If your business keeps ending up in the red month after month, give it a shot in the arm by using the power of social media to bring in some new customers. Sometimes, a new approach will give you renewed success. Utilizing social media marketing has several advantages. It is inexpensive, easy to use, and can help you reach a large audience. There are some basic steps provided here that offer a good starting point for your social media marketing effort.
In order to keep your company name in front of your Twitter followers, you need to tweet regularly. Twitter is all about volume. You need to make a lot of high quality posts to get seen. Use Twitter’s character limits to your advantage, and split one event or update into several small updates.
Stay professional, regardless of the informal communications conventions that have become common on social networking sites. While you may wish to introduce yourself by your real name, you should always maintain a professional tone. Do not argue; if you have any negative comments you can delete them. Ensure that your personal profile is separate from your professional one!
Go ahead and add tools that can make people give you attention and their support, you can do things like adding a “Like” box to Facebook right on your blog. They will tend to choose to do it because it will be easier that way. The goal is to make your reader’s life simple, so that he or she will come back to your site to view more.
Tweepi or Twellow are excellent sources for finding the more influential Twitter followers found within your niche. Programs like this hunt for lists that a lot of individuals pay attention to, while giving you an idea on who this list is comprised of. Then, you can send messages suggesting that your account be added to their lists.
If you decide to utilize a marketing company to help you with social media marketing, be cautious. It is not uncommon for these agencies to use unscrupulous and unfair business practices to cheat business owners of their money. These companies use thousands of bogus Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts using proxy servers that automate registration at these sites. Your advertisement would be rarely seen by an actual person, no matter what the view count says. You will just have wasted a lot of money.
You should always follow your followers on your Twitter page. This helps to maintain a level of credibility with your potential customers. It shows respect for your customers and lets them know that you do not view yourself as more important or above them. You will keep your followers if you send new followers a tweet to let them know you appreciate them.
Link social media accounts like Twitter and LinkedIn together. This way, you can follow any professional contacts you have on Twitter, while allowing them the opportunity to do it, as well. It will make your tweets a little more professional and will be helpful in building professional contacts. Installing LinkedIn Tweets on the LinkedIn site is essential.
You can learn a lot just from involving yourself with the members of any social media sites you currently use. Look to the members of these communities for valuable advice, information, and feedback, rather than just as customers who will buy your product. Take the time to learn about their habits, what they like and don’t like, and this will give you a deeper understanding of your customers.
If you learn to market using social media, you will learn it is almost all the same. Use these tips to help your social media marketing efforts, and you’re going to find that social media can be profitable and effective. You may even have fun while you do it.
Author Charles P. Hwu has posted several articles of social media network, network marketing ideas, and home business stuff in his blog. For more information see The Power of Leverage and Synergy.