Social media marketing takes advantage of online social networks to create interest in a particular product or website. As the use of social media continues to grow, the opportunity for internet word-of-mouth advertising increases. However, many business owners create a social media presence but do not realize a return on their investment. The following are some ways to take advantage of this important advertising channel.
Content
Although a lot of social media consists of people expressing themselves, business owners must be much more focused. They want to grab the attention of their target customers, and so must write content that “pushes their buttons”. One way to do this is to find issues that customers consider important, and to address those issues, generally with a solution from the company.
Many companies find that a key to managing content is to coordinate it with complimentary marketing channels. These can include email posts to the customer list, sales and promotions, and the company website content itself. One effective way to do this is to adopt a content management system. These are commercially available from several sources. Another way is to contract a professional content creation company and use them to generate regular, engaging content.
Stay Engaged
Businesses must put the “social” into social media. They must make sure that their readers feel they are addressed personally, not just the target of a random marketing campaign. Business owners do this by adding fresh content on a regular basis. In addition, they make sure to respond to other members of the social group. If responding individually is not possible, then they can respond to recurring topics from the posts.
Define the Audience Niche
Successful businesses generally define their target audience carefully in their business plan. However, social media marketing requires another aspect of customer definition: the personal profile. Marketers determine this by going beyond customer needs and defining customer proclivities. For instance, do the customers have strong opinions, engaged in politics, or sports minded? By making this kind of analysis, marketers can define the “hooks”, those hot topics that capture the customers’ attention and get their participation on a personal level.
Use Proper Metrics
Because of the nature of social media, finding the return on investment can be challenging. A straightforward method is to isolate the event of social media implementation, and measuring the change in web traffic and conversions. However, it can be difficult to freeze activity in the other marketing channels. One way business owners separate social metrics is to use riders. For instance, a coupon offered on a social media site would have a different redeem code than that from print media or other channels. In this way, a company can track the activity from the social campaign apart from the others.
Use Professional Web Marketers
Despite the ability to successfully define their target market and generate revenue, many business owners find difficulty in adapting this information to the social media framework. In this case, they can contact professional web marketers and work with them to design the proper social media campaign.