Content Is Currency: The Powerful Synergy of Mobile & Social Media Marketing

Today we feature our interview with Jon Wuebben, author of Content is Currency: Developing Powerful Content for Web and Mobile.

Jon recently honored the SuccessWorks’ SEO Copywriting Certification community with an interactive webinar highlighting the essential takeaway’s from his new book.

Jon’s presentation on the synergistic power and strategic intelligence of integrating social media and mobile marketing was just too awesome to keep to ourselves. So here we share our follow-up interview with Jon Wuebben with you!

You spoke about integrating social media and mobile content to maximize exposure and ROI. Do you have any specific examples of how to accomplished this?

Absolutely! A great example of this comes from the shoe manufacturer, Crocs.

They held a mobile marketing campaign that provided consumers with an instant savings coupon for 15% off of a “Croslite” purchase.

The call to action was: “What is a foot’s bestest friend? Find out and save 15 percent off today! It is as easy as one, two, three …

“1. Text ‘CROCS 1234’ to 63103 on your mobile phone.

“2. Instantly receive a 15 percent off coupon code answer.

“3. Show the mobile coupon code to the cashier at check out.”

Signage with instructions, the store number and mobile short code was placed throughout 185 Crocs retail locations nationwide. Store associates then encouraged customers through their Facebook page to stay opted-in to receive further communications and discounts from Crocs.

The results? Crocs received 94,000 requests for coupons during the first month of the campaign.

For those of us unfamiliar with mobile-social media integrated marketing, how would we go about choosing the appropriate social media platform? Would your recommendations differ for B2B vs. B2C? 

Right now, B2C is a bigger social media-mobile marketing integration player than B2B, as the Crocs example highlights. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a huge opportunity for B2B…it’s just different.

There are some great B2B apps that have been developed which have become game changers. If you provided a B2B software application, like Salesforce.com for example, then you could offer a dashboard (or other view) that would simplify the process for your customer.

Think about what your business customers do on their smart phones. How can you make their lives easier, or reduce the time it takes for them to do something?

The bottom line is that you need to go to where your customers are. If you’re B2B, that may mean doing a series of webinars that you promote through the mobile and social channels (especially Twitter and LinkedIn). HubSpot has also put together some great ideas for B2B apps that are worth checking out.

How do you “develop a presence” on social media sites? Do you have a process or system in place that works for you?

Definitely! Here’s my process for making my presence known:

1. Open accounts and set up business profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
2. Connect with “influencers” in your industry on all of these platforms. Search for your industry, your products and services, and your competitors – find out who the movers and shakers are, follow them, and develop relationships with them.
3. Provide value added content to each channel. If you can only handle two, take on Twitter and Facebook first, then LinkedIn and YouTube. The reason for this order is because of the time investment to benefit ratio – a return on effort. Over the last couple of years, we have found that 10 hours put into Twitter or Facebook weekly can get you approximately 10-15% more benefit than with LinkedIn or YouTube – but this can differ depending on the type of company/industry.
4. Entice all of your customers, partners and others to “Like” you, “Follow You” and become a part of your community. The best way to do this is to send out emails to everyone with your links, and provide an incentive to get them to join your community. For instance…
5. Create a contest or giveaway or other unique event to develop your community and gain exposure.
6. Promote the influencers’ content and keep adding content of your own.

Is there anything else you would like to share with us? 

Yes, actually. I’d like to emphasize the point that social and mobile marketing combined create brand loyalty, positioning, and differentiation – and if you reward your customers accordingly, you’ll also create a very high rate of customer satisfaction.

The positive effects of integrating social and mobile marketing cannot be matched by direct mail, television, radio or other forms of print or mass media marketing. After all, mobile is one of the fastest-growing platforms in the world.

With 40% of U.S. mobile subscribers regularly browsing the internet on their phone, and a projected 12.5% of all e-commerce transactions going mobile by the end of the year, it’s a channel that you need to be aware of. According to Google, mobile web traffic will surpass PC traffic by 2013.

Finally, a few parting thoughts…

Mobile is the connection that binds a person’s online life to their real-world activities.

Social is the connection that binds us to each other.

Your customers are on the go, and your marketing needs to reflect this reality.

MAKE IT HAPPEN TODAY!

About Jon Wuebben

Jon Wuebben is the CEO of Content Launch, a web content marketing agency that handles content development and content strategy, providing content for hundreds of companies, digital agencies and web designers around the world. His new book, Content is Currency: Developing Powerful Content for Web and Mobile, helps businesses everywhere learn how to plan, create, distribute and manage content.

photo credit to J.J. Verhoef