At MarketingTheWay, we are frequently asked how to use social media networks to market a business. Our answer is that the best way of using social media to market is to apply your branding and message in a way that not only engenders favor by clients, but reinforces that brand and encourages further interaction.
The ability to easily create a business-related Facebook page that can be seen by so many people is a prime marketing opportunity not to be missed. Although Facebook is the most popular, it is just one of many social media networking opportunities for businesses; many use Twitter, LinkedIn and FourSquare as well. There are others too but these four players have the lion’s share of the market.
Social media network marketing is a means of using one or more of the social networks to market a product or service with a range of tools that these networks provide. Marketing a product can be as simple as publishing a picture of it on Facebook and sharing it with the millions of users online, but there are many other areas where a business can benefit rather than just for product-related marketing.
The catch with Facebook et al is that for others to see your business, you have to be friends with them. Similarly on Twitter, no-one can see your Tweets unless they are a “follower”. The trick to being successful is to have as many friends and followers as possible from your marketing demographic. Typically these will initially comprise your present and past clients. Making sure they follow your Twitter page or friend your business page is an art-form in itself but if a social media network marketing campaign is devised properly, this is not as difficult as it might seem at first.
To keep readers interested, sufficiently enticing content must be available on your Facebook page for them to take a moment to look at it. Content needs to be fresh and relevant if you want to retain readership and have any SEO value. The repeat business available from followers and making friends on social media can make up a significant proportion of a business’ turnover. Trust and credibility coupled with quality of products and services is always a winning formula. The trick with social media is to make a regular, thoughtful communication that has a clear objective.
Crafting a social media marketing strategy is only the first step in generating more sales; applying it and keeping the ball rolling is essential for it to be a long-term solution. In addition to the basic marketing value of social media networks, they are very useful for SEO too. Keywords and tags can be added to Facebook pages and profiles can be optimized too. The more traffic you get to your social media pages, the more SEO value is gained.
The use of social media for SEO and marketing can provide some valuable site traffic, sales leads and more revenue.
Call us now at (941) 380-7285 and we can show you how we can apply social media marketing techniques to your business and help you generate more leads and better sales.