I’m not going to tell you that you have to be on social media.
I’m not going to tell you that you are missing out. I’m going to tell you that based on these factors, you can better decide whether social media marketing is for you:
- What type of business model and structure is your business? Business to Business? or Business to Consumer?
- Do you sell products or are you service based?
- How much resources or funds can you dedicate towards social media?
Then you can decide whether you should be doing social media marketing and which channels you should be focused on.
But before we get into social media, let me explain something. Your website is your most valuable marketing tool for your business. Before heavily promoting your business page on Facebook, ensure that your website is up to date enough that you feel that you can convert business if someone is to visit it from your Facebook page. After all, when someone has decided to check for more information about you or your business, they will visit your website. Do you feel your website will convert visitors into buyers? If so, begin social media marketing to attract website visitors.
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are the most popular social networks for businesses. Google+ is another popular social network but we won’t refer to it in this article. It’s better to do one social network exceptionally well than to have more networks that are just okay.
Exposure:
An excellent pool of social butterflies and entertainment seekers sharing and liking various cool and interesting things.
Facebook is the biggest social network. If you are business to consumer, your target market is on here. You’ll need a business page. This is different from a personal page and it allows you to advertise, which is a key component to gaining exposure and traction on Facebook.
Advertise:
Facebook advertising can target demographics (male, female, age groups) interest groups (such as fitness or nature), geographical areas (cities, countries, radius Km distance from a specific city).
Generate Leads:
There are several different ad types available. The most popular are, 1. Page Post Engagement, 2. Increase Page Likes, 3. Clicks to Your Website, 4. Remarketing.
Facebook is a popular website where visitors aren’t usually ready to buy right away. It takes time to build trust with visitors by actively posting and engaging your audience. Consistency and tracking your campaigns will help you be successful.
Follow & Keep Informed:
An efficient way to communicate your business news, promotions, new product launches, opinions, build relationships or general banter in 140 characters or less.
Users can follow your tweets to keep up to date on what’s happening in your business very easily.
Build Relationships:
You can in a professional manner send a quick tweet to a business colleague or various colleagues to thank them for a great meeting and tell them you are excited to be working with them.
Connect:
Think of twitter as a way to text message (like you would from your phone to their phone) to a business address or person. This message is received on their account whether they are on their computer or have Twitter set up on their mobile device. Their response is then a text message back.
Twitter can be effective for events or announcements of product releases in a timely manner. It can also be used as a support tool where users can send you a tweet asking a question and when you answer it, you’ve answered it for many users that follow you as well.
Twitter is a tool for businesses to build their brand, gain exposure, create interest and attract website traffic and conversions. You can search and find various users based on a variety of search options or keywords and choose to follow them, tweet at them or send them a direct message.
The ultimate business to business social network.
There’s a type of aura about LinkedIn where people don’t just post what they had for lunch that day, it’s mostly business-related on LinkedIn.
For most of LinkedIn’s existence, they’ve been all about your personal profile. Recently, they’ve added company pages and allow you to post as your company. People can then follow your company’s posts as well. Your staff can add themselves as employees of the company and link their profiles to the company page.
Advertising:
LinkedIn has advertising options available to target specific profiles or job titles and display ads to those people. There are mixed reviews on the results so far but if you are looking to recruit someone to join your team, this may be an angle to target specific people to get your company noticed.
LinkedIn can also be used as a lead generation tool. You can direct message users or ask to be introduced or connected from someone else in your network. The more connections you have, the more people you will be able to contact unless you purchase LinkedIn Premium.
Publishing:
Another feature of LinkedIn is the ability to publish articles via LinkedIn Pulse. Only select profiles are allowed to publish posts (you can apply to be an author). This works just like a blog does where you write an article and upload an image, preview and publish. When you post an article there’s a notification that goes to everyone that you are connected to and tells them that you’ve just published an article. People can then click on the link to view your article as well as like or comment. Views are tracked to see how many people read your article. Publishing articles is a great way to give information about your industry or what you do to gain interest and exposure as well as to enhance your profile and brand as an expert in your field.
