It seems that only 53% of small businesses use social media as a part of their marketing campaign. This is the number that was reported by a survey conducted by the Clutch (Clutch, Amanda Soderlund, May, 2015). Still, this is more than a half of the total number of small businesses. In other words, 53% of small businesses are in advantage when it comes to the marketing efforts. All these facts translate into one rule – it is high time you made a good social marketing campaign. Here are some tips on how to do it right.
Think Ahead and Plan
You will have to make sure that you know what you are doing. While you may be tempted to start a big campaign on several platforms, first make sure that you have time and knowledge about how to deal with that. Bad social media marketing is worse than none at all. Communicating with your clients and customers in this way takes up a lot of time and it goes fast. Therefore, if you are not sure that you will be able to be responsive, start small. Make accounts on one or two social media and go from there.
Decide Between Saving Time or Money
There are two ways that you can go about your social media marketing – you can learn all about it and do it on your own, or you can hire somebody do to it for you. Presence on the social media is for free. You do not have to pay to make an account, page, or profile. However, if you choose to do it on your own, you need to know that it will take a better part of your day. On the other hand, it is very advisable to hire an advertising agency to do this for you and to create the entire strategy for you. In this way, you will spend money, but it will be well invested and it will free your time to do what you do best – run your business.
Know What’s Happening
The phenomenon of the Internet buzz is present ever since the early beginnings of the World Wide Web. This is even more present and even more frequent since sharing and spreading the word became easier. What made it easier are the social networks. You need to be present and you need to keep your eye on the Internet buzzes so that you can make the most of them and make them work for you. Also, whenever possible, try to create a buzz yourself and enjoy that traffic coming your way.
Measure Your Success
Even though online marketing and the social media marketing are relatively new, the idea behind them is the same. You need to have a plan, a goal and the way to measure your success. The same is with the social media. Once you decide what your goal is, you need to develop a plan and you need to know how to measure if the campaign is successful. There are many factors that you can measure: ROI, traffic, and many more.
A really great and unique thing that happens when your business is present on the social media is the user generated content. People make photos, posts, videos and other sort of content and publish it online. It is all useful for the promotion of a business because it is a virtual version of the word-of-mouth marketing. You just need to make sure that your service and your product are high quality and the reactions will be beneficial, as well.
—
via Dan Radak
Dan Radak is a web hosting security professional with ten years of experience. He is a coauthor on several websites and regular contributor to BizzMark Blog. Currently, he is working with a number of companies in the field of online security, closely collaborating with a couple of e-commerce companies.
