The rise of social media has transformed business as we once knew it. In the past, business owners were limited in how they interacted with customers, how they collected information about them, and how they marketed new products and services to them. Today, these strictures have been removed, permitting business owners to gather information, learn, and respond much faster than ever before.
It has also transformed the business landscape in another way: by creating a rift between those who know how to navigate these sites and services; and those who do not. Those who do not know how to use social media services may find themselves on the defensive constantly-doing anything to retain customers-even if they had a successful business model only years ago. On the other hand, those who feel comfortable with social media may now find themselves at a significant advantage.
Whether you are currently using social sites to promote your business or are thinking about doing so, it is important for you to understand how to do it correctly. No matter whether you are inexperienced or a veteran social marketer, if you do not have the right information, it can be easy to botch a marketing campaign or simply run out of ideas.
Its very important to be consistent with your social media identity.
Now that you are ready to enter this new world of, it is important for you to spend some time carefully thinking about your identity before you create a Twitter account, launch a Facebook fan page, and begin to market your business through social media channels.
The first thing you will want to do is decide whether you should market your business as your business, as yourself, or as both. Each of the three options has benefits, but it is ultimately up to you to decide which will work best for your particular situation.
Once you have selected your route, you should create accounts on social media sites and setup a profile that reflects your choice. For instance, a Twitter account for your business should focus exclusively on business activities-and not your personal life.
Promoting Your Business Through Blog-Commenting
Many marketers believe that the only way to get traffic to a blog is to post frequently, ping, and optimize for natural search engine traffic. In fact, one of the greatest ways to generate traffic via blogs doesn’t involve any of this.
The approach I’m talking about is simple: get direct traffic from other blogs by commenting frequently. Of course, it’s important to understand that when I say “comment frequently,” I don’t mean spam other people’s blogs with irrelevant
information. Rather, I simply mean that you should look for relevant conversions in niche blogs; and then make a useful, intelligent comment that links back to your blog.
If you spend a lot of time making useful comments, there’s a good chance you’ll re-direct some of the traffic that lands on the big name blogs to your own. You can then pass this traffic through the sales funnel.
Get Followers by Posting Free, Useful Information
As I’ve mentioned before, one of the best approaches you can take to social media marketing is to disarm potential followers by providing something truly useful. For instance, you could provide free information about something related to your niche.
You could provide:
1. Links to important news related to your niche
2. Commentaries on important happenings within your niche
3. Links to sales and coupons (even if they’re not your own)
Once you use these strategies to build rapport with your visitors, you can then begin to reap the rewards by marketing various products to them.
Put a Thumbnail Photo in Your Social Networking Site Profiles
No matter what social network you are using, it’s always a good idea to place a thumbnail photo of yourself (or at least your business’s logo) where possible. In general, people will be hesitant to interact with profiles that don’t have faces attached to them.
Of course, this is a personal decision and is ultimately up to you; however, if you plan to take your social network marketing efforts seriously, this is an important step to take.
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