How brands can bind followers and fans after winning them?
A September 2010 survey by the social media marketing agency Cone revealed that the incentives, such as deals, the solution of problems and the feedback on products and services are the biggest attraction for users and clients connecting with brands online.

Important reasons for losing followers and fans are mostly:

• sending out too many messages
• too much information
• irresponsibly acting
• irrelevant or uninteresting content

The survey demonstrated that the content is an important success factor to take into consideration. If it is improved in terms of timing, quantity and quality, fans and followers will keep listening and being loyal to the brands.

Worn out about sticking on your laptop? Don’t pass up the chance to meet the international social media crew in Basel.

The third international social media apero will be hold in the hearth of Basel again at the restaurant Kohlmanns. See the MAP on Blomap.

Guests and members of the social media Basel group are coming from the countries bordering on the west, France and Germany, obviously from Switzerland and having different nationalities.

To get a better understanding about the format of the event you can have a look at the latest Social Media Apero video interviews gallery.

You can join the group and the event on Facebook and on Xing or follow us on Twitter.

Why are you going to create a new community if there’s Facebook?
This is a kind of question you could often and bitterly be surprised to be asked in case you are about to create a new community.

While reflecting about the possibility of succeeding in new social media projects, good reasons for saying that it is not gonna work can also arise very easily.

In fact, many people say that social media are another web fluff maybe just because many communities or groups have been abandoned or left spoiled or just because they don’t understand this new industry.

Actually two are the most relevant business approaches in social media:

-         social media marketing: marketing campaign of  brands, products or people done on social media;

-         to mix a community to a business: for example to use a community to advertise brands, products or people or to offer paying memberships with special privileges.

As for the Social Media Marketing, there are some figures, which demonstrate that it is mainly played on few social networks:

- 96% of marketers with years of social media experience are using Twitter, while 91% used Facebook and 89% LinkedIn.

- marketers with some social media experience are also big on Twitter (92%), followed by Facebook (88%) and LinkedIn (76%) (source www.emarketer.com).

- following: blogs (70%); Youtube or other video sites (46%); Social bookmarking sites (i.e. Delicious);  Forums (26%); Digg, Reddit, Mixx, StumbleUpon or similar sites (22%); Ning Sites (17%); My Space(11%).

The main motivation for that is partially linked to the fact that social networks are very rich or the richest in terms of members. Other important reasons are some social media tools that allow marketers to run the campaigns and to publish commercial information.

So until the community you are creating becomes a Big and you are able to offer social media tools matching the marketers’needs, you won’t see so many social media marketers running campaigns on your website.

As for how to transform a community into a business, this is only a short list with three basic recommendations:

- don’t forget to put in your business plan the costs derived from this reality: contributors are in average 2% of the entire community members, so you need a team of publishers, community managers and social media specialists (I dare you to find them) to run your business;

- preferably and accurately choose and study your market and focus on it, generalist social networks are harder to soar.

- a community is a round-the-clock job such as a whatever other business.

At this point, if you are again asked the question: “Why are you starting another community if we have Facebook?”, you may just answer:“Many people don’t buy furniture at Ikea”.

Set up what you have the full rights to call business and good luck!

The first Social Media Apero in Basel on 25th of February had some interesting guests. Here you can see a short movie with some pictures and a video-interviews gallery. The second Social Media Apero will be announced very soon on the Social Media Apero profile on Twitter, on the fan page on Facebook and on Swissite International. Join the Social Media Basel group on Facebook to network with a crowd of new brilliant members such as Gerd Leohnard, Thomas Hutter, Sabine Dufaux and so on.

The online spending in US has always been very high, higher than in other countries and internet users are demonstrating optimism beyond the turndown. This is a clear sign of a wealthy market where retailers are turning to social media to attract new customers and attain new clients.

According to that the question that www.Emarketer.com recently made is: will upper-income consumer be as receptive to social media marketing as other web users? In other words are the richest people a segment of that target group?

As Unity Marketing reported, most affluents, which would be clients of luxury brands, mostly use social networking sites to keep in touch with friends, family and old friends and only 7% to connect with brands.

Potential luxury brands’clients check out fan pages but do not necessarily become a fan. They don’t expose themselves to the commercial side of social media: in fact they have viewed brand pages, but only one-quarter have become a follower or joined a group.

Therefore the way to measure the engagement should be to look to visits rather than followers and fans. So Ms. Danziger by Unity Marketing said that luxury brands should rethink their websites in social networking terms rather than having a Facebook fan page.
Conversely online interaction on the company’s website is a must.

Edelman reported in January 2010 that among informed Internet users in the top 25% of household income, only one-quarter used their friends and peers for company information. “Affluent consumers may not necessarily respond to common social marketing tactics,” said eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson. Richest people look much less persuadable than the average Social Networks users. They probably expect more from the brands they pay so much and want to have less advice from friends from which they would probably be distinguishable in terms of purchases and style.

To sum up eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson recommends smart marketers to “segment their social marketing efforts, customizing their communications and offers based on the audience they want to target.” In other words: marketing rules are as effective in social media as in all other marketing initiatives.

Swissite International presents the first Social Media Apero in Basel which is meant to get together international social media people in Basel, though we would be glad to have guests from other Swiss cities, Germany, France and other countries according to the international nature of the Apero.
It’s an unique opportunity at the moment
JOIN IT NOW on Eventbrite!!!

If you may like to join Chiara Bolognini on Facebook you will get the invitation to the social media apero there and see all other interesting guests.
There are about 40 confirmed guests and about 45 maybe.

Listen to Chiara Bolognini’s Social Media Apero presentation.