Social Media Soars Using These Techniques

Today, social media dominates online marketing. Yes, you can place ads, but where? Facebook? Twitter? If you have followers, can they become customers? Share information with your target audience in a user-friendly format — they will appreciate it and reward you by becoming a customer.

• Be aware. Look to other companies that have good social media marketing strategies. Watch for concepts that are popular or trending that you can tie in to your product
• Be calm. While trying to be enthusiastic, do not overuse exclamation points or other punctuation.
• Be human. Connect with your audience in the best way— be real. Write like you’re talking to a friend, but with better grammar.
• Be consistent. Everything should connect back to your identity. All posts should sound like they are coming from a single source, so make sure that every post has a similar feel to the others.
• Be different. Each social media platform is made for a specific purpose, so use the channel for its specific purpose. There can be overlap, but it doesn’t make sense to post the same thing on every platform
• Be concise. The shorter, the better. You only have a few seconds to catch the reader’s attention as they scroll. If your copy is too long, no one will read it. Try not to exceed three lines.

Facebook for Marketing

Facebook Login

Facebook allows businesses, organizations and public figures to connect with customers, fans and constituents through the website. Businesses and other brands create pages where they can post content, provide organizational news, offer deals, introduce products and manage customer service relationships. They also can reach a large number of people with targeted advertising, creating ads specifically for Facebook that are tailored to appear on the pages of specific groups of people they hope to reach.

Twitter

Twitter Birds showing what twitter is all about

One of the primary purposes for creating a Twitter account is to network online. Twitter’s system of shortened links and hashtags make it easy to find people or businesses posting tweets in the same areas that you are. Hashtags are hyperlink keywords embedded into tweets; you can turn any word into a hashtag by adding the “#” sign before the word in the body of your tweet. Twitter’s “@Mention” system allows you to contact any other Twitter user, regardless of whether or not they follow you, by placing an “@” symbol in front of the Twitter user name in the body of your tweet.

Building Traffic

Many businesses, bloggers and website owners use their Twitter profiles to increase traffic and find new visitors for their websites. Embedding links into tweets is one of the ways you can use Twitter to increase traffic to your website. Link-shortening services allow you to create links with as few characters as possible to leave space within Twitter’s 140-character limit. Most of these link-shortening services also allow you to track statistics and see how many Twitter users click your links.

Business Promotion

Using Twitter provides the opportunity to take innovative approaches for promoting your business. Many businesses specifically offer special deals and promotions exclusively through Twitter. Twitter’s “retweet” function allows other Twitter users to re-post your tweet if they find it interesting; being retweeted by several popular Twitter users can significantly increase exposure for you tweet and your business. You can also use your Twitter account as a way to allow your customers to get in touch with you directly without having to go through customer service.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a visual social bookmarking site that allows people to collect and organize photos, articles, and other forms of content according to specific areas of interest. Think of it like an online scrapbook. You collect photos by pinning them to online Pinterest boards or Boards, and you can share photos by repinning them to other people’s Boards.

Benefits of Using Pinterest

Pinterest has many benefits for individuals. First is Pinterest’s basic value proposition: the ability to collect and organize content online and share it with others. As an individual pinner, you can learn about a topic of interest by viewing Boards on topics of interest, as well as network with other pinners.

As a marketer, you can increase your content’s reach by easily sharing it on Facebook and Twitter. You can engage your audience by introducing them to your brand, sharing your brand with users who have indicated an interest in your product or service, and/or create original content relevant to your target market. You can also gain insights about new products you are considering launching by pinning images of prototypes on Boards and soliciting feedback. But, perhaps, best of all, because you are engaging consumers who have already indicated a likelihood to purchase a product, you can use Pinterest to increase sales.

Using Pinterest for Business

Example of a Pinterest Board

Simply put, here’s what works:  Create compelling content.

Follow these simple steps:

• Know who you are trying to attract and what is relevant to them.
• Map out a content strategy. This is critical for any social media tool. Know what content you will be pinning, when, and where you will get it from. For the latter, create a list of websites and Boards with content relevant to your followers and/or target market for pinning/repining, to couple with the original content you plan to pin.
• Label your image content well. Make sure to use labels for your images to increase the likelihood that viewers will repin it. Add text messages as well so that viewers are clear about your image and its context.
• Create a few boards before inviting or searching for followers so that they do not wind up visiting an empty Pinterest page for your business. You do not need to have a surfeit of original content on your initial Boards –
• 80% of Pinterest content is repinned. But you will want to intersperse original branded content, along with relevant repinned content, to keep your followers engaged.
• Don’t just think images. Use, audio, video, slideshows (just make sure there is a striking associated thumbnail. Create infographics, which are one of the most popular kinds of image on Pinterest. Or run a contest, by asking customers and potential customers to follow you on Pinterest and pin engaging content on your Boards.
• Don’t limit yourself to your ideas either. You can create a group board, and afford other pinners to collaborate on the content creation and curation process with you. For instance, create an events board and invite pinners to post relevant events; a staff board, and invite staff to participate; or a joint board with a strategic partner, such as a nonprofit to elicit more content.
• Create rich pins by using metatags and validating them (learn more here).

There are five types of rich pins:

1. Article pins
2. Product pins
3. Recipe pins
4. Movie pins
5. Place pins

Rich pins allow you to add more extensive topical content related to your pin.

Because of Pinterest’s aspirational nature, keep your pins inspiring and positive. Also communicate your firm’s values to accentuate the goodwill surrounding your brands and products.
Don’t just push your products. Pinterest is about tasks, activities, even lifestyles. You may sell a few products in a category, but the idea is to drive pinners to purchase by showing them how your product is a part of their desire. For example, if you just sell skis and snowboards, you want to create Boards that highlight ski gear, ski apparel, and other related images, products, and services in this category. You might go further and display images relating to winter vacations and activities.

Creating compelling content can help you expand your reach and visibility, increase your brand awareness and bring more customers to your website.

Expanding reach / visibility

Strategically repin content. When you do it, the original content creator is alerted and may visit your page. This is ideal for marketers: repin relevant content from the Boards of potential consumers, who may follow you and revisit your other content. Also, look at repining content from pinners with large bases of followers; hopefully they will repin your content, making it visible to their base. Develop a list of pinners whose boards indicate they may be a good fit for your brand, as well as influencers with large bases of pinners and/or bases of other influencers. And quote comments as pins from customers and influencers to engage with visitors and drive traffic to your Boards.