Social media marketing has exploded in recent years, and for good reason – there are more than 600 million people (and counting) using social networks and the number grows every day. People just love to be connected. At this point, if you run a business then you can guarantee a portion of your customers (regardless of age, gender, and economic status) are gathering on sites like Facebook. So what’s the bottom line here?
If you’re not involved in social media marketing, and you’re not taking the time to engage your target audience, then who is? You’re missing out on countless opportunities to grab more market share through social media marketing. There’s an easy fix though – use these five social media marketing tips to take your marketing to a new level.
Social Media Marketing Tip #1 – Stand Where Your Customers Stand
“Endless” is an absolute businesses don’t typically deal in, but social media marketing does offer endless possibilities because there is no limit to the number of social networking channels where your potential customers linger. The key to success with social media marketing is finding out which channel houses your preferred customers.
If you’re not sure where to find your customers, you can:
- Ask them through a survey or email what type of networks they join online
- Monitor social sites to figure out how customers talk about you and where those discussions take place.
- Review the campaigns of competitors including keywords, links, announcements and more to get a snapshot of their social media marketing health.
Social Media Marketing Tip #2 – Watch Your Competitors
The point of monitoring your competitors is not to mimic them, because who is to say what they’re doing is even effective? You simply need to recognize what they’re doing and think about how to leverage the information. Competitive intelligence can prove to be extremely useful so take the time to audit the social media marketing of your competitors. This includes:
- Their social media accounts
- What type of content they share
- How they disseminate information online
- The promotions they’re running.
Social Media Marketing Tip #3 – Get Promotional
Customers love exclusive deals, but they also love bragging about it once they get the deal. If you want to quickly gain steam with your social media marketing, entice your customers with something they simply cannot get anywhere else. It doesn’t need to be an expensive item. A special offer, or breaking news that’s locked down to members only is a great way to improve signups.
Social Media Marketing Tip #4 – Stop Shilling
If you’re specifically offering products on a regular basis and trying to sell people on your products or services through social media marketing… stop it. You’re not here to push products and promotions. Remember at the heart of social media networking is “networking”. Networking with people is all about the relationship. Keep pushing products and you’ll drive people away, but if you share relevant and useful content they’re far more likely to share it and bring more attention via word of mouth.
Social Media Marketing Tip #5 – Sell Products
I know I just told you to stop selling products, but remember there’s a time and a place for everything. What makes Facebook so unique is that you can develop custom tabs to work just like an e-commerce storefront. With a custom marketplace, you’re indirectly selling your goods, not shilling openly where you should be sharing relevant content.
This barely brushes the surface when it comes to social media marketing, but these 5 tips can help anyone either slide in that’s coming late to the game or make a sharp recover to refine and renew their social presence.
What are you doing to improve your social media marketing?
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