5th Newsletter: Octorber 7, 2011 Issue 5
Ugly Dog’s Marketing Strategy Proves Intelligence Wins out Over a Pretty Face
On behalf of the staff at Ugly Dog Media, I would like to thank you for your continued support and interest in the day-to-day happenings at our humble office. We are rapidly growing, thanks in no small part to you. It’s an exciting time at Ugly Dog. Our determination to rise to every challenge and exceed the needs of our clients brings about a constant flurry of imaginative and innovative ideas. The only way to describe the atmosphere around here is electric.
The Buzz about Social Media
In the last newsletter, we mentioned our progression into the world of social media – a marketing tool that carries vast potential to spread a company’s message far and wide. Our IT staff is savvy about social media, among other things. We’re taking an enterprising role in promoting our clients as well as our own company through this versatile tool with limitless and untapped potential. In taking an interactive approach to marketing via social media websites, Ugly Dog is not just playing the game, we’re changing it. Our strategy is built on the idea that it’s not enough to simply reach out to people – a good marketing campaign is of the people.
Putting the Buzz in Perspective
It took 38 years for radio to reach a total audience of 50 million people; the internet reached the same number of people in four years, the iPod in three years, and Facebook takes the prize by reaching 50 million people in just two years, according to www.socialmediatoday.com. With the information age in full swing, social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, are leading the pack as marketing tools for people and businesses alike to make themselves known to the masses.
Tradition Sting
Traditionally, companies have used social media forums to reach customers using a technique that drives most consumers twitchy. Typically, these sites are used by unsophisticated businesses and marketers as a way to blast their product message to as many people as possible via one-liner messages on various forums that say very little about even the product they are trying to sell, let alone the online discussion they have interjected themselves into. The infamous spam bots that show up and drop nondescript messages on forums across the internet social highway are a prime example of what not to do.
Removing the Sting
When used properly, social media is a powerful marketing tool that can help a business message to walk on its own. It takes time and commitment that many businesses do not yet fully appreciate. Sure, you can hire someone to give you 10,000 posts in a day, but that’s low value participation. The traditional method of forum posting is not marketing at all. It’s a technical or simply mechanical process that is essentially meaningless, and ultimately, can do more harm than good.
Forum posting should be a working tool that uses information-based marketing and thought leadership as its primary function. Rather than putting meaningless comments into an online discussion, it’s worth it to take the time to make thoughtful responses that are not necessarily outright marketing messages, but rather a part of the conversation. That is how one becomes a thought leader.
The Proof is in the Honey
Ugly Dog Media practices what we preach. Websites such as smallbusinessdog.com and commoditytradingdog.com are social media sites that we have created to make ourselves known to a broad range of diverse people. The content on these sites is developed thoughtfully and speaks to the interests of the audience. For example, smallbusinessdog.com broaches subjects such as the power of web video marketing and the costs associated with delivering business via a cloud delivery service. The site speaks to what the consumer is looking for when they search online, i.e. good information. Knowledge is power, and providing consumers with that is far more useful than plugging a product. It costs more, takes more time, but it’s worth it.
Ugly Dog Brings the Sweet Stuff
Currently, we are running forum participation for two industry leaders in the IT world. Our thoughtful and engaging posts are not only bringing more recognition to these companies but also producing important dialogues that are fueling the fires of industry. We are maintaining several informative forums of our own that are bringing more traffic to our business as well. We are learning, growing and shaping ideas with every post. The buzz is irrefutable, and the results are sweet.
If you are interested in learning more about what social media marketing can do for your business, then please feel free to get in touch. We would be happy to speak with you. We guarantee that you will leave the conversation with at a number of ideas to inspire you if not change the way you look at the potential of social media marketing.
Thanks for reading! See you next month!
Dan Blacharski
President, Ugly Dog Media, Inc. |
