Social media can be one of the most important weapons you have with regard to driving traffic either to your site or to your brick and mortar location. Your social media marketing has to be in the forefront of your marketing efforts and can prove the equal in importance to your SEO efforts. Because your potential customers and clients are spending about 25% of their lives on social media, it means you and your company need to be out there too.
But, like your SEO marketing efforts, your social media efforts are an investment, not a cost, and they are a long term strategy that needs to get going today. First off, don’t take the easy way out. It doesn’t work, you will lose followers and you will, over time, just be wasting your valuable time. Be authentic and post content that your followers need and that they will care about. Post content that will be engaging and make a difference in their lives. Anyone can just post links that will take them to another site.
You need to connect and stay in touch with your audience. Social media is just that; social. Too many businesses make the mistake of posting too little. All many small business owners are looking at is the cost. Again, this is a long term endeavor not a short term instant gratification fix. Value your content writers and producers because they are the ones who are driving traffic. They are the ones bringing useful information and added value to your potential customers.
Put a positive spin on things for your audience. They don’t have a problem, they have a challenge. Staying up beat gives your audience a reason to like you. Standard advertising 101 for television reflects this view. For TV commercials, the only real rule is to leave your audience feeling good about your products or services at the end of the commercial.
Finally, pinpoint those social media platforms that are really going to work for you. Who is your audience? Where is your audience? Find those two things out and make certain that you are there bringing them engaging and helpful content as often as you can.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
