At one point in time, many businesses viewed the world of social media as a playing ground for kids. Those days are long gone. In today’s society, social media sites provide a valuable tool for marketing and branding any business. With such a level of importance placed on these sites, it is equally important to make your social media marketing plan an effective one. In this article we will give you a few tips for starting out right.
Social Media
Keep an up-to-date blog. Post any promotions or sales you have via your blog. Also post updates containing information about vital news, such as changes in your operating hours, closings and new locations opening up. You should also put this into your blog.
Use exclusive offers to entice your social media consumers. You can persuade your consumers with something that is unique that is not available to them anywhere else. An example would be to have a contest that is exclusive to your social media followers. You could also try offering an exclusive offer or item for your fans instead. Or, you can simply make exclusive announcements via social media.
Frequently update all your social media sites. Many followers in social media have an expectation of frequent updates, and if you don’t supply these, you can hurt your reputation online and lose followers. Depending on your product or service, don’t spam your customers unnecessarily with irrelevant information all day long; but, you should make updates 3-4 times per week.
Because it takes awhile to truly master the art of social media marketing, it may be necessary to start off small and slowly expand. Find out how your competition uses social media for their marketing purposes, and get ideas from them until you have an idea of what will work best for your customers and your business. Look at your competitors’ social media pages. Examine their status updates, discounts, specials and other techniques they use.
It is important to remember to frequently add new and different content to your twitter feed. Try sending tweets with suggestions and tips that are relative to your business. By mixing these tweets in with those that boldly promote your business, your followers are more likely to stay interested in your tweets.
One way to get your business’s name out there is to guest blog for others in your niche or have a popular person in your niche guest blog for your business. Both of these methods will help drive traffic to your site. If you are ever invited to guest blog somewhere else, make sure you can get a back link out of the deal. Make sure you also allow your blogger to link back as well. It’s a win-win situation, because followers will likely check out both websites.
Social Media
Allow consumers to easily subscribe to your social media pages. The majority of Internet users make good use of social media sites daily. It only makes sense to set up your website so that Twitter, LinkedIn and FaceBook users can connect with you easily and see all your comments.
Add a share button for Facebook near the tops of blog posts. This will let people who visit your blog share what they see with their friends. This will make more people aware of your blog and bring you more potential customers.
Update your Twitter regularly so that your followers actually get a chance to see your post before it gets pushed further down their page. Post short content through Twitter often. Also, post about a single event several times but in different forms.
Always add tags to your Twitter posts. Tags appear after the symbol # and allow you to have your updates appear in the feeds of users who have subscribed to a group. If you pick tags the right way you should be able to target some people.
If you are in business today, you really need to be taking advantage of social media marketing since it is the most current method reaching your customers. Social media can allow you to expose your distinct offerings for sale to prospective clientele around the globe. By following the tips presented here, you will be able to establish a very effective marketing campaign using social media.
Inform your customers that you are utilizing social media. When they join your social media page, most of these sites will also inform their connections they are following you. This form of advertising is free and accessible to a broad range of people. Referrals like this carry more weight that traditional advertising.