I have already been on Facebook since 2006, Twitter since 2008 and used both platforms as a means to develop my supply company that I used to own. Yes, I even had a really active MySpace account. Within the last few 3 years, I’ve also been active at Google + and keep my LinkedIn profile updated quarterly. I also am active on YouTube. So let’s better understand and grow your organization with Social Media.
So to begin with what’s the point? Why spending some time and effort on this? I think as an industry we are definitely slow to adapt most of the tools open to us with social outlets. If you look at a number of the major players in our industry hardly any time and effort is put in social media. Social media marketing does take a lot of time and it’s hard to essentially see the outcome quickly. Also, for a lot of in our industry, we are more of an analog industry and are just now addressing the digital age. Pad Printers are an excellent example. Wonderful creative and talented people that stamp ink. They can make just about anything work, but ask a hardcore pad printer their ideas on the digital sublimation systems is usually “that horrible trouble creating machines can have a flying leap… ” But in the proper environment with the proper market, sublimation can be a savior for a mat printers business. So back again to Social media…
Why the do we must be on social media marketing? 37 million people log onto to Facebook daily, and within the last few 10 minutes, 40,250 Tweets have already been posted. Think about Google +? Who do most many of us head to once we want to search for something on the web? There are 5,922,000,000 (Yes that’s 5.9 Billion) searches on Google per DAY. Google holds a staggering 67.6 percent of the U.S. internet search engine market share, in line with the latest internet search engine market share figures for April 2014, released by comScore. Being on G+ and discussing search terms that are important to your organization as well as sharing links to your website on G+ correctly may help your search ranking. By improving your search ranking you could have a better likelihood that somebody would go to your website who’s enthusiastic about the merchandise and services you offer. And so the numbers are right. There is an audience and chances are most of your customers are somewhere on social media marketing waiting for you to talk with them.
Another reason behind most of us is the price. The price cannot be beat… FREE! Being social is absolutely free and just takes some time and effort. There are things you can spend money linked to social media marketing that will make things only a little easier, but honestly people carrying it out right and spending the full time needed don’t have to cover something to promote their business and find new customers. What’re your alternatives to reaching your customers? You might exhibit at a trade show or home show or another event. Anticipate spending $5,000 to $10,000 to essentially do this right, though. You might do internet advertising with banners or Google AdWords. Anticipate spending $1,000 to $2,000 monthly to get the kind of reach you can get with social media. You are able to put ads on the air, TV as well as the area newspaper, but again each of them cost money, a commodity that most small businesses don’t have in abundance yet. Now using social media marketing to improve the ROI (return on investment) for the above mentioned things is something you need to be considering doing. Let’s say you may spend the $5,000 to display at a local home show, but by luck of the draw result in a corner behind the area loud mouth realtor and no one involves see you. Think about using social media marketing to get people after dark realtor with images of your booth, jokes concerning the loud mouth realtor or otherwise. Be yourself and help people come find you.
Another plus could it be is not merely one sided like a number of other marketing methods, you don’t need to be the only person growing your organization with it. Real quality interaction is driven by your customers and potential customers. cheap panel Your job would be to foster interaction between your company and products. This is not the elevator pitch where you’ve 30 seconds to sell your goods and services, this is actually the time to share with you issues that interest your customer and build a connection that will turn them into lasting customers. Also, happy customer make the BEST salespeople so give them an outlet to advocate for the brand with a dynamic social media marketing plan.
What exactly else can be achieved? With social media marketing, you may also put it to use as a tool for Customer Service. Yes, I’m guilty of using our Twitter to vent my frustrations with poor service received by way of a company. I also act as aware of shouting out good customer service by companies via social media. Many companies have figured it out and do an incredible job of helping, supporting and taking care of their customers with social media. Then there are the samples of those people who have made massive blunders. An organization that most of us in our industry may have heard about made the Inc. Magazines top 10 social media marketing fails in 2014 due to their posting of a photo of the Challenger space shuttle exploding as a means of celebrating the 4th of July on their Tumblr page. They took a beating for it and the excuse was the social media marketing manager was born following the Challenger disaster and didn’t know it absolutely was it was. On the flip side with this coin you’ve a lot of companies in our industry and beyond that have it and do a good job of interacting with their customers and making social media marketing a built-in part of the customer service plan. Like, I’m a dedicated flyer on Southwest due to the help I received via their Twitter team when I was having some challenges traveling with my Autistic son. They sprang into action and made our journey a nice one and now I hardly fly anyone else. You can certainly do things like monitor for comments about your company or product and then just ensure you are doing the proper thing on social media. You have to place yourself within their shoes and wear your “empathy” hat when interacting with others on social media. Check your ego at the door!
Social media marketing can be used as a tool for research and product development. You’ll find all sorts of information about your competitors, your customers and potential customers on social media. The key here is to just be the main conversation. You need to be an individual, not really a Twitter Handle or even a Facebook Page. You have to give something to get something. What this means is solving problems, giving tips and tricks, opening the curtain to who you are as an individual and company. As soon as you try this then you can get people to answer questions like “Do you prefer the black edge plaque with this specific design or the cherry edge plaque with an alternative design?” You may also learn if your competitor XYZ Company takes a long time to supply something, or has other weaknesses that you may be in a position to take advantage of by being fully a the main “group” on social media.
In order you will see if you ask me being an integral part of social media marketing can be a huge lift for your organization and provides you with all sorts of tools to not only promote your organization but to also understand and better service your customers. It’s free to be an integral part of it really takes time. But if you think by what your average day looks like, how often are you currently just reading the latest click bait article that the friend posted on Facebook or considering the latest Disney quote on Twitter or other time wasting activity. Why not take those 15 minutes and devote it to being active on social media marketing in ways that discusses your business. Think about encouraging your employees to be active on social media marketing because it pertains to your business. All it takes is for the phrase to begin spreading and you will see results. They won’t be huge or immediate, however, if the effort is devote and you are daily being fully a the main conversation where your customers are in on social media marketing, you will get up in 6 months to annually and notice that it’s working.