Everyday brings the ecommerce world closer to using social media as a serious form of marketing, but one of the ongoing challenges for many businesses is in how to implement a sustainable action plan.  In the social media marketing flow chart below, labeled, Figure 1.1, it is plain to see that all online-ecommerce store social media marketing information should stem from and bring traffic back to The Blog.
Figure 1.1
In Figure 1.1, we define social media as an extension and sharing of a well-thought out, timely, and  newsworthy blog. The blog is the anchor point to which all social media conversation will refer back.
How the Figure 1.1. New Social Media Map works:
- Produce a well written and properly reference blog. Make this blog as high quality as possible, as it will be archived and visited for many years by all of your various social media generated customers.
- Press it! Take that blog, re-format it into a press release and send it off to your press list. Make sure to include the original blog link that includes hyper-linked text references.
- Tweet it! Take creative 140 character long bytes from the blog and tweet them, but don’t forget to include a shrunken bit.ly link version of your long blog url into the post.
- Partner it! Now that you have some valuable, copyrighted, information on your blog in the form of educational articles, updates, etc. make proposals to partner store sites to share that blog content.
- Link it on relevant LinkedIn groups to reach many thousands of potential customers. The blog link alone can be posted as “news” or “discussion” depending on the level of social media interaction you want.
- Fan it! Every time a new blog is posted, make sure to post it on your Facebook fan page, along with a catchy description that encourages fan interaction.
- News Cast it! Instead of writing a completely new client newsletter, include your blog content in as many sections as possible and make sure to hyperlink clients back to your blog and website whenever the opportunity arises.
- Bundle it! If your blog truly contains fresh information that the public would consider valuable, submit proposals to local and national news aggregates asking them to include a RSS feed of your blog on their social media or citizen journalists’ news reels.
- YouTube videos can be knitted snugly into your blog accompanied by a well-written, SEO sensitive, Google index-able text wrap to bring customers back to your site for their viewing pleasure.
Although the blog is the social media anchor or hand, if you will, holding all of the many social media balloons that would otherwise escape into cyber-space, all of the social media applications in the world can’t increase conversion if there is no place for customers to convert. We mentioned in a previous blog that WordPress will allow developers to completely integrate your blog into any ecommerce store website, but along with this upgrade, it’s also important to include internal store website links within your site-integrated blog to maximize social media conversion.
In addition to activating this new social media map model to maximize conversion, be consistent in your communications, don’t be shy about re-posting older blogs in a new way, and make as many friends as you can!
Does all this overwhelm you? Do you just not have the time? Call the FastPivot social media experts to handle all your social media needs. FastPivot.com has a team of social media consultants ready to provide you with the social media training or social media help solutions you need to be successful.
For more information, check out some of our other social media marketing  blogs published via The FastPivot.com Blog:
1) Social Validation and Social Media
2) 2010 Social Media Marketing Predictions, Part I
3) 2010 Social Media Marketing Predictions, Part II
4) Channel the Popularity of YouTube
5) Twitter: A Growing Asset for Business Owners
6) Facebook: A Growing Asset for Business Owners
7) Using LinkedIn to Market Online Store Brands & Product
8) Update Your Organizational Chart to Maximize Social Media Marketing Efforts
9) Five Fundamentals For Developing Social Media Policy
10) Integrate Social Media With Your Ecommerce Store
11) Five Ways to Improve Social Media Customer Experience
12) Social Media Time Management & Expectations
13) Will Social Media Replace Email?
14) How to Create Catchy Content for Distracted Social-Media-Lites
15) Marketing on Twitter is Based on Two Practical-Use Approaches
16) “Why Won’t Anyone Re-Tweet Me?”
To receive the latest ecommerce store design and development news, stay tuned to The FastPivot.com Blog and sign up to receive the FastPivot.com ecommerce newsletter.
This is an excellent article. I’ve been espousing to my clients the power of blogging, but it takes a lot of effort on their part to generate the content. As each company matures and brings new, social media savvy individuals into the organization, they will surely be implementing the strategy you outline here. Very well done.