Social media marketing is rapidly becoming a critical component in most businesses sales and marketing strategy and is also being used to influence and drive key business strategy in other business areas including customer relationship management (CRM).
However there is still some confusion with many businesses being still unsure what successful social media marketing is and what it can do for their business.
Many businesses are relying on gut instinct and basic measurements in order to gauge whether their social marketing efforts are actually paying any dividends or giving the business a decent Return on Investment (ROI).
Without an accurate assessment of what is being achieved and the costs of all the activities, many businesses risk misunderstandings that can lead to wrong decisions and errors in budgets and time allocations especially within the sales and marketing strategy.
Spending on social media for businesses is still growing at a rapid rate and within a couple of years it is estimated to be worth approx 3.1 billion dollars.
Twitter and Facebook seem to be still leading the way, followed then by LinkedIn.
67 % of Twitter users who follow a particular brand are more likely to buy that brand’s products, whilst 60 % of Facebook users who "Like" a brand are more likely to recommend that brand to a friend.
74 % of consumers are influenced on buying decisions via other users on social media.
Businesses need to use the social platform to put across their unique advantages and unique selling points (USP's) over other competitors, as well as to backup their ability to deliver great results.
Before you begin writing your sales and marketing or social networking strategy or amending it if you feel it isn't as detailed as it could be, please find some social networking advice to consider:
Plan your Strategy before implementing your Tactics. Decide on the ideal target audience and focus your marketing strategy on that audience.
Identify your customers and work out If those customers want what you are offering and are willing to pay what you want.
Discover your core "Marketing Message". Your claim should be powerful and intentional and, once crafted, should quickly communicate the difference between you and your competitors.
Is it your service, price or product that stands you out from your competitors? It is well worth asking your clients first to see what they think.
Ensure your "Marketing Message" matches your brand Image. Once you have committed to your message you need to tell your story. Match your message to your brand, business logo, your phone message, all of your stationery and marketing literature and your customer service operation to create a consistent identity that reinforces your core market message.
Create Products and Services for Every Stage of the customer life cycle, developing systems and processes for each stage of your customers support.
You need to develop good quality introductory information, product / customer testimonials, discount opportunities, loyalty programmes and customer retention.
Produce Marketing Content that educates your customers and builds trust. You should Support your marketing message with good content that builds trust and authenticity about your products and your business. Try blogs, reviews, testimonials and relevant white papers. With the new power of social media, every business is now a publishing business, so you’ve got to start to think like one.
Design a web presence that works 24 / 7. Social media and other web marketing services are supportive tools that reinforce your website activities and give you more ways to interact with your customers and get instant feedback. Your website is designed to showcase your content or products and is still the best place to interact with customers and to build brand recognition. You can use the new social activity to just enhance this.
Current trends for websites are to keep things simple and easy to navigate around. You should also ensure you design ways of capturing referrals and lead data on your website.
Ensure you focus your social marketing on the areas that are important to you. Are you looking to trade locally, regionally, nationally or internationally. If looking to trade locally ensure you Get found in Your Town. Many businesses often get carried away with pushing their message that they forget about concentrating on their own backyard, which can often get better results. Create rewards programs, guest posts and profiles as well as relevant comments and social press releases.
Backup your social media activities with your customer service and sales and marketing activities to ensure you have one consistent message.
Don't just leave your social networking to one or two individuals, but try and get your entire team involved. This is one of the most overlooked and under utilized tool that you have. If you can find ways to motivate everyone in the business to help grow the enterprise, think of what a machine you could create. This motivation may take the form of goal setting, score keeping, incentives and a significant commitment on your part. You just need to ensure that everyone is aware of the message and also what "rules" they should stick too. You don't want people hurting the brand by posting things that they shouldn't be.
Keep trying different types of Advertising, analysing as you do, what is getting you results. As you are making a commitment to invest serious resources in to your social media presence you need to measure the results. You should also combine the social advertising with traditional advertising and other sales and marketing activities to ensure you have a good marketing mix.
The real benefits of social media is the ability to change and rearrange as often as required. Marketers should not expect to get everything right first time. With continuous measurement of performance, you can optimise the campaign elements that are really working and repeat these.
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