Social Media
Is Marketing on social media sites good to advertise on?
Marketing on social media sites may be good places for you to spend your ad dollars, but may not be the most prudent place. TrendStrategics Topeka, Kansas can spread the Word for you on Social Media
What are The top social sites?
The top social sites are Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter and Linkedin.
Which is right for you? The answer to that lies within the scope of your business/offerings. It also depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Do you want direct sales, email harvesting (list building), brand awareness, brand supporting, other reasons of exposure?
Fast Moving Target
While social marketing is a fast moving target, it is slow enough to get on board and partake of the fruits. However, it is important to stay current (Trend). Because the space changes every couple years, it is good to know what is hot and what is not. Lots of exciting technologies and platforms are developed each year. Some take off and some drop off. Keeping abreast of these changes is perhaps not a full time job, but does take a dedication. This is a dedication of time and resources that you as a business owner just does not have liberty to expel. You need to spend your time building your business, making changes in product lines, physical space, staffing and of course keeping up with developments in your industry.
That is where a good SMMA (Social Marketing Media Agency (enter TrendStrategics) can keep track of the relevance of each media and do the heavy lifting for you.
What is Drip Marketing?
Drip marketing is a strategy that sends messages to your email list at appropriate times to funnel them into your business offering. We build your email lists with landing pages on your website that you exchange some offering in exchange for their email address. Of course, you don’t say “Hey we’ll give you our “free report” if we can have your email address so we can ding you until you give us your money. You just offer something of value and the way they will receive this information is through email. So of course, they have to share their address with you to get what you are giving. Then you send them what they agreed to and follow up on a schedule with various other email offers all funneling them into your marketing campaigns intent. Generally you want to do business with them in some fashion.
Drip Marketing Example
A simple example would look something like this. Your ad says “Get a Month of Coffee on Us”. Just send us your email so we can send you our coupon. So they fill out the form, and you send them the coupon. Now if your campaign is really sophisticated, each coupon has it’s own serial number. This number serves several purposes. First, to have authenticity. In other words, no two can be the same. Second, it can tell you which social media platform they were on and the ad campaign that worked to get them “in”. Now that they have opted in, you have legal right to send them other ads and offers.
Keep on Dripping!
You just keep on dripping the offerings on them. If they are pleased with your product, they will be happy when they receive your current offer. And of course with every offer (email deal you send them), you also make available a way of escape. In other words, let them opt out. If they are not satisfied with your product or offerings or find them less than valuable, they may tire of getting them in their inbox. Of course, even after that, you can send them one more email to ask them if they are sure they want to exist or why they want to opt out and perhaps a small box for comments. And also an option for changing their mind back to continuing to receive your offerings.
Should I Use a Comment Box?
The comment box can be a hugely valuable tool. While you don’t make it mandatory that they leave a comment, if they do, you will learn the mindset of the person who you had but lost. You will learn if your emails were too frequent, your offerings weren’t of significant value or they flat don’t like your product. This gives you more data on which to make future marketing decisions or change up on your offerings.
Which Social Media Platform to use?
This is largely answered by asking who your target is. Is it B2B (Business to Business) or B2C (Business to Consumer). If B2B, than Linkedin is probably your best source followed by Twitter. If B2C, than Facebook, Youtube and Instagram. Youtube does good with both B2B and B2C.
If you are going after an older demographic, Facebook may be your best bet. If a younger demographic, then perhaps Instagram.
Your ad dollars are best spent concentrating on only one platform at a time. This way your ad campaigns will be much more effective and influential.
Create Content
First step into any platform is to have content. So we need to create content that is relevant to your target market. Also make sure your profile is filled out fully on the platform you are entering into.
Look at what your competitors are doing. What platforms are they on, what types of ads/offerings are they doing. Just like when McDonalds offers a special limited time deal (ad campaign) then others like Arby’s comes quickly to the table with their own offer. Get it?
Engage People
Always be prompt in responding to questions or comments that people post on your social page. The more you do, the more people will come to realize you are human and actually care about them. If they don’t get a response to a simple question, more often than not, they will count you off. In the famous words of Kevin O’Leary, “you are dead to me”. You don’t want that. You want them to do business with you and you want to do business with them. So tell them so! Engage in conversation with them. Today, more and more people do most of their communicating via personal electronic devices (mostly mobile phones). And mostly through messaging or emailing. Don’t discount this person as invalid. This IS the way a very high percent of the population communicates. So answer those inquiries. Or have a company in place to handle all your social media needs.
We can Do it For You!
If you don’t have the time, desire, tools, knowledge or inclination to build your social media identity, then let us do the work for you. It is where your audience is. Unless they are knocking down your doors to get in to do business with you, then you need to go to where they hangout. Don’t worry, we’ll go for you!
The Numbers
Lots of marketers will talk about x number of followers or friends or fans, but those can actually hurt you in the rankings if they are not engaging. If they are not “liking” sharing your posts or commenting, you will not rank as high as if they did. So huge fan base numbers without engagement is a negative for you and not a positive. Make sure your content invites likes and comments. The algorithms will work in your favor if the ration between contacts and comments are high.
How to Use Social Media Marketing to promote your business
Unless you are running a marketing campaign on a platform, you should be writing articles about your business, or posting videos about what your business does (not your business, but about what the type of your business does). Don’t just promote your business in you videos. Show people how to benefit from using a company or service such as yours.
Long Term Marketing Strategy
Lets say you are a plumbing company that specializes in unclogging drains. In the day to day life of the average individual, a need for a drain cleaning company doesn’t come up too often. But lets say, you started a blog in things people could do to keep their pipes clean. You post often (or we do for you), you answer questions, offer people help with their problems and then one day, two years later, (and you are still engaging on the platform), one of your blog followers has a problem that Drano can’t take care of. Who do they call? What if they aren’t a follower on the platform? Eureka, that is the beauty of the platform. A quick keyword search brings ACME Plumbing (your company) into view and because of your interaction on the social platform, you rank high in your area for this type of need. You fill the need. You get the business, you become the goto company in your area for what ailes blocked pipes that Drano can’t open. It is a process that doesn’t necessarily yield results tomorrow. It is a long term marketing strategy that keeps getting you business for years down the road.
If you are advertising on the platform, then you can start talking up (promoting) your business on that platform. If you aren’t advertising there, then you may want to go with the modified approach as mentioned above.
Let us help you move your business into the now! TrendStrategics.com