understanding how to utilize social media in your online marketing

The Power of Social Media

For your Online Marketing Success

Know Your Social Networks

FACEBOOK• Integrated with tons of Apps

and games, people use Facebook heavily to keep in touch with friends and family.

• Consumer focused social network

Strengths

• Facebook engages with their users through news feeds and fan pages.

• Free and paid marketing solutions.

Considerations

• People don’t like to be hit over the head with a sales pitch on Facebook.

TWITTER• Twitter is a micro-blogging

platform for quick and efficient information dissemination.

Strengths

• Short and direct. Twitter users are masters of condensing information into short.

• Ad Platform and the use of hashtags for discovery and conversation engagement.

Considerations

• Short-form messages can sometimes complicate or trivialize in-depth communication.

PINTEREST• Pinterest is simply a virtual

pin board of your favourite topics.

Strengths

• Visually engaging and friendly format.

• Can be extremely strong referral traffic driver..

Considerations

• Can be a challenging marketing medium for non-visual brands.

QUORA• Quora is a question and

answer engine.

Strengths

• Opportunity to promote and get distribution for blog posts.

• Targets a huge audience of engineers, entrepreneurs, marketers and students.

Considerations

• Requires dedicated time and effort and 1:1 connections can be challenging.

LINKEDIN• Largest business-to-business

social network.

Strengths

• Employee recruitment, market intelligence, 1:1 outreach

Considerations

• Some professionals don’t consistently use LinkedIn

• Expensive advertising costs

YELP• Customer review platform for

brick and mortar platform.

Strengths

• Advertising solutions available

• Opportunity to engage directly with customers.

Considerations

• Some small businesses feel that the paid channel advertising platform is too aggressive.

YOUTUBE• The world’s biggest DIY video

network.

Strengths

• Significant referral traffic driver.

13 Tactics to Succeed on Social Media

Resist the Pressure

There is tremendous pressure for companies to develop a social media presence. Social media is just like any other marketing channel in that it requires a thoughtful, ROI focused strategy.

1Pick the right networks for you

Remember that social media is, at its heart, a distribution channel. To spread the word about your brand, you absolutely need an audience.2

Start with your customers

Pick social networks that align most strongly with where your customers are hanging out already. Remember that in order for people to follow you, you need to follow your customers.

Invest in building a community

This strategy can help you double your social media following — which can easily evolve into 30% to 40% of your overall website traffic. When you invest in building up your social media following, you are investing in distribution.

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Build your email list on social media

Use a tool like 5 Minute Fan Page to collect leads on your Facebook page. These lead generation forms have the potential to achieve much higher conversion rates than they do off Facebook.

6Time Your Messaging Perfectly

Learn how to post when audiences are most likely to be engaging with your social sites.

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Drive engagement

Once audiences browse through your content, make sure to connect them with more. This strategy is especially important for YouTube videos.

Sync Up with Great Content

Promote content beyond your own. Curate content from the community, and share what’s most relevant to your friends and followers. Share content, not products. Remember that people are emotional and want to be entertained.

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Host online events

Host tweet-ups to help answer your fans’ most pressing questions. This strategy can help build loyalty and engagement.9Jump into conversations

Be social. Join Quora and LinkedIn discussion groups to build trust and awareness about your brand. If your company can solve a specific problem, make sure that the community knows.

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Ask Questions

Ask questions as much as you’re broadcasting messages. Questions can help you better understand your customers and show how much you care.

Capture attention with images

Get creative, and don’t afraid to be funny — even if you’re a little off base from your brand. Just don’t be boring.1

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Measure all Results

Know your numbers. When people share your content with their fans and followers, your company gets free marketing. This exposure has quantifiable value.

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Key Takeaways

Choose social channels that align with your audience.

Don’t feel obligated to launch social media profiles that are misaligned with your brand.

Track results so that you can make optimizations and continuously

improve performance.

Monitor metrics related to virality, engagement, leads and conversions, and costs.

Shares and re-tweets are extremely valuable because they generate free exposure for your company.

Encourage users to share your content by implementing (and

testing the placement of) social sharing widgets.

Be as visual as you possibly can. People don’t like to read giant

blocks of text.

Remember that people on social media aren’t necessarily in the

mindset to shop. They’re looking to connect with friends, sync up with

family, browse photos, and discover entertaining media.

Integrate your social media strategy with your branded content program. Content is a powerful referral traffic

driver.

Listen as much as you broadcast. Use social media to learn about

your customer base.

Questions?

THANK YOU!!!