So are you ready to start using social media but just are not sure how? Well you are not alone, in fact this is where the majority of businesses currently sit. They have heard about what social media can do for their business, they have done a little bit themselves, maybe even created a page BUT where to from here. How do we get thousands of followers, how do we get business from and how do we showcase our product or service.
Nowadays, a lot of companies are considering social sites as a new means of engaging with existing customers and attracting potential clients. With more than 1 billion users on just facebook, twitter and linkedin alone.
Here are a few tips in using Facebook as an effective tool in connecting with your customers.
Make a sound plan before implementing Facebook marketing.
Like with all other marketing campaigns and strategies in your business you need a plan, you need measurable targets and you need to know the return on your marketing dollar. Do not just go into social media marketing not knowing what you are going to do or what you expect out of it. Most importantly you need to learn and understand the different strategies and how to be competent in using such strategy to gain maximum impact.
Establish metrics and measure all your social media marketing efforts.
There are measurement tools available like Google analytics that help you track website user visit activity. Never make the mistake of going into a marketing campaign without knowing how to gauge the effectiveness of your efforts. Well on your fan page there are insights to show you how many new fans you are getting per day, how often they are coming to your page and how often they are interacting with you. These insights are the data you need to know how to measure the effectiveness of what you are doing and the tool to show you if you are getting a good return for the time, effort and dollars being spent.
Incorporate your social media with all the other channels that you use for marketing.
Cross integration is a must for businesses to be successful on social media. Your prospects, clients, customers and friends need to see your social media presence from a variety of different forms. Therefore places such as your website, email signatures, promotional material are all great spots to include links to your business fan pages and increase the number of people following you. Every opportunity you get to self promote your business and its community of followers should be taken.
Never assume that you know how to attract Facebook users and understand Facebook marketing simply because you are a Facebook user.
People who are on social media believe that their presence is enough to get people to follow and join their community. Unfortunately this is probably the biggest mis-conception around. There are tested and measured strategies to getting followers and strategies that should be used daily to continue growth. Businesses that are pro active in building their social media following will see results a lot quicker than those people sitting and waiting for others to come to them.
Avoid annoying customers and schemes that would give your brand a bad name.
Unfortunately in all walks of life there are people who have set their purpose to create trouble for others. This is not a large percentage but yes they do exist. Therefore you need to be weary of such people and schemes and just remove and ban such people from your pages. This is different to someone having a different option or a complaint against your business. Such opportunities should be used to show everyone else how you handle such events. It can be turned into a positive very quickly when dealt with correctly. Having followers that have different options to yourself can make the page interesting and the interaction actually helps to promote your page to others.
Social media marketing should be a part of all small businesses marketing plan. Getting onto social media and writing a few comments or showcasing a product or service or sale is not a marketing strategy and in fact it is a waste of time. You need to understand the strategies, implement them daily and have measurable goals and targets to test your success upon.
We hope that has given you a little more insight into not only the power of social media marketing for businesses but some ways that you can or tweak your own social media.
Michael Griffiths is the CEO and Founder of My Small Business Marketing Guru, helping small business owners generate more leads, more clients and greater profits. Grab your free ‘Black Mask’ marketing resources when you visit http://www.mysmallbusinessmarketingguru.com.au