Social media has been around for a decade now, so it should be easy to figure out how to leverage it, right? Not so fast. New ideas? Definitely not that new, but they are very creative. There are recommendations on how to improve creative ideas everywhere you turn.
Social media works the way the grass grows. You rarely see it working, but every week you must mow the grass.
Before we start, let me ask you a question. What is your most creative idea to change social media marketing? We would love to hear it. Please share it in the comments at the end.
How many times have you seen companies requesting people to friend them on Facebook? Like farming followers was the name of the game. Sad but true. The truth is that social media marketing tactics are really about cultivating relationships with potential customers. Fan ‘skins’, by themselves, are of very little value.
Related: Find your Content Marketing Creative Ideas
What is the importance of social media to your business? Dialog with customers for sure. What about reading your content and remembering? Appreciating your help? Marketing? Building relationships? We believe it is all of these things, but the bottom line goal is relationship building.
In the ever changing landscape of social networking, you might be wondering if you are getting the most out of your business’s social media marketing tactics? Here we define social media community engagement as the process of gaining website customer traffic, attention, interaction, and ultimately relationships through social media sites.
In part it is true, but things get complicated by all the misinformation circulating about social media marketing. From leveraging tactics to tracking issues, you are bombarded with conflicting messages, including whether social media marketing is worth using at all.
Here are 10 ideas we use most often with our clients. We believe they are the ones most critical to the success of your social media marketing:
Define target customers
It all starts with knowing who your customers are and knowing as much about what makes them tick as you can. Without this step, most of the other steps become just a shot in the dark. So spent a lot of your time on this action. Keep in mind that you can’t be everything to everybody … not all customers are alike.
Choose best channels
Once you understand who your target customers are, you’ll need to study which social media sites they use most frequently and to what end. Social media takes a lot of time and energy, so you need to know where your time will be best spent’
Share unique content
Your content goal is simple … be as helpful as you can and/or be entertaining, or else be ignored. If you are going to put in the time and energy, you don’t want to be ignored.
Listening comes first and foremost to understand what customers are saying about their needs and perhaps about you. Once you have heard, then engage in as near real time as you can.
Related post: Improve Telling Stories by Employing These Remarkable Examples
Your personality and voice
This one is pretty simple, but takes lots of practice in the beginning. Be YOU and be consistent. Remember customers deal with people and not businesses.
Don’t be a robot
As we said previously, social media marketing takes a lot of time and energy. There many goog tools in existence that will help in the workload. But keep this in mind … customers take note when it seems they are dealing with a robot. Don’t be that robot.
Be part of the community
Remember you are dealing with consumers that are part of a community not part of the audience. Pay special attention to adding value in that vein.
Commit to a plan
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there, as the saying goes. Know your objectives and establish the best plan to get them accomplished. Remember this plan needs constant iteration.
Emphasize social
One of your key business objectives is to build relationships with customers. That end game results in customer advocates and trust. This process takes constant attention to being social on a very consistent basis.
Measure results
This entire social media marketing process is a constant iteration. Establish a few key measurements and pay attention to how well you are doing.
Analyze, correct, iterate and learn
Analyze your measurement results, and continuously make corrections, iterate, and most importantly, learn.
The bottom line
There are a lot of misconceptions about social media marketing. Just because you read something in a blog post or hear something from a credible source doesn’t mean it is true or true for you and your business.
Always do your research, and continually try to improve. Social media marketing is here to stay, and it can drive a lot of business for you, assuming you are leveraging it correctly.
There is more opportunity to fail in social media than to succeed if we treat it like any other marketing vehicle. Social media requires us to get away from being promotional and sensational and instead treat our customers with special attention. Special attention to being social, building relationships, and creating trust.