Selling Your Products and Services With Social Media

 

 

In 2012, more companies will come to realize that doing business through social networks is a huge payoff. People are becoming more aware of how social media works and are getting comfortable with it.

With this level of comfort with social media finally reached, it is now the goal of marketers to experiment with ways on how to go above and beyond with social media! While using social media correctly takes lots of patience, finding the latest tricks to make your social media efforts unique is the key to becoming (and maintaining) a thriving business.

The main cause companies do not find success with social media marketing is when there are merely sending out sales messages through social networks. Communicating sales messages might work to an extent on an advertising and email marketing level, but they fall short when considering that most people do not join social networks to shop. With this in mind, sales pitches can come across as annoying or harsh to social network users.

If you want to find your optimal path to selling your products and services with social media, here are some tips.

1. Communicate to the right target market.

While there may be millions of people on Facebook, you do not need to target all of them. To find your perfect market, you need to communicate that, “We sell this” or “We help with that, and for anyone who wants this or that, we are talking to you!” It’s also important to use data to create your social media messages that will precisely spark interest to those looking for your product or service.

2. Use only the best messages.

With social media sites like Twitter, companies try to use 140 characters or less to advertise in attempt to get their audience to “retweet” and interact with their brand. But, this isn’t a technique that is easily mastered. Try using Google AdWords to experiment with compact messages. When you come across a message that gains clicks, you know that message is likely to have similar success as a tweet or other social network message!

3. Engage with your audience.

This is one of the most powerful Internet marketing tools. You want to gain information from your audience, on top of giving out your business information. You want your audience to share their thoughts and rate things in order for your business to get feedback and cater to your audiences needs/wants, likes and dislikes. Make feedback forms part of your way of doing business in return for providing great products and services. Make your content easy to like, tweet and email, so it becomes social.

4. Prove you’re a worthwhile company.

Even if you can compose the most convincing tweet, it’s still hard to get someone to buy into your company based off that one tweet. Make your relationship with your consumers about value and interaction right from the start. Think about giving something away that your target market needs and wants. Then become the company whose free products and services are better than other companies’ paid stuff! People will certainly want to engage with your company this way, and hopefully become loyal customers to your brand.

5. Listen to your audience.

After your company has authentically and carefully done all this work to get on the right track to social media success, let your target market know where your company is headed and keep them on board with you. Imagine how your current customers view your company and try to get them to see where your company could take them in the future. Don’t automatically think that your customers will see the full potential of your company! Help them by showing them how to get the most out of your business. If you do this, and still don’t see sales, you will at least have gained the right to ask your consumers what it is you’re not doing well, and they will guide you on how to serve them better.

Many Internet marketers use these tips in their social media efforts, but when all of them are used together, in a cohesive effort, your company will find the pay off in social media marketing. Always remember that it takes hard work and patience!

/1 Comment/by

Dos and Don’ts for Internet Marketers in 2012

The Internet marketing environment changes substantially year-to-year. This past year, there were some subtle changes, and some, not so subtle. Regardless, marketers must know how to handle these changes! Here are some Dos, and a couple Don’ts, for Internet marketing this New Year:

DO Segment by Behavior: Be more effective by segmenting your emailing lists and only send out relevant messages to small, targeted consumers. It may be extra work, but the pay off will be worth it! You will be less likely to annoy some consumers, and you will increase conversions. Examine when people are opening your emails, clicking on certain links, attending webinars, visiting certain pages on your site, etc. By analyzing this behavior of your customers, you will also discover their interests. You will then be able to communicate with them on a personal level, in a relevant manner.

DO create more personal connections: Large companies (and small companies in an attempt to look more prominent) seem to communicate to their customers in a dry, corporate style. Therefore, personal connection is not as relevant in marketing communication as it should be. To change this, businesses must be more authentic! People want to connect with other people, not corporations. Always keep one customer in mind when working, so you always market your business with an intimate touch.

DO learn persuasive copywriting basics: In order to prevent the Internet from creating lazy marketers, you must understand that social media and Internet marketing do not see results simply from creating social media profiles. To really see an increase in sales, persuasive copywriting is necessary for converting traffic. So avoid being shy and hesitant when it comes to sales. Be active and involved to communicate your products and services efficiently!

DO incorporate more video: Video can be a marketing tool that creates personal connections fast. For many consumers, it’s also the preferred way to learn. Making quality video today is inexpensive and easier than ever! Create video campaigns specifically for a target market. Even if it’s shooting and editing a video with an iPhone, try it out-consumers will certainly get to see a personal quality to your company.

DO experiment with mobile for lead capture: Mobile marketing is a booming field now! Consider using QR codes if you do any sort of direct mail or outdoor advertising. With text messaging, give your consumers the option of requesting further information, offers or coupons if they text a keyword to a short code. If you don’t engage with consumers through their phones, you’ll likely miss out on potential business!

DO define your social strategy: Try not to focus on gaining a certain number of followers/friends. Social media marketing is meant to be a traffic source. Therefore, you should measure traffic, leads and customers from your social media efforts to keep you focused on the real goals of social media marketing. Measure customer loyalty with similar metrics to those of your customer loyalty efforts. However your company is using social media, be sure to measure the right metrics. Don’t ever think social media ROI is untrackable!

DON’T forget about direct mail: When used correctly with an online marketing campaign, direct mail can strengthen your message and build a better connection with consumers. Currently, many marketers are reducing the amount of direct mail they send out, due to its cost. So, this could be your chance to stand out! Only send direct mail to people who have responded to your marketing efforts so that you know you’re investing in the customers who are most likely to keep purchasing from you.

DON’T have a static website: Just because your business has a website does not mean you have an online presence. Building a website doesn’t automatically bring in customers! You must drive traffic to your site. A great cost-effective way to do this is to blog about topics that are important to your target market. Search engines love sites that actively add relevant content. This means that if you learn basic SEO concepts, you can turn your static site into a sales machine!

Keep these Dos and Don’ts in mind and your marketing efforts are sure to find success in 2012!

/4 Comments/by

Internet Marketing Strategies That Can Boost Your Products Sales

There are various ways of advertising or marketing your business. Internet marketing is one of the most effective ways of marketing and making your business visible all over the globe. Effective marketing strategies can help you gain more visibility and increase product sales. In this article we are going to look at internet marketing strategies that can boost your business sales and promote its growth worldwide. Some of the well known marketing strategies that are proven to have good results are:

• Through the use of Search engine optimization {SEO} – This is one of the best of driving traffic to your site or business and thus increasing web recognition or visibility. In general the use of SEO in your website helps in improving website ranking. There are various form of SEO that can help you increase traffic in your site, let’s look at some form of SEO. There is the use of selected keywords phrases or words and placing them in search engines such as Google, yahoo, Bing among others. The choice of the keywords should be chosen diligently and in case you already know your targeted audience you can target them by using keywords that mostly use when browsing. In this way you will achieve your goals of drive traffic to your website. Keywords mainly helps web users to find website that have related content that they maybe looking for. Another way of improving ranking through the use of SEO is placing ads on search engines. Ads help in making your site or business visible in the search engines and this is a sure way of driving traffic to your site. Although placing ads on search engine site have a cost it is a perfect and proven way of increasing traffic.

• Article marketing – Writing original content related to your site and submitting to article sites is another proven way of increase traffic to your site. All you need to do is to write quality and informative content and when submitting put anchor text that will help reader to click back to your site. You can also place part of the article as adverts on newspaper or daily magazines. Article marketing is an effective and long term marketing strategies as it brings steady stream of targeted traffic over time and will also continue to produce results even years down the road provided you do not remove the article from the sites that you had submitted it.

• The use of social networking sites – Networking sites such as Digg, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook among others can be used and most people use them to market their product and their website. The use of social networking sites helps you keep your clients update. For instance you can use LinkedIn to build your credibility simply by participating in its Answers forum. One advantage of using social networking sites for marketing your business is that you can reach a large number of targeted customers and you can be able to keep them updated on any special offers or even on arrival of new products.

In conclusion internet marketing helps you to draw potential customers who are already looking for the products and services that you offer. In this way you can make more sales and grow you business.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6702694

/9 Comments/by

Making Twitter Marketing Work: 4 Important Steps

 

 

Twitter has over 100 million active users, making it one of the most noteworthy social media sites. For marketers, the potential Twitter has to offer is huge! Additionally, the latest brand pages that have been introduced make it an even stronger platform for promoting content to customers. Countless companies have successfully used Twitter to build-up their brand’s identity. However, while several marketers have climbed aboard the Twitter bandwagon, many have yet to efficiently use the tool as a strategic channel.

What could possibly be preventing marketers from maximizing Twitter’s marketing potential? The main issue involves the unconventionality of Twitter. Twitter technology looks, feels and acts very different from traditional marketing tools therefore it requires a unique approach. Businesses have to look at the wide variety of skill sets required to see the full advantage of the site, from Customer Intelligence, to PR to interactive marketing, separate departments must come together to fully utilize the site properly. Furthermore, the openness of Twitter means marketers must keep in mind the classic mistake of saying the wrong thing.

However, with the right plan, marketers can tackle current obstacles and find success through Twitter. Follow these four steps to get the most out of Twitter:

1. Train your team to use it well.

While employees may be familiar with Twitter’s growing social media presence, they still need to understand how the site works in all its complexities and understand how it is that YOU want them to use it. Lots of companies are training employees to use social media, but when it comes to Twitter, training and experience is especially important. Twitter has a unique language, behavior and uses that are very different from Google, YouTube or other sites.

2. Figure out Twitter’s role in your marketing mix.

When using Twitter, first decide why and how it fits in with your other platforms. It doesn’t matter if you’re making just one Twitter account, or several accounts. You need to understand how your customers are using the platform-are they just listening on Twitter, or are they actively speaking out? Unlike Facebook, brands can have more than one account, which may be useful for handling separate segments that have specific objectives, such as customer support, PR and direct marketing. With this in mind, each account MUST deliver a clear message of the brand to the audience.

3. Gain a strong base of followers and engage them.

For a Twitter account to be successful, it takes more than just setting up the account. Brand need to build an active base of followers for their content to have any impact. Next, different tactics can be performed to activate that community of followers to meet your brand’s objectives. For example, it’s important to keep the community engaged so conversation around your brand keeps building. A good way to do this is to use a calendar tool like Hootsuite to schedule content to continually go out to keep the audience active and engaged with your brand.

4. Push sharing and conversation in your account(s).

After developing your Twitter accounts and building a strong fan base, marketers can take a combination of relevant content, along with Twitter ads, to drive conversation and sharing. Twitter can be used to stimulate real-world brand interactions. Tweets can spark interest and energize your audience if you develop strong, relevant content, which in return will expand your brand’s presence in both the Internet and real world.

Always remember, your job does not end after you’ve completed this four-step plan. In the long run, it is absolutely necessary to be active in coordinating the proper use of the technology, and sharing best practices. This will successfully help your brand stay consistent with Twitter marketing!

/18 Comments/by

Optimize Social Media ROI-Return on Influence!

 

 

Return on investment with social media can polarize several public relations, marketing and advertising efforts since there are a growing number of agencies and businesses utilizing social media marketing and analysis efforts to see return on investment. While some companies get ROI through social media use on Facebook or YouTube, marketers need to realize that in order to optimize their social media efforts, true ROI is about influence from consumers!

ROI needs to involve connections companies make with their customers. Companies’ social media marketing should act as recommendations and inspirations to buy certain products and services. The goal is not to get an instant purchase from consumers, but to get the customer interested as they search a companies’ social/mobile web, and potentially gain a customer for life.

Relationships with customers are directly linked to the value companies get in return from investment in social media. With Twitter, it should not be a brand’s objective to sell the most products by tweeting. Instead, Twitter should be used to inform customers and show them all about their brands’ experience so they understand what the brand is all about, not just what they’re selling.

The stronger the connection brands have with their customers, the more likely those customers will be inclined to buy into the brand for life. Some ROI models for social media are focused on a direct marketing approach, also known as an offer and response approach. The problem with that is that companies end up chasing a platform where their target market might be, instead of understanding how to influence that target market with a social experience. Companies need to stop focuses on seeing ROI from social media coming strictly through direct sales!

Strong, productive social media marketing will influence business outcomes, just as a good public relations campaign will. Positive media coverage leads to awareness and inspires interest and discovery of the brand. Social experiences can provide brand-advertising benefits and push consumers to purchase sooner, and/or more often.

When it comes to social media marketing, most markers are just chasing popular platforms with their own ideas of what they think will motivate their customers to buy. But, what they should be doing instead is interpreting customer preferences and optimize their efforts to address the kinds of social experiences that will bring about a purchase and gain loyal customers. Social media is a platform to help businesses serve customer needs throughout a lifecycle, not just during a time of peak sales. With this in mind, new opportunities in social media marketing are available for those businesses willing to be influenced by their consumers!

 

 

/11 Comments/by

Different Attitudes Towards Social Media Between Consumers and Marketers


 

New survey data suggests that marketers are disconnected from the attitudes of their targeted consumers. About 60% of consumers have ended engagement with several brands due to poorly targeted communication.

This data comes from Experian, an information services firm, which surveyed 1000 consumers and 330 Australian marketing professionals from government, technology, retail, digital, travel and financial service industries.

At the top of the list of consumers’ most preferred way to engage with brands was through giveaways and incentives. In fact, 70% placed this method in their top three ways to receive information from brands.

Regarding brand websites, marketers and consumers were in agreement, with about 91% and 85% claiming websites were the most important source of information on brands and product services.

There was however, a disconnection found in attitudes regarding print and social media. 70% of consumers seem to value print media, and 60% value direct mail more than social media, while marketers see print media as one of the least important sources of information. Only 28% of markers felt print media was an important channel for communicating.

The survey also found that in looking at consumer trust of marketing channels, surprisingly, consumers aren’t as trustful of newer channels like social media and SMS for communicating with brands. About 30% of consumers placed social media at the bottom three trusted channels, with only 4% claiming social media was the channel they trusted the most.

General manager of Experian Marketing Solutions, Matt Glasner, feels this distrust may come from the relative infancy of social media’s use in marketing, along with the fact that while 89% of Australian marketers now utilize a customer segmentation strategy in general, this strategy may not be applied to newer communication channels, like social media.

Glasner also claims that this is comparable to examining where email and EDM marketing was five years ago. “The challenges uncovered by the research are similar to the barriers we saw five or so years ago when customers lacked trust in emails and EDMs. Yet, for many brands, these are now common place communication channels which are highly valued by customers.”

In the year to come, most marketers plan to increase investment in social media advertising. “Marketers are working hard to ensure their messages are heard. However, our research highlights that there is still a huge opportunity for marketers to further understand how and when consumers want to engage across all channels, including social media,” says Glasner.

Glasner thinks there’s opportunity in bringing the level of consumer segmentation seen in traditional channels to social media campaigns, and worries that the age of multichannel marketing comes with the challenge of information overload, therefore marketers must be more selective than ever in their choices of communication!

/67 Comments/by

Social Media Marketing Strategies

With the influx of different social media tools there are now so many different ways to target your chosen audience compared with 10 years ago.

When using social media one strategy is to remember that you can do so much more than provide just text based information, you can post videos, photos as well as links to other interesting resources that might add value to your followers.

There are many different ways that you can make use of videos, with this and general internet marketing activities such as, visual case studies, how to videos or client testimonials.

Pictures of you, your staff and perhaps even pictures from company social events, can also be very positive as users like to see who they are dealing with, it’s easier to build relationships with the people in the company if they can see who they are and interact with them.

Also when producing videos use the staff that your clients would see if they came into your store or office, this helps to maintain familiarity with clients and can help to build better relationships.

Social media strategies only work if your target audience access the outlet. To make sure you clients and potential clients know that you’re on Facebook or Twitter make sure that you tell them. Send out a newsletter to your clients and contacts to tell them they can follow you on Twitter etc. and ensure that any printed marketing materials feature the URL’s for your various social media accounts. Social media needs the social part to work; therefore you need to have people join for it to be an effective tool for your company.

Once you have people following you on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+ you have to keep them interested. One strategy is to have promotions, small things like posting sales through you tweets or putting coupons up for friends on your Facebook page keeps people interested and attracts more to join.

Social media strategies are slightly different from print or person to person strategies. You have to remember that you need to update your information and promotions so that more people want to follow you. It only works if there are members in your online community so you have to promote yourself to your audience to make them want to be part of your community.

The great thing about Social Media Marketing is that not only is the opportunity vast, but it is also one of the lowest cost marketing activities available to businesses today.

Clearly the way companies use Social Media Marketing will vary depending on the type of business or target market, but businesses that are serious about competing in today’s markets need to ensure they are making use of these tools. Simply having a website is no longer good enough, you must promote your business in the online world and engage with your target audience.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6697852

 
/0 Comments/by

Business and Marketing Trends in Social Media in 2012!

 

 

 

What’s going to happen in the New Year with social media? Social Media is expanding quickly and marketers everywhere are catching up! Look out for these trends to come.

Disappearing Social Media Marketing:

Social media is becoming an integral part of all aspects in marketing our businesses. Therefore, social media marketing will be included in overall marketing plans; it won’t be a separate tool. Just like email marketing or SEO, social media will be a vital activity.

Integrating Social Media:

Big brands will start using social media more to connect to customers through user-generated content. This helps businesses get the most out of their true customers and loyal fans.

Supporting Social Media:

The integration of social media into marketing will result in people reporting their problems through their channel of choice. Companies should try and find ways to avoid having their social media channels turn into a mere helpdesk, but social media integration will indeed let consumer problems be handled by peers.

Increasing Social Sales:

Customers will get a stronger real user experience before making purchase decisions with social media integration. People can make purchase decisions based on a brand’s marketing materials and receive feedback from existing customers through ratings, comments and reviews.

Leveling off of Group Buying Sites:

Group buying sites will level off. They will not go away, but businesses will better understand how it works and use it accordingly. With group buying sites, businesses buy an opportunity to allow potential consumers to sample their offering at a discounted rate with the hope of getting continuous business.

Growing ROI:

Social media ROI is an important topic and still less than half of marketers claim to see it. As budgets grow, social media will become more important in a brand’s marketing mix. ROI will be seen through direct sales from Facebook, or perhaps more conversion rates of people from social channels.

Growing Social Media Advertising:

Social media channels are trying to find ways to get at your advertising budget so they can turn a profit. Social media sites are looking at new ways to display more marketing messages to users. This will result in larger budgets dedicated to social media advertising.

Mobilizing Websites:

More businesses will start making their sites mobile. 10 years ago companies began making websites because other companies were, now companies will start making their sites mobile as more and more companies are starting to!

/45 Comments/by

The Future of Branding, Marketing and Social Media: 3 Important Facts

A new report from Havas Media titled, “Meaningful Brands For A Sustainable Future,” is one of the most insightful reports in revealing the punitive aspect of the social business marketplace, which is often overlooked! It specifically examines the expanding awareness and capacity of consumers to punish brands that lack social responsibility.

Three key facts stand out in the report as warnings that all marketers need to be aware of!

1. Just 28% of consumers worldwide feel that businesses today are effectively working to solve the social and environmental challenges people care about.

There are two things to consider regarding this fact. First of all, this statistic proves that a very small percentage of consumers think companies are working efficiently to address social crises. Secondly, the phrase, “challenges people care about,” should be taken into consideration. A hallmark of social marketing is that it’s a real-time conversation between brands and consumers. If businesses want to get loyalty from consumers, they must perform and communicate in a meaningful way to be apart of their consumers’ lives. Ignoring social and environmental challenges that consumers care about means companies could become irrelevant and/or experience consumer backlash for their lack of social responsibility.

2. 64% of consumers feel most businesses merely “act” responsible to improve their image.

Consumers consistently demand that brands use social media platforms to promote their products and services in an authentic manner. It’s a major issue if over half of all consumers think brands are not genuinely addressing issues that are important to consumers. Our current marketplace gives consumers the ability to gather information and share it through social media. So, with more companies seeking to connect to customers, there’s competition in this marketplace to win the loyalty of consumers. But since consumers have so many options, if they feel a company is insincere in their social efforts, that brand will immediately lose that customer’s loyalty.

3. If 70% of brands disappeared in the future, most people would not care.

This fact highlights a deep consumer distrust of brands in the marketplace.  Just because a brand has strong leadership as a company does not guarantee its security in the market. Technology is quickly changing how business is conducted across all industries and now consumers are pushed more than ever before to find and embrace the tech-savvy AND socially responsible brands.

The Havas Media report concluded that brands that improve our personal and collective world systematically will be rewarded with greater consumer attachment and brand equity. The bottom line is brands MUST be meaningful to their customers’ lives!

/26 Comments/by
, ,

Successful Advertising with LinkedIn in 5 Steps

LinkedIn is a growing social media platform with over 100 million business professionals worldwide.

Business messages are well received within the professional environment of LinkedIn, which makes the site ideal for advertising for lead generation for B2B companies.

LinkedIn ads appear along the sidebar with a photo and text. They include the photo, a 25-character headline, and a 75-character description. You can also try different versions of your ad to test which ones drive the most click-throughs.

As you create your ads in LinkedIn, keep these five tips in mind for success!

1. Use powerful copy with relevant images

Come up with a great ad before fine-tuning your campaigns. Write an effective ad copy; on LinkedIn, it will only allow the copy to be 75 characters of description, so every character counts! In your copy, convey a sense of urgency and highlight a unique benefit. With PPC ads, the picture is very important! Make sure the image matches what you’re offering.

2. Target ads to specific audiences

Only target your ads to the most relevant prospects. You can choose this based on industry (marketing, Internet, banking, etc.), job function (academics, engineering, marketing) and groups. The more specific your offer and targeting are, the better chance your ads will be successful!

3. Split-test different versions of your campaign

Each campaign on LinkedIn has its own targeting options, daily budget and ads. It’s recommended that you create at least three ads per campaign, each with a different headline, different call-to-action phrases and images. You’re allowed to come up with 15 different ads per campaign, so take advantage!

4. Spend your money strategically

LinkedIn will display ads at different rates throughout the day depending on when users are active on site. So, consider spending 50% of your budget in the morning, and maybe 25% in the afternoon, and the other 25% towards the nighttime. After you hit your daily budget limit, your ads will stop showing for that day.  Keep calculations of your average spending per day for the past week, then compare that amount to your daily budget and figure out if you can increase your daily budget to get more clicks. Also, an “auction” will occur between your ad and other advertisers each time a prospect visits a page on LinkedIn. The site will give you a suggested bid range or an estimate of current bids from other advisers. The higher your bid, the more likely it is to win the auction.

5. Measure your ads performance

Pay attention to metrics to understand your ads’ effectiveness. Also consider your overall business and marketing goals before you consider your goals for LinkedIn ads. Be sure to measure CTR; according to LinkedIn, good ads have a CTR higher than .025%. Also measure leads and take your landing pages into consideration.

/16 Comments/by