Learning about your Competitor
October 31, 2014
We want to talk about something we find very important here at SMS. Sometimes it is hard to keep track of all the things you need to do to keep up your social media marketing, but one thing you cannot forget is to research your competitors. You need to see what they are doing for holiday specials and what they are offering as incentives to customers. You need to see what you are up against. How can you compete if you don't know what they are doing? Make sure you are also learning about they're mission statements are and why they appeal to customers . You can use the knowledge of what is drawing in their customers to help you because if you can offer something better or similar you will have more of a chance to bring in new customers.
See what your competitors are doing on their different social media sites. Are they posting pictures? Are they having special discounts and sales? If they have great ideas don't be afraid to borrow and tweak them to fit you and your business. Reach out and let us know what you want to read about next month!
Fall Social Marketing Tips for any Business
October 29, 2014
As we head into the last couple of months of the year, it's easy to get caught up in the craziness of the holiday season. An important thing to remember during this time, when it comes to your social media platforms, is to make sure that each post you make is relevant to your brand and message. People want to read informative pieces, such as news articles about what's currently happening in your industry, and keep up to date with your company – your latest news, sales and events. Sometimes it seems as if no one is "listening" online but trust us, someone is always viewing your company's messages, so make sure you're doing proper posts.
Also, make sure you are keeping all of your sites up to date, not just some of them. If you post about a great sale you are having for fall, make sure you post it on all of your platforms so you can reach a larger audience . This also enables your brand to have a consistent voice in the online community.
Take note of holidays or important dates in fall and acknowledge them on your sites, if doing so fits in with your brand and message. Coming up, we've got Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday and many more.
These are just a few ways to keep fall fresh and fun for your audience and to have your voice heard loud and clear! If you'd like more ideas for fall or the upcoming holiday season, or are looking for help planning your next marketing campaign, give us a call today!
How to Keep Your Social Media Sites Customer Friendly
October 22, 2014
A great way to keep clients involved in a business is by making sure they feel heard. Social media has become a quick and easy way for buyers to relay what they want and need from a corporation. While they may be eager to contact a service for personal concerns, it can also be used by businesses to collect new and fresh ideas. There are numerous ways to accomplish receiving client input through social media outlets.
Questions
Pose simple and easy to answer questions that followers can reply too in a short amount of time. Everyone seems to always be on the go, so while they want to feel heard, they also want to be efficient. Responses will come in as long as the buyers are able to answer in an effortless manner.
Polls
Posting polls on your website is a better idea for those customers who are willing to take a little more time out of their day. Managing polls on certain products or services will create more details on what buyers like/dislike and what can be improved. Bonus: You can also post these polls to your Facebook page!
Hold a Contest
A new social media trend has emerged where followers are able to participate in a contest in order to win a prize. Using a “photo challenge” or a “best answer challenge", for example, will keep consumers involved in a fun and unique way. Winners can be given rewards such as a new product or a free trial.
Keeping customers involved and listening to their advice is vital to the success of any business. Over the past few years this has become much simpler due to social media outlets. Contact between buyers and business owners/corporations is easier than ever and should be fully taken advantage of. Using the above techniques will be guaranteed to positively affect the success of a business.
Start Fall Right with Fall Promotions!
September 15, 2014
Fall is the best time of year to thank your customers, especially around Thanksgiving as we are giving thanks for everything else in our lives. Reward them for being so loyal to you and your brand. Now is a great time to give customers extra savings and do fun contests. Below you'll find some of our favorite fall tips!
1. Contests can include costume contests for Halloween, best poems about Thanksgiving, anything that will get your customers involved. Ask your customer's to post their photos of their costumes on Instagram and Facebook and tag your company with a hashtag for a chance to win a prize. Or if you have a poetry contest, post the poems to your site's blog where people can vote for their favorite (this will drive people to your website).
2. Fall is a great time to get sports fans involved in your company. Having a sweepstakes that your customers can enter after purchasing something from your company is a great idea! As a prize for the sweepstakes have tickets to an NFL game or other football related merchandise.
3. Do a food drive for your community. Fall is perfect for this activity as many people seem to be more involved in community activities around Thanksgiving. Make sure you post photos and tag customers who attended. This will show your audience that you are involved in and care about your community. . A good way to let all your customers know about the food drive is to send an email blast promoting it so they will be able to participate. Also as you advertise your food drive, be sure to include your newsletter signup on Facebook or your website, so more people can get involved.
Using these great fall tips will help increase your exposure online and off! Fall is a wonderful season to remind your customers of the good things in life – everything pumpkin, Halloween, football, and the gratitude of Thanksgiving – so use this to your advantage. And if you need a little help getting started with fall promotions, reach out and call us today!
Use Back To School to Your Advantage!
September 12, 2014
Now that it's back to school time, its time to start thinking about using back to school sales and events in your social marketing.
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You can hand out exclusive back to school deals for fans of your social media sites who post about you and spread the word of your great services. For example, post on your Facebook page that you are trying to reach a certain number of "likes" and for everyone who shares your page and leaves a comment saying that they did, you will mail them a coupon for a certain percentage off their order or a product. Now's a great time to get feedback from your clients! Add a poll or survey to your website and then post about it on your social networks. Entice people to fill it out by doing a drawing for a prize at the end of the survey period.
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Support local sports teams and you will begin to increase your positive image within your town. If you sponsor town run teams, your name could be on jerseys and if you help support school teams you become more integrated in the area. Make sure you post on your social media sites about games for the team you are supporting and pictures of you getting involved. It will really resonate with your followers in the area.
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Our last tip is to reach out to college students. Many college students look for internships to get experience and credit. These can be great connections for you to make because many hand-working interns will end up working for a company and having a true passion for it. These interns can be very useful when trying to manage social media sites and many times can give you different insights on what they like to see in social marketing and what catches their eyes and makes them take notice to a company’s social marketing.
These are our "Welcome Back to School" social marketing tips! We hope they're as useful to you as they have been to us. If you use any of them, please come back and leave us a comment about how they helped!
Fun Ways to Get Your Clients to Interact
August 28, 2014
Many of our readers have been asking how to get their clients to interact with them in new fun ways so we came up with a few tips for all of you.
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Use fill in the blanks. When you ask questions with fill in the blanks, it gives your clients an opportunity to tell you what they want while having the advantage of being fun (somewhat like MadLibs when you were a kid). You can ask something like “If I could change one thing about your company/ service it would be ________________. "
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Use Facebook polls. Facebook allows you to make your own polls. Providing these enables your clients to give valuable feedback with the condition of anonymity.
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Ask your clients to post funny photos of themselves using your service/product. They can compete and get creative with the photos. The added bonus here is having numerous other people, who might not normally see it, seeing your product or service.
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Have a sweepstakes that customers can enter if they answer a questionnaire about service, quality, etc. People will love the opportunity to win something and it’s a great chance for them to give you their input.
We hope these tips help you and make sure you let us know what else you want to hear about!
TOP MISTAKES OF SOCIAL MARKETING
July 29, 2014
For a lot of our clients, social marketing can be an entirely new experience. And with every new experience comes a few mistakes. We've had several clients ask us about the most common social marketing mistakes so we've come up with a handy list of the top ones.
1. Make sure you are patient. Marketing isn't a science, unfortunately, and sometimes it takes time for your marketing to take effect. Make sure that you don’t rush the process.
2. Make sure you listen to what your followers want and need to know about. Make sure that you are addressing their concerns. Sometimes it is hard to not just think about business, but you need to make sure that you are making and keeping connections and relationships with clients.
3. Make sure you change up your posts and post about things that will allow you to connect with clients. On the flipside, however, don’t make the mistake of posting things of a personal nature.
4. The last mistake we think that you can make is not using images. Images grab people's attention and will help them to remember you and your company.
Great Ways to Connect With Your Audience During the Summer Months!
July 16, 2014
Worried about connecting with your audience during the summer? Everyone is out and about traveling or enjoying the weather and hopefully not cooped up inside on the Internet! But how does that bode for your business? Are there ways you can engage your audience when they're online less? We have some great tips for summertime engagement! These tips should be used year round, but they are especially great for summer because people need a bit more stimulation, as they are typically out else where doing lots of fun activities or on vacation. People need to be reminded of the wonderful services you provide and reminded that just because they're on vacation, it doesn't mean that you are!
1. Ask questions! Don’t just ask yes or no questions – ask questions with depth. Give your audience an opportunity to open up to you. Ask about people's summer activities and what they would like from you.
2. Link all your social media accounts. Your audience doesn't want to have to work to find you on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FourSquare, YouTube and anything else you might be on. So make sure all of your links to your social media accounts are in one place. Place them in a highly visible, well trafficked page on your website and make sure they're all placed on your most frequently trafficked social media site (probably Facebook).
3. Summer is a great time to see what your audience is saying about you. Check all channels of social media (including places like Yelp! and Google) to see what kind of feedback your customers are giving you. If you notice the same complaints over and over again, then it's probably time to do something that will solve the issue. And once the issue is resolved, make sure your clients are aware by posting about it on your social media sites and website. Also take in the positive reviews people are leaving about your company and see if you can step up your game to take the positive a level further. Impress your customers by improving upon your already stellar business doings and word of mouth is sure to spread!
4. Lastly, make sure you acknowledge your customers. Ask to take a photo of them in your establishment or a photo of the work you have done for them and then, when you post the photo to your Facebook page, tag them in it. People want to know that their business is appreciated, so make sure they know!
Keep reading our blog for more great social media and business tips and if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or email us today!
Three Tips That Can Greatly Improve Your Company’s Social Media Presence
May 22, 2014
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Timing is everything!
It’s important to know the best time to reach your target audience. Knowing when your followers will read and respond to your post gives you the best opportunity for interaction, Late in the day or early morning are usually the best times to post because many people check their social media in the morning before work, during their commute or at night.
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Questions, Questions, Questions!
Asking questions prompts your audience to connect with you. Even if you are posting a story or feature product, ask your followers to share their opinions. As people leave their opinions, other people read them which can often times start a conversation about your company. And in this day and age, most people go online to look for reviews of places and products. By asking questions, this also allows for others looking at your posts to see others' opinions which will hopefully intrigue them and help them build trust in you and your service BEFORE they've even used your services.
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Repetition is Key!
When you repeat an idea or concept, it solidifies your message in your audience’s mind and reinforces your brand. But remember to be brief. People don’t spend more than a few seconds reading a post.
Common Social Media Myths
April 26, 2014
We have found that there are quite a few misconceptions people have about social media, so we want to let you in on the truth and set the record straight on these five common myths:
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Social media is just for young people. Because young people use social media doesn’t mean it only impacts them. The truth is that you can reach multiple generations with social media. The average Twitter user is a white-collar worker in his/her 30s, and Facebook is growing specifically with users who are age 40 and older.
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Social media is easy to do. The basics of social media aren’t difficult, but to reach your target audience and see a positive outcome takes time, effort and strategic planning.
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Social media is the same as social networking. Social media can be your website, blog, and forums. Social networking goes beyond social media sites. Whatever way you connect with your audience online is networking.
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All social media is free. There may be no direct cost, but there could be some financial investment to create meaningful content and market your service or product effectively.
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Social media is just a way to let people see your message. Social media isn’t just about a message; it’s about starting conversations and creating relationships with customers and clients. When you create a trusting relationship with your customers, your social media efforts will have a larger impact.
Author
- Kelly Jones
Social Media Manager
