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Welcome to the Rediscover Your Brand™ podcast! I’m your host Mike McCormick. Last week we talked about email marketing and how your organization can utilize it. Well, this week we are going to stick with the internet marketing genre and talk about social media marketing. We are going to cover the different types of social media, how to effectively use it, the benefits of social media, and integrating social media with your already existing website.
To start I am going to give you a brief overview and explanation of what social media marketing is. Social Media marketing is a marketing strategy of using social sites to advertise, promote, and receive audience feedback. Utilizing Social sites to market your organization can become pretty simple and cost-effective once you learn how to use them.
Social networking sites have been around for over a decade now. More and more keeping popping up every day and the more and the more they become popular with online users the more you will want to utilize them. Now since with all the different types of social sites out there, it is easy to say they all do different things. For instance, both Facebook and Twitter allow you to post statuses and pictures, but Twitter only allows you to have 140 characters while with Facebook you can put as much content as you want in a Post. Along with Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest allow each user to different things. Utilizing these five social sites along with the many others you have to choose from will help your business grow tremendously in today’s world.
Now that we pretty much know what is out there in terms of social sites and many of us already have them but do we really know how to effectively use them to benefit our needs. Well, first when occupying more than one social side we need to know our target markets for each site. Each social site attracts a different audience. People use particular sites that suit their needs and wants and do not choose to participate in others because they do not see a need. Sites like Pinterest and Facebook tend to have a more laid-back atmosphere where people pretty much post anything and are a more welcoming community unlike sites like LinkedIn which present a more professional outlook, which businesses are looking to approach more professional candidates or other businesses. Keeping your content consistent is a sure plus to gain more attention but should always be tailored to the audience on each page. Followers on Facebook are looking for more out of the box, innovative, outrages, fun posts while followers on LinkedIn are looking for a strict, professional post, both of these posts can represent the same campaign and have the same message but are just presented in two different manners. Now many organizations tend to use third party sites that will take one message and filter it out to all your social pages. These sites are very useful; they take less time to use and are very cost-effective when trying to get your message out across multiple social sites. Yes, these sites are great to use but are not always the best in certain situations. Remember like I said before every social site has a different type of audience compared to another, so you might see that you have less followers on one side compared to the other and that is because your message is not tailored to the audience you want from that site. When using a standard straight forward message that you need to get out to the masses right away using those third party site will come in handy. The main point I am trying to get across is “know your target audiences for each social site.” Every social site has a different audience and to get the best use out of each social site you need to tailor it to that audience.
Social media just like another marketing strategy is designed to help you and organization gain benefits. Well, we all want to know we can utilize social sites to our advantage to gain more benefits from them. Well, first you need to remember that social media is very and I mean “very” cost-effective. You are able to create an array of different advertisements and push them out to millions without the costs from media providers. Among the many different finical benefits, you may bring in comes the benefit of knowing what your target audiences want when they want it. Knowing how your audience feels about a specific campaign you are running at a particular time without having to spend the money on constituent client survey research is a huge benefit for any company. Client surveys alone can be very costly in a campaign but being able to get your research done for free over social sites and knowing it whenever you feel like you need it without having to plan ahead of time can help make any campaign stronger and more successful in the long run. Social media also allows for real feel back, getting to know really how people feel and not some generic answer you usually hear in a focus group.
Now social media is a great tool and helps to raise awareness for any campaign. We all have main websites and we want people to see those as well, so it is necessary for your site to your social pages vice verse. Many people may only know about your site and linking your social pages to it will help them interact with you more, but this also goes the same for people who found you on your social pages they will want to know more about what you offer and your website will be able to provide that information. Having your target audience be able to share pages, articles, products, etc, that are posted on your site to their social pages is also huge this allows your target audience to grow by having others share your information to others for you. Adding social tickers to your website will give a quick insight to your site’s users on what you are posting on your social pages, this will make users wanting to see more and like your social pages, establishing more followers and feedback which will help your organization grow. Different audiences will choose different social sites to view your material but integrating them all with your main site will ensure that all your audiences are aware of the current programs and campaigns you are running.
With all the social media outlets out there you just need to adventure out and find the ones as well as those ways that will be perfect for not only your organization but your target audience as well.
That’s it for episode 34. I’m your host Mike McCormick and this has been brought to you by ArtVersion Interactive Agency. You may contact us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Artversion, on Twitter at Twitter.com/Artversion, or at Artversion.com. Thanks for Listen!