A Road Map To Successful Social Media
Social media has become an essential tool to Small Business. A large percentage of Internet users use Social Media to take in news and content daily. Today the Yellow Pages are not used as much, people look for local business and solutions on social media. Small businesses that want to stay ahead and relevant need to leverage all the relevant SM tools. With so many tools and choices it’s hard to decide where to start. You can devote hours on Twitter trying to endorse your business, without any tangible results. That’s why it’s important to focus on few key activities that are proven to bring success. Here are a few social media strategies to get you started:
Steps in your Road Map
1) Profile creation on key SM platforms
At bare minimum, you will want to create a profile for each of the essential social media sites. Today these are, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google+. As we saw with MySpace a few years ago, a site can go from social media colossal to unknown rather quickly, keeping an eye out for the latest and most trendy sites is another thing to focus on. Add each new client or prospect on each of those sites. To go the extra mile and for security, consider requesting a social media profile on all websites using a service such as KnowEm to ensure that no one else claims your business name there in the future.
2) Channelize your efforts based on your needs
Depending on the needs of your business, you’re going to have more traction with sites based on audiences. For example, if your primary targets is b2b work, you’re going to get more leads with LinkedIn over Facebook. If you have a consumer product, Facebook or Twitter might be your best bet. Twitter is great for personal branding, and Facebook is great for community referrals. Choose one platform to start with, and work centrifugally from there.
3) Create a blog
A blog can be a vital part of your social media marketing road map. You don’t need something extensive or elaborate; a relevant article each week can be enough to garner some interest in your business. Make sure you actively post blog updates on each of your social media profiles, which you can usually do through the use of a blog plugin. You can setup a blog quickly at WordPress or Tumblr.
4) Email marketing can help generate new business
A monthly email newsletter can do wonders in terms of generating new business. It also gives customers something that they can forward directly to their associates. Re-Post your email newsletter on your blog, and make sure it’s also linked to your social media profiles. MailChimp is probably the easiest tool to use if you’re new to email marketing, and creating a free account is a good starting point to explore its features.
5) Create engagement with your social media community
Spend some time networking with your customers and prospects via the social media sites. If a customer posts a service question to your Facebook page, for example, consider answering directly on the platform publicly. This works better than simply giving them your customer service phone number. It demonstrates commitment and enabled easy communication with customers – as well as the rest of your followers. In addition, if someone checks in to your location using FourSquare or another platform that broadcast the checkin on Twitter, reach out to them to ask them to leave a review about your business as this will increase your Google rankings.
6) Leverage Multimedia
While some sites are better for images and videos than others, you still need to use multimedia regardless of your focus. Use professional pictures of your products to attract more interest. Consider creating informational and educational “how-to” videos, and share them with your followers. Not only does this attract viewers, but also helps to establish credibility. Creating a video can be simple and inexpensive. Platforms like Camtasia can help, other options include finding a local college student that does video production, or hiring a pro video production crew.
7) Offer value propositions
If your Tweets only ever consist of advertisements, people aren’t going to keep following you. Offer regular advice and other types of interaction to your followers. Offering promotions and freebies are also good ways of garnering attention and indulging purchase.
8) Connect Offline channels to Social Media
Add your Linked-in address and Facebook address on business cards. List them in your email signature. Place a clipboard by your register that will allow customers to sign up for your email list. The goal should be to expand your social media reach and influence new audiences, and one of the best ways is to push your current customers to your social media platforms. If you use MailChimp for your email newsletter, you can even enable people to signup via a text message from their cell phone.
9) Keep track of your progress and keep a check on your result
Ultimately, the accomplishments of your social media endeavours should grow your business. If you’re not getting new clients or customers through your social media efforts, it’s time to make a change. Think about a new approach, or consider concentrating on diverse sites. Try not to focus on number of followers, as that can be a bit deceiving.
More and more, social media is becoming the most important channel of communication between business and customers. Don’t let your competition get the better of you on social media ; spend some time developing a social media strategy, and make it an integral part of how you reach out to your customers. Here are 3 starting points for your Roadmap to social media success:
1. Create a LinkedIn page, Facebook page, Google+, and Twitter profile for your business.
2. Create a Google Reader account, which you can use to easily monitor multiple industry blogs in one place.
3. A few times per week, login to your Google Reader account and share interesting content with your readers through LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to gradually build your brand as a source of helpful industry information.
Written by Wong Ching Ya
Originally posted on wchingya.com