Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

5 Rules of Social Media Engagement

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
5 Rules of Social Media Engagement

5 Rules of Social Media Engagement

Are you one of those that have jumped on the social media bandwagon to promote your business? Were told social media would boost your sales, improve customer relations, manage your online reputation, and reduce every bit of overhead you have? So what happened? Why have you not started reaping those benefits, despite the fact that your having a presence of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc?

What most business owners fail to understand is that social media is not just a two-way communication between you and your customers, social media is rather a multi medium that lets your customers have conversations with other (potential) customers.

Your potential customers/target market would prefer to learn more about your brand from your existing customers rather than being bombarded with print/electronic adverts. Social media is the perfect platform for this to take place. Since social media a relationship driven multi-medium, there are 5 basic rules of social media engagement that you need to respect. The rules are:

  1. Relationships come before sales: Building relationships takes time because building trust takes time. Social media can only impact your sales after you have built a strong relationship with your customers to become more loyal customers. These loyal customers will in turn refer their friends and family to you.
  2. You go to the community, the community doesn’t come to you: Don’t wait for your customers to come to you, rather you should go to them. If you target market are using Facebook, join the Facebook community, if they are on Twitter or LinkedIn, join those communities too.
  3. Communities are grown, not built: Once you’ve got your social presence set up, go out there and talk to people. Get to know them, and start building relationships. Don’t just expect that since you’ve setup and account on Facebook or Twitter, then they should automatically start flocking to you. You still have to put in some effort. You have to make some noise. You have to go out of your way to make friends. You have to show your friends and your community what you can offer them.
  4. Don’t try to replace the community: Don’t try to re-invent the wheel by building your own customized online communities from scratch to compete with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. Instead concentrate on adding value to these communities through your brand’s presence on these social networks.
  5. Content is king: On the worldwide web, content is king! Content can be anything from articles, blog posts, pictures, tutorials, videos, reviews etc. So if regular content production isn’t part of your social media strategy, it’s going to fail. But it has to be relevant to your customers’ demographic and it has to be regular. Because once you stop producing content, you stop participating, and relationships whither.

 So if social media isn’t working for you, ask yourself if you are breaking any of these rules.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Articles, Branding, Business Success, Online Business, social media | No Comments »

5 Benefits of Social Media Marketing for your Business

Sunday, January 31st, 2010
social media marketing

social media

Here at Mauco Internet Consultants this past few weeks, we’ve been trying to sensitize our clients on the benefits of social media and the need to adopt some form of social media marketing into their marketing mix. We thought it would be nice to share with you some benefits of social media marketing for your business. So what is social media and how can it benefit your business?

Social media marketing is the process of promoting your website or business through social media channels like blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Today a rapidly growing number of small businesses are including social media ideas and strategies in their goals. The immense number of people who participate in social media websites has led to increased investment in the growing field of social media marketing.

If it isn’t already, social media marketing should be an integral part of your marketing mix. Social media marketing is a long term and time consuming investment and if done properly, can be very rewarding. This doesn’t mean that you have to jump on the bandwagon and launch an account on Facebook or Twitter for your business without giving some taught to the basics.

Often the social media channels you choose depends to a large extent on your product/service and your target audience. Let’s highlight just 5 benefits of social media makreting in your business.

Benefits:

  1. The natural nature of social media marketing means your brand is exposed to large groups of people in a spontaneous fashion. This differs from paid advertising which has overt commercial overtones.
  2. Social media marketing is defensible because once successfully mastered and implemented in your business, the social communities that you gather can be a great source of web traffic on top of any traffic you are already receiving from search engines.
  3. If done properly social media marketing guarantees low cost and high returns. If done by yourself, social media marketing costs are limited to only the time you spend on the site. But having your social media marketing campaign implemented by a professional is often better asthe benefits will often exceed the cost.
  4. It complements other efforts. Social media optimization and marketing is usually community-specific. It doesn’t interfere with any other methods of getting traffic to your website. It can and will fit perfectly with an advertising campaign targeting other websites or search engines.
  5. Social media marketing doesn’t directly make you money. Rather it helps you generate a community of fans who are interested in your website or brand and will help you advertise same through word of mouth. This in turn will eventually lead to the purchase of your brand.

The viral nature social media marketing is what makes it so interesting and worthwhile. A successful Social Media Marketing campaign leads to a lot more talk about your brand and website online. When your message works with your users, they will spread your message more effectively than tradition methods.

So, are you using social media marketing strategies in your small business? What has been your experience or challenges of using social media marketing in your business? What are your thoughts about using social media marketing in your business? Please share your comments below. Till next time….

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Articles, Branding, Business Success, Online Business, Website Promotion, social media | 10 Comments »