Promoting your products and services through Statusbites

Since one of my key jobs is to find out how social media and user generated content can contribute to social change, we recently came up with a simple tactic which I call ‘statusbites’ to increase the circulation, frequency and visibility of status messages in social networks specific to any campaign, cause etc. Since the same principles can be applied to for-profit organisations as well, I thought to share the same for use by Bangladeshi managers who are contemplating how best to use social media for a variety of business objectives. Please note that increasingly consumers are getting to know about your products and services not from your official websites and TVCs but from the newsfeeds in their Facebook profiles through the fan pages and groups of companies they subscribe to. So an important mindshift needs to take place that rather than expecting consumers to travel to your websites to know more about you, you need to make sure that your message is travelling to where they are spending their times these days.

What are statusbites?

Statusbites are a series of short texts which describes a company product, service, news piece, event etc. which can be published and promoted over a period of time through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Why do we need statusbites?
Its not always the case that users come to your company website to know more about your products and services. You need to ensure that your messages travel to digital spaces where an increasing number of your customers spend a significant amount of their daily lives in recent times – social networks. Statusbites aim to inform consumers who are more comfortable to consuming information through social networks with the help of the series of statusbites. So by the end of the run of say 10-15 status messages and provided they have followed the sequence – they would be able to comprehend the key messages, key benefits, objectives, features etc. regarding the product, service your company is trying to promote.

Also, you can’t expect that all your followers and fans in social media come across your posts the moment you publish them. Most of the time your publications/status messages can be buried down a plethora of other messages that the users are bombarded with every second – both from updates from their friends/families and from other subscriptions. So you need to make sure that your message shows up often- not to flood the newsfeed, but in convenient frequencies.

How to prepare statusbites?
•Think of the 10 or 15 key messages you want consumers to know about the product, service, event you are organising
•Write each of them down within 130 characters with space and the hashtag of your choice (i.e. #gpnewoffer)
•State whether you want each of the statusbites to link to your company website, Facebook page etc.

How are they scheduled?
The statusbites can be scheduled to appear in your preferred social networking properties with the help of a third party software called Co-Tweet. The scheduling of statusbites publication can be spread over a week, two weeks etc. depending on the plan of promotion before, during or after a target event, date of your product/service launch.

Example:
Gpfact1/10 - #grameenphone launches #mobitaka to make remittances easier http://shortlinktoyourwebsite

Gpfact2/10 – did you know that #mobitaka allows you to get rewards of 10% for every 100 taka you remit? http://shortlinktoyourwebsite

Gpfact3/10 – did you know that 10,000 people used #mobitaka in November to remit a total of 150,000 taka to their friends and families? http://shortlinktoyourwebsite

So as you can see, you don’t have to do entirely new things in social media for your products and services, rather if you tweak your status message slightly to suit your objectives and the audience, you might appear to be more engaging and informing in social media networks. Let me know what you think.