A social media marketing plan needs the same basic elements as any other marketing plan, including a target market, a channel of communication, and a product or service. With all of the above figured out, there should be nothing stopping you from forging ahead and utilizing the advice given here.
Offer exclusive discounts and perks to those who follow your social media profiles. Lure them in with something they can’t resist or find elsewhere. For instance, you could hold a contest. Or you can add in a special discount for followers for a limited time. You can also limit your announcements to your social networks.
Make consistent appearances on your social media site. Make sure that you write regularly, this will cause people to want to visit your page often so they can keep up to date with your posts. Make sure what you write about is relevant and factual. No ones wants to read random information, it should pertain to your business.
If you have a social media presence, always respond to people when they ask a question or post a comment. Make this a priority, so your customers know you value their input.
Do not neglect LinkedIn. LinkedIn is less popular than Facebook or Twitter, but you can find extremely influential users on this site. Add a LinkedIn ‘share’ button on your articles, and chances are that someone who shares your content on LinkedIn will cause dozens of people to share it on other websites.
You can have your Twitter posts appear on your Facebook wall as well. Perhaps writing different posts might be best since your audience on Twitter might slightly differ from your Facebook friends, and Twitter is about writing extremely short posts. However, this allows you to update both websites very easily.
Employing social media marketing strategies can be a great way to keep in contact with your customer base, and develop relationships. Customers that friend you on Facebook, or follow you on Twitter do so willingly. They want to hear from you. You can therefore notify them of new upcoming products, sales and discounts, or even just information concerning your business and industry without the fear of being too intrusive.
Gain exposure by promoting your business through games on Facebook. Creating a game that relates to and promotes your products or your industry isn’t too difficult. FaceBook games have made a number of brands very successful and created viral phenomena. If you are able to pay for it, hire a game designer to create some kind of game for you to put on Facebook.
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.
When you begin a social media marketing campaign leave room for trial and error. Depending on you target audience, some things that are effective for other businesses may not work for you. Watch for what is and is not working and make changes as necessary. This will show your customers that you are connected with their needs as well.
You can measure the success of your social media marketing by the sentiment and number of comments you receive about your posts. You need to pay attention to the comments because your followers will tell you if you are posting relevant information. If they are mostly positive, then keep up the good work. If they are negative, try tweaking your posts for a more positive sentiment.
Learn the posting patterns on social sites. The peak traffic times for many of these sites are at 7 A.M., 5 P.M. and 10 P.M. and those are the times that you should be sure to post something new. If you post more than those three times, be sure that you are posting something unique and interesting, but limit the total number of times you post each day.
Use Facebook as a way to develop relationships, not customers. If you are only logging on to Facebook to post another ad for your business, you are going to get disliked quickly, but if you log on and add interesting snippets of information about your community, you will get many likes quickly.
Social media is an excellent resource for promoting special coupons and offers. People will be more likely to find you on Facebook if they have access to more content and can get better discounts. By using social media, you give your customers the chance to know you as an individual and learn more about your products and your brand.
Have links on your main website to your main social media profiles. Your Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Google+ pages should all be linked from your main website. So, that customers know that they are the official websites for your company, and they can trust the content that is published on those social media sites.
Do not only use one social media website. The use of multiple sites will increase your exposure to potential customers. It can help in other ways also by using a variety of available tools.
When posting on Facebook, use the 80/20 rule. This means you should post about 80% relevant information and 20% “just for fun” information. Posting this way makes you feel less like a business, and more like a human. This can be a great thing when it comes to social media marketing.
Whatever your choice is for social media marketing, make sure that you use correct grammar. Meanwhile it is tempting to use abbreviations such as LOL or LMAO, remember that you are trying to come across as a professional who knows a lot about his or her company. Do your best to spell everything correctly and use punctuation where it is needed.
Using what you’ve read here is key to growing your business through social media advertising campaigns. Although it will be a challenge to become an expert at both of them, once you do you’ll see your company flourish and profits soar.