Social Media Marketing Tips for Business Work and Personal
As seen on Family Capers.
With so many start-ups, solopreneurs, SOHO’s and Boffice’s (a bedroom office) with virtually non-existent budgets, it is crucial to market your business by leveraing social media marketing channels. Online retailers (or e-tailers) and global brands have managed to this successfully and still maintain control of their marketing budgets.
We have to acknowledge that traditional marketing has shifted towards social media marketing and SEO (search engine optimsiation) so taking advantage of any marketing channel thats free, is key. Technology and smart phones have exploded the popularity of social networks, so its easy to be able to promote your business with very little cost. Here are my top 5 key tips to leverage social media marketing.
1. Maintain your brand across all social platforms. It is important to ensure your “voice” appeals to your target market, is consistent and ‘seen’ across all social media platforms. Look at what tone best suits your brand?
2. Create simple and clear social media guidelines. The lines between our personal and professional lives are blurring and it is important to know how to use social media effectively and appropriately. Your own staff, contractors or outsourced team can become pseudo sales people to help your business build relationships and engage with clients and prospects.
3. Encourage reviews, feedback and testimonials. – Whether personal or business on LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Facebook, or your own blog, endorsement from real people carries more weight than ever. People are increasingly likely to turn to Google and online reviews when they’re making a decision to buy from you.
4. Take advantage of ‘FREE’ social media features. All social media is contstantly looking for ways to engage their audience and releasing new features often, so take advantage of them. Twitter has updated profile layouts and allows headers. Facebook allows custom tabs that can create landing pages & incorporate content from other websites. It’s not hard to utilize all the free extra features, but so many neglect the basics.
5. Measure and adapt your social media efforts. Is your traffic coming from social media? Which social media site is working best for you? With free, easy-to-use tools, including Google analytics, it’s simple to tweak and measure the effectiveness of your efforts. This invaluable data will allow you to streamline and target your campaigns more effectively.
Not being on social media or aware of your online presence can be a danger if one of your customers decides to tweet about a negative experience, or when competitors are using social media to their advantage. These days customer interaction is so important, and the internet is like the new Yellow Pages – you can’t afford to be out of the loop. Even the Pope uses Twitter!
Family Capers is an online community that embraces every family who walks through the ‘door’. They have created a judgement-free, supportive online environment where individuals and families can thrive through support, friendship, business networking, competitions and events.