Social Media Marketing
One of the big growth areas on the internet has been social media, and more recently, the growth in social media marketing. It is one of the fastest growing forms of marketing at present, and it's here to stay in one form or another.
Social media represents a new style of engagement for businesses and it enables you to talk directly to large numbers of existing and future customers. This is a huge step away from the traditional "Top-Down" form of advertising, where businesses pay vast amounts for a prime time tv slot to push their product to a passive audience. This form of advertising still has its place within your marketing strategy, but social media marketing creates a much more immediate and interactive relationship between product and customer. It also allows businesses to take a much more forensic approach to targeted marketing campaigns.
Does social media marketing actually work?
Social networks can be very rewarding for your business as their members now cross every demographic and sector. This means you should be able to find your potential customers relevant to your business, then engage with them directly. Done well, with a clear focus and intent, it can bring a good ROI, but it is essential to understand what you want to achieve before you start.
It all depends on you:
- the nature of your business
- your budget
- your audience
- And your level of persistence
How to make social media work for your business:
- Pick the social media platform that you like and that is most relevant to your business
- Have a social media marketing plan in place - know what are you trying to achieve and how you are going to achieve it
- Build numbers of followers, friends or connections - there's no point talking to nobody
- Remember its more about sharing than selling - who wants a sales pitch?
- Ask and answer questions. This is your opportunity to engage.
- Build links back to your site from your social networks - Google takes notice in their Search Engine Rankings
- For greater efficiency, use a platform like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to manage your social media accounts in one place and set up scheduled posts
- Be consistent in frequency of posts
- Develop a tone of voice appropriate to your business and product/service
- Invite people to follow or friend you on your web site
- Follow and friend similar, related people and accounts to build your network
- Give it time to build up relationships - it won't happen overnight.
How we can help
- Our technical team can help with coaching, set-up, and integrating your social media with your other sites.
- Our content and SEO team can help with content generation and scheduling, in order to achieve the consistent results that you are looking for.
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