Marketing your business through social media channels is no longer an option.
Word-of-Mouth is Growing Online
Customers are spreading comments about the brands and services they use — both positive and negative reviews — at a stagger pace.
80% of Americans regularly use the Internet.1
60% of web users have a social network account–double the number in 2008.2
92% of Web users share content with friends via social networks.3
Nearly 150 million US web users will use social networks via any device at least monthly this year, bringing the reach of such sites to 63.7% of the online population.4
Brand Mentions on Twitter:
Brand Recommendations:
source: TweetReports.com
Social Media Marketing
More Important Than Search?
Small businesses recognize word-of-mouth as the top way their customers find them, followed by the Internet and search engines.
The question is, does your business have a social media strategy in place to monitor your brand, capture leads, engage users and perhaps even “steal” customers away from your competition?
If you don’t, your customers could suddenly become your competitor’s customers.
Anybody know of a good online retailer? Barnes and Noble just jobbed my wife, the teacher out of her teacher discount! #FAIL! @BNStudio
— Trygve Olsen (@trygveo) April 23, 2010
http://twitter.com/#!/Borders/statuses/12725258893
Social Media Can Help Your Business
Using social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can increase profits for your company. Even small businesses can benefit from social media marketing by closing new business deals and finding partnerships.
Benefits from Using Social Media
source: 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report [PDF]
- Generating more business exposure
- Increased traffic and subscribers
- Improved search rankings
- Help find new business partnerships
- Generate qualified leads
- Reduced marketing expenses
- Increase brand awareness
- Improved sales
How To Get Started
Getting started in marketing your business through social media is deceptively easy; register for a free account, add some information about your company, and start posting messages.
But that deception can quickly turn into a social media nightmare if you don’t have guidelines in place to help prevent misguided postings or a plan to respond to a crisis should something awry.
Develop a Social Media Marketing Strategy
Define Networks
Will your business use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Google+, or Quora? All of them play a big factor in how your website ranks within search engine results.
Not all social networks are the same nor do they provide access to the same demographics or targeted audience. Your company may only need to use one social network to start or perhaps a combination.
Our social media consultants will help you define what social media channels your business should be involved.
Create Social Media Guidelines
Before you think about posting your first tweet, Facebook update or upload a marketing video to YouTube, your business needs to create comprehensive, social media guidelines.
Guidelines should include;
- What information to include (and not include) in your messages
- How to engage your audience
- How to increase followers
- How to create and activate brand advocates
- When (and where) to engage your audience and customers
- When you should take conversations offline
- Critical points for when your business needs to avoid engagement
- How to manage a social media crisis
Invest In Social Media Training
The best way to protect you online reputation is to fully understand the social media channels you’re engaging in. We offer on-site social media training seminars that will teach your organization social media best practices and, more importantly, the most common mistakes businesses makes in the social media space.
Monitor Your Brand On Social Media Channels
One of the most important aspects to social media marketing is listening. Monitoring mentions about your business, your brand, your products and even social mentions about your competitors.
We use the most sophisticated monitoring tools available and provide comprehensive reporting so you know who is saying what, to whom, and how often.
Social Media Optimization
Search engine optimization is an important part to driving organic traffic to any online property. But as social media networks have become more widely accepted and used by billions of people, search engines have evolved to incorporate social media into how they rank and list web sites within their search listings.
Call us or click schedule an appointment with a Nashville social media marketing consultant.
With our experience in social media, marketing, and optimizing websites, you will receive a customized social media optimization strategy to drive more leads to your business.
1 and 2 “Social networking sites and our lives” Pew Internet
3 “What Marketers Can Learn from Consumers’ Sharing Habits” emarketer.com
4 “Days of Double-Digit Growth in Social Network Users Are Over” emarketer.com