5 Key Steps to Social Media Marketing for Small Business?
Social Media is the new buzz word for small business. “Should my business be involved in social media” is the question we hear most often. The answer is almost always yes. But, just like offline marketing, online marketing should be done strategically and monitored often. So how should a company get their brand out their in the social media arena.
Steps for Social Media Marketing
- 1. Have a Plan
- The first thing a company should do before even get started is to have a plan. How are you going to know when you have “arrived” socially without first knowing where you are and what is it that you are wanting to create. Is your company trying to build a buzz around your newest product or service, get more traffic to your website or blog, increase the number of subscribers to your email newsletter, or simply to track your clients reactions to your brand. Whatever the case, make sure that you:
- Have a clear Plan
- Know Who Your Audience is
- Have a System in place to Monitor Goals
- 2. Change the Way You Think
- Social Media Marketing is not about beating people over the head with your brand and services to get them to commit to a purchase right then and there. Social Media Marketing is about relationships. Each social media avenue has its own lingo and connections, but they are all about getting to know others in your industry and more importantly, getting to know your clients and connecting with them on a personal level. This is an opportunity for you to really know the people that are using your services and products. By building trust first and foremost, increased sales will come as a result.
- 3. Don’t Change Who You Are
- Be Yourself. Don’t try to create a persona of a company that you are not. Your clients are looking for honesty here. Remember step 2, its about relationships, and relationships are built on trust. Make sure your clients know who you are. What is your vision and what do you stand for? Relay that information to your clients, and then stand behind it. What is the tone of your company now? Continue that tone throughout all of your new social profiles.
- 4. Create Social Profiles
- Now that a plan has been created, an understanding of what there is to expect, and the companies vision and personality, it is time to start creating a social presence. There are hundreds of social sites that a profile can be created. The major ones are:
Each of these social networks has their niche.
Twitter is great for sharing information, specials or last minute deals, and updates. It is a quick and to the point type of network. Each status update is limited to 140 characters.
Facebook Pages was created by Facebook recently for business. It is an opportunity to share information with “fans”. Fans are people that are also using Facebook and want to get updates on what your company is doing. With Facebook Pages you can customize a start page, add video, links, and images. Very flexible platform that reaches over 25 million users.
LinkedIn is a business networking site. Over 55 million professionals use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas and opportunities. You can create a profile for your company and then have your employees have profiles connected to your business. LinkedIn helps you stay informed about your contacts and industry, find the people & knowledge you need to achieve your goals, and control your professional identity online.
YouTube, Flickr, and Vimeo are all media networking sites. YouTube and Vimeo are video sites while Flickr is an image hosting site. This is a great place to put your company videos and images online that are hosted off-site. Users have the opportunity to embed your company’s media onto their site as well as comment and rate each video or images.
WordPress is a blogging and Content Management Platform. WordPress started as just a blogging systems, but has evolved to be used as full content management system and so much more through the thousands of plugins, widgets, and themes, WordPress is limited only by your imagination.
- 5. Listen and Engage
- Become social active. Think of social networking like a business cocktail party. Mingle, get to know people, and explain to them how your business or service can help. Listen to what your clients are saying; what are they feeling, what are they really trying to say. And when you have something that can help, or make them smile, respond. Respond with links to your resources, to other people’s resources, to your competitors’ resources. Your job in social media is to listen, to help and to get your message out only when appropriate. For every 10-15 messages where you help someone else, you get to include one that promotes yourself. Remember in the beginning we stated that that social media marketing is about building relationships first.
Our next article in this series of social media will be on what you can use to help you monitor and save time when dealing with your social profiles.
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