Hash tags are very sneaky and devious symbols that add tremendous value to your online marketing within the social media sphere. Hashtags (#) have been around for an awful long time, but have only been added to the social media marketing arena quite recently. A list of pages that were accessed during research for this post and associated
#hashtagmarketing concepts is appended at the end of the post. These pages are not in any order and should each be accessed by you, as each one of these linked pages will add to your understanding of hash tags and the power that the #hashtag adds to your marketing arsenal.
For us to explain the powerful relationship between #FUFISM and #hashtagmarketing , as far as SEO, SMO, general marketing, online marketing and social media marketing in particular are concerned, we will need to briefly out line each of these topics and a few other related issues, then we will discuss how they are interconnected, and show you what we at Info4u consider to be best practice for effective #HASGTAGMARKETING or marketing using the # (hash tag) as a campaign search engine optimization tool that will carry campaign specific Search Engine Optimization Value Indicators.
- FUFISM <=> Functional User Friendly Integrated Social Media
- SEO <=> Search Engine Optimisation
- SEOVI <=> Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators
- SMO <=> Social media Optimisation
- SMM <=> Social Media Marketing
- CM <=> Content Marketing
- SEM <=> Search Engine Marketing
- SERP <=> Search Engine Results Page
- # <=> the hash tag (#hastag)
1) FUSISM
The best explanation that I have used so far is found here and is quoted below
Start quoe <<--
FUFISM is a marketing philosophy where the social media forms the core functional element of the communication factors involved in online marketing and is used to integrate all the different marketing strategies into one coherent and integrated project where each marketing campaign may be worked on in isolation, but remains connected to the whole through its links to the social media as well as the publisher and the author or authors of the various online components of each campaign. -->> end quote
2) SEO
Search engine optimisation is mostly a misunderstood concept, with many thinking that SEO is purely the technical in page sneaky coded stuff that helps add SEOVI to your page, this is how ever a very big error in judgement, as Search Engine Optimisation is an extremely wide collection of various fields, where many different disciplines need to co-operate in a co-ordinated manner and
I suggest the you read more about SEO here below is a quote from the page linked.
Start quote <<-- SEO or Search Engine Optimisation should be defined as the
collective effort of your entire marketing team in their efforts to
ensure that your online information is found by your intended target
market when they search for your information, products or services
online. -->> end quote
3) SEOVI
SEOVI or Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators is a term that I have started to use extensively to help me explain the term FUFISM. SEOVI are basically the different variables that a search engine would use in their algorithms to determine a relevant SERP that would supply the most likely answer to an end users query. SEOVI are the
online marketing issues and specific tags within the HTML 5 set of tags, that are evaluated and assessed by your marketing team that would add some value for a search engine to your online work.
Social signals and related social media issues are also included as SEOVI and this is an awful lot more important, since the introduction of Google Humming Bird Algorithm, with Google's new approach to SEO, where semantics and the linguistics associated with semantics are now the primary issue to determine SERP's
See this
Google Humming bird infographic and this
post on the 4u brand Blog discussing Google Humming bird for a deeper insight into the meaning of SEOVI
4) SMO
SMO or Social Media Optimisation is a new concept which forms part and parcel of SEO or Search Engine Optimization, but is focused exclusively on the use of social media and the associated social signals that would be generated through the different posts on different social media platforms and their collective interaction with the target page where your campaign specific call to action would reside.
The best person to follow on Google plus
for SMO is
+Joshua Berg as Joshua takes these matter rather seriously and blogs about SMO extensively.
5) SMM
SMM or Social Media Marketing is the core function of SMO where the social media is used as the basis for online marketing to a specified niche market within a specific social media platform.
Social Media Marketing is basically a sub set of SMO (Social Media Optimisation) within the bigger picture of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) . SMO is getting quite a bit of attention since the introduction of the Google Humming Bird algorithm, but one does need to remember that SMM is just an off shoot of SMO and is in reality just one of the many components of SEO that you need to master in order to get the best value out of the organic SERP's in all search engines.
6) CM
CM or Content Marketing is a core component of SEO that needs some serious attention. many will tell you that content is king and this is something that you do need to evaluate with great care. The introduction of Google Humming bird makes this statement even more relevant, as the more content that you have online, the easier it is for Google to make better semantic correlations with your content and a search query.
Content Marketing is all about your content, and the content management plan that you have in place to manipulate your content through the use of data base management strategies, that display your content in a variety of different formats for different target market groups and different product lines within your various online resources, with the intent on ensuring that your intended target market enjoys your content and has a pleasant experience consuming your online content and engaging with you online.
7) SEM
SEM or Search Engine Marketing is a subset of SEO where the total focus is on the impacts of your SEO on the organic traffic in specific search engines. SEM does not consider the human element of things, and is thus (in our opinion at Info4u) a rather short sighted approach which should be properly evaluated then used sparingly.
SEM excludes semantics and focuses on KEY WORDs to the exclusion of most other SEO related issues.
There are how ever many people who will try to convince you differently, and it is your choice if you allow them to fool you or not. One must just consider the explanation of SEO as above, then think about how Search Engine Marketing fits into this picture to have a clear understanding of the real value of SEM
8) SERP
SERP's or Search Engine Results pages are a search engines answer to a users query, and contain a list of links which the search engine believes is the most likely set of links that would contain the most relevant answer to the end users query. SERP's usually refer to the organic result, but are also supplied in various other formats where ever a user searches online for an answer. Many of the social media platforms have their own in-house search which supplies SERP's drawn exclusively from within their walled gardens.
One must remember that there are only three different ways an end user may find your information.
1) luck or serendipity
2) due to some form of advertising such as
- word of mouth or personal recomendation
- radio advert
- TV advert
- print media advert (newspaper / flyer / bill board etc)
- PPC (paid per click) advertising and add-words marketing
- directory listing or other online advertising
3)
by using a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, Bing or any other search engine.
Search engines use #SEOVI or Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators to asses the search values of a web page by processing these variables through a series of algorithms and then comparing the results to an end users query. This process starts long before a search is initiated by a search query, and in reality begins when a page is first crawled and indexed by a search engine of some type. The search engines send out what are commonly called spider bots which scour the internet looking for all online content by following links already in their databases, and indexing the content of every online resource that they can detect, and have permission to access.
Search engines perform many small tasks evaluating this information and store the results within a variety of different areas of their very large databases for later use in other search algorithms. This information then remains idle and awaits the final search algorithm which uses the information in the various databases where the many precursory algorithms have prepared your pages information and compares this to the end users search query using a host of short search algorithms and returns an answer in fractions of a second.
A SERP is thus a very complex issue that takes an awful lot of information into consideration and the #hashtag if present is just one of very many issues that a search engine has considered before passing you what it believes is the best possible solution to your query.
9) The Hashtag explained
The hashtag is a simple thing to implement, as it is done by preceding any typed word with the hash symbol.
(#) The hash symbol is found on a standard QWERTY KEY BOARD as the "captial' of the number 3 on the upper row of numerals, or by holding down the shift key and pressing the "3" key
Note that some key boards in Europe and other parts of the world may be confusing as they have replaced the "shift 3" with other meanings, and the apple mac also has other issues see links below for more on this
Using the #hashtag with any word adds special meaning to that word, and helps any search engine add special value to your niche search by including only values that contain this very exclusive SEOVI. (Search Engine Optimisation Value Indicators) in the SERP's for your hashtag.
So how does this tie in with your FUFISM based marketing and the (#) hashtag?
First thing you need to remember is that you need to take your time and establish a unique hash tag that will suit your marketing needs by evaluating your intended target market and understanding how this group will relate to your selected hashtag. This selected hashtag needs to be unique and must some how be connected to your brand, your product or your event that you will be marketing.
see http://bit.ly/hashtag-power This hashtag must be short, sweet on the tong, easy on the eyes, soft on the typing fingers and relevant to
YOUR SPECIFIC marketing campaign.
The real power is in the #FUFISM factors and how you envisage that you will integrate your selected hashtag with all the pieces of this specific marketing campaign into your overall marketing plan. You will need a well structured marketing campaign that is time specific, and focuses on all your social media platforms with a view of social interaction with your intended target market segments.
You will need to consider the following areas amongst many others which you will recognize as your plan progresses.
- content marketing
- Social media marketing
- search engine marketing
- Social media optimisation
- Search engine optimsation
- off line marketing strategies such as
- radio and Television
- news papers and magazines
- pamphlets and flyers
- billboards and posters
- target market identification and selection criteria
- market research target market preferences
- your marketing team structure and management style
- Free flow of social media comments and company interactions
- the ability of your marketing team to act fast and push the conversations in any specific direction without being overtly intrusive or abusive.
- the preparedness of your entire company to become involved and supply the customers needs at large scale in short time spans should your campaign go viral.
So where do you start?
step 1 <=> define your purpose, aims and objectives of your
current total marketing plan showing where the company objectives are being fulfilled, and have a written report on these issues.
step 2 <=> define the product, service or other information that you envisage marketing in your new campaign, showing how and where this fits in with your current marketing strategies, and make any necessary adjustments to your marketing strategies and policies that may be needed.
step 3<=> start building your plan for this specific marketing campaign by doing some serious market research and difine the following aspects in seperate reports
- product / service / information definitions and associated literature
- geographic location based data of targeted areas where your campaign should reach
- break down of different target market groups as supplied by your marketing team
- staff available with specific social media platform capabilities
- face book
- twitter
- YouTube
- google plus
- Pinterest
- tumbler
- all others
- blogging team
- web design team
- SEO consultants or inhouse specialists
- marketing team with speciality areas listed : examples listed below
- radio and TV
- News papers and magazines
- flyers, pamphlets and billboards
- telephone marketing
- cold calling reps
- instore / in house branding
- product branding / marketing
- purpose of campaing
- aims and objectives
- other areas that come to mind for your specific industry
Now that you have a target market, a product / service decide on a campaign theme
Next brain storm with all involved in doing this preliminary research to determine a single hashtag that would suit your needs and then check for availability. If needed change the hashtag focus to be campaign specific. Remember that this hashtag should be used in general conversation, so choose wisely and do not be silly about the choice of hashtag.
special note : research your chosen hashtag and evaluate what is there before proceeding. You may get some very strange and negative issues if your choose badly.
before using this hashtag anywhere discuss this issue verbally with your main management and
get their approval in writing (make sure they do not use this hashtag early, because this indiscretion could cause failure of your campaign) Once you have this approval get your team together and discuss the timeline for your campaign and work out the finer details of how you expect your target market to react and where your call to action statements will be marketed, as well as how these will be handled by your team once your intended target market starts to respond. Have a back up plot in place to handle all those who fall outside of your intended target market who get all caught up in the hype and have a way to move them out of the conversion funnel in a happy way, do not just use a filter and discard their interactions, but rather find a way to apologize for misleading them and show them other related areas of your business where they may have an interest, as they have shown an interest in your campaign, and proof of that is that they are now an in your face problem which needs delicate handling.
Put your landing pages with your final stages of the conversion funnel in place first, once these are functional, work backwards through the conversion funnel and when there are enough steps in place start the offline marketing camapaign and go at it full speed.
Follow up with serious social media posts with links to the landing pages of different stages of your conversion funnel, and ensure that each post within the social media contains at least one iteration of your campaign specific hashtag. Try to use this hashtag in the general conversation within the social media when ever possible.
Remember that this hashtag has by now been marketed in many places, such as news papers, magazines, flyers, pamphlets, Radio and other trans media outlets.
If you have done the FUFISM thing correctly then your administration staff, your sales staff, production staff, your public relations staff and all others will be prepared and waiting, just in-case your campaign goes viral.
once again just to remind you we will expalin the term FUFISM
FUFISM is a marketing philosophy where the social
media forms the core functional element of the communication factors
involved in online marketing and is used to integrate all the different
marketing strategies into one coherent and integrated project where
each marketing campaign may be worked on in isolation, but remains
connected to the whole through its links to the social media as well as
the publisher and the author or authors of the various online
components of each campaign
Now you need to remember that each social media platform works in conjunction with all other social media platforms, but is a separate mini campaign within this specific marketing project. Each separate social Media platform needs to be integrated into the main campaign through an integrated approach and as such you will need a campaign specific manager who will manage the integration by running a database that lists each social media post with a reference number so that cross referancing things becomes a simple task, where every post is available to all team members across all platforms.
The reason for this is multi purpose and includes :
- so that images may be pinned in pinterest and then referanced in
- facebook
- twitter
- Google Plus
- your blog
- your web site
- other online resources
- So that posts in Facebook may be referenced in
- twitter
- Google plus
- your blog
- your webiste
- so that posts in Google Plus may be referenced in
- facebook
- twitter
- your blog
- your web site
You get the point here, all your social media platforms must cross referance all the others in natural ways and expand on the topic as is discussed in those posts, but keep in focus your conversion funnel which must be the primary objective of all your social media conversations.
Each post should try to get the viewer or end user of your information one step closer to the final stage of your conversion funnel. This means that your conversion funnel must be well documented and distributed to all participants so that each person working on your specific hashtag campaign knows who your intended target market is, and who is not to be taken through the conversion process, but gently lead off to other areas of your total marketing campaign where they may fall into other target market zones.
