Social Media Marketing Archives | Page 12 of 15

Tips For Successful Social Media Marketing

Businesses everywhere are finding new opportunities to engage with consumers through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest. It’s known that Twitter gets about 460,000 users to sign up per day, and Facebook is expected to reach 1 billion users by August, so it’s easy for businesses to realize that each and every one of these users have the potential to be a customer.

But social media marketing is more than just making an account and adding friends and followers. It is critical to have a well-established strategy and to do your research so you can develop the best social media plan for your company.

Follow these tips before you hit the social media highway

1. Have A Plan

Too often Facebook becomes littered with inactive company pages. These pages are the result of marketers making a company page without a goal in mind.

It’s important to understand your objectives. State what it is you want to accomplish. This might be to create brand awareness, to provide a platform for consumers to give input and ask questions, or to build customer loyalty with promotions and specials.

Also, you’ll want to make a plan for measuring your ROI. It’s very helpful to be able to tell if your efforts are paying off. If your efforts aren’t getting results, then you can have a plan set to help you modify your marketing tactics.

It’s also wise to know you’re target audience. Define the demographics of who would be most interested in your products and services so you can send your brand message to those specific people.

Finally, make sure you have the time necessary to run your social media marketing plan. If you can’t make the time needed for your social media marketing, your attempts will not get very far. Consider hiring someone to help you so you can have the time to make a successful social media marketing campaign.

2. Keep It Simple

After you’ve got a basic plan set up, don’t go overboard and try to join every social network site out there. That will only end up fragmenting your efforts. What you should do is focus on creating one or two accounts on social media sites and grow your audience there.

3. Don’t Spam

With social media, it can be tempting to start promoting your products and services like crazy, but advertising should not be the main focus of social media marketing. Facebook users don’t go on the site to just look for something to purchase, so make sure you’re engaging with followers and fans on a level beyond advertising and promoting.

4. Communicate

Silence is not golden in the social media world. Communication is a must for any business, especially social media marketing. If you are not able to maintain ongoing communication with your customers, you will lose the value of having a social media presence. So be “social” and make contacts and boost your reputation.

5. Build Your Fan Base

It’s easy to gain customers by building your fan base. If you communicate well through your social media sites, your fan base will grow, and the potential for more customers will grow as well. Be sure to post interesting and unique information often, and follow people who are relevant to your brand, and they might just follow you back.

June 25, 2012/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

Facebook

The Effects of Facebook Brand Pages on Purchasing Behavior

A recent report from Facebook and comScore looked at how using Facebook Pages effects consumer behavior and social media marketing. The report closely examined the impact of paid media exposure on Facebook Fans. Here are some of its key findings.

1. The Facebook Page has become the brand’s new website.

For several companies, Brand Facebook Pages are turning into the hub of the company. For example, the popular candy brand Skittles had 23,000 visitors in May on their website, versus 320,000 visitors on the Skittles Facebook Page during the same month!

This doesn’t necessarily mean that Brand Pages are the main source of brand engagement on Facebook, however. It’s known that Facebook users spend the most time on the News Feed, so the amount of brand exposure on the News Feed is greater

Also, this does not mean that you should abandon your company site and focus solely on your Facebook page. Websites are important for focusing on lead capture and transactions. The popularity of the Facebook Pages is just a shift in consumer behavior, which should be understood by companies.

2. The number of Facebook Fans is not a major measurement of performance.

Many companies are still too focused on taking their number of Fans as the main indicator of their performance with social media marketing on Facebook. The more important measurement however, is how brands are delivering their message to make the most out of their consumer reach and engagement.

In order to increase reach, companies should optimize their posts so they will be more likely seen in all of the News Feeds of Fans. Additionally, the ad platform is another way to help brands increase their reach. By promoting a post, it is more likely that it will reach a greater percentage of the brand’s fan base.

3. Facebook Fans and Friends of Fans are spending more.

It doesn’t seem to matter whether purchasing decisions of Facebook Fans and Friends of Fans are truly influenced by earned media exposure because they are “substantially more valuable” consumers based on actual purchase behavior, according to the report.

The report found that Fans of Amazon’s Page spent over twice as much when shopping on Amazon compared to the average consumer. And Friends of Fans spent about 8% more in purchases.

4. In-store purchasing behavior is influenced by Facebook earned media exposure.

When looking at Starbucks, researchers examined the behavior of Fans and Friends of Fans during a 4 week period and found that on the fourth week after exposure, a test group had purchase incidences that were .58 percentage points greater than the purchase incidences in the control group. Furthermore, the fact that the normal lift in purchases rose with each week following exposure, which shows the effects exposure has in increasing purchase behavior.

June 18, 2012/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

Internet Marketing

Twitter Marketing Strategies That Work

Twitter is one of the most important sites to use in any Internet marketing campaign. To strengthen your Internet marketing, it is crucial to understand the latest and greatest strategies to use in your marketing campaigns, especially those that work for Twitter. To stay ahead of the Internet marketing game, use these tips on your Twitter account regularly.

1. Focus On What’s Important

A major problem social media marketers might run into is not being focused and precise. You must keep in mind that your followers like your brand and want to read your updates because they are in your target market and are interested in the topics you tweet about.

Don’t tweet mindlessly; tweet about the things you know your consumers are interested in and the things that complement what your brand represents. Having targeted, precise tweets will keep your brand focused on reaching those who are most interested in what you have to offer.

2. Be A Professional

On Twitter, being able to write snappy headlines is key. You only get 140 characters to tweet, so it better be meaningful and interesting in order to excite followers. Your content should be quality and attention grabbing, so that traffic to your site will continue to grow.

Don’t worry about how many followers you have. It’s better to have a fewer number of followers that are followers who are clearly in your target market. Your tweets should address those real customers who enjoy visiting your site and are likely to retweet your posts, which will then lead to new consumers who also share the same interests.

3. Communicate With Your Followers

Remember, Twitter is a SOCIAL media; therefore you must be social for it to work for your company. Twitter is about connecting, sharing and communicating. If you interact with your followers, you will get to know them better and as a result, you will be able to create tweets that you know your followers will be interested in and appreciate.

Start commenting and asking questions to your followers about things that are relevant to your brand, and that you know they’re interested in. Then take it a step further and try interacting with your followers’ followers as well, so you give your brand more exposure to others who could become potential customers.

These tips are easy ways to help make the most out of your Twitter account. They must be part of your Internet marketing campaign in order to see results. Twitter is hugely important in increasing traffic, so use it efficiently and your campaign will be successful!

June 11, 2012/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

Internet Marketing

Twitter Marketing Strategies That Work

Twitter is one of the most important sites to use in any Internet marketing campaign. To strengthen your Internet marketing, it is crucial to understand the latest and greatest strategies to use in your marketing campaigns, especially those that work for Twitter. To stay ahead of the Internet marketing game, use these tips on your Twitter account regularly.

1. Focus On What’s Important

A major problem social media marketers might run into is not being focused and precise. You must keep in mind that your followers like your brand and want to read your updates because they are in your target market and are interested in the topics you tweet about.

Don’t tweet mindlessly; tweet about the things you know your consumers are interested in and the things that complement what your brand represents. Having targeted, precise tweets will keep your brand focused on reaching those who are most interested in what you have to offer.

2. Be A Professional

On Twitter, being able to write snappy headlines is key. You only get 140 characters to tweet, so it better be meaningful and interesting in order to excite followers. Your content should be quality and attention grabbing, so that traffic to your site will continue to grow.

Don’t worry about how many followers you have. It’s better to have a fewer number of followers that are followers who are clearly in your target market. Your tweets should address those real customers who enjoy visiting your site and are likely to retweet your posts, which will then lead to new consumers who also share the same interests.

3. Communicate With Your Followers

Remember, Twitter is a SOCIAL media; therefore you must be social for it to work for your company. Twitter is about connecting, sharing and communicating. If you interact with your followers, you will get to know them better and as a result, you will be able to create tweets that you know your followers will be interested in and appreciate.

Start commenting and asking questions to your followers about things that are relevant to your brand, and that you know they’re interested in. Then take it a step further and try interacting with your followers’ followers as well, so you give your brand more exposure to others who could become potential customers.

These tips are easy ways to help make the most out of your Twitter account. They must be part of your Internet marketing campaign in order to see results. Twitter is hugely important in increasing traffic, so use it efficiently and your campaign will be successful!

June 11, 2012/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

Social Media

Marketing With Pinterest

The social media site Pinterest has over 11.7 million visitors a month now, and about 17.8 million registered users! It has become one of the most popular social media sites for a few main reasons.

The visually appealing aspect of the site draws in viewers and keeps their attention. The fact that users sign into the site using their Facebook or Twitter account allows them to be automatically integrated into their existing social network sites. So, sharing across social media sites is already built into Pinterest. The site has a clean and simple interface, so people are able to use it easily, with little confusion.

However, compared to other leading social media sites, Pinterest does not offer as many discovery methods. It can take a little effort to trace a pin to the user who initially pinned it, making it somewhat harder to directly engage with fellow users. Pinterest also does not yet have a way of recommending or directing pinners to other pinners or boards based on activity. This can be a little inconvenient for brands trying to build and grow an audience.

Another key aspect of Pinterest is that its demographics are quite unique compared to those of Twitter or Facebook. Half of all Pinterest users are parents, and 68.2% are women. Facebook and Twitter have a more evenly split gendered audience. This means that for brands with a predominately female target market, Pinterest might be the best sight to utilize to engage with fans.

For companies who have passionate followers across several platforms, like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, you can bet that those followers will also engage with your brand on Pinterest. Pinterest can be a great site to engage on a personal level with followers because you share your own, personal interests with your users. While the site clearly helps build relationships, it is not so efficient in “selling” products to followers. But, remember that engaging, not selling, is the ultimate goal of social media!

Pinterest is also a great platform in terms of sharing. You can easily post pictures from your own site, or pin images from other sites. A “Pin It” button can be installed on the Safari browser, making sharing images and information across the web easier than ever. You can also place a Pinterest button that links to your Pinterest account on your website or blog. Facebook even allows you to add a Pinterest tab onto your timeline.

The fact that fans can pin your images onto their own boards is another way that fans engage directly with your brand. You can use the “Pin It” button next to images on websites that you would like to share with your fans. This provides a chance to make viral connections, as followers of your fans will see their pins.

Additionally, there are a few apps available to help you to build a community on Pinterest. The app, Shareasimage, converts text found on the web into an image that can be shared on Pinterest. The app also works for Facebook and Twitter. Another app, Url2pin.it, lets users “screenshot” a picture of a website then share it on Pinterest. This could be a great way to share interesting sites with your fans, or it could be used as a promotional tool for your own site.

Pinterest is a site that truly models the purpose of social media: to be social! The site does not sell; it shares. Sharing with your consumers is how you must market with social media in order to gain brand loyalty and expand your fan base!

May 28, 2012/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

Marketing With Pinterest