Many small businesses are being pitched everyday the importance of their appearance in the social media outlets. Business owners are constantly being told they need to be placed on several sites such as Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Stumbleupon and more.
What makes Social Networking so Important for Business?
Everyday there are new marketing schemes being pitched to find a cheaper more efficient profit gain through advertising products and services. Social Media enables businesses and individuals to develop an image at little to no cost. It is a full-time job socializing with the community and sharing information.
How to establish an image on Social Networking sites
The best thing any business owner or individual can do is to create accounts on all the major social media outlets. This includes Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, YouTube, and Vimeo. The next step, make clients and customers aware of the business social profile existence by creating promotions for them to subscribe, fan, or follow the pages.
Many businesses offer coupon specials or special notifications of monthly updates by following social media outlets.
Developing an image that is Interactive with the Viewers
Like any good product, branding plays a large part in creating an image for viewers, customers, or clients. Best part of social networking sites is the ability to change that image without the expense of a large advertising campaign. Creating an interactive personality for the business will generate more chatter about new posts, videos, or other information.
To develop your parameters of conversation for social media efforts, answer these questions:
- What types of people do we want to talk to?
- Where do we find them?
- What are they talking about already?
- Is it appropriate for us to join that conversation and, if so, when?
- How do we inject usefulness into the conversation without being overly promotional?
- What value can we provide in terms of knowledge, opinion or content?
- How can we earn their trust?
- When we do earn their trust, how can we best ask for their input into our product or service?
- Under what circumstances can we point the conversation toward considering our product?
- Can we say or do something that invites someone else to point the conversation toward considering our product?
- How shall we apologize and regroup if we overstep their comfort level or accuse us of violating their trust?
Choosing a Good Company to Maintain Social Media Marketing
The truth about many companies is they all use similar techniques, but are not always in the best interest of the business. Before talking with any company about setting up social networking campaign, make sure to establish the accounts in the business name. This will prevent any possibility of someone taking that name and potentially forcing the business into a contract situation.
Finally, Social Media Marketing is a necessary evil.
It is exactly that, something that cannot be ignored by any business or individual that wishes to succeed selling products and services. Social networking outlets provide a free way to advertise, which makes the return on investment greater than any other form of advertising.