Thursday, January 31, 2013

Turn Your Customers Into Friends Using Social Media Marketing

By Steve Jones


Do you have a business with an internet presence that you're looking to take to the next level? Why not try out the exciting world of social media marketing? Marketing your product through social media can be a great way to get more customers and free publicity. Read on!

An important tip for successful social media market is to monitor your social media accounts regularly. Hire someone or use your own time to scan the web for mentions of your business, especially on sites such as Yelp, Twitter and Facebook. By doing this, you can respond to negative or positive reviews in an appropriate way, and perhaps offer discounts to customers who have had a bad experience. This shows customers you value their opinions and could cause them to look upon your business more favorably.

When posting on Facebook, use the 80/20 rule. This means you should post about 80% relevant information and 20% "just for fun" information. Posting this way makes you feel less like a business, and more like a human. This can be a great thing when it comes to social media marketing.

Make sure your blog has excellent content that engages, educates, and inspires. A great blog serves as the cornerstone of your social media marketing. When you create content that people cannot wait to read, they will keep coming back. The bottom line is that good content is what is behind any type of media, and social media marketing is no exception.

Relax, it is just an online conversation. Email used to scare the pants off of companies who did not understand the good, the bad, and the ugly of the whole thing. Now it is the go-to communication channel. Social media is the new channel, and all you need to do is sit down and talk to your customers. It is what they want and what you need.

Keep your Facebook page up to date with your most recent blog posts. As soon as your blog is published, update your Facebook page to reflect the new post. This allows your followers to access your fresh content as soon as possible. The sooner your content is available to others, the sooner it works for you to attract new visitors.

Employing social media marketing strategies can be a great way to keep in contact with your customer base, and develop relationships. Customers that friend you on Facebook, or follow you on Twitter do so willingly. They want to hear from you. You can therefore notify them of new upcoming products, sales and discounts, or even just information concerning your business and industry without the fear of being too intrusive.

To pick up more Twitter followers, send messages to popular users. If they retweet your messages or respond to you, all their followers will see. Many of them will start following you, too. Be sure that the messages you send are thoughtful and interesting or you won't get a response.

Never let your profile fade away or your interactions with the online community to come to a halt. Even if your products do begin to sell rapidly, your business is still tied to your social identity. Many companies often expand the job of maintaining an online presence out to a third party once they become too busy to handle it themselves.

Take advantage of networking via LinkedIn. When you are on your LinkedIn, look for the option to place a link for websites or blogs to your account. You are able to do three, and you should make sure you use all three to market your other websites on your LinkedIn profile.

Connect your blog to Linkedin by putting a share button at the top of the page. Because of its nature, Linkedin has users who are generally people with influence who have higher incomes, meaning plenty of potential customers with money to spend on your products and services. With more than 100 million people using Linkedin, it is a great opportunity using social media to market your business without spending a dime.

As stated before in the introduction for this article, social media has become dominant in today's society. The ability for users to create and share content has allowed social media to take precedence over other forms of media. By using the information in this article, you can use social media as a marketing platform.




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