Social Media Marketing services for your brand

Your future success as a brand lies in your ability to attract, attain and retain customers through social media, which are becoming more important to your brand all the time. You need to be able to protect your brand from negative comments. You need to provide your customers a way to interact with your brand. And you need to compete in your niche - and if your competitors aren't using viral videos and social media yet, they soon will be. Where are you? You should be at the center of social media.

How It Works

PartnerCentric's social media managers understand where you need to be and know how to get you there. Our Social Networking Marketing service package includes:

• Creation of branded pages for your business on the major social media sites (view sample)

• Creation of a new "Interact with Us on Social Networks" page on your site (view sample)

• Creation of a banner promoting your new presence on Social Networking sites (view sample)

What is social media?
Social media are sites based on user participation and user-generated content such as articles, blog entires, photos and videos.

What is social media marketing?
Social media marketing involves creating content (text, photos, video or a combination of the three) that has value and credibility. This content is then marketed on social media sites by posting it, sending it to friends in hopes of creating viral word-of-mouth messages that reach a target audience(s).

What makes PartnerCentric a leader in this field?
PartnerCentric has put its expertise in Internet and affiliate marketing to work on social media marketing campaigns on behalf of clients who want to expand and protect their brands in this emerging marketing channel. We lead the way in creating a social media presence for online merchants and creating messages that effectively attract and retain customers.

How do I get started?
Whether you have a social media presence already or are starting from scratch, contact PartnerCentric today for a consultation about ways in which our social media marketing team will build and manage a social media presence for your brand.

Which social media sites do I need to join?
That depends on your business and its target audience. It's always a good idea to start with the big five social media sites that are big enough to reach every possible target audience. These include Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Linkedin and Twitter. From there we recommend creating a presence on other social media sites that are a good fit with your company, its products and services and the audience you want to reach. PartnerCentric consults with online merchants and business owners to find social media sites that fit your needs.

Should we use Facebook's Fan Page or Groups or both?
You should be using all of the free means to promote your business on networks such as Facebook. PartnerCentric recommends the creation of a Fan Page, a personal profile, and a Group combined with as much interaction as possible for your brand to maximize exposure and to capture new customers from both of these areas of Facebook. There's nothing to lose - and much to potentially gain - from doing both.

Should we establish a separate company persona that can invite friends similar to other companies?
Absolutely, with one caveat; be 100% transparent about the persona and make sure it's clear that the persona is tied to your brand directly, almost like a mascot. Nothing kills a social media campaign faster than the perception that a company is trying to trick users into taking action.

How do we create a network where we can post to all of our friends, fans, group, etc... at one time if we are running specials, providing news, etc.?
Our team believes Ning is the best platform for creating a network of your own. You can use it to broadcast messages to friends, run specials and provide news. You can do all of this in Facebook, of course, but Ning allows you a lot of control over forums and broadcast messages to your customers.

How do we create a branded look for these sites beyond just our logo?
Facebook does limit our ability to customize pages for a more branded look and feel, but we're testing plugins and applications that are adding more flexibility to design options. Ning, on the other hand, allows you to create a customized look that seemlessly matches your brand's look and feel.

How can we recruit fans, members, friends etc. beyond referrals from our website?
Recruitment is a core competency here at PartnerCentric. We've become experts at recruiting affiliates for our merchant clients, and we'll bring the same innovation and dedication to recruiting new fans, members and friends (not to mention customers) through social media.

A few tools in the arsenal include targeted blog posts, article syndication through RSS, participation in Facebook AceBucks (reward Facebook users who take your survey), sponsorships of events that interest your target audience, contests and give-aways. Leveraging the YouTube channel for viral video marketing is another good recruiting tool.

Does Partner Centric help us to develop widgets or applications that will drive traffic?
Absolutely. Widgets and applications are key to the success of your brand on Facebook, and PartnerCentric's team will work with you to develop and deliver widgets and applications that enhance your Facebook presence and encourage customers to interact with you. The trick to widgets/applications is coming up with something unique that represents your brand at the same time.

How can we encourage participation, submission of pictures, videos and reports and increase interaction? For example, should we sponsor contests for the best picture each week?
Contests have proven to be one of the most effective tools for driving interaction and participation. PartnerCentric will help devise strategies for the development and deployment of contests. As a general rule, social media is the place to have fun. PartnerCentric will work to create a user experience for your brand on social media that is inviting and addictive. You need to stand out in a crowd and get your customers hooked on the interactions they have with your brand and with one another.

What services are being provided by Partner Centric each month as part of the monthly management fee?
PartnerCentric provides the strategy behind the social media plan. As a social media client, you can rely on us to:
- Constantly recruit new members (friends, groups, etc.) for each social network.
- Create and post new content regularly.
- Continually reach out; getting around in the social networks and interacting with other non-client accounts that would benefit you to communicate with; submitting feedback, blogs, content – basically getting your name, brand, and company well known.
- Write a press release upon completion of social media setup.
- Update weekly report with details on status of your individual network progress.
- Issue a monthly report (updated weekly) including account details for all programs.
- Search for anything new we could be doing to benefit you (new social networks, new companies to reach out to, new strategies, etc.) on a weekly basis.
- Create report for future marketing plans for social networking per month and discuss with you on a monthly phone conference.
- Call monthly about status of social media marketing campaigns.
- Record and implement your feedback and desires for future marketing and other plans or ideas.
- Update photos, videos, music, etc. on your networks continually.

What is the tracking software required by Partner Centric and what costs are involved?
Your tracking needs are determined by the ways in which you use social media. Tracking expenses may vary, and we also leverage tracking solutions that have no inherent cost such as pixel tracking and Google Analytics. We may also employ affiliate tracking codes.

Contact PartnerCentric today to find out how your brand will benefit from our Social Networking Marketing service package.