Social media has led to a fundamental shift in communication, reshaping the way that companies interact with companies. It’s having a great impact on everyday life and companies are continuing to embrace it in order to increase their online presence, engage with customers and to build business.
It’s a mistaken belief that you can simply setup a Facebook and Twitter account, post a few status updates and then bobs your uncle, customers are flocking to your site to purchase your products/services. Only if it was that easy, the fact of the matter is that it can be very difficult to see though a social media strategy with many underestimating the time and effort required to succeed in the digital space.
We believe that all companies should know the fundamentals when building their social network and that’s why we are going to offer you essential tips for running your prime social channels:
- Blog
- YouTube
Companies should setup a welcome section for its fan page. This will let people know what they can expect from following your brand. It helps to increase signups, your conversion ratings and your ROI. A great landing page with a clear call to action can help your company to save money on advertising costs.
The more likes and diverse comments that the company gets on an update, the more people’s walls and homepages they are shown on, which in turn gives greater exposure to your company. Facebook is a great way to engage with your audience by posting questions, contests, sharing photos or videos and sharing content that will make someone want to keep coming back to the page. It is a great way to drive interactions with your audience.
Google Plus
Using similar tactics to that of Facebook for Google Plus would be an effective way of increasing your presence on that platform. Google Plus was launched last year to compete with Facebook and remains a relatively new social platform with no set guidelines on how to best optimise your marketing performance using this channel. A few quick tips to get you started are:
- To share your blog info on your profile.
- To use strategic keywords and phrases in your status updates, as Google Plus is more open to searching and will allow you to rank higher in traditional Google searches.
- To write unique engaging content for status updates.
- To upload relevant and captivating pictures/videos.
- To make sure that your profile is open to search.
- To use circles to communicate with potential clients, media and prospects. For example you can create a circle for prospective clients and then provide them with industry news, media, and case studies and so on to suit them.
- To use Google Plus hangouts, where you can chat live on video from your computer or mobile device with up to 10 people.
When using Twitter, companies should look to share insightful content around their industry and to engage with smart people on subjects that are most meaningful to the company. It is important to build relationships first and then to promote your content.
Spread links that can be retweeted by your audience, whilst retweeting yourself. If you are wondering how to shorten links so that you have more space to comment, simply visit www.bitly.com enter the URL and your link will be shortened to copy and paste. When tweeting it’s good to include the company’s blog post links but it’s more important to comment on other peoples’ tweets. By promoting others over yourself, the company’s twitter following will grow and there is the chance to engage people whilst driving them back to your blog.
The @ feauture is a good way to reply to your audience when you can. In addition, links should not always be about the organisation’s business topic, it’s good to mix it up by having fun every so often and as a result steady traffic should role in.
Blogging
For many companies blogs are their focal point of their online marketing operation. It is an opportunity for them to establish its identity and directly communicate with those interested in the company’s services. However it’s no longer enough just to write content on a consistent basis. There is so much competition in every niche online nowadays that you have to stand out from the crowd and be unique. To do this it is essential to write compelling content, be an authentic representation within your field and interact with your community as much as possible. Everything you do has to be about the reader in order to serve their needs. Adding media such as pictures and videos can help increase interest in your blog.
It is essential to build up relationships with other bloggers, ways to do this include:
- Content promotion off the blog.
- Commenting on other blogs.
- Quickly responding to comments made on the company’s blog.
- Automatic distribution and syndication.
- Repurposing of content.
- Encouraging social popularity.
YouTube
YouTube can be a great way to be entertaining whilst also being informative about your company’s products/services. It’s an effective method of marketing, using your visual creative input rather than relying primarily on written content. Videos on your YouTube channel could include:
- Advice guides for products/services.
- Client testimonials.
- A company background.
- Past, present and future projects.
- Product overview.
LinkedIn can be a valuable source to network with others in your industry. Essentially, it’s an effective way for working professionals to explore business opportunities with each other. However, LinkedIn can also be a useful source for enticing traffic. Adding links on your LinkedIn profile and email footer can prove to be very effective in building traffic. It would also be positive to post links to social media and blog sites.
To find out how companies are using social media to spearhead their multichannel marketing strategies, visit my multichannel marketing blog.
Here is a great post from the social media top dogs themselves at Mashable, explaining the key behaviours required to succeed in your strategy.
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