Social media is an amazing tool that allows you to promote you, your products and your services while engaging in conversations with your viewers.
Below are 10 ways to help you use social media:
1. Share Your Expertise:
• Share what you've learned that can help others avoid the pitfalls or the learning curve.
• Point them in the right direction. For example if your business is make-up try creating a video series of tips on fashion and beauty tips.
2. Show Viewers What or How "To Do":
• Share with viewers what your company does or can do for your ideal client.
• For Products – create a video that spotlights the benefits of using your product
• For Services – create testimonial videos of clients speaking and sharing how your services have helped them
• Solve their problems
3. Interact with Your Viewers:
• This might seem like a given, but it's amazing how many sites are put up, comments are made by viewers, and no response from the page/site owners.
• Worse yet, the page or site may not even allow comments. I've seen Facebook Business pages that would not allow viewers to comment on their information.
• The new currency in today's market place is engagement and conversations. Its' Key! Your main focus should be starting and continuing conversations with your viewers.
4. Make Your Content Work for You – Share it!
• Encourage your viewers to comment on and share your content they like. This helps establish you as an expert, the "go-to" person, in your area of expertise.
• Install widgets that make it easy for your viewers to share your content.
5. Learn to Turn Negatives into Positives – Quickly!
• Consistently do a quick search for viewers mentioning you, your company, or your products and services on the social networks – Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, and Google+ (alerts)
• Ex. If you see several negative post comments about your customer service you know you need to improve your companies customer service.
• If a customer is dissatisfied with a product or service they received from you – address it quickly! Point them to how it can be resolved and exactly where to go and/or who to contact.
6. Be Transparent:
• Gone are the days of the old traditional marketing of sales, sales, sales. For the first time, consumers are in charge of marketing and they want to see beyond the brand to who you are…really are and what you do….really do.
• In today's unsure economy being real and transparent goes a long way with potential and existing customers and clients. Keep your viewers in the loop. Be open, be real, keep the lines of communication open between you and them.
• Let them see you are a person of your word. Do exactly what you say you're going to do.
• Are you a business that stands behind your product and service? Do you support…really support your clients, customers and patients? Do you make solving the problem a #1 priority? Do they know you really care about them? Are you going the extra mile?
7. Reward Your Customer, Client, Patient Loyalty:
• If you sell a product from time to time, run promotions to reward your loyal customers
• Often time incentives are given over and over to bring in new customers but what about those loyal customers who's been with you and ordered many times or come in for services many times. They deserve rewards & incentives even more than that new customer who may only buy or come in one time just to redeem the incentive you're offering.
8. Get Mobile:
• Mobile marketing is unique in that it offers the most direct and most personal way of connecting with your clients and patients whether for awareness, sales promotions, or client/patient retention.
• Mobile marketing presents an interactive element that is unequaled for effectiveness and it's immediate! The most common form is SMS (Short Message Service) and is by far the quickest and easiest way to connect with your audience.
9. Targeted Online Advertising:
• Facebook allows targeted advertising specific to your market. These ads go beyond the traditional static phone book or magazine ad with limited information.
• You put in your exact specifics for your targeted market. This connects you and your products and services with the person who's actually looking for your products and services. It doesn't get any more targeted than this.
10. Promote – but Never Aggressively:
• Social Media has forever changed the face of marketing. It's a different world these days…. It's no longer "business as usual". Marketers have to be willing to look outside the box and get creative because now….we're marketing in a social world!
• If all viewers are seeing on your blog and social sites are sales messages, they aren't going to stay, you'll lose them.
• Connect with them, engage in conversations, implement all of the 10 benefits mentioned above. Again, become their "go to" source of information for solving their problems.
Take time to build the relationships. Relationships first…business will follow.
Want to know more?
Livvie Matthews, a 30 year dental office professional, provides Social Media and Internet Marketing solutions for businesses and practices that see the value of social media, they have plenty of content but don’t have the time to manage social media. She is passionate about helping service professionals learn to DRAW clients and patients into their space using the incredible power of the Social Media and Internet Marketing!
Email Livvie@simplesocialmedia.tv
Visit Livvie at: http://www.SimpleSocialMedia.TV