Social media is getting bigger and bigger. It has become the main networks that every company, big or small, new or established, relies on it for marketing their business. Even my local bakery store has a “Follow us on Facebook” banner hanging on windows.
In my previous article “ social media marketing: a new trend to market your business”, I explain why social media marketing is important to a business nowadays and how it works. In this article, I am going to explore several social media marketing strategies and tactics when you use social media website to market your business.
Respond quickly
In these days we are living in a fast-paced environment. We are obsessed with speed; we want fast food, fast Internet and fast service. In social media society, people expect fast response as well.
If a visitor responds to one of your posts with a comment and never receives a response, you are ruining your public image. Probably that visitor will lose his or her patience and switch to your competitor to seek answers. This means you are losing one of your potential customers.
Remember, response to your visitors in a good time manner not only build your good reputation in your circle, but also increase your chances to turn a potential customer into a sale.
Build trust
There is an old saying that one man’s meat is another one’s poison.
Even you believe you provide best services or products, still you will unavoidably see some negative comments on your social media sites. It is easy to delete negative comments, but it is neither practical nor advisable.
Savvy marketers understand that bad things are not always the bad.
The simple truth is that removal of a negative comment or complaint will destroy other’s confidence on your brand. They simply think that you are trying to hide something bad which is probably a misunderstanding from others.
Instead of deleting these negative comments, you get a chance to respond openly. It is like you are sending a message to tell the public that you are actively working on it to solve the problem and most importantly, that you are honest and trustworthy.
Don’t be too ‘salesy’
We are bombarded with unlimited choices in today’s consumer culture and it overloads our brains. As we are faced with many choices, it is not easy for us to make a quick decision when shopping.
In fact in these days selling is a gradual process. Smart marketers create a positive emotional connection with potential customers and encourage them to make a choice as to whether they want to buy from you or not.
Social media is the most powerful tool for marketers to establish such passionate connection with their audience. By telling personal stories, company’s history or creating other interesting contents and product reviews on various social media sites, marketers are shortening the distance with their audience psychologically.
As a result, a sale may happen among people who already know you and already have some relations with you.
Target your audiences
Reaching your target audience on social media networks is not easy. It requires you to spend a lot of time and put your efforts on it.
To reach your target audience effectively, you need to choose the right platform.
For examples, Facebook has become popular with adults and young people; MySpace is favored by teens; LinkedIn and Twitter normally target business audience; Instagram is likely to have an audience looking for involving visual content.
It’s important to identify the platforms that are most likely to reach your main market segments and pay attention to your followers on each platform, then publish content to appeal to them accordingly.
Create Facebook business page
Creating a Facebook business page is an incredible way to promote your business.
After you have established a personal page, you can create a business page.
Unlike personal Facebook page, a business page can be viewed by the public who are not logged in. To view your business page, people do not need to join Facebook. This increases the visibility of your business in the public.
In addition, business page provides free link. You can create a meaningful URL that includes your business name. For example, my Facebook business page URL includes my business name, which is www.facebook.com/firstsitesolutions/
Use Google+ to create your circles
Google Circles are the central feature of Google Plus. Google Circles are a way to group people together based around the relation you have with people. It allows you to manage your specific groups, simulating real life relationships.
The default circles are “friends, family, acquaintances and following,” but you can remove them or rename them or add additional circles if you want.
Circles can provide a lot of business value.
For example, if your company is selling health products for both women and men, you can set up two different circles, one for women and the other for men. By doing this, your company can provide different product information to different circles.
In summary
To be honestly, these social media marketing strategies won’t bring you immediate results and it can’t make up for a bad product or service.
The rule of thumb for these strategies is constantly to create quality content and involve in real conversations with people.
If you can cope with all that, you know the essence of these social media marketing strategies.
