Building on from the recent theme of preparing for the holiday season sales rush, this week I'm delving into the world of social media marketing.
The numbers around social media at the moment are mind blowing, so it should definitely be a consideration of any business before heading into the holiday period.
Before I delve into the tips, here's a video I shared during a social media presentation I gave last week. It helps set the scene for the importance of social media for modern businesses.
1. Give your social media profiles a makeover:
When was the last time you checked how engaging your social profile is? Social media is an extension of your brand. Use the holiday season to give your profiles a make over:
1. New twitter background: did you even realise you can customise your twitter background. Check out these backgrounds to get inspired.
50 great examples of business branded twitter pages: http://www.creativeopera.com/2010/corporate-branding-on-twitter-50-excellent-examples/
2. Business Pages on Facebook: Is it time to create a Facebook business page that is more interesting than just a feed of your business' activity and discussions?
Look at some of these company pages to see how you can take your business page to the next level.
Redbull – http://www.facebook.com/redbull GAP – http://www.facebook.com/gap L'Oreal – http://www.facebook.com/lorealparisHere's a list of 40 more: http://speckyboy.com/2010/08/15/40-highly-effective-facebook-business-pages/
3. Blog Design: Let's not forget our good old blogs. Perhaps its time to add some new banners, change the template or even update our widgets on our blogs to give them a bit more sizzle.
2. Build your followers and connections
The size of your social media captive audience is a key influencer on the success of your campaigns. So it's important to build your audience so that when you distribute content, engage in conversations and share offers – there's enough people listening/watching.
1. Migrate existing clients across to social media
Use this as a time to try and encourage existing customers to connect with you via their social networks. It will provide you with another way to communicate with your clients outside of emails, the phone etc.
2. Encourage prospects and browsers to join your network
Even if you don't convert a prospect or browser on first visit, persuading them to connect via social media gives you further opportunities to engage with them which can help you convert them later.
3. Get more reviews
Peer reviews are becoming more and more important in people's buying process. So have you checked how many reviews your business and products have? Are they positive or negative.
It's important to encourage your new customers to post reviews (preferably positive) on the major reviews sites. Make it easy for them and suggest where to go after the sale (either in person or via follow up marketing)
Here's a list of the some of the review sites to focus on:
Yelp.com Insiderpages.com Maps.google.com Citysearch.com Local.Yahoo.com Local.com MerchantCircle.com4. Special Offers for your followers
Use the holiday season as a chance to create social media specific campaigns and offers. IT'll serve two purposes
Reward the people who have taken the time to connect with you in the social media sphere It'll give potential new social media followers a reason to connect with your company.5. Engage in the Conversation
While social media is a great marketing tool, it's often most effective when it's used in a non direct marketing manner.
Commit to engaging in your social media sphere through conversations and contributions; comment, answer questions and posing opinions rather than just trying to promote products and services. You'll be amazed at how effective this can be at driving new business if done effectively.
6. Integrate Social Media with other marketing
Social media is another one of the channels in your marketing mix. So use it in conjunction with other online and offline campaigns. It can help extend the reach of your marketing message, or alternatively provide another form of conversion from other campaigns.
7. Commit to creating some quality holiday valuable content
One the major strengths of social media is the viral nature of the medium. By creating and sharing valuable content (e.g. articles, videos, industry news, etc) – your social media audience can become your marketing force. They'll share your content and ultimately promote your brand. The sort of marketing that money can't buy!
So that's my Top 7 Social Media Marketing Tips for Small Businesses this holiday season. As with most of your holiday season marketing strategies, the sooner you get started, the better the results will be when it counts.
There's plenty of other social media marketing strategies to leverage during the holiday season, so what will you be using this year? Share your tactics with our readers below.
Thanks , Brought to you by : MSG Webmasters
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