Using social media marketing to its full potential
Websites, apps and social media marketing are all very important aspects for any business in today’s digital world. Without these avenues a business can get lost or forgotten about very easily with the over whelming amount of data that is seen by the average person daily. Being part of this mass amount of data will keep potential clients and past clients informed and up to date with your business. Just because you post on social media, sent an email campaign, have a website or an app for your business does not guarantee everyone will see it or use it and that’s why it’s crucial to be very active and consistent with social media marketing efforts.
In the past we relied on print, billboards, radio, television and direct mail to reach potential clients or customers. Smart business owners knew back then and today that not everyone sees your marketing efforts the first time, so it’s important to display your message across all mediums as frequently as possible. Every business should set aside approximately 15% of its revenue to place back into marketing efforts and this is still the case today with social media and other digital avenues. Highlighting your brand, products or services across all medium is a very effective strategy. Marketing is not cheap and many small business owners think if they purchase a campaign or ad and don’t receive a sale that same day the effort was not effective and they wasted money on marketing, but the fact of the matter is you may not receive a sale for a few months and constantly reminding people to check you out will bring a more steady stream of sales into your business over time.
We have all heard the saying we reap what we sew and this is the heart and soul of social media marketing or any marketing. What we sew today we reap later creating a consistent and growing sales funnel. If you’re interested in social media marketing for your business but don’t have the time to give it a go you can hire a social media marketing manager, or you can appoint some current staff members to take care of that along with the position they already carry. Many larger companies have marketing departments but those departments may not be trained in the area of social media or content marketing so it’s important to have your staff trained in these areas. There is many webinars available across the internet to assist in this training or consultants that can come do some hands on training with your staff.
Social media marketing is really a different beast than traditional marketing. It is a world of its own and a small boy or girl fooling around on Youtube can amount to great success so it’s important to be loose and embrace new ideas and unorthodox approaches. Today people want to see social media; they get board easy with text, descriptions, about me and want to be engaged with video, pictures and colours. People want to laugh and feel like they are part of something, they want to be attracted to something and they want to be loved and respected. If you can include the social media users needs into your campaign you will be very successful with interaction and engagement. Giveaways, contests, games, apps are wonderful ways to get people engaged and they don’t cost much money to implement into your over all social media marketing plan. Being on the free aspect of social media is very important but you can’t assume people see every move you make, so it’s extremely important to be very active and to understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Being genuine is important because coming off as phony or forced will not please most social media users. You need to think in their shoes, what’s in it for them? or how will they feel if we do that?
Not all social media marketing is free you can use advertising banners inside most social media platforms. The benefit to this is you can target campaigns specific to geological locations, demographics, age etc. Google Adsense, Youtube ads, Facebook ads, and Twitter ads are a few of the many paid avenues that can be used. They are implemented into the platform itself in a non obstructive way so users don’t feel abused and upset. These companies have spent million on research efforts to make this possible. Using online advertising channels alongside traditional marketing has a far greater impact, and to add to that it can all be tracked and budgets can be set and managed easier. The internet has came a long way and is used every day by everyone, the most successful businesses take time to use its potential and do not turn a blind eye to this shift of technology based marketing approach.
Photo by: Jason Howie
