Social Media Marketing: The Gift of Being Socially Present
Social media marketing is firing up as brands are now realizing the importance of being socially present. Customers are commenting, employees are Facebooking, salespeople are Tweeting, competitors are talking to your clients and you’ve got a blog. Now what?
You can’t ignore it, social media isn’t going away. Integration of social media platforms should become a company’s number one priority, assuming they want to be smart marketers. So how do you become a socially effective marketer?
- Can You Hear Me Now? Listen, pay close attention and engage. What is your community saying? Who are your influencers, what are they talking about and how do they engage? Set up Google Alerts for your organization to see when, where and how you are being mentioned or sign up for Tweetdeck, which runs in the background and gives you desktop alerts for mentions that you can customize with search terms. Your community knows more than you do about your own products and they will give you their opinion whether you want it or not—then tell everyone they know! The key is to ensure you are listening at the beginning, middle and end of your social media effort and understanding how to utilize this listening to develop a cohesive social media strategy. You want to make sure you are hearing your network effectively, seeing what they are sharing & liking and engaging with them to understand where they want you to be.
- Welcome to the Human Network. Consumers are in control and everybody has an opinion. Your network wants to interact with you and have authentic conversation. Conversations among human beings sound human—be sure to lighten up on the corporate jargon and keep your sense of humor. If you speak without personality and take yourself too seriously, your community will not respond, retweet or share your message with their followers, which is exactly what you do want them to do. Also, be sure to leverage employees. They are your fans. Encourage, educate, train, monitor and implement. Remember, it’s a conversation – join in, engage and have fun.
- Reach Out and Touch Someone. People share because they want to contribute to the conversation and feel like they are part of a community. Smart marketers want to reach their network’s network and the only way to make that happen is to make certain you have content worth sharing. You must be sure to keep your content valuable, interesting, engaging and easy to share. List all your social sites on your company Website and include social links on your email signature. Integrate social media on your blog to enable readers to quickly share your blog posts and be sure to keep tweets under 120 characters leaving space for retweets. Additionally, make sure you focus on what your community is saying and reach back out with further conversation, rewards and credit where it’s due.
- Just Do It. The truth is that there isn’t a specific ROI associated with social media just yet. However, engaging in social media will help maintain that your business will exist in the next five years and people will be able to search and find you long-term. Social media isn’t a fad; it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. Develop your strategy plan, become a resource, build your brand & credibility and just go for it!
Tags: Digital Marketing, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media Marketing
Categories: Social Media Marketing
