“Social Media Marketing” has become a trendy catchphrase in today’s business world. Social media sites have made it relatively simple to set up free accounts on their sites and allow companies to virtually syndicate their message to thousands of potential customers. However, there are a lot of individuals ineffectively using social media marketing. It is not enough to create a Facebook or Twitter account and assume you are going to attract numerous new contacts for your business. There are steps that need to be taken to successfully contend in online networking communities. Consider the following to productively use social media marketing:
1. Focus on several relevant social media sites
It is important to consider your business and your potential customers when choosing which online communities to participate in. Many social media sites on the web are geared towards younger generations or are focused around acquaintances maintaining contact with one another. The target markets for these sites are not companies trying to marketing their business online. It is more practical to pick several sites that are specific to your business industry and/or sites that are well-suited for creating company profiles.
If you are a B2B company, I recommend getting a profile (fan page) for your company on Facebook, creating a company profile on the LinkedIn company beta site and setting up your employees with LinkedIn profiles.
2. Participate in the online conversation
One of the best ways to get your name out online is to participate in discussions on social media sites. Posting comments on industry-specific blogs showcases your knowledge of that industry. Sharing information will also help to introduce you to people interested in your business, but remember it is not appropriate to go onto other individuals sites to merely promote your company. If people are interested in what you are saying they will gravitate to your sites to find more information.
3. Consistently update your accounts
Having accounts on every social media site is not effective, especially if you aren’t consistently updating them. Visiting and updating your accounts will help increase traffic to your pages and using web services that update your social media accounts for you such as Ping.fm make doing so easier. Ping.fm allows you to manage your social media accounts by letting you post information that is “pinged” out to all of your accounts, rather than having to update your individual accounts with the same information. Web services such as Ping.fm help to keep all of your accounts updated at once and leave time to be spent on other aspects of your business.
4. Display unique quality content
It is not beneficial for your business to merely post content that is uninteresting or useless to your followers. The information you post needs to be relevant as well as entertaining for the reader. Using Twitter to tell readers that you are going to a business meeting is not relevant to your consumers. Posting unique and customer-focused content will keep people coming back to your to see your new updates. For instance, Sprinkles Cupcakes, a bakery in Beverly Hills, uses their Twitter page to increase customer visits to their store. On Cinco de Mayo, Sprinkles “tweeted” that the first person to come into their store and say “Hola” as opposed to “Hello” would receive a free cupcake. This is a brilliant way to use a site like Twitter for business because it engages consumers and entices them to act.
5. Do not abandon conventional marketing techniques
Although social media marketing can be great way to market your business when used correctly, it is not a replacement for traditional marketing practices. Because social media marketing is a relatively new phenomenon, there are still many unknowns associated with it. As a result, there is still a lot to be said for communications tactics such as newsletters, phone calls, and trade shows. Maintaining a diversified marketing plan that offers a wide variety of techniques will help you to attract more customers for your business.
