Monday 27 February 2012

Social Media - Easy Way Of Modern Marketing

By Cliff Schubert


Marketing Did you know that Facebook is the largest social media site has over 400 million active users, and that more than half of them check their Facebook page daily. Other smaller social media sites such as Myspace and Twitter are used by millions of users, and may be a great way to engage customers in your online marketing goals as well, If you don't know your Twitter feed from your MySpace page to your Facebook Friends, you still need to learn about using social media marketing to market your business and products. Why does social media matter so much? Using Facebook pages and other social media online strategies can be inexpensive, highly effective and easy tools to get your business noticed to target customer segments, to engage and maximize customer loyalty and increase the reach of word of mouth campaigns. With so many users, how can you ignore social media while your competitors take advantage of the tool.

Sites like Facebook are a new and useful marketing tool in your marketing toolset. Not sold yet on social media marketing ? When you add social media campaigns and integrated social media with your other marketing tools, social media has some unique benefits to add value, since brand loyalty and 'word of mouth' are so valuable yet often hard to both create and strengthen. Social media is or will soon be used by your competitors, so now is the time to get to know this tool better before you lose customers and market share.

For a small business let us get you started on a simple use of social marketing. To many business folks, who frequently have only a vague understanding of these online social media sites social media, unless you are a teenage, may seem like strange foreign landscape. Myspace or Twitter frequently, social media is either a useful 'once in a while' way to connect online with friends or for most Facebook users, a daily online stop to 'keep up with friends new and old for those who use Facebook. Sites like linkedIn are networking sites that can be leveraged in your brand management schemes as well.

First, let us get you started, start with simple marketing goals and overview to get your feet wet in the area of social media. Social media 'word of mouth' campaigns can help build and strengthen customer loyalty using the trust of 'friend to friend' endorsement. Social media is a great tool for helping your customers tell their own Facebook and online site 'friends' about you by linking to your Facebook business page. Social media is practically ideal as a 'word of mouth' marketing tool. If you have a good product or services and, great customer service to boot, think of your Facebook page as another way or channel for customers to spread their 'brand love'. Just make sure to use these sites first BEFORE you use the tool for your business. You can't harness what you can't understand. Even if you outsource the actual projects, make sure you set up your own page and try it out a little, or at least see a demo of these sites to get a feel for what makes them tick. This takes only minutes to do, and gives you some valuable insight into ways to integrate social media.

Second, keep the same good marketing concepts when using the social media tools as your other marketing campaigns. You are not reinventing the wheel, you are simply embracing another marketing tool. Like all tools, do your homework first, and keep some general 'rules of thumb' that are typical for other marketing tools. Think of your social media like you do the rest of your marketing tools. Your brand image should be consistent across all touch points and channels, including social media. A muddled message is a lost message. Try to be hip and cool on your social media while presenting a polished professional image, and your message becomes distorted. So good marketing is the fundamental structure to your social media strategy. Keep social marketing integrated with your core marketing themes. Social marketing is a supplemental marketing tool, not its own island. If you say five things you have said nothing, so keep with your core themes. Like all marketing campaigns, think of what will be useful to your customers, how you can help your customer solve a problem better or more easily, or more cheaply. Messages that attract attention, but don't mesh with your core concepts confuse customers. Social media must be consistent with your core marketing themes.

Since social media is a networking and social tool, think of ideas of how your customer might want to share your product to their friends, a unique benefit of social media sites thirdly. Can you create contests or quiz that lends itself to social networks? And if you answer correctly, you get a free donut for example, a local coffee shop has a daily trivia question. An online version might award a coupon via a fun daily trivia and random correct answer selection. A simple yet winning market differentiation for this coffee shop in a crowded market this works with their core brand message since it emphasizes their brand's core concept, a fun place to get a cup of coffee. In a crowded market this works with their core brand message since it emphasizes their brand's core concept, a fun place to get a cup of coffee, a simple yet winning market differentiation for this coffee shop. But the experience is their advantage, and social media can spread or enhance the message they can't compete on the quality of price of coffee. To attract more loyal customers social marketing can help build their customer engagement concept and use loyal customers. ROI can thrive even further by further focusing on profitable loyal customers and lifetime customer value targeting. To target new customers and engage brand loyalty so 'word of mouth’ highly networked customers are a great way. For your products in a simple but powerful way Facebook users tend to be socially engaged with sometimes vast networks of online friends, Facebook campaigns can helps these networked customers become cheerleaders.

Time to get a little more technical, and actually create your Facebook business or product pages fourthly,now that your ideas or churning. To create your business page work with your website creators or simply login to Facebook. To describe your business, and a few minutes, you can do it yourself, yet unless you have some online development expertise, when possible, find a local web firm to setup your first page if you have a simple logo graphic, a few sentences. Never do this until you've used Facebook yourself first. Into your business you need to have some idea about the technology before incorporating this tool.

Don't just create your Facebook page(s) then ignore it fifth. The daily maintenance of content is key and can be done in-house and should be a daily or weekly activity. Remember, anything worth doing is worth doing well. Treat it like the valuable asset it is social media is a direct customer touchpoint and a direct customer interaction. It is socially engaged themselves, and has time each day to manage the page look to an employee who writes well. For this role the same employee that loves to interact with customers and that represents you well is a good choice. Understands your core message, and a good communicator makes a great social media guru for your business a 'people' person who is good with new technology.

So, in summary, social media is a much buzzed about useful marketing tool. For a small business, it's a great tool for getting the word out about your business as a new twist on an standard marketing goals - 'word of mouth' to create new customers and engagement for stronger brand loyalty. As customer choices continue to get more crowded, social media can help enhance your brand and keep customer loyalty strong while building new customers.




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