Being successful at social media means knowing what that means

Being successful at social media marketing encompasses may things but the major reason you are out on the social media platforms is to build trust and to drive traffic. If your social media marketing strategies are not currently doing this, then you need to discard them and begin over again.

• In order to drive traffic, and build brand awareness and trust, your social media content need to engage, inform, and entertain. You need to be constantly creating content that visitors want to share with their social media network. This gets your viewers to spread the word and increase your exposure. You need to concentrate on your visuals and you must be integrating video. Your videos are your commercials. Keep them to less than a minute and use them as calls to action to drive traffic to your site.
• Don’t always be out there trying to make the hard sell. Only two out of every dozen or so posts should be direct calls to action with regard to something. Give them something to take action about; specifically a discount or special gift or even an opportunity to get something that will solve an ongoing problem they have been having. You can promote with every post but do it softly and subtly. Show them why they need to visit you and why you are going to solve a problem for them.
• Believe it or not, the biggest social media fail out there are companies that don’t even have a complete profile done up. Really? You may think it hilarious that one can travel out to, say, a company’s Facebook page and not see an address or a phone number or an email address? It happens far more than you would think. You must be out there. You must humanize yourself and your company. This helps build trust and good feeling. Remember, people like doing business with people they like.
• You must, finally, accept the fact that your social media marketing efforts are a full time job that demands a full time position or team to handle it. They must also be properly trained especially with regard to handling feedback and comments. If your social media people have no people skills, no sales skills, your efforts will be quickly doomed. In the end, your social media marketing strategies are as important as anything else that contributes to the success of your business.

-Written by Kevin Sawyer