Social Media Marketing in today’s world.
Social Media Marketing Is Vital To The Success Of Your Online Presence.
Most people to look to the Internet for information, opportunities and entertainment. A trend that will not end soon. You as a business owner need to understand that your Online Presence is integral in your efforts to grow your customer base, increase brand awareness and build trust with your target audience.
Without a strong social media presence you “will” lose valuable market share to competitors willing to embrace this idea.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING HAS EVOLVED
Social media is no longer used strictly to promote your website. Building an online community is really not hard to do, but it does take quite a bit of work. Keep in mind that online marketing is not something you can do for a while and expect it to continue paying dividends once you stop.
A successful campaign requires a sustained effort to get results and simply will not work if your plan is to run a single campaign for a couple weeks and then stop.
Even with Pay-per-click advertising you will only get results as long as you are running the campaign.
Internet marketing is about long term commitment and consistency.
Equally important is that online marketing can not be turned on and left idle if you want to benefit from it.
Maintaining a continuous connection with your target audience, even if nobody is listening is a critical point that many fail to realize. Persistence is a key component to a successful campaign so be prepared to work your campaign a minimum of 2 to 3 times per week and several times each day if possible.
With these principles in mind, I’ve put together a short list of social media sites that I consider to be most important when starting a social media campaign.
By far my favorite and most used social media platform.
I realize that most marketers swear Facebook is the number one social media platform, and I agree, but for ease of use and audience engagement, I prefer Twitter.
It’s important to choose at least one or two social platforms to maintain a serious presence and engage with your connections, and for me, Twitter is hands down the number 1 spot. I’m constantly sharing links to interesting articles that I read online, as well as articles I write myself.
To stay active in any social network that you become involved with, requires connecting with others are there for similar reasons. I recommend you approach social media marketing with an attitude of sharing. Followers will quickly tire of self promotion, or lack of activity, and leave you behind for someone more interesting.
Also, remember to customize your Twitter profile with a background image, profile image and short bio along with the URL to your personal website.
Here are a few examples of Twitter Pages I currently manage:
FACEBOOK PAGES
Facebook is the number two most visited website in the world and to ignore it’s popularity and not have a presence there is just not good business. Anyone interested in building an online community, gaining readers for your blog, visitors for your website or subscribers for your online newsletter should absolutely have a Facebook profile. Additionally, Facebook allows it’s members to setup custom pages for projects, events, branding and anything else that might be interesting to Facebook users. Facebook pages can also be advertised within the vast Facebook website for a very reasonable cost per click.
Remember, it’s critical to customize your Social Media profiles and pages.
Here are a few examples of Facebook Pages I currently manage:
- AMI Studios
- Andrew Hall Photo & Design
- Rolladen Rolling Shutters
- Document Recording and Retrieval Services
- Vegas Marriage Certificates
YOUTUBE
YouTube Channels I Currently Manage:
Pinterest Channels I currently manage:
Not much needs to be said about LinkedIn other then it’s continuing to grow and it’s another popular place to network and grow your brand. It’s also slightly more business oriented then FB and Twitter so many people are choosing to use their LinkedIn as a professional online profile over the other options.
GOOGLE+
Google shut down Google+ April 2019. Their approach to the social media was a twist from what everyone else is doing. By integrating social media tools directly into Gmail, I think Google Plus had taken a step in the right direction but it certainly didn’t hurt FB or Twitter. GooglePlus
FINAL THOUGHTS
I’ve been running Social Media Marketing campaigns for several years and have found that the best results are obtained when you think of it as a marathon and not a sprint. A phrase I’ve always liked is “it doesn’t matter how you start, it only matters how you finish”. In other words starting strong is good, but maintaining a strong steady pace and finishing strong, is far more important to achieving your goals.
How does this apply to Social Media?
Don’t post 10 times in one day and then nothing for the next three weeks.
Instead, breakup your posts and do one or two every other day. maintaining a constant connection with your online community is more likely to bring positive results then if you just reach out to them occasionally. Not that an occasional message is a bad thing, but that strategy works better with an online newsletter or blog post, not with social networking but that’s a different topic.