“Every blog post, image, video, or comment you share is a chance for someone
to react, and every reaction could lead to a site visit, and eventually a conversion”.
Social media marketing (SMM) is a form of web marketing that uses social networking websites as a marketing tool. The goal of SMM is to produce content that users will share with their social network to help a company increase brand exposure and broaden customer reach.
One of the components of social media marketing is social media optimization (SMO). Like search engine optimization (SEO), SMO is a strategy for drawing new visitors to a website. It can be done in two ways: adding social media links to content, such as RSS feeds and sharing buttons – or promoting activity through social media by updating statuses or tweets, or blog posts. To succeed on the Internet today, you have to create content that ignites and engages an audience. However, if you are a new blogger, you should probably spend more time developing an audience than creating your content.
Once you’ve been on Twitter for a while, you’ll notice people will place you on public Twitter lists. Lists are generally categorized by a special interest or geographic location, such as “marketing experts,” “bloggers” or “Bahamas”. Find a relevant person to follow, and then take a look into his or her lists. You’ll probably find a goldmine of interesting people to follow who will hopefully follow you back. Adding visual appeal to your tweet is a very smart way to get your most important content noticed. You can add up to four images per tweet or one fantastic image if you want.
According to iScoop, 78% of companies now say they have dedicated social media teams in 2015, up from 67% in 2012. This means that so many organizations feel overwhelmed by the need to create content for every social media channel on the planet. Or worse yet, many brands create one type of content and then blast that content onto every social platform. If that’s you, you need a social media channel plan. Most likely, your goals are different on each social platform. Since that’s the case, the content you develop for that platform needs to be different as well. Here are the components for your channel plan:
- The channel (For example, Facebook.)
- The persona (Who are you specifically targeting?)
- The goal (Is it a sales goal, cost-savings goal or are you trying to create a better customer experience?)
- Primary content type (Textual, video, infographics?)
- Structure (What does a general post look like?)
- Tone (Playful, sarcastic?)
- Channel integration (How will this channel work with your other channels for maximum impact?)
- Desired action (What user behavior do you want to achieve?)
One of the best ways to grow your following and increase engagement on social media is to be there consistently. The first step is to put the right systems in place to keep your posts relevant, interesting and valuable for your audience. Now, If you want to be successful with your social media plan, stop random acts of hashtagging and use a good hashtag to tie all of the pieces of your campaign together. Use a hashtag that is easy to spell and to remember. Once you create your hashtag, follow and join the conversation.
Take your most popular tweets and Facebook posts and use them to develop blog posts. Another way to get ideas is to comment on the things you read, for example, other people’s blogs and newsletters, media publications and anything else relevant to your business. Besides giving you material for a blog post, commenting will let people start recognizing your name.
Gain and keep your audience’s interest by using effective visual content. Visual social media platforms like Pinterest can be a fabulous traffic source, if used correctly. When designing Pinterest graphics, make sure your readers know what’s in it for them. Always include the title of your blog post on your graphic. That way, when you pin it to Pinterest, users will have a frame of reference and want to read it. And… LinkedIn. Don’t forget about LinkedIn. By publishing new and previously published content on LinkedIn, you can grow your audience and network while increasing your status as an expert. Through this open publishing platform, your original content becomes part of your company’s profile and has the ability to reach the largest group of professionals ever assembled. The choice is yours!
You can always contact MI Group to get the counseling you need when it comes to social media marketing and web marketing in general.