In order to get the best quantifiable results from your social media marketing campaign, you need an optimized social media strategy to lay out the foundation for you. Social media is still a buzz word to many, and millions of conversations are happening on social media channels every day. Twitter and Facebook are still the biggest social media channels right now and even though Facebook is sporting with more than 800 million members, don’t forget that these aren’t the only social media channels that you can use.
There are thousands of social media channels that you can use to start engaging and build your brand reputation online. If you combine the number of users on all the social media channels you will be coming up with over a billion people who are active on the social web in total. With this said, social media is really a gold mine if you are into digital marketing.
With the growing trend of jumping on the social media bandwagon and to start building awareness for your brand, it is really not surprising to see digital marketers taking advantage of this opportunity to market their services and products via social media. Many of these digital marketers are failing because they didn’t create a plan or strategy when they started using Web 2.0 for marketing purposes.
The same with any type of digital marketing campaign, success depends on a good foundation consisting of a good execution plan. To help you get started with social media marketing, find below a couple of tips that can help you with the Web 2.0 marketing journey.
Research everything regarding SMM
Learn and research everything you can do about social media before you start with your campaign. Quite a few people are making the mistake of first starting their strategy with the technology in mind. A couple of weeks ago I published a blog post titled “The POST method with social media marketing” where I explain that your social media campaign should never start with the Technology in mind. POST stands for people, objectives, strategy, and technology.
Who do you want to reach? Where can these people be found? What are their demographics? Researching (listening) first will allow you to find ways on how you can market yourself on the social web without sounding like the desperate salesman.
Choose the right social media channels
Even though Facebook is the biggest social media channel, not all types of businesses can be marketed to on Facebook or Twitter. Some businesses needs a LinkedIn strategy more than a Facebook business page and vice versa. With this said, after you researched where your market is coming from and where you can reach them, you need to pick the social media channel that will help you reach them.
There is really no use in using Twitter, Facebook or even Pinterest if these channels are not appropriate for promoting your business.
Always be honest and transparent
In social media, being transparent is your best policy. With social media you are dealing with real people. If they catch you being dishonest, your business can suffer greatly and you might not be able to contain their outrage. One single negative comment about you or your business can destroy your reputation.
The basic social media marketing tips above can help you get started using the social web to market and engage with targeted audiences.
Impressive article Anton.
[When one owns a business locally] I have found that one should make use of the Local (more unpopular) Social Media Channels to achieve the desired brand exposure rather to focus more time,money and effort on the Bigger channels like Facebook and Twitter to achieve the same amount of exposure.
What is your take on this? I have found it to be quite a fruit-full strategy.
You are 100% correct, but it all depends on where your target market spends their time online. If it is mostly on local networks then definitely yes.
Choosing the “right” social media channel
for your business is excellent advice Anton. The strategy that I use is to maintain
a presence on the big social sites but pick one or two to concentrate on. For
me, LinkedIn is where I spend the bulk of my social networking time. I can have
conversations there. Having said that, I drive a noticeable amount of traffic
to my blog from Twitter and Facebook. The amount of time I spend there is a
fraction of what I spend on LinkedIn but it still has value. Thanks for a post
that makes us think!
Thanks Sherryl
You are 100% correct. Most of my traffic is also from LinkedIn as I spend most of time networking on that channel and a couple of local networks.
Me 3! I’m a SM Strategist, living in Tel Aviv and I’ve been driving thousands of hits per month using LinkedIn, posting, getting involved in Conversations. Relevant and compelling content is KING. But, that can happen using FB as well IF that is where your target market is at. Thanks for the post Anton. Keep up the good work.
Awesome statement “Relevant and compelling content = Magnetic content”
Great planning for SSM Anton. All social media do not fit for all business. you need to find influential person who can help your voice to pass next person. if you can able to do that then only your SSM campaign will be called successful.
Thanks Jeet.
You should choose the channel that best appeals to you and your lifestyle. If you like posting relatively short messages that means to say a lot, then you should try Twitter. If on the other hand you would like to build relationships with people then Facebook is the right tool for you. Otherwise, it never hurts to learn how to efficiently use both.
Not always. It all depends on which channels the target market that you would like to reach spends their time.