What is also exciting is a return to reliance on a powerful and compelling brand story to educate, build brand loyalty and drive sales. It seems to me that over the past few years manufacturers have been willing to rely on me-too products with minimal differentiation and even less scientific support (can you say A-C-A-I?). Lately I am seeing a return to the pursuit of market differentiation and I couldn’t be more pleased. I understand that the economy has put a damper on this kind of activity over the past 24 months, but I also firmly believe that those companies that have continued to innovate during the downturn will be miles ahead of those who decided to climb in a hole and wait out the storm.

We at IMG have been privileged to be part of several of these new product introductions. Check out these Web sites launched within the past few months:

• www.lifeseasons.com
• www.xigohealth.com

Social media marketing has recently grabbed the attention of both B2B and B2C businesses. We have all noted companies rising from obscurity to stardom using social media networks. Most businesses today recognize that they need to add social media tactics to their marketing strategies. Perhaps you’ve already added a Facebook or Twitter link to your Web site, or started a blog. At this point, you’re realizing that these tactics have relatively little impact unless they’re integrated into a broader social media marketing strategy. Twitter, Facebook, blogging and SEO campaigns are basically tactics and nothing more. This article will help you adopt a big picture perspective on social media. I’ve included proven guidelines for developing your integrated social media strategy. Once you put your strategy in place, the strategy itself will help you isolate which social media tactics to use, how to launch effective campaigns and how to measure the results of those campaigns.

5 keys to strategy development

When developing your social media strategy, make sure it answers the following questions:

ATTRACT: How can I attract my target market to my marketing channels?
CONVERT: How can I increase conversion rates, turning potential customers into actual ones?
INTEGRATE: How can I integrate the messaging and impact of all my social media channels?
BUILD: How can I strengthen brand loyalty, keeping my customers once I get their attention?
MEASURE: How can I test a campaign and measure my success?

Attract

Attracting consumers with social media requires rich content, appropriate placement, frequent communication, viral marketing and built-in interaction.

Content

Content is king in social media. Engaging, compelling and interactive content will do more than anything else to attract visitors. To develop brand-friendly content: Brainstorm key phrases, metadata and search terms using the four brainstorming channels:

• Your products and services
• Your customers’ problems or needs
• Actual or perceived benefits
• Your competition

Test your terms. Once you feel your marketing team has identified the key words that will help your customers find you, test those terms. Excellent test aids that will cost you less than $100 include:

• KeywordDiscovery.com
• Wordtracker.com

Align your copy. Once you know what search terms your customers are using, your Web site, your blog, your online articles, your Facebook posts and your Twitter Tweets will all benefit from a rewrite that aligns your content with your key words.

Placement

To attract members of your target market, you need to find where they “hang out” on the web. What Twitter accounts or lists do they follow? What Facebook groups are they part of? What LinkedIn groups do they belong to? For example, a search on LinkedIn for groups associated with the keyword “healthcare practitioner” results in 11 different healthcare-related groups. If this feels overwhelming, the following applications can make tracking your target market on the Web much easier:

• Tweetdeck.com (allows you to separate tweets into columns and organize columns by interest)
• Digg.com (sorts and displays articles and online content that have achieved major search engine attention)
• Technorati.com (correlates blog research needs, includes top tags, top 100 blogs, topics searched, etc.)

Frequency

Social media is current, and social media campaigns require frequent updating in order to be effective:

• Twitter accounts should be updated 5-15 times per week
• Facebook profiles should be updated at least once a week (preferably once a day)
• Email blasts should be sent out prior to events and press releases
• LinkedIn group interactions should occur at least twice a month
• An active blog posts at least twice a month

Viral marketing

Social media is incredibly effective because of its viral ability to tap into pre-existing social networks. To make your campaign more “viral,” make sure all your webpages (not just the homepage) have links to Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds and other social media sites. Also, link social media pages to each other so that viewers can pass the page along (tweet, post, etc.) to their entire social networks with a single click.

Interaction

Social media is interactive. Allowing customers to comment on blog and Facebook posts, or retweet Twitter tweets to their friends, or engage in games, contests and surveys on your Web site all increase the interactive nature of their experience. Research has shown that there is a strong correlation between how interactive social media is and how effective it is.

Continue to part 2: Energize Your Marketing Through Social Media.

Convert

As nice as it is when someone visits your Web site, conversion occurs after initial contact (sometimes long after) when a potential consumer either purchases a product or provides personal contact information. In social media campaigns, conversion is measured by:

• An increase in Facebook, Twitter and blog followers
• Email captures
• Requests for purchase
• Product purchases

Integrate

Social media campaign components do not work individually. When you integrate components, you experience an exponential surge in consumer awareness and attention.

Website

When integrated with social media, your Web site:

• Serves as a landing pad for Facebook posts and Tweets
• Provides your most detailed, long-term information view
• Hosts blogs, increasing credibility and raising search engine ratings

Think of your Web site as books in a library. The books themselves don’t reach out for attention; rather they provide detailed information when someone goes looking for it. To integrate your Web site:

• Build social media functionality into Web site
• Align metadata and tags with keyword search results
• Add Facebook apps, Twitter apps and RSS feed links
• Host a content-relevant blog directly on the Web site
• Build in link-baits

Facebook

Facebook is one of the most effective means of “outreach” for today’s consumers. With more than 350 million users, Facebook has become the place where consumers have daily conversations about topics of interest with their “friends.” Facebook is also where early adopters let everyone know about what’s new, innovative and interesting. While many businesses are creating Facebook profiles, a successful Facebook strategy is integrated with an overall marketing and PR campaign. Integration involves:

• Using your keyword analysis to write compelling content in Facebook posts
• Launching Facebook groups (or have your passionate consumers launch the groups)
• Posting regularly
• Including videos and photos in your posts
• Creating a Facebook ad campaign

Twitter

Tweets are passing bits of intrigue in a sea of information. Tweets attract attention to a headline, which is then linked to a video, podcast or webpage. Twitter works best for announcing events or status updates or building a loyal following. Twitter requires multiple tweets a day (which requires a resource) and can best be leveraged when public interest already exists concerning a topic. To integrate Twitter:

• Have your Tweets automatically update on Facebook
• Use apps, such as bit.ly, to shorten url links
• Coordinate Tweet content with your PR strategy
• Re-tweet content from prominent tweeters

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the social media service for professionals. Use this service to build B2B relationships. A LinkedIn profile is similar to a Facebook profile, except that the information is more static. On the other hand, LinkedIn groups are better organized and easier to search than Facebook groups. Integrate LinkedIn with your social media campaign by writing LinkedIn profiles for key personnel and participating in relevant groups.

Blog

Blogs are the best way to keep your web content current. Every time you post a new blog, the search engine registers new content on your site and ups your rating. Blog posts are simple to create and can help establish a professional as an authority.

Email

Email differs considerably from Facebook and Twitter in that it lands in a consumer’s in-box and stays there until the consumer sees it. Facebook posts and tweets, on the other hand, float by in a dizzying rush, and are only useful if the consumer happens to see them before they are pushed off the page. Email integration strategies should include:

• Email capture and email “baits” that are built into the web design
• A branded email blast template to use when announcing news, product info, research results, etc.
• An E-zine for communicating weekly updates or newsletters
• Email capture that asks only for email and first name
• Confirmation links that are “above the fold”

Continue to part 3: Energize Your Marketing Through Social Media.

Build

Social media has expanded the ways you can stay in touch with your target market. It brings you into their daily lives, allowing you to build brand loyalty by deepening their response grooves and strengthening their emotional bond. Social media also provides several channels through which your increasingly loyal consumers can share their brand experiences and preferences with others.

Measure

Why do any of this? Because you can measure your social media ROI and continually refine your strategy to improve your results. In measuring the success of your social media, consider adding Google Analytics, follower counts and SEO ratings.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the best tools out there for analyzing traffic on your Web site. Use Google Analytics to:

• Run and view reports
• See how your site is performing weekly, daily or even hourly
• Analyze what visitors do when they come to your site
• Track conversion ratios
• See where your traffic comes from (are they typing in your URL or finding you in a search engine, for example)
• Find out how long they stay on your site (how many pages they view, which ones, etc.)
• Check your bounce rate (percentage of users who leave after viewing only one site page)

Counting followers

Counting your Facebook fanbase, your Twitter followers or your blog followers is a simple means of measuring the success of a social media campaign. In social media, numbers count. Fans can be fickle and may not want to promote a business or product that doesn’t have a robust following. Visitors will often read back through old posts before deciding whether or not to become fans themselves. Lead out with a dozen strong entries to jumpstart your Facebook fanbase, your Twitter following or your blog.

SEO ratings

Start with basic search engine optimization, then use social media activity to build backlinks and raise the activity level of your Web site. To make your Web site, blog and social media activities search-engine friendly:

• Use approved coding practices (clean codes keeps your Web site out of the Google garbage can, otherwise known as the supplemental index)
• Know what people are searching for (key words and terms)
• Align content with search terms
• Get more incoming links from SE
• Watch your SE ratings soar

I do hope these suggestions and guidelines are helpful as you explore the new world of social media. Start out small. Learn by doing. Accept that change is constant. And have fun.

VItafoods also just announced a companion show to launch in Hong Kong in 2011 called Vitafoods Asia.

All of this increased activity, combined with the rising profile of the Health Ingredients Europe show, points to the continued globalization of the nutraceutical, functional food and beverage marketplace. This exchange of ideas and cultures bodes well for industry growth over the coming years, as well as for cross-cultural innovation that I believe will help drive product development for the future.

We should all embrace and encourage this trend toward globalization as it will benefit companies on both sides of the transaction.

Together we explored trends in health marketing and product development, discussed the economic and psychological impact of the recent recession and debated pending health claim regulations.

Without a doubt the New Zealand natural products industry has come of age and has set an ambitious goal to grow to $5 billion in revenue by 2025. In my considered opinion, they are well on their way.

Thanks to my new Kiwi friends for a warm and gratifying experience.

Only time will tell if this type of allegiance is merely lip service, or if these types of companies thrive based on an elusive brand loyalty not available to their less responsible competitors. Judging from the recent spate of environmentally responsible innovations announced by mainstream companies, there is confidence in America’s boardrooms that these kinds of initiatives will be rewarded by consumers. And I think they are right. At a recent conference I happened upon Coke’s new green packaging for Dasani water, manufactured partially (30%) from plants and 100% recyclable. I find it encouraging that large companies are embracing the idea of a greener planet and a greater “community”, because they are out ahead of a population that is coming to share these values more every day.

I predict that companies that take bold steps now will be the opinion leaders of tomorrow, and reap the benefits of increased mind share and market share as consumers recognize and embrace their own sense of global responsibility.

View the Innovations in Packaging and Branding presentation.

Make it viral. In every social media message, incentivize your followers to forward or publicize your messages to others, who, in turn, can do the same. Top incentives include photos, videos, and engaging links. Also, be certain to include an app on all messaging that allows viewers to share your info on their own profiles with a single click.

Integrate it. Build on existing public relations and marketing campaigns. Your social media arm is designed to reach out and grab your followers’ attention, but it’s not intended to provide detailed information. Include a link in every post or tweet to your website or blog so viewers can peruse your offering in greater detail. And make sure that, once they get to your blog or website, there’s something novel and interactive there to keep them involved with your brand.

Enrich the content. The best way to show your followers you appreciate them is to have something to say before you say it. As with press releases, the consuming public is weary of posts and tweets that don’t offer anything interesting, unique or relevant. Before each communication, ask yourself “What tidbit am I providing my visitors that they will find worthwhile and want to pass along?” If there isn’t one, it’s time for a rewrite. In short, think before you tweet.

Is anyone else catching the significance of this event? It turns the traditional vertical integration supply model on its head; literally. Does this hint that powerful, branded proprietary ingredient suppliers are tired of waiting for co-branding partners to come a courting? Why not just push their way into retail on the coattails of an acquired manufacturer.

I can’t say I am totally surprised by this turn of events. It does, however signal a potential shift in strategy within the value chain, and has important repercussions for ingredient suppliers, retailers and ultimately the consumer. Stay tuned.