You will more than likely notice that when you are running a business that your customers use social media sites. You should also have your business on a social networking site. Determine which sites your customers belong to, and incorporate them into your overall marketing stragey; if you don’t, you may be letting new customers and strong customer relationships slip away from you.
Put a Facebook share button at the top of your blog posts. This makes the site convenient for visitors to share with others. They can forward blog posts to their friends. This increases the amount of people that will see your blog that may become customers. These people can then use your services or purchase your products.
Make sure you invite as many people as possible to come join your social networking pages. This can increase the awareness for your business so that you can get on the map.
Keep your blog entries fresh and exciting to entice your readers. If users know that you’re always putting up new content, they’re more likely to come back. This can be seen in people’s willingness to subscribe to newspapers and periodicals. Be sure you stay consistent so that visitors want to come back.
Frequently update all your social media sites. Your customers may expect regular updates. If you don’t provide these, you may find yourself losing customers. Work on updating your followers a couple of times each week.
Social media is all about being social, so be ready to speak with your customers. If they have a complaint or a suggestion, open a dialogue with them. Make this a priority, so your customers know you value their input.
Avoid simple product pushing to generate followers in your social marketing efforts. Try posting links or stories from outside providers that are relative to your niche or industry. Get your followers to participate in conversation by asking them questions, posting contests, or including pictures and encouraging their comments. Do whatever you can to engage your followers. Go for product engagement instead of product placement. The focus should be on communicating the non-monetary value of your products. How does your brand make your customers feel, and how does it fit in with their unique lifestyle?
Don’t push your products. Post links or stories about providers that are relevant to your niche or industry. Spark conversation with questions, run contests and giveaways and post photos. Draw your readers in with engaging content. Instead of focusing on product placement, encourage people to discuss your products. Rather than simply encouraging customers to purchase your product, show them how well it fits into their lifestyle, and why they should purchase it.
It takes time and patience to construct a social media network. You may not get thousands of followers in one night. While it is possible to create an “instant hit” that goes viral within hours, that is not the norm. So be patient and the followers will come over time.
Keep your attitude humble. Your followers will not appreciate reading what you have to brag about, even if you are successful. Don’t ever assume that you have more power than your customer base and followers. Here are the cornerstones of success.
Post new messages on Twitter often so your updates are not buried by the feeds of your followers. In order to succeed on Twitter, you not only need to post relevant content, you need to post frequently. When your posts are short, you can make multiple updates from a single event.
Get a popular blogger to write on your website or you can guest blog somewhere else. Both of these things can generate traffic. Anytime you agree to be a guest blogger on someone’s blog, ask that they put a link to your site in their blog roll or in the post. Also, allow any of your own guest bloggers the same accommodation. People who read the blog are more apt to check out your posts and your sites, too.
You will not be a winner if you are not aware of what your visitors want. To know your target audience is to know your business. You’re looking for certain things. You want to know exactly what your audience likes, how much money they have to spend, what their other habits are, etc.
Be flexible with updating your pages. When launching a major campaign or new product, plentiful updates are critical. However, if you’re finding it hard to think of top quality content, you may want to think about posting less.
Make sure you keep tabs on how you are doing. Create measurable statistics that track your new activity and followers. Try matching up your different marketing strategies with the amount of new customers it brings in to help you come up with even better solutions in the future. If you don’t follow your results, you won’t know which aspects of social media marketing are paying off.
Don’t be afraid to get help with your marketing. This market is huge and you will find their are designers who are capable of helping you with your media strategy. If you choose to hire help, ask for quotes and references, as it can be quite expensive.
Social Media Sites
As you have seen, social media sites should be on the top of your “to do” list when it comes to marketing your business. Social media sites offer you the opportunity to shine a light into the inner workings and fundamental principles of your company as well as to connect with existing customers and cultivate new ones. Give social media marketing a try and see what it can do for you.