1. Develop a Plan
Remember that there are tons of options when it comes to social media marketing. Most social media companies offer paid promotions and advertising, but with a little extra time, effort, and great content – you could spread the word for free. Where is the best place to start in social media for your business? Are you going to spend money with campaigns or keep the budget low? Who will manage your social media accounts and when? What is your company’s brand strategy and how will you incorporate that into social media? If you don’t know where to get started, try this class from Skillshare that will help you strategize your social media campaign. Skillshare offers great classes on everything from design and development to branding and marketing, and their class on developing a social media strategy is a good place to get started. Classes aren’t free but they are always a great experience because they involve class interaction. Click Here to Learn More About the Class.
2. Make the commitment
One of the biggest mistakes you can make in managing your social media accounts is to create them and leave them. Keeping your social media consistently updated lets your followers know that you’re interesting, energetic, and excited about your what your company is doing. Less involvement in social media can give the impression of lethargy or make your company seem like its in over it’s head. So consider this when getting started: who exactly is going to update your social media? How much time every day can you spare to dedicate to maintaining social media? Who should be involved in social media strategizing? Remember to think outside the box when it comes to social media marketing. While you may have a marketing strategists, consider what else social media requires. Is there a young member of your staff who knows the ins and outs of twitter interaction? Is one of your employees exceptionally social with a great sense of humor? While your aim is marketing, you are also trying to engage with your customers.
3. Keep it consistent
Your company should have a distinct voice across all of your social media platforms. While there may be a few different people working on your pages, you should all be on the same page with your marketing strategy. Your company’s voice should embody your brand and your company’s identity.
4. Consider where your customers are.
There are dozens of social media options for your company, and many of them are very specific to a certain industry and demographic. Included here is a small infographic with a quick overview of popular social media outlets and how they can help you reach your customers. Click the “get inspired” link to view examples of other businesses who are doing it right.
|
|
|
YouTube |
Vine |
|
Google Plus |
Deviant Art |
Polyvore |
|
5. Use Google Analytics to track your SM activity
Set up Google alerts to let you know when there is something important going on with your business, your competitors, or anything that’s relevant and you might want to comment on our engage with with you can. Google analytics is a free tool that gives you great information about incoming traffic, where it’s coming from, and whether your marketing campaigns are working. Knowing the success or failure of a certain effort or campaign can help you plan future strategy.
6. Go one-on-one with your customers.
Social Media, especially Twitter, has become one of the most common ways that customers can communicate directly with companies. There are thousands of examples of ways that companies have used social media to assure complaining customers that their issues will be resolved quickly. It is responsible to monitor mentions on Twitter and other sites so that you can make sure your customers are happy, and then do your best to correct any problems your customers might have. Publicly solving problems can also potentially be seen by thousands of other customers or future customers, so making a good impression by handling yourself in a friendly, positive way, can go far. Taco Bell’s Twitter feed is a great example here, because they interact with their loyal customers better than anyone. They are constantly re-tweeting mentions, and they have a great sense of humor about their product. Because they do so well interacting with customers, their Twitter feed has just over 866,000 followers. iLoveDogs is an example of a smaller business doing social media right. While they aren’t as well known as Taco Bell, they take the same care and initiative in engaging with their customers and trying to garner active participation. Below are some screenshots to inspire you to engage with your customers!
7. Follow people!
One of the best and simplest ways to get people to follow you is to follow them! Find people and businesses that are similar or could share interests with yours, and who would want to interact with you and share your expertise with others.
8. Learn the Ropes
Every social media network is different and is used differently. Take some time to research the proper way to use and interact with social media. For example, do you know the size and dimensions of a Facebook profile banner? Did you know that there are special rules governing the use of these banners for business pages? Think that twitter is the only site using hashtags? You’ll need them on vine, Instagram, and as of recent, facebook. Do you know how to connect on Linkedin to people who share your interest, have similar backgrounds, or went to school with you? Make sure you know exactly how to take full advantage of what each social media outlet has to offer.
If your small business isn’t on social media, you should consider coming up with a social media strategy that reinforces your brand identity in an attempt to reach a wider audience and interacting with your customers.
Customer Success Manager
