Thanks to social media, the way we do business has changed forever. If your business is not using social media right now, you are definitely missing out.
With Facebook now boasting over 1 billion active monthly users and the likes of Twitter and Instagram hot on its heels, it is safe to say that social media is here to stay.
It has had a huge impact on the way consumers buy and has completely changed the way that products are marketed. Simply put, a marketing strategy that doesn’t make us of social media is out of date.
To take advantage of this huge pool of easily accessible and instantly available customers, you need to learn the secrets that can get your brand noticed online, and this is where we can help, by sharing our expertise and knowledge with you.
Whether you have a product to sell or a brand and service to promote, you can discover how to leverage the power of the big social media networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and Tumblr. If you use them right, they will help your business get noticed and spread the word. With our help, you’ll be producing content that has global appeal.
Content Marketing
In a nutshell, social media marketing is about using the various social networks to build up a buzz about your brand or product. Content marketing is an important part of the social marketing mix. Essentially, this means taking the content you probably already produce in your existing marketing campaigns and using it in your social marketing.
You need to have a product or service to promote because there is no point shouting, no matter how loudly you do it, unless you have got something to shout about.
For example, let’s say that you a wedding dress designer and you have created some stunning designs for a client. You could share one of the designs on your social media accounts as promotional activity, along with a link to your website. If the design is good enough and plenty of people like it, they’ll start to share it on their social media accounts, and this can create a buzz about your work.
In most cases you will see an initial spike in activity, which steadily tails off over a period of time. However, in rare situations this growth can be significant. If an image, video or campaign achieves the status of ‘going viral, it can be enough to launch a whole new business.
While a viral hit can boost your product or brand into the stratosphere very quickly, it’s a rare event and exceptionally difficult to engineer. The reason why is because it is virtually impossible to predict what will go viral so don’t count on it as being part of your social media strategy.
Instead, you need to make sure that your social marketing is done as part of an organised campaign, which builds up a decent amount of interest over time, steadily building your brand. Remember that social marketing is a marathon, not a sprint.
Although it is important to understand social marketing across the major social networks, and share your content effectively, you should never underestimate how important it is to have quality, engaging content in the first place. Without great content that people are proud to share with their friends, you will fail.
On the other hand, if people see great content being shared, then the chances are high that they will want more of it, and that they will head to your website to learn more about what you and your business have to offer.
We realise that not everybody has an instantly accessible stream of memorable content that’s reliably shareable, especially if you are too busy running your bricks and mortar business too. However, if the thought of content being key to your social strategy makes your nervous, it might be time to investigate the power of storytelling or using a company like ours to help you.