The first thing you want to do is identify your goals. What are you hoping to get from your social media marketing program? Your goals are going to directly impact your strategy– which channels you use and how you use them. Who you follow, who you engage with. If you have a brand new product to the market, perhaps your goal is awareness… to let people know you exist. Or if you have a brick and mortar store, you can use social media to drive traffic into your store. Perhaps you’re looking for product feedback or market research. Goals can also change over time.
Don’t bite off more than you can chew. If you’re a solopreneur, maybe getting a twitter account, a fb account, a G+ account, an instagram acct, pinterest, is too much!It’s better to do 1-2 channels well than 4-5 channels halfwayChoose channels based on#1 your bandwidth#2 your customerActive vs. passive channels (most active: twitter. Most passive: youtube or pinterest)
I’ve had clients ask me if I will do FB posting and tweeting for them. That is not something that I do. Why?Lacks authenticityTakes time to track down the answerI’m not the expert on YOUR product and your field. I don’t live and breathe it.As a consultant I’d rather help you find a part-time person to help you with social media postings OR show you tools to make it easier and more efficient to run the channels yourself.
Please someone tell me they get this Captain Picard reference?But really, engagement is the big buzzword in social media because it’s true– engagement is what makes social media “social”.When a fan engages with your facebook page, their friends see it AND they are more likely to see more from you on their wall. You could have a million fans, but if none of them are engaging with you, you are marketing in a vaccuum.The price of NOT engaging can be damaging to your brand.
Your customers want to engage with a person, not with a brand.Don’t make social media your marketing megaphone. Depending on the size of your audience/brand maybe 1 post per day should be about your company/product. The rest should be…
If you are marketing a product to parents, share content that parents care about.When sharing content, think about your CUSTOMER first, not your BRAND. If my product is BrimBits, should I be posting content about baseball caps all week? No. Post content about baseball, parenting, kids, toys, sibling rivalry. Why do this? When you share content and engage, customers are more open to marketing messages when they do come. They keep you top of mind when it’s time to buy your product.
Customers are increasingly using social media as a customer service channelMore than 50% of Facebook users, and 80% of Twitter users, expect a response to a customer service inquiry in a day or less. – Source: Consumer Views of Live Help Online 2012, A Global Perspective, OracleZappos average is 54 minutesCan’t handle the response time? Back to slide #2: don’t bite off more than you can chew.Monitoring tools: Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, SproutSocial
Facebook stats:Photos are 5x more engaging than links But brands post links 2.7x more than photos Photos get the most comments per post of any content type Videos get the most shares per post of any content type
In the world of FB and Twitter, email is sometimes forgotten. But email is still enormously powerful.In 2011, email marketing had an average ROI of $43 for every dollar spent.58% of adults check email first thing in the morning. 11% check Facebook.77% say they prefer email for promotional messages.
You should be constantly evaluating your efforts and making changes. Free tools abound for measurement: edgerank checker, tweriod, klout