Case Study: Mountain Mama Maternity
Social media marketing for women who like outdoor life – biking, climbing, kayaking, rowing and hiking – should have stylish, functional clothing for all stages of life, including pregnancy.
That’s the mission of Red Cup when working with Mountain Mama, founded by Teresa Delfín, whose title at the company is Chief Executive Mama. Not only is the company expanding the boundaries of technical apparel, but Teresa brings, as she puts it, “wilderness ethics and a mother’s touch to how we do things.” The company keeps its footprint small and has eliminated commuting by creating a virtual office that allows their people work where they live.
Why social media marketing?
Mountain Mama markets everywhere, so Twitter was a good fit for the leading edge of our online marketing strategy. That’s because Twitter and Facebook know no geographic boundaries, so they are perfect for a company that ships goods. The first step was finding the Mountain Mama audience on Twitter. I searched in Twitter user profiles for women athletes, moms, moms-to-be, and outdoorsy families. The intersection of all those groups (and some vegetarians!) was the ‘sweet spot’ for the Twitter Mountain Mama audience. Teresa posts to the company feed often, and I add to it with a newsfeed of topics that resonates with our core customer groups. We’re engaging people, gaining followers daily, and will easily pass 1,000 followers (up from about 480 at the start) within a month or so.
If you’d like to engage potential customers, inform existing customers about your value, and develop awareness for your brand, then social media marketing can make that happen. But what channel should you choose? Twitter? Facebook? Blogs? Newsletters? Everything? To sort this out, let’s ask a few questions.
Using Twitter and Facebook for Business
Twitter and Facebook are good choices for a brand like Mountain Mama, because they are everywhere. If your product or brand is accessible online, then both will be good channels for you. Research comes first, so you need to find the right groups who will want to hear your message and take action on it. The good thing about Twitter and Facebook: audience growth and reach can happen fast.
Get more Hits on Your Website
If you need to introduce new customers to your brand, Twitter and Facebook allow you to reach out to a lot of people. If you’re already connected with a core group of loyal fans or customers, an e-newsletter can keep everyone up to speed with what you’re doing. A monthly e-newsletter can really get the word out, and weekly is better if you have enough news to fill it. A blog helps! Blogs can be used to attract new customers because they drive traffic to your webpages. They can be listed in blog directories and in sharing sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Delicious. You can run a link to your blog in your mailing list, connecting the dots nicely.
Marketing Strategy Driven by Metrics
A great strength of online media over conventional media is its measurement capability. We can see who’s looking at your pages, your blog, your Tweets, your Facebook pages, and optimize the content for them. It’s up to the minute and really useful if you want to know what’s working.
Website Marketing Consultant
Finally, as any web marketing consultant will tell you, you’ll want to consider ‘who has the microphone.’ Who’s really doing the talking in your social media campaign? If your business is to be effective on Facebook you’re going to allow comments and posts by others: everyone is talking at once – it’s an online cocktail party. I’ve seen companies try to ‘delete’ guests who get rowdy. It works – sort of. But it’s like trying to herd cats. Twitter can be controlled more easily because ‘unfollowing’ people is painless for all concerned. But if you want the most control of all, your blog and mailing list are the way to go. They are ‘all you.’ You moderate comments. You control the message.
You can use online communications to prove your expertise, claim authority, grow your visibility and show your value to an attentive audience. Want a one-page social media briefing in PDF form? That’s right here.
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Lee Schneider runs Red Cup Online Strategy + Media in Santa Monica, CA. Follow on Twitter. Find on Facebook. Subscribe to the Red Cup newsletter and find out about the be global podcast.
We create and deploy strategies to build awareness and grow the influence of cause-driven people and businesses.