Social media marketing has taken the business world by storm, delivering opportunities like never before. These opportunities can be experienced, in many cases, going viral virtually overnight.It is increasingly more difficult for small business to come up with clever marketing policies. Though with the birth of social media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin in the past decade, new possibilities for business now provide potentials that were implausible in the last century.
The interaction of potential customers via social media provides business with an avenue to gain their trust and loyalty. Reaching thousands of impending customers almost instantaneously is not a fanciful notion. Customers sharing your engaging social media content can cause a viral sensation within very short periods of time, that can assist building brand recognition and thus reaching your target audience.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Participation is the key characteristic to a successful social media marketing campaign. By simply creating a profile, sitting back and failing to interact with your customers, is not an effective method to increase your sales and customer base. Creating a continuous buzz and having people engage by way of commenting, expressing their opinions and sharing the information with friends, creates and opens the avenue to your businesses success.
What are the benefits of Social Media Marketing?
1. More sales via instant publicity
By posting a distinct communication on the wall of your Facebook page, for example, businesses can instantaneously reach all of the people who are subscribed to that page. Those people can then decide to forward or share that communication with their friends. This is how a Facebook campaign can successfully be executed, and by being passed onto others that are not subscribed can increase your businesses prominence very rapidly. “Tweeting” on Twitter and “likes” on Facebook, is what is referred to as “viral marketing.” Traditional methods cannot complete with the speed of this technique of advertising and the potential to reach many thousands of people promptly is marketing that is difficult to surpass, hence the reason why many business have jumped onboard the SMM bandwagon. To reject Social Media could potentially be a nail in the coffin of your business. Here are some top strategies on how to use Facebook for marketing.
2. Search Engine Optimization Enhancement
Every businesses priority should be to constantly improve its search engine ranking. Being on the first page of popular search engines equals business success, by way of increased traffic. There is no point having a fantastic website, if no one visits it.
Backlinks are important for increasing websites rankings in the search engines, and your social media profiles provide valuable backlinks to assist in growing this rank. Quite simply, the more traffic your website receives, the probability of increased sales are more likely.
3. Less Expenditure
One benefits most marketing managers will be impressed by is that fact that you can expect savings by implementing an effective social media marketing campaign. Without the need for printing glossy paper flyers to advertise your business, fewer outlays need to be expended. Most social media advertising campaigns are free, though you can buy publicity if you wish. For example, Facebook fans can be purchased to give your page an initial boost or you can persevere and build your Facebook community organically using good solid content. Dramatic outcomes can and have been experienced for many businesses with minimal expense.
4. Build Loyal Devotees
These are the customers that every business relies on to ensure its longevity. These folk will opt for your products and services consistently over other business with similar services or products to offer. Their loyalty and commitment should never be disregarded. To gain such followers can be secured by regularly submitting informative and beneficial posts to your Facebook page for business, which will expectantly be shared with their own friends.
To build connections, it’s essential that you interact directly with all prospective customers. By posting comments that can benefit these people directly, can assist in building such relationships. Consumers like to feel special and regular posts can have that personal touch that they may not experience via other media, such as radio and television. There is also the capacity to respond to their comments, effectively developing the loyalty further.
5. Construct Fresh Business Relationships
Rewarding business relationships are an additional beneficial characteristic to social media marketing, which can contribute by increasing profitability to all business involved. Exposure of your own business to other associated businesses via the network of contacts generated by your social media action can have potential positive outcomes.
Knowing your target audience is the key to the success of your social media campaign. Maintain clear communication, keep the conversation reciprocal, steer clear of automated replies and direct something their way that is of value to them. In this way, if the consumer feels that what you have to say is pertinent to them, they will be more inclined to become involved in the chat. There is the possibility that they will seek out other social media avenues that you may have important periodicals relating to your business, which may benefit them.
A successful social media marketing campaign takes a reasonable investment of time. By devoting that time, you may not experience overnight results, though you can expect to have an increased understanding of your customer requirements. Increases in sales and development of your brand are an aspect that over time, will see your investment of energy into your social media marketing campaign a worthwhile venture.
About the Author: Hailed as a recognized professional on small business, Edmond Hong received first class honors in Business Marketing and Civil Engineering at the esteemed Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Residing in Melbourne presently, he writes marketing books in his spare time and also coach’s business people. He also own a social media marketing company that allows businesses to enhance their brand popularity by purchasing Facebook fans. His articles have appeared in the business section of a number of well-regarded media including the Age in Australia and the New York Times.
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