Social media marketing is still very new, even though it has been around for a while. Most of the successful digital marketing professionals practicing social media marketing have some type of business and marketing background, but it is very rare to find anyone that have actually studied social media in varsity in the basic sense of the world, and how it can be integrated with your current marketing initiatives.
Most of us in the field are constantly learning how to navigate and use this new medium to make sense between all the noise by mostly working on a trial basis. If you are newcomer to the social media world and interested on how you can use social media marketing to get targeted results, find below 10 tips you can use with your social media initiative.
Social media marketing tips
- Be authentic online: The social web is social. On the social web people want to see what you stand for and who you are. Show your personality, join the conversation, and be yourself.
- Being humble goes a long way: Usually the marketers that starts out with social media often tries to establish themselves as the thought leaders within their field. Exactly the same as in real life – no on likes it if you are only going to boast yourself all the time. It is very important to learn how to engage with your target network without alienating them.
- Find your niche: Twitter, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest are not the only social media channels out there. When creating your social media marketing strategy, do some research and find out which social media channels they are using. Those are the channels you should be targeting.
- Follow interesting people: In my experience with social media marketing I found that having a mentor with experience in your field can that can share their knowledge with you can really help you get your feet off the ground. Asking questions is another great way that you can use to gain knowledge.
- It is really not about you: A good social media goal that you can use is to be helpful first. Over promoting your business or brand is really a sure way to alienate and annoy your network. Engagement should always happen first, and then the sales will follow.
- Don’t count all the numbers: Don’t measure the success of your campaign by the number of fans you have or how many followers. Social media marketing is all about creating conversation with your target audience that can lead to repeat, and loyal customers for your business. Don’t be discouraged by the number of your fans or followers. Focus on establish real relationships, being helpful, and creating interesting content that your network will find interesting.
- Sharing is caring: Magnetic content online is meant to be shared. Re-tweeting, bookmarking, commenting, and even the +1 are all a sure way to tell your network that you value their contributions. If you do more for others with your social media campaign, the more they will do for you.
- Giving credit: When you borrow someone else’s content or strategy, give them credit.
- Follow back: It is as simple as that. Follow people back.
- Plan your schedule: It is really easy to get lost on the social web through all the noise. Make sure you know just when you can turn off your daily social media marketing tasks. The social web won’t run away, just plan your tasks.
seems like social media is just an extension of who we are as a person. The same basics that go towards having a likable personality seem to apply to using social media. good post.
That is so true. Only problem is, what you say online, stays online.
That’s a good point and it underscores the importance of being careful about what you write online.
Could you imagine trying to run for a public office after 20 years of writing things online. Your opponents could probably dig up a ton of stuff to use against you.
Indeed, and that is why it is so important to consider ORM as strategy to not only protect your name online, but to build it as well. It doesn’t mean that you should go for a hard core ORM strategy, only check where there are “grey” areas in your public name online, and fix it.
Now that’s some great advice Anton…
Social media has been around for awhile although in the grand scheme of things, it’s still fairly new. What people forget is the word “social”. That means people getting to know people and we all know how we love to talk about ourselves right!
It’s a place to get to know each other and you can’t do that if you aren’t being genuine. You definitely said it all and I hope everyone will take notice to what social media is really all about. Give freely and it will come back to you ten fold.
Thanks for sharing this Anton.
~Adrienne
Thanks Adrienne. You summed it up quite nicely “Give freely and it will come back to you ten fold”.