I recently contributed a piece over at social Buthafli.net social media blog, geared towards helping businesses gain an online presence by targeting their core market and engage in online activities. “Social Media Marketing for Business”
More and more businesses are using social media to turn their relationships with potential clients into dollars. If I ever got one GREAT piece of advice it’s that… it’s NOT in the numbers but, the relationships you have on these social networking platforms. Today you don’t see many businesses not advertising Twitter Accounts and Facebook Pages for you to help promote and follow. Social Media is the modern way to advertise in addition to traditional media. The one thing that sets social media apart from the rest is being able to put information online, share it, make connections, network and have it go viral from all the sharing or re-tweeting of content. Social Media is an inexpensive way to organize and carry out a marketing campaign. Brands are using social media to market products, handle customer service issues, and product inquiries among other things. So, the question is who is behind the tweets?
Are businesses using social media marketing correctly? Is there an internal employee behind the tweets that hasn’t a clue how to engage online? Is your Twitter person an employee that has a million other duties and Social Media is not a priority? Businesses are turning to Social Media Consultants and businesses to get the skinny on using social media effectively and even hiring a designated employee or social media firm/ consultant to handle all their social media efforts (Blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube & LinkedIn) to increase the bottom line. Social Media can be very time consuming due to creating content for blogs, engagement online and growing your social media networks. It definitely should be one’s focus and can become a FT job when you are trying to be consistent and use social media networks effectively.
We all know that we have to spend money in order to make money and as much as you may want to cut corners and try to navigate your way through the social media abyss, I’d say… seek out an experienced digital marketer with knowledge of how to leverage social media networks and platforms to drive brand engagement and sales. This will allow your customers to feel as though someone on staff is there to engage with them and provide great customer service. There are different programs you can use to measure your analytics and see how many people you’ve “reached†by viewing your metrics which will give you a closer look at if your marketing plan is working and what you can do in future marketing campaigns. Social media is an asset to businesses and if used properly can have positive results.