The social web has opened a discourse between brands and consumers; a chat on the same level. Marketing is now a two way conversation, if your brand isn’t active in these conversations then you are missing out on your most engaged customers – you know… the ones who openly advocate your brand, get tattoos of your logo in ‘extreme’ places on their body or fly around the world to visit each store/restaurant etc etc. Social media marketing allows you to participate with these customers, experiment with new methods of communication, reward their loyalty and offer exclusive deals. You can’t wait for consumers to come to you, but for the first time you can go directly to them.

Through market and social media research, LAB Media helps your brand to navigate the ever changing social atmosphere and connect with your customers like never before. Pretty cool eh?

As with every new adventure it is best to have an itinerary or strategy. At LAB we pride ourselves on knowing your brand online; who’s talking about it and what’s being said. Once we feel we could answer 101 questions about your brand, we then begin to develop a bespoke strategy. We take into account everything that we have learned by being your brand’s biggest online fan and use that develop a no-nonsense strategy that delivers.

Without a strategy you can find that social media can sap a huge amount of time from your working day. When you have a tailored social media strategy in place you’ll find that you’ll save time and be more informed… Basically helping you to work smarter.

I’m happy to see that I was on the right track with the Google+ experience and brand communications.  Google has stated that they are working on a Google+ for businesses experience that is unique and allows users to review analytics and incorporate AdWords.

In a post and accompanying YouTube video on Google+, Product Manager Christian Oestlien says that the Google+ team is working on creating a unique experience for businesses that includes deep analytics and the ability to connect to products like AdWords. “How users communicate with each other is different from how they communicate with brands,” Oestlien argues.

I’m happy to see this recognition from Google, although I am surprised they did anticipate the flood of organizations, and therefore did not have this more developed when they launched Google+ originally.  

Takeaway: If you’re a business, sign up to get notifications/invitations here.  If you’re already on Google+, be a little wary, as your profile as a “non-user entity” may disappear at some point.  You might use the time between now and launch to prompt users on other channels to let you know if they would be interested in following you on Google+ - this opens the lines of communication, and ensures that you know whether your audience will be there.

So you’ve got your Facebook Page up… now what? The easiest way to get involved in the social web is to set up your social profiles, the hardest and most impactful thing is getting your community involved.

Social Media puts the power in the hands of your most engaged and loyal fans, you have to keep them happy or else they’ll jump ship. LAB Media offers full service social media management to help you get this done.

Our dedicated Community Managers help to breath life into your campaigns. By engaging with your fans we help you to build a fan base that is active and attentive; sharing and posting your content to their friends and followers.

Effective social media management transforms your customers into advocates; if someone enjoys a meal at your restaurant they will tweet about it; if you tweet back they’ll feel loved; if you then offer deals and monitor the conversations they will become a channel for your business, giving recommendations to friends and followers.

By curating your customer base and creating innovative campaigns and content we ensure that everything your brand does is likeable, sharable and tweetable.

By identifying key influencers we are able to effectively spread word of mouth through the right social media channels. We scour the social web to find appropriate channels for your content, we’ll identify key influencers and build relationships with them to get their opinions and help promoting your product.

It’s effectively like having your own in-house social media manager who is passionate about your brand and dedicated to seeing social and financial growth.

Why not say hello?