causes significant damage. You have to feed your blog quality content – you have to genuinely share your knowledge, experience and expertise. Essentially, you have to give away some “stuff” that you may be used to charging for. It may sound counter-intuitive, but it really does convert into paying customers. It’s like giving a thirsty person a small glass of water – it helps them a little, but if they want to get to the faucet, they have to pay admission. Oh yeah, and you have to feed your blog regularly or it will starve!
Your blog relates to the rest of the plan in the following ways:
- It links back to your website if it is a separate domain, which drives traffic to your website (search engines like incoming links so having a blog and website linking to each other helps).
- It has a sign up for your email list to help build it larger (new blood – yea!).
- You promote your new blog posts on your social networks – which drives traffic back to your blog and back to your website. It also builds links to your blog (more new blood – yea, yea!).
- Good SEO (search engine optimization) in the form of actively including the keywords/tags used most often by people searching on your topic will drive natural traffic from search engines – people who may have never heard of you before (even more new blood – yea, yea, yea!).
Social Networks = Hands, Mouth, Ears, and Eyes
It’s a bit more difficult to nail down one specific organ that is representative of social networks because they are so multi-functional. Social networks are a lot like our hands because connecting is one of the main functions – we grab onto new contacts and hold onto existing contacts. They are our mouth because they are forums to share our message and tell others about who we are and what we do. Lastly, they are our eyes and ears because if you are active you will definitely get feedback – particularly if you’re doing things wrong (bad social network ettiquette).
Social networks relate to the rest of the plan in the following ways:
- They are used to promote both your website and blog, which drives traffic.
- They are a source of links back to the blog and website.
- You create new connections who can join your email list – either through a direct request or by visiting your website or blog and signing up.
Email = Blood
Just a few last words about the role of the email list…To be effective, email marketing has to be targeted and customized to different segments of the list. Subscribers on your list will come and go because of reasons that have nothing to do with you. However, if you start to see noticeable trends in either direction, it could be an indicator that something is going very well or very wrong.
So, that’s the clearest way I can come up with to explain the phenomenon that is social media marketing. If something isn’t clear for you or you have more questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments section and I’ll answer as soon as possible!
Social Media Marketing Diagram
Great way to communicate this info!!!
It’s a useful analogy – thank you for sharing it.
Perhaps the “brain” could be your marketing plan and the “skin” could be your key messages segmented by target audience.
Scott Bechtler-Levin
http://www.ideaencore.com
Scott,
Thanks for the suggestions. I probably could break it down even more. I’ll have to give it some thought!
Fabulous! Enjoyed the read. To keep building your analogy, I vote for “lungs” = “mission”… delivering the “oxygen” for your cause to all body parts!
Good analogy!
Excellent description and way of thinking about these very important components of marketing and communications. Thanks so much!
Great job of explaining the components of social media and their relevance to marketing. Very creative explanation.
No mention has been made of the quality of the content. If you do not have a substantive message it doesn’t matter how many individuals see it how often.
Darlyne,
Thanks for the comment. I do address the importance of quality content when I discuss the blog, however, I did not extrapolate it out to the email, website and social networks. You are correct that the content has to be of high quality in all venues in order to keep people engaged.
Very nice, well done. I will pass this along to my network. Thanks, Gregg http://www.WSIQualitySolutions.com
A nice model as many have observed, thanks for sharing. I agree with Gregg’s suggestion about the Brain [marketing plan] needing to be represented as well. The only other consideration for your next iteration would be an increased emphasis on how the whole body of social media marketing helps develop relationships, which to me is the point of these tools. Thanks again!
I appreciate you explaining Social Media in a human metaphor. As someone who works with financial products, I try to make complex concepts easier to understand by putting them in human terms. You did just that. Thanks!
Brilliant visual! Thanks so much for this article.
I love it. I am a nurse and only understand nurse language and that totally helped.
What am I doing wrong? Our website has great content, we have a blog that has received super comments but we haven’t been able to get people to sign up for emails. How can I get more blood?
P.S. I loved the analogy. It made it very tangible for me.
Cynthia,
I checked out your website. I can tell you that you aren’t asking people clearly enough to sign up for your email list. “Nudge Me” will not be associated with Email to most people. Also, you only have one link to sign up for the email list and it disappears whenever you navigate away from the home page. People should be able to sign up for the email list when they are looking at your individual lessons/videos or when they navigate over to the blog (every page of the site and blog). Prompt people to sign up at every point of value. For example, at the end of the dinosaur print article add something like, “If you enjoyed this article and want to get the next one as soon as it’s published, sign up for our email list.” Then hyperlink the phrase email list to your subscription page. When you send out messages to the existing list, make sure you end your message with a plea to forward to others. I know that many email services have a link at the bottom to “Forward Email,” but that’s not enough. If you end the message with something like, “Do you know someone else who would benefit from this message? If so, please forward it on!” then it will trigger an immediate reaction in their brain to think of people to send it to.
If you have found my blog helpful, please sign up for my email list and tell others about it!
Good luck!
Crystal