Social media marketing is now truly an A player in the world of online marketing. It’s more than the latest rumor: it’s here to stay.
Whether people use it to keep in touch with friends, make new friends, communicate with colleagues, or establish new business relationships, anything is possible. For example, Sydney’s social networks are using online communities to increase business exposure, build strategic market relationships and understand what customers want. Of course, these strategies work both ways, as customers can also contact you and provide feedback.
Let’s look at each of these in more detail:
trade show
Social media is often considered a cheaper and more effective way than public relations. Media contacts are no longer required, nor are large advertorials in magazines and newspapers. Rather, by using online social tools, business owners can increase their exposure by building relationships in their marketplace.
To create great trade exposure, you’ll need to have great content to share. Sharing and communication are at the heart of social media, so creating something that begs to be shared is a great start. This could be videos, articles, podcasts, images, and more. Any material should be branded with your company name, logo, image, etc., so that sharing your content truly translates into valuable business exposure.
Building Strategic Relationships
Building strategic relationships with your online and offline network will help grow your business immensely. There are two ways to think about strategic partners: increase profit and increase exposure.
If you’re looking to increase profits, you need to look for strategic partners that cater to your ideal customer base. Ideally, your service will be complementary to theirs, so any referrals will be mutually beneficial. Once you have identified these strategic partners, you can reach out to them through social media. For example, through LinkedIn, liking your Facebook page or retweeting your Tweets.
The other type of strategic partner will help you gain exposure in your desired market. These are people who have a huge social influence on your target market. You can identify them by how others trust your opinion and share your content. These “influencers” may not be able to recommend your ideal customer, but they could transfer some of their social influence by endorsing you personally.
Understand your customers
Many people view social media marketing simply as a sales tool. But the fact is, it’s an amazing way to research and understand your market. Users continually ask questions, discuss controversial topics, and share their opinions. By simply listening to your ideal customer base, you can discover what their problems are and develop a solution that meets their needs.
Of course you can be proactive and ask for suggestions and feedback, but simply researching discussion groups and forums, Facebook comments, and Twitter feeds already shows you what’s hot.
These are just three ways you can start using social media to grow your business!
