Renegade Professional has strategically incorporated the social aspects of web media (known as social media marketing, or the social web) for much of its growth over the last year.
If you study closely, you’ll notice that Renegade Professional represents a contemporary purchase funnel, and that is the point of this short article, for internet marketers to take note of how Marketing Merge has created this purchase funnel, as well as what is called a feedback loop.
Notice this graphic by Dave Evans
Social Feedback Cycle by Dave Evans
Furthermore, it’s this model that Renegade Professional provides, that we can use as one example for the definition of “savvy social marketer” (considering I see that term used so often in vague terms).
Renegade Professional has turned teaching, learning and applying of internet attraction marketing into something just short of an academic activity, that in effect, has produced a positive impact on its users, and the attraction marketing community at-large.
This positive impact has generated more social media such as SquidooLens, Hubpages, Youtube, Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, BetterNetworker and countless numbers of blogs. And guess what!? They are all in favor of Renegade Professional. Powerful.
This, as a result, has profoundly influenced all marketers living in the vacuum that is internet attraction marketing. But more importantly for Renegade Professional, this influence has reached potential and current (perhaps inactive or on the fence) users during the very crucial “consideration stage.”
This has created a social feedback cycle that has recycled itself over and over (see diagram above).
For as long as experiential social media is generated by current Renegade Professional customers, the next wave of shoppers will be informed. In this example, they are informed with positive information.
That’s the power of social media. Because remember, it’s user-generated content that is most sought after and coveted as a market place indicator.
In conclusion, I have used Renegade Professional (there are other examples) to illustrate an effective example for using social media. In this example, Renegade Professional can serve a working definition of what it means to be a “savvy social marketer.”
Additionally, and most importantly, Renegade Professional provides a contemporary purchase model using social media to create a feedback loop.
When you break it all down, Renegade Professional has connected their “post purchase” customers in a social conversation with potential customers within the vacuum of a purchase funnel that we can call the “consideration stage.”
This powerful example as illustrated by Renegade Professional will prove to be a cornerstone for the effective application of social media as other web-based business entities (and individuals) move forward with the social web.
Here are a few questions I have for Renegade Professional (Mike Klingler) and other “savvy social marketers:”
1. Did you set out with this intention or did it happen organically? Did you have a hunch that this was possible, or was your only intention to create the best product possible that served the end user?
2. Do you have any tracking or measurement devices in place to gauge this deliberate or unintentional social media model?
3. Since there is no method, and no means to control user-generated content, how have you wielded and directly or passively influenced the end user – if at all?
Remember that it’s this user-generated content that serves two purposes:
- It creates an enormous social buzz
- It effects the search engines in favor of what Renegade Professional offers.
Mike Klingler
Comment/Response from Mike Klingler
Renegade Professional (Mike Klingler) Answering the Questions Posed
Hi Eric, I always enjoy your articles. You’re on top of your game!
I just thought I’d take a shot at answering your questions:
Q. Did you set out with this intention or did it happen organically? Did you have a hunch that this was possible, or was your only intention to create the best product possible that served the end user?
A. We set out to do this intentionally & it happened organically.
The two go hand in hand with social media. In other words, you can’t control the social media ‘effect’ like you can Google Adwords or other commonly used forms of promotion–in order to effectively benefit from social media you must ‘intentionally set out to make it work for you in an organic way.’
You plan(t) the seed and by understanding how social media works you let it grow from there… you tend to it over time. You influence it by you let the magic (growth) happen on it’s own.
I encourage everyone I meet in business to take a pro-active approach to leveraging social media because long-term it’s a guaranteed huge win–because it’s growing so fast and will continue to do so until social media IS the Internet. It’s plain silly to have even a glimpse of an idea what social media is and not try to leverage it long term in business.
Q. Do you have any tracking or measurement devices in place to gauge this deliberate or unintentional social media model?
A. You certainly could set up tracking and measurement devices and we have moved in this direction; however, these are not well developed yet. The first goal for us was to:
- First, get familiar with social media by using it.
- Second, help our customers get acquainted with social media so they could use it.
- Third, start developing better tools to influence, track and measure the results. Our main focus first is on influencing results, rather than tracking and measuring–and we are relying primarily on the organic natural growth that is taking place on its own for now. In other words, the seed is planted and now we are nurturing it over time so the magic can happen. Tracking and measuring will become a bigger priority at harvest time (like weighing how big our pumpkin is for the county fair).
Q. Since there is no method, and no means to control user-generated content, how have you wielded and directly or passively influenced the end user – if at all?
A. While it’s true we can’t ‘control’ user generated content, we can influence it in a number of ways.
The first way is by introducing our clients and customers (and even prospects) to the social media locations we use, such as I did when I referred people to Better Networker.
I may also refer them to YouTube and we have even gone further to teach them how to use YouTube and other sites (via Renegade Professional).
This helps us to generate feedback and is a means to provide value, which we can monetize, which creates a great looping effect for us.
I encourage anyone in network marketing or internet marketing to plug their clients and customers into the same social media locations they use, refer them to your content and even consider monetizing as you teach them how to use it. The loops is phenomenal and it’s easy to understand why.
We have also done other unique things to influence content creation–such as inviting some of our customers to become partners in a sense, where we give them access to review our new content we have created on our website or in the social media locations and to make it easier for them to link to that content within their own sites.
In exchange we allow our content network to generate leads for those who are partners.
This is not ‘gaming’ the system and so there is no concern for penalization because it is based on value (in other words, they are taught to only link to relevant content that would add value to their customers).
It’s not like a link exchange or other gaming strategies that can lead to heavy linking that is not guided with an intent to bring value to the Internet user’s experience.
