7 tips for your Social Media Marketing

27 February 2013

Social Media, everyone is using it and everyone has a different opinion about it. But whether you are impressed or find it quite annoying, one thing is sure: you can not escape it. Your customers are or will soon talk about you on their social media channels. You can sit back and passively look at what is happening or you could pull up your sleeves and get started with social media marketing.

Social media marketing roughly means that you have to make your marketing online sociable. This implies that you have valuable and shareable content in all the various forms of rich media whether that is text, video or images. Below you will find some tips on how you can best start with your social media marketing.

1. Sign-up for free: It goes without saying, but in order to start a social media marketing campaign you first have to make accounts on different platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest. Facebook allows you to create a business page. Make sure you read the rules for businesses first. You can even ‘create a page’ through your personal account, if your business allows you to do so. That makes it easy for business owners to manage it. On LinkedIn, every employee becomes your best advocate. Through YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest you can make your business visual and friendly.

2. Assess your assets: The first action you should take before engaging in social media marketing is to look at what you are trying to promote. What do you have to offer? Who are your targets? It is important to chose carefully so that you reach your target group effectively. People who are active on Facebook are often a different group than those who are on LinkedIn. Learn your target group, find out how they communicate and where they communicate.

3. Content is king: All media is about good content and social media is no different. Start a corporate blog and make sure you produce inspiring, educational and awesome content that is so compelling that people want to share it. Content is after all the foundation of your social media marketing. Another advantage of introducing corporate blogging in your social media marketing mix is because it helps your business be found easier by search engines.

4. Find a social media manager: Managing multiple social networks is hard work. So, before you start posting content, requesting friends and adding followers, sign-up for a social media manager such as HootSuite. It allows you to manage all of your accounts on one site and schedule your messages to deploy so you don not have to sit over it all day.

   If your budget allows it, you should even take this tip literary and really hire a manager to take care of your social media marketing. This person should be trusted with monitoring, contributing to, filtering, measuring and guiding the social media presence of your brand.

5. Post updates: Whether you decide to be in charge of your social media marketing or you hire someone to do it, before you start adding friends and followers it is important to have relevant content. When you try to find friends, they are going to look at the page to see if they want to follow you. So, you need to give them a reason to follow you first. Provide valuable information about the industry. Post pictures of your business or people enjoying your business.

6. Find friends and followers: No social media marketing campaign will succeed if nobody sees it. Only your personal friends and family don not count, although it is a good place to start with. Spread your message on their pages and ask them to do the same with their friends. On platforms such as Google+, Twitter or Instagram is a bit easier because you find followers by searching for keywords. It is recommended to only add a few people at a time. Make them to like you so that their friends also get the chance to get a glimpse at your business.

7. Engage with friends and followers: This should actually be tip number one, but for clarity reasons I write it in the end. The whole point of social media marketing is to be social. So, don not be afraid to interact with your public. They will feel appreciated and start loving you in real life too. And that's what you want, right? Even if online, the success of you social media marketing translates in the physical increase of your sales.