Social media is here to stay. One of the main components of gaining an authority online for your business is to have a presence on some of the social networks. This also plays a large part in your rankings and seems to be getting a larger piece of the pie when it comes to SEO campaigns.
Build loyalty and a funnel for repeat sales.
Connect with your clients to create relationships.
The fact is that successful social media marketing is not simply measured by the size of a fan base or the number of followers a business has. No. What’s arguably even more important is the amount of fans and followers your business can actually keep.
According to Pew Research Center, in May 2013, some 72% of adults who use the internet, were also using social media sites on a regular basis. Furthermore, in the U.S., MBA Online found that eight out of ten adults who use social media such as Facebook or Twitter prefer to connect with companies through social media, as opposed to through a company’s website.
Therefore, for obvious reasons, a business can no longer afford to ignore social media as a marketing channel.
Making the Connection
Social media marketing should be seen as networking. If you consider a live networking event, those who effectively communicate with others normally will win more clients in comparison to those who prefer to merely discuss their own business or to hand out business cards with little to no actual communication. And this works the same way with social media marketing. There has to be a two-way flow of communication to gain any business. One-way advertising is no longer as effective as it once was.
The Provision of Helpful Content
Providing helpful content to your audience – your prospects – is key to success. You’ll find that the most successful online businesses are those that do offer help to people who they don’t in fact serve. But by providing useful content which is specific to your business, the social media channels become an excellent format of marketing the business. Others who may well require your business’ specific services can quickly make an assessment of your business’ capability to help them, simply by reading your content on the social media channels. In essence, it’s similar to how word-of-mouth works in the offline world.
Promoting Others
Another key to social media marketing success is to ask the question whether customer engagement is going to realize a healthy return on the investment. Generally speaking, it’s to be expected that the size of the social media following as well as the engagement with that following should lead to a higher return on activities. Nevertheless, an effective way to improve the value of the content that businesses provide to their audience is to use the 80/20 rule. That being: customer’s needs should be at the forefront 80 percent of the time, while 20 percent of the time, your company should focus on its’ product or services.
Consistency
The effectiveness of consistency and timing of your business’ social media posts can vary from business to business. For example, a car dealership probably would be wise to post more frequently at weekends, when customers have time to look for deals on cars. Whereas, a restaurant might find it optimal to post more frequently at certain times during the week days. The efficiency of your social media posting times has to be gauged.
At www.Libelty-SEO.com, we specialize in creating highly effective business social media marketing campaigns. Contact us today for a free consultation about how we can help you to increase your business via social media marketing.