Using Social Media for a Marketing Resource
Social Media
Get up to speed with online marketing.
Traditional Marketing doesn’t work anymore!
The New Marketing Tools are low-to-no-cost online tools.
Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, blogs, podcasts, LinkedIn, pinterest, etc.
It’s perfect for small business, where it’s more personal and where authenticity matters.
You can build trust and make connections by using your personality and being genuine.
Anyone with a computer and internet connection can communicate with the world.
Everyone can be a publisher. The online marketing revolution has arrived-and you can be part of it.
If you are a new or aspiring business owner, the challenges and tasks you face can appear daunting. How do you find the time to market your product or service as well as doing the work required to deliver it?
The following are tips to help you, inform you and inspire you:
You may already use sites and services like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Flicker, and iTunes to keep in touch with friends and family, and download music and share photos.
Do you wonder how such sites can be used for marketing your business?
Where do you start?
The new online marketing is an ever-evolving field, with new Social Media tools cropping up all the time. It can be hard to keep up with.
ONLINE MARKETING 101
What is online marketing?
Online Marketing does a lot of the same things that tradional marketing does-it just does them more cheaply and effectively with a greater reach.
There are almost two billion people online. Some are your ideal prospects and0or customers.
It’s affordable
Effective
Authentic
Specfic Reasons why online marketing works for business includes
Drive Traffic to your site. Your website is the hub of your business. Using your online marketing activities is to drive traffic to it.
Creating value is part of the secret of online marketing, create a useful resource or interesting content and give it away. This will keep them coming back.
New ways to connect with your market by establishing a presence on Social Sites thar your market use, rather that taking on “if you build they will come” approach, you will become visible to a new set of prospects.
Build Trust- People prefer to do business with people they know. Your clients and customers can get to know you through your online presence.
Start a Conversation.
Build communities and relatiosnships.
Provide Quick, up-to-date information about your business or topic of interest.
Data Capture. Build a database of potential customers. Encourage people to sign-up for your newsletter.
Market research. Ask them for feedback on your products or services or even create an online questionnaire.
Low-cost, Low-Risk, effective.
What is Social Media?
A collection of free, online tools and platforms that people use to publish, converse and share online content.
Core Principles of Social Media
Follow the rules.
Be authentic, open, transparent. Don’t pass yourself off as something or someone you’re not.
Don’t go for the hard sell. Don’t spam Facebook, provide useful content.
Build Social Currency. Simply use Social Media to get a feel for it. Once you’ve been on various sites for a while, you have more credibility.
Don’t view it as just another marketing channel.
Don’t treat it as a one-way broadcast medium. More interesting when it facilitates a two-way conversation.
Be Clear about responsibilities.
Be Patient. Social Media needs a long term approach. A new blog takes a good 6 months to establish itself.
Lisa
Recent Comments
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I am personally quite excited about having my social media accounts for marketing my business, and I'm going to follow the advice of only choosing 3 platforms, rather than trying to do all of them, and to also bring them in one by one, as I learn to manage them.
One thing I have not yet worked out however...is how on earth to mange them, along with the website..e.g. how to split out my content between them, (Twitter and Pinterest will be easier than Facebook of course, due to their limits), but how to go on on Facebook and for my podcasts, and emailing the subscriber list??
Then there's the time-management factor if we only have a few hours of an evening to do it all, - ege writing content for website and updating website design, dealing with emails, responding to comments split-testing, product reviews, planning content in advance, preparing my pod-casts, making my podcasts, same with Youtube videos, responding to comments on FB and interacting with my followers etc?? Gonna be a lot of work although worth it! I will use Hootsuit and plan my content updates a week in advance, but it will still require great organisation to plan and prepare it all. This will be true for all of us who use these methods. So if anyone has any management tips, or ways they split their content across their marketing efforts, - please write a blog post or respond to this. I'm sure many of us will need guidance and tips! :)
Yes Avecita I am currently using FaceBook, Twitter and Google+. I have a separate blog also, but I am going to use my content for my Wealthy Affiliate website, It takes time to build a successful online business, because the main thing is to build relationships and then your audience will have a personal relationship with you, which in turn helps create traffic.