The goal of most business owners is to make money. Right now, the typical business is owned by men and women in their 50’s. To that generation, face to face, ‘old school’ marketing is the ‘tried and true, familiar way’ of doing business. One thing that this generation understands is how to build relationships. Those are the backbone of any good business.
Knowing how to build good relationships is important, but if you are only still relying on ‘old school’ methods of marketing and promotion… you are leaving money on the table.
In order to sell their products and services business owners need to alert the general public. Customers cannot buy a product or a service if they do not know that it exists. And more important, today’s savvy consumer is hesitant to purchase from a company they do not trust. That’s where social media comes in.
When it comes to advertising on social media many business owners literally cringe at the thought. Are you doing this now?
It is a fact that one of the best ways to promote your business today includes having a strategic and consistent presence with online social media promotions. A large number of internet users belong to at least one social networking website. In 2016, 78 percent of U.S. Americans had a social media profile, representing a five percent growth compared to the previous year. According to estimates, the number of worldwide social media users reached 1.96 billion and is expected to grow to some 2.5 billion by 2018.
That’s a lot of people who can be talking about you and your business right now!
Fortunately for business owners there is a way that you can use social media sites to your advantage.
Social Media for Friends
Most social networking websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, focus on friends or developing online relationships. People talk! Most business these days is conducted away from the company’s property. Friends ask other friends about a product or service. Recommendations are given. Sales are made online in homes, coffee houses, parties, etc. You need to be right there with your potential customers! Be in sight and in mind (as opposed to out of sight, out of mind).
Social Media for Business
In addition to all the social media friend sites there are networking sites that are designed for specifically business owners and business networking. These websites will not only allow you to share your business information with other business owners, but it will also allow you to develop close relationships with those that share an interest that is similar to yours. Essentially, this means that you could not only learn valuable business information, but you could also walk away with a new business partner or a new friend.
Leveraging the power of content and social media marketing can help elevate your audience and customer base in a dramatic way. But getting started without any previous experience or insight could be challenging. It’s vital that you understand social media marketing fundamentals. From maximizing quality to increasing your online entry points, incorporate the following 10 rules of social media marketing. These will help build a foundation that serves your customers, your brand, and perhaps most importantly, increase your bottom line.
Top 10 Rules of Social Media Marketing & Promotion
- Listen
Read your target audience’s online content and join discussions to learn what’s important to them. - Focus
A highly-focused social media marketing strategy intended to build a strong brand has a better chance for success than a broad strategy that attempts to be all things to all people. - Quality
Seek out and connect with a quality audience that is interested in your product or service. Better to have 1,000 people who listen to you rather than 100,000 who don’t know you and don’t care. - Patience
Social media and content marketing success doesn’t happen overnight. While it’s possible to catch lightning in a bottle, it’s far more likely that you’ll need to commit to the long haul to achieve results. - Compound
Ever hear of the power behind compounding interest in investing? Same concept here. If your followers love you and your content then they’ll share it with their own audiences on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, their own blogs and more. That could mean MASSIVE good exposure for you. However this can be a 2-sided sword that you don’t want to fall on. Bad news travels 10x faster than good news so you MUST be at the top of your game at all times! - Influence
Spend time finding the online influencers in your market who have quality audiences and are likely to be interested in your products, services and business. Connect with those people and work to build relationships with them. - Value
If you spend all your time on the social Web directly promoting your products and services, people will stop listening. You must add value to the conversation. Consumers today do not respond to the old adage of ABC (Always Be Closing). They want value in their lives, not more things to spend money on. - Acknowledgment
You wouldn’t ignore someone who reaches out to you in person so don’t ignore them online. Building relationships is one of the most important parts of social media marketing success, so always acknowledge every person who reaches out to you. - Accessibility
Don’t just drop and run. Be available to your audience. That means you need to consistently publish high quality RELEVANT content AND participate in conversations. Social media followers can be fickle and they won’t hesitate to replace you if you disappear for weeks or months. - Reciprocity
You can’t expect others to share your content and talk about you if you don’t do the same for them. So, a portion of the time you spend on social media should be focused on sharing and talking about content published by others. Not your competition, but your followers. Share their good times and wins with your audience, especially if it involves your product or service.
If you find all this to be confusing, daunting and a time consuming experience fraught with pit falls and landmines then you are absolutely correct! The learning curve on social media marketing is long, arduous and expense. Social media for business marketing must be a carefully planned endeavor that looks to your followers to be a simple walk in the park. But to you it’s a very calculated business marketing strategy coupled with expert level execution.
Social media done right can make you a huge success. But if done wrong you fade into a non-relevant obscurity. If done really wrong- it could destroy you! We can help you avoid all the problems and create the success you desire in your social media business marketing.
Done-for-You Social Media Marketing Programs
Sweet Marketing Solutions develops, implements and maintains specialized done-for-you social media marketing programs that are custom made for each business’ specific needs, goals and budget. All of the social media marketing is expertly done for you and trickle fed to your social media profiles for consistent market presence and growth.
These social media marketing campaigns are designed with the growing small business owners and entrepreneurs in mind to be able to be effective and deliver ROI. They are easy to understand and scalable in scope to accommodate integration of business operations accordingly. That way a company can adjust their business promotions and social media marketing as desired or as budget allows.
When it comes to building your business though social media we consider many facets: timeliness, cost, your reputation, and your online footprint are all things taken into consideration when developing your best marketing approach. This is the silent stronghold behind effective social media marketing that other outsource companies tend to gloss over or ignore entirely.
Contact Debbra Sweet for more information about her effective social media outsourcing services and entire Done-For-You Social Media Business Marketing Programs. Call 760-597-2790.