Social Media marketing is the fastest growing platform for online marketing. Next to video, it is making waves and almost everybody is rushing to get involved. Whether you have already embraced it or not, you will do well to understand the opportunities and potential involved with a solid social media campaign.
Exposure
For the start-up business, whether online or offline, social media is an incredible chance to get valuable exposure for your business. Given how competitive and expensive other campaigns, such as paid advertising can be, a chance to get free exposure to potentially thousands of people is not one to easily dismiss.
A successful social media campaign during the early stages a a new business’s life can make the difference between success and failure.
One thing to be careful of is not going too far and “over exposing”. In other words, don’t spam so much that your product, service, or business is disregarded and not taken seriously. Getting it right is a delicate balance.
There is already a lot of noise on the social media scene, don’t add to it.
Interaction
Another unique aspect of social media is the ability to interact on a person level with your customers. Everybody has a mobile and your app or social media accounts let you get right in their pocket. This should not be underestimated.
Too many businesses turn their mobile app or social media campaigns into miniature versions of their .com or offline campaigns. A mobile app (or social account) is a separate entity and should be treated as such.
There are many unique features, and different ways to organize your app that will encourage more interaction and personal engagement. This is key to social media.
Engagement
There is a massive amount of engagement within the social media world. Some of it is just token gestures though. Many apps, websites, and social accounts have cottoned on to the idea that getting more social “shares” results in better rankings, increased popularity, and definitely more attractiveness.
Keeping up appearances is important and something that even the most established of brands cannot fail to embrace.
You’ve probably noticed now how almost everyone is asking for “likes”, “shares” and comments, sometimes even in exchange for prizes. While this may appear cheap to some, it is starting to appear that the ones who successfully employ these strategies do end up reaping more benefits later on.
Engagement is not just about chasing “likes” though. There is much more to it than that.
By keeping engaged with your audience, you can achieve many things:
- Keep them updated of latest news and events in your business.
- Let them understand your business more.
- Understand them more (vitally important)
- Keep them interested.
- Increase your opportunities to turn them into customers.
All of the above are the core principles of successful business, and are very much achievable within the social media world.
Final Thoughts
Social media marketing is growing rapidly and is not a fleeting fad. Over the next few years, while many new social platforms will rise and fall, the fact will remain that social media will dominate the online and offline worlds. If businesses do not embrace and engage with these worlds, they risk being left behind.
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Essential Social Media Marketing Strategies
Using the Internet to market your services and products is crucial if you ever hope to have them purchased a by a wider online user base. If the Internet world does not know you exist, you effectively have no customer base at all. However, there are certain tools that are available that make social media marketing strategies more beneficial than ever.
To reach your goals of reaching a wider targeted audience, choose from the assortment of effective marketing strategies to gain a bigger audience to sell the goods or services your company provides.
Print Media
Print marketing still has a viable future in the advertisement world. However, over the last couple of decades it has lost its primary dominant position that it once had. It was once recognized as the most effective marketing strategy tool that could be used to publicize goods and services. Today however, it needs to be blended with an online outreach that can find a targeted audience.
Many of the options of print marketing strategies have been time tested. These include printed advertisements in magazines, newspapers, on banners, and posters, along with direct mail, postcards, billboards, brochures, classifieds, news releases, flyers, placed articles, business cards, free media and catalogs.
Electronic Media
Even though television commercials can reach a broad audience, they can be extremely expensive. However, they do have the ability to print a message to a preselected targeted audience. Radio commercials are only minimally less expensive than advertising on TV, but are not as affected because they miss the visual impact. Electronic media now has a limited viability, compared to other options.
Media on the Web
Many companies have taken way too long to see the benefits of advertising on the World Wide Web. A business website needs to provide more than just basic information of where you are located, how to find you, automate content, and see what to offer. With access to information on nearly any subject in the world, they can be gathered in a moments notice, most potential customers already know what it is that they want, and are seeking the best price and services available.
As a result, successful online companies do everything in their power to optimize their company website using search engine optimization and other social media marketing tools. This allows search engines to quickly locate updating information and drive new traffic to the site every day.
There is a significant benefit to taking advantage of social media marketing. It can drive a targeted audience to the site that is already interested in making a purchase reputable company. One effective tool to generate more interest for the website is to create videos, trailers, or interesting content and place it on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, and other social media sites.
The Internet is changing the way all of us interact with each other, including potential customers to the company. Online communication provides a face-to-face connection that was impossible just a few years ago. Companies that are interested in keeping step with this evolving technology must find new creative ways to connect one-on-one with their targeted audience.
