5 Tips on Social Media Marketing
Many statistics have been published about activity of online users. One of the best videos about the potential curve I have found is listed in a previous post:
“Social Media Revolution 2011”
SEO is Search Engine Optimization. Simply put – the things your potential customers type into a search engine to find what they are looking for. These are specific keywords that drive traffic to your website and social pages. Your keywords need to be embedded into the code of your web page so people can find you.
► Come up with a list of 50+ important words that pertain to your business. Type in words you would assume your company should be found under and start there. As you receive contact from new customers, ask them the words they typed in and specifically find out what search engines they used to find you. This will help in developing the right set of words for your code.
► Search out your competitors websites. Determine the words they are using and be sure to include those in your keyword results as well. (View, Source in most browsers works well if the code isn’t hidden from viewers)
It doesn’t make sense to develop social profiles on sites that none of your customers use. It also doesn’t make sense for you to create 50+ pages of social sites if you only have the bandwidth to manage a few profiles.
► Pick your top 3 sites – most businesses who market through social media build profiles on Facebook Pages, Twitter and LinkedIn.
► Incorporate a blog into your social efforts to increase visibility and character behind your knowledge
► Ask your customers which sites they frequent and the best way they would like to be communicated with. Some may say they like email, others may frequent Twitter Timeline, LinkedIn or Facebook Status. You will be surprised to find out how many customers read Blog RSS feeds each day on their phones or imported into their Outlook RSS Readers.
► Ask your customers what kind of content they may be interested in receiving. Some may want to hear about promotions as you have them, while others may be interested in reading in industry related articles you recommend, charities you are involved in, events you are attending or educational information about your product or services.
It is unappealing and confusing to your audience if your brand doesn’t match the look and feel of your website. Be consistent with use of logos, colors, content and choice of language in your posts.
We teach our clients that it is bad to have too much activity on your social profile, but not having enough is just as challenging. It is better to have an active stream of content than none at all. Think about your audience and tailor your activity to their needs. If you post something every day, that may be too much for your viewers. Try on a few different communication schedules and determine what is best. Here is a schedule that would be good to try on for these specific types of profiles:
► LinkedIn – Posting more than once a day can become overwhelming and distracting to your viewers
► Twitter – More than 1 post a day is appropriate pending that the same information isn’t shared more than once.
► Facebook – consider a rotating schedule: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Tuesday, Thursday. Posting more than 2-3 times a week can be overwhelming for your viewers.
► Blog – Once a week to once a month is appropriate communication. Change the topics and provide active information – but be sure not to just “sell” your products and services on each post. Blogs are education and information tools that should be used for that purpose. (include back links and labels in each of your posts to drive traffic to your website & other social pages).
There are many applications that can be used on your social profiles to enhance your visitors experience.
There are also wonderful tools of the trade to allow for flexibility in scheduling your content / status posts on a continual basis. For LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, posts can be scheduled in advance via these popular tools. Become familiar with them & choose the one that works best for you.
Social Media Marketing is fun and rewarding. Be realistic with your goals and don’t sell your self short. It takes time to build a following, maintain activity with your brand and build social relationships with your customers and viewers online. Be creative, have fun and don’t get left behind!
~ Social Media is changing the way people do business. Don’t get left behind ~
Hollie Clere, of The Social Media Advisor is a social media manager, trainer and author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+ , Pinterest and the tools to manage them. Click here for her Social Media Links
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Why are companies not found on LinkedIn or Facebook?
We have been working with multiple companies developing social media profiles lately. In the efforts of building a branding and consistent character basis for companies, we have seen more and more that there are too many companies without a presence on LinkedIn. Not talking about an individual profile – which is very concerning that over 3.5 million users are on the site, but yet millions more haven’t ventured into building a profile is overwhelming. To start there, if you don’t have a presence on this site as an individual, you are telling the world that either you don’t want to be connected to, you aren’t savvy with the Internet, or you would rather spamming sites publish information about you instead. One of the most beautiful things about LinkedIn is the searchability factor through google. 4 out of 5 customers will search LinkedIn for their potential vendor representative (or potential new hire) to gain character perspective and knowledge about this person. If you don’t choose to put information about your history that you want people to see, they will find out information about you on sites that pay a lot of money to Google to post personal things such as pictures of your home, family members & so on (an example of this is 123people & there are many other sites out there who “phish” for your information & post it freely online). Should you ever find something like this – you can contact the publisher for it to be removed. Know that the most important piece of us mentioning this – is the fact that THE INFORMATION YOU WANT POSTED ON THE INTERNET – SHOULD BE THE INFORMATION THAT YOU CHOOSE TO BE POSTED – NOT WHAT SOMEONE ELSE DECIDES FOR YOU!
This holds true about information for your company. If you don’t have a website – how will your customers know what you offer & if you are a real business person? Same with social media. If you are not “out there” and “current” how will people know how to do business with you, connect with you, follow you and want to maintain relationship with you????
With that being said, as a business owner you have thought about a few things:
(1) what is my logo?
(2) what is my brand?
(3) where will I market?
(4) how will I market?
(5) who will I market to?
(6) build a website
Will all of these things in place, there is still a laundry list of things that need to happen as well.
FACTS:
(1) If you have a website, it will have either detailed – or not as detailed – information about your products/services
(2) You may be choosing some print marketing or mailers for your potential or existing customers
These are important – but what should go in hand with this?
***SOCIAL MEDIA***
If you have a personal presence on Facebook, you should NOT be marketing your company on your “personal” page, rather you should have a business page where people can “like” your company and follow your updates.
If you have a personal profile on LinkedIn, you need to be sure your company profile is established as well so people can easily find you through your company or your personal profile. Individuals can also “like” your company page for updates. You should also have recommendations of your work that your customers, vendors or staff can post about you – this is a great character building piece and can also encourage a history of your experience.
A newer feature of LinkedIn is posting products & services. The great thing about this is you can get recommendations for these products or services right on the company page – a great marketing tool.
My challenge for you – If you have a personal presence on FaceBook or LinkedIn – then create a company profile for them both. It will increase visibility, credibility & ownership of your brand.
Time Management for Social Media – Part 1
Check out my post on the topic here:
Hollie Clere, The Social Pro is a social media manager, trainer and author in the LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog and social media world.
Be aware of who is presenting information about your company online
Buyer beware translates into owners beware in social media. Hiring someone to fill the shoes of your social media manager can make since in regard to time, but unless the individual is personally invested in your company goals, priorities and vision, you will need to invest in a lot of clean up later on.
Management consists of the following items:
• maintain branding
• management of profiles
• response and management of direct messages
• management and increase of followers
• management of product release campaigns
• active viewer response & interaction
• effectively enhancing SEO, SMO (keyword optimization)
• correctly creating profiles to maximize visibility on social media sites
• reporting traffic, communication and hits effectively
If you aren’t getting these things from your social media support team, then you aren’t correctly using your profiles or getting ROI on your time or investment.
These service can be outsourced or handled internally, but you need to have a clearly defined scope of work and milestone meetings to constantly revise or add to your marketing plan. Your social media solution should ebb & flow with times and market changes.
Contact us today to see how we can help you achieve these goals.
