I myself am so deeply entrenched with Social Media Marketing that I need to remind myself regularly that millions of people have never even heard of Twitter. If you are a small business owner you have a great advantage right now because jumping into the game before the crowd will put you out in front of the pack.
Engaging with people using these tools gives you the opportunity to connect with people, develop relationships and build your community of loyal customers and clients. How many times have you attempted to contact a company with a question and it took days or weeks to respond. With these tools you can value your customer or client’s time by reaching out to people very quickly and responding to their needs. This is how you will be able to differentiate yourself from your competition.
Here are some statistics that I hope will persuade you to take a serious look at the tools available to you…
“The Social Media Marketing Industry Report, claims that:
* 81% of all marketers who use social media said it generates more exposure for their business
* 62% said it helped close more business deals
* 85% of small-business owners said they reaped benefits from social media techniques. “
Four of the top five corporations — Walmart, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and General Electric — “consistently post on their Twitter accounts,” according to “The Fortune 500 and Social Media: A Longitudinal Study of Blogging and Twitter Usage by America’s Largest Companies.”
One of the many ways to build a successful business is to watch and mirror what that larger companies are doing. The smart companies are realizing that social media enables them to be where the customers already are. You can join the groups and forums where your target market gather, create relationships and respond to their questions. In some cases your response may be to direct them to your information or product. Just like when I write these articles, I provide an option to learn more about Social Media Marketing. Leave the choice up to the customer or client, this way they can “help themselves” to your buffet of information, products or services or not. Plus you can easily ask your customers and clients “What are you looking for?” and in many cases will be able to create products and services to quickly meet that need.
We really are social customers, we all want to be valued and listened to and not simply thought of as a financial transaction.
Please check our Social Media Pricing, Reputation Management Pricing andSocial Media A La Carte Pricing to choose the right social media strategy for your profile or business.
Social media marketing is a recent addition to organizations’ integrated marketing communications plans. Integrated marketing communications is a principle organizations follow to connect with their targeted markets. Integrated marketing communications coordinates the elements of the promotional mix;advertising, personal selling, public relations, publicity, direct marketing, and sales promotion. In the traditional marketing communications model, the content, frequency, timing, and medium of communications by the organization is in collaboration with an external agent, i.e. advertising agencies, marketing research firms, and public relations firms. However, the growth of social media has impacted the way organizations communicate. With the emergence of Web 2.0, the internet provides a set of tools that allow people to build social and business connections, share information and collaborate on projects online.
Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. A corporate message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it is coming from a trusted source, as opposed to the brand or company itself.
Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet access, opening doors for organizations to increase their brand awareness and facilitate conversations with the customer. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns. With emergence of services like Twitter, the barrier to entry in social media is greatly reduced. Report from company Sysomos shows that half of the users using Twitter are located outside US demonstrating the global significance of social media marketing. Organizations can receive direct feedback from their customers and targeted markets.