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SocialEngage… The Next Generation of Social Media Management
Earlier today we launched SocialEngage, our next generation social media management application that brings together the best of CoTweet and new capabilities to further empower brands to engage with customers through social channels.
Developed in our San Francisco Social Media Lab, SocialEngage serves as the cornerstone of ExactTarget’s social media management suite. It features everything you’ve grown to know and love about CoTweet, and much more -- including features such as RSS integration, editorial workflow and Facebook management, just to name a few.
The beauty of SocialEngage is that it’s powerful enough for the world’s largest brands, but maintains the best of CoTweet’s ease of use for small to mid-sized organizations. We’ve built SocialEngage to easily scale across teams, departments and geographies, and we’ve made it easy to integrate with other interactive marketing channels, such as email and mobile, in support of broader marketing campaigns.
With the launch of SocialEngage, ExactTarget will discontinue our free edition of social media management software February 15. Brands currently using the free edition will receive an email later today with an exclusive invitation to participate in a free trial of SocialEngage through Feb. 29. Brands currently using CoTweet Enterprise (now SocialEngage) are not affected.
We want to express our sincere thanks to those who have helped us evolve CoTweet into the leading social media management solution. By bringing to a close our free product, we’ll expand our ability to focus on bringing you new innovations and cutting-edge products and features.
We look forward to sharing more on the tremendous innovation coming out of our Social Media Lab in the year ahead, including exciting announcements on new products and partnerships.
For more information about SocialEngage, visit www.ExactTarget.com/SocialEngageFAQ.
Margaret is blogging on behalf of the Social Media Marketing Team at ExactTarget.
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Manage Your Facebook Fan Pages With ExactTarget SocialPages™
Looking for innovative ways to drive engagement through your Facebook Fan Page, a new way to fuel email list growth from Facebook, or maybe just looking to get started and build your page from scratch?
ExactTarget SocialPages is here to help – putting Facebook Fan Page management in YOUR hands. It’s not enough to just have a fan page – companies need an active presence to gain the attention of users, drive consumer engagement, and increase brand awareness.
ExactTarget SocialPages provides a variety of tools to help, including:
1.) SocialPages Editor: You can build a branded presence on Facebook using our intuitive drag-n-drop editor or your own HTML. Built on the same platform as our email application, you can save time by building your new tabs using images you just leveraged in an email communication.
2.) ExactTarget Gears™: Design your tab by embedding ExactTarget Gears. Gears are highly-relevant content like forms (think: email signup, event registration, sweepstakes integrated with your email marketing software), Flickr Galleries, YouTube videos, and the Facebook Like button that you can add to your page design to drive interaction and accelearate the viral growth of your presence.
3.) Integrate Across Channels: Built on the Interactive Marketing Hub, you can manage your emails, texts, tweets, Facebook posts, tabs, content, and customer data all in one convenient location. Updates to your fan page appear in line with all other communication in the calendar and campaigns dashboard – helping you stay organized and on top of all your interactive marketing communications.
Interested in learning more? Find out here. Or, if you’re already an ExactTarget customer, you can sign up for early access on 3sixty.
Jeff is blogging on behalf of the Social Media Marketing Team at ExactTarget. -
Staffing the Social Conversation
In the past year @ExactTargetUK has spoken to hundreds of companies about their Social Media strategy and about social marketing. It’s true to say that each conversation has been very different and each company has their own unique views on how they should be seen Socially. But there are an increasing number of companies who realise that, whilst Social Media forms part of the Marketing and Sales functions, all parts of their business have something to gain from being part of this strategy. When we discuss what Social media means to our clients, one of the first point of call is what do they want their clients to experience from them being active on Facebook or Twitter. Identifying the personalities of a Twitter account or Facebook page is a crucial step in formulating your Social Media plan. If a consumer is to follow you on Twitter, like your brand on Facebook, what is in it for them? Maybe surprising to some, many of CoTweet users actually reside within the Customer Service departments of my clients. The reason for this is that, Customer Service teams talk to their clients daily via the phone, email, live chat and so the natural progression is they also use Social Media to have these conversations. After all, people are already talking about your brand on Twitter and Facebook, so take this opportunity to engage with people who are used to talking to customers. That’s not to say that Marketing/Sales/PR should not be involved, most of my clients’ Social Media teams are led by Marketing but they are forced to collaborate on engagement to ensure that not too many Sales messages are clogging up people’s Twitter feeds or Facebook Walls.
Here some of the key stages for developing your Social Media Marketing plan:- Create a virtual team, identify people in different departments who will add value to your social media engagement and bring them together.
- If you are active in Social media or not, look at the data, why are people talking about your brand and how can you catagorise these messages.
- Ask the all important question, “if our company is active on Twitter and Facebook what should our fans and followers expect”?
- Create personalities for each Twitter account and Facebook page. Customer service will engage in a very different way to your brand teams, should they have their own separate Twitter accounts (I believe the answer is a definite yes).
- Set the fans and followers expectations, in each bio explain what you are there to do and when they should expect to be able to talk to you. (Welcome to our Customer Service Twitter account, we’re here to help answer your questions Monday to Friday between 8am to 6pm, Weekends 10am to 4pm, any out of hours support can be found here www.outofhours.com)
- Assign responsibility to your virtual team, who is expected to do what and when and make sure they stick to it.
- Get started, once you’re up and running you will quickly understand what works and what doesn’t.
- Using Social media measurement tools, such as CoTweet, our clients are able to report on activity over time and optimise their resources accordingly.
- Encourage your fans and followers to subscribe to your newsletters, making Social part of the cross-channel marketing mix will work a lot better than if it is considered a separate department.
Staffing of these conversations is critical and sometimes the hardest part when building your Social Media strategy. Internal and cross-departmental support is vital and at the end of the day, it’s the business as a whole that will benefit.
Jon is blogging on behalf of the Social Media Marketing Team at ExactTarget white attending Connections UK.
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Join Social Media Experts in Phoenix on November 18!
In the spirit of a truly social time of year, our upcoming ExactTarget @SMAZ event is sure to get your social marketing ideas stirring. On Friday, November 18 at MadCap Theatres in Tempe, we will answer your social media questions and explore the best practices for how companies are integrating Facebook and Twitter into their overall marketing mix.
Presenters include Fortune 200 executives, social media authors, consultants, entrepreneurs, and SEM architects with years of experience who are willing to share the benefits of social media channels and the rewards of implementing internal and externalsocial media strategies.
Attendees will learn about how top companies are using social media to:- Build brand awareness across social channels
- Provide customer service through Twitter and Facebook
- Acquire new customers and retaining existing ones
- Integrate social media into the broader marketing mix including email and mobile marketing
Be Social in 2012! Start planning for 2012 @SMAZ on Friday, November 18 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Register today >>
Are you an ExactTarget client and can’t attend? Join 3sixty Live. 3sixtyLive is a user community that meets monthly in the Phoenix area!
@SMAZ Happy Hour
After the SMAZ event, join our 3sixty Live user community for a Happy Hour from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Gordon Biersch in Tempe, a short walk from the SMAZ event! Interact with other ExactTarget users face-to-face, connect with other marketing professionals in your area, exchange tips, tricks, and best practices with your peers, and help shape the future of the ExactTarget product. If you would like to attend this post-SMAZ event, please contact Amanda Berkey.
Interact with Cross-channel peers monthly at Phoenix 3sixty Live events! Starting in 2012, monthly meetings will take place in the Phoenix area. Register here to join.
Kevin is blogging on behalf of the Social Media Marketing Team at ExactTarget.
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#ETTip, The CoTweet RSS Publisher
Social Media doesn't sleep, but that doesn't mean you don't get to. The CoTweet RSS Publisher is a real-time solution that streamlines the process of broadcasting the latest news and trends automatically across social networks including Facebook and Twitter. The RSS Publisher makes it possible to automatically generate targeted, relevant content to engage customers and fuel the conversation across the social web.
Many social marketers may wonder, what is the line between over engaging and under communicating, and how do you keep all of this under control? We understand that there are several strategies for managing Facebook and Twitter for business. The CoTweet RSS Publisher’s agile design allows teams to structure this feature the way it works for them. Using the RSS Publisher you can target posts and tweets to the right groups, track the efficiency of the messages you send and create work flow based on customizable user privileges and permissions.- Drive conversation about the latest news and trends relevant to your brand 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Generate targeted content to specific channels and customizable locations.
- Save time by automatically syndicating information instead of scouring the Internet for relevant topics.
Setting up the RSS Publisher - You do not need advanced technical knowledge to set up to CoTweet RSS Publisher. Check out the CoTweet RSS Publisher in this short demo to get set-up and get started!
Have any questions? We're adding new articles to the ExactTarget Wiki. For more information on the RSS Publisher check out the ExactTarget Wiki.
Meg is blogging on behalf of the Social Media Marketing Team at ExactTarget.