In recent years, SEO has become much more than link building and adding as many keywords as you can possibly can. Social Media and Social interaction with your clients/fans/users to build your brand and promote your business, No matter it’s size should be an important part of your business model.
Like the name suggests Social Media is a communication tool used to interact with your clients on a more personal level, and this what people want, to be able to contact the business or organisation, to put a human face on it and personalise their interactions. When utilised to it’s full potential Social Media can be your most valuable means of advertising, and gaining real-time feedback from your audience.
Whichever Social Media platform(s) you choose to use for your business, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Linkedin etc, It’s is important to keep them up-to-date with regular and useful content. That means at least one post a week about something relevant to catch the interest of your audience. Defining what is relevant content for you can vary widely depending on your audience and can mean the difference between becoming a viral success or being stuck on the starting blocks.
Building Your Audience
How many clients do you have? Do you have at least that many followers on your Twitter? Or likes on your Facebook page? If no, why not? Have your social media information as part of your email signature encouraging people to follow you. When you create relevant content, encourage your audience to share it with their friends. There are also other ways to promote your self via paid advertising on Facebook or Google Adwords. The more eyes that you can get your message to, the more potential business for you in the future.
Interacting with your Audience
The most important benefit of Social Media is that it allows you to engage your audience on a personal level, allowing them to get to know you in a way that builds trust in you and your brand. By replying to your customers questions and concerns and asking for their feedback you can increase the level of customer satisfaction by an order of magnitude. Sharing photos and video of what you or your business is getting up to on a more personal level, (like parties or events attended and milestones achieved) will help in creating a strong bond of trust and involve your audience in a more personal way. Which will then in turn will get you more traffic and promote your business.
Having designated people to help provide a positive view of your business and mitigating any negative views is extremely important. Nothing can help build trust like turning potential negative view in a positive one by quickly addressing concerns via your social media. This will help build your reputation as a trusted and competent business who they would continue to do business with.
Increasing your Sales
A good Social Media strategy and campaign requires a good deal of investments of both time and money, but what really counts is the return on this investment (ROI). Which means people talking about your business or products across your Social Media platforms, and the real goal is to convert these conversations into sales. By interacting and fortifying the trust you have built with your audience, this will make them more likely to create interest in your products of services and increase your sales.
Sending your message around the World
While an ad in a local paper, or on a local radio has a very fixed geographical boundary and time limit where people will have access to it, with Social Media much like your website, anyone, anywhere, anytime can access your information. Someone typing a search keyword in Twitter on the other side of the world could very easily become part of your audience or if your content goes viral there is no telling how far it will reach. So keep that in mind when planning your content campaigns. There are many tools like Google alert which you can use to monitor what people are saying about you, helping you find and target the audience you want to promote your business.
Social Media Management is one of the services we provide here at Dash Dot Development, if that is something you are interested in or just need some advice on building your Social Media presence, drop us a line.
So until next time, Happy Tweeting everyone!