Getting yourself set up online with social media is now becoming an absolute necessity for any business, whether based in a physical location or explicitly online. This article will show you how to effectively market your company using this new marketing outlet. It’s not as hard as you might think it is.
Relax, it is just an online conversation. Email used to scare the pants off of companies who did not understand the good, the bad, and the ugly of the whole thing. Now it is the go-to communication channel. Social media is the new channel, and all you need to do is sit down and talk to your customers. It is what they want and what you need.
Make sure your blog has excellent content that engages, educates, and inspires. A great blog serves as the cornerstone of your social media marketing. When you create content that people cannot wait to read, they will keep coming back. The bottom line is that good content is what is behind any type of media, and social media marketing is no exception.
When using social media to market, you need to update your profile with relevant information frequently. People won’t come to your social media site if you don’t have anything new or interesting to read or see. Also be sure to communicate with your community as much as you can, but don’t overdo it either.
If your blog has grown popular, put up some stats showing your visitors how many others follow your content. Demonstrating your growth through showing the number of Facebook “likes” you’ve received, Twitter followers you’ve accumulated or any awards your site or blog has received is a great way to prove your “social worth.”
To help people find your social media pages through web searches, include keywords in your posts! Find ways to naturally work important keywords into a Facebook post or a Tweet. Facebook and Twitter are top ranked pages, and users may find you there even if your main site isn’t highly ranked in search results.
Get some exposure by organizing a competition on Facebook. You could select a winner randomly among your friends, post trivia questions or have a photo contest related to your products. Make sure you advertise your contest on your website and newsletter: the goal is to get more people to find you on Facebook.
The key to being successful using social media marketing is to have excellent content. This content has to be inspiring, educational, and interesting so that your followers will want to share it. When they share your content, you and your business are being exposed to new potential followers who may also share your content and build your social media presence.
Twitter is a great way to market your company on the world wide web. However, make sure that you don’t just throw out information without saying “please” and “thank you”. Manners are very important so customers don’t feel that you are being pushy or disrespectful. Be polite when talking about your company and giving out information.
Post content on Digg and Reddit. These websites attract a huge number of readers and most of these people use Twitter or Facebook to repost the articles they find interesting. Make sure you create original content that will make your readers want to share it. Always sign your articles with your name and a link to your main website.
Establish your goal for a social media campaign. If you do not know what you hope to achieve with your campaign, you won’t know when you have been successful. Are you looking for product awareness, concrete sales, or better customer service? When you can answer these questions, building a strategy is an easier step.
If your social media marketing campaign involves Twitter, get the most followers you can. The number of Twitter followers an entity has, is now a serious measuring stick of importance in today’s world. Companies always love seeing that their Twitter feed has more followers than their competitors and are quick to point it out to their customers. You should too.
As you can see from this article, while social media can seem intimidating for someone who hasn’t spent much time on it, it is really quite simple. As far as marketing goes, social media is actually something that is free and simple enough to do yourself without having to hire a professional.