Tweet, Like, Pin, Plus? Social Media Marketing Your Fleet
If you’re a small business and a newbie to social media, even the term “newbie” may leave you a bit confused. Unsurprisingly, social media marketing has become a hugely important aspect of the marketing plan of any small business, not only from a customer absorption and retention standpoint, but also from a budget view. By engaging in “tweets” and “likes,” you can have unrivaled access into the hearts and minds of your market, increasing brand awareness and sales at the same time. Sounds great, right? So where do you start?
Why Does My Business Need Social Media?
Whether or not you feel your company needs a social media plan is somewhat irrelevant these days. Regardless if you’re using it already or not, your customers are. Getting online with social media can widen your online footprint, thus driving customers into your sales net and improving your rankings on search engines. Thought there are hundreds of social media options to choose from, it’s important to focus on getting the most popular right.
Facebook is probably the world’s most popular social media portal, with an estimated 1.19 billion active users estimated as of October 2013. Let’s face it, if you’re not on Facebook, you might as well not exist to your customers. Start a business page and invite customers to “like” your page, meaning they will receive updates when you post new information. Keep your page updated at least every other day for the most bang for your marketing buck, using contests and other elements that encourage interaction with your fans.
Another “big one” in the social media scope, Twitter caters predominately to a web-savvy crowd of 36 million visitors and close to a billion users a month. Of course, Twitter brings with it some very important “netiquette,” and getting it wrong can keep you from getting the most out of it. Always follow back anyone who follows you and try to engage your users by reading, re-tweeting and responding to their posts. Though it’s tempting to just blast marketing messages every day, try to focus on posting interesting things that others will like to share and re-tweet.
Google+
If you’re looking to use social media to give your website a boost on the search engine rankings, then Google+ should definitely be on your hit list. Google is referencing posts on G+ more often, and the more you post the more value you add to your position on the web. Add your list of customers in to see who’s also using G+ and, like Twitter, be sure to engage your customers by paying attention to their posts and concerns too.
Sharing and swapping images has become one of the most popular activities on the World Wide Web, so social media outlets like Pinterest are becoming more important to your marketing strategy. Create “boards” that you can “pin” your most recent blogs, posts and photos of products to, and encourage users on your other social media outlets to share and re-pin them. Out of all the social media networks, Pinterest is probably the easiest to use and understand, behaving the same way a cork board in your office would.
Getting your social media skills up to date can really improve the footprint your business is leaving on the web and widen your net to catch customers. Be sure to add sharing buttons for all social media networks to your posts and pages on your website so sharing is easy. By engaging with your customers, you are giving your brand a personality and reputation that is impossible to achieve with traditional marketing methods.
Guest Author: Domonique Powell has found the aid of a brand marketing company to be very useful to emerging businesses. During an online search for social media tips, she found information which helped drive traffic to her website.
Photo credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonahowie/7910370882/
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