Social media platforms are proving to be a game changer in business and customer acquisition. Companies that ignore this new channel and the impact it has on improving customer engagement and loyalty, driving traffic to websites, and increasing sales revenue do so at their own demise. Marketers need to provide their sales teams with the support and resources it needs to continuously keep its finger on the pulse of customer sentiment within social networks to effectively engage prospects and customers and solve issues via social media.
Facebook for business
Facebook is the largest social networking service in the world with now over one billion active users. Users can create social profiles, upload and share photos and video, send status updates to friends and family. In contrast to Facebook personal profiles, Facebook pages were designed to be used for business. This social media platform enables you to make announcements, initiate conversations, run contests,and engage directly with your target audience online.
How to use Facebook
We suggest you follow this simple Facebook marketing checklist:
- Identify Your Audience: Take time to identify your target audience and buyer personas and research how they use Facebook
- Set Goals: Determine what you would like to achieve as a result of using Facebook and set key performance indicators (KPIs)
- Content Marketing Plan – Create quality content that provides value to earn the attention and trust of your target audience
- Engagement Strategy – Have a dedicated community manager to engage with your brand’s online community
- Promotion Strategy – Engage fans via contests, sweepstakes, quizzes and original/creative ideas
Facebook Statistics
- Worldwide, there are over 1.5 billion active Facebook users.
- 699 million people log onto Facebook daily.
- Every second, five new profiles are created.
- Average time spent per Facebook visit by a user is 20 minutes.
- 1 out of every 7 minutes spent online is spent on Facebook so it’s important that you have a presence here.
- 16 Million local business pages have been created as of May 2013 – does your business have a Facebook page?
Twitter Resources
Twitter for Business
With its 600+ Million registered, Twitter is the place where users can broadcast their thoughts, share content, and follow conversations between brands, customers, colleagues, friends, and celebrities — all at a 140 characters at a time. Twitter is a great broadcast and micro-blogging platform to build brand awareness and find new customers. It’s a great network for telling stories, creating events, broadcasting content and for directly connecting with your target audience and current customers. One of the unique aspects of Twitter is the hashtag and it should be used as part of your social media strategy.
How to use Twitter
To build a healthy community on Twitter, share advise, resources, and current company and industry-related news. Also use links to your blog, website, and special offers for your products or services. Be sure to engage with other people’s tweets by re-tweeting and replying to their posts. By “listening” on Twitter, your brand can monitor your audience and competition; thus, resulting in the ability to promote and recognize their fans and keep a close eye on their critics.
- Expand your reach with twitter hashtags ( the # symbol before a relevant keyword or phrase)
- Use twitter search to find your target market who are asking questions about your products or service offerings
- Follow your customers, as well as mix in influential users, on Twitter
- Influence and participate in real-time conversations to build relationships & gather insights within your industry
Twitter Advanced Strategy: List Management
As you start following brands and people and they start following you back, create Twitter lists to stay organized. Twitter Lists offer sanity from all the “noise” on Twitter. Click on the left side of your profile page for Lists. You can view lists you have created, subscribed to, or joined. Twitter’s list management feature allows you to keep your Twitter connections organized. For example, your could create a list of industry influencers or your competitors and “listen” to their tweets, or create lists to segment your Twitter connections into lists organized by categories of interest, hashtags, ,or keyword.
LinkedIn for Business
With more than 200 million people around the world (and growing everyday), LinkedIn is the largest business networking platform. It’s the social media platform that companies and entrepreneurs can’t afford to overlook. LinkedIn gives you the ability to connect directly with gatekeepers, influencers, and decision makers of prospects that you’d like to do business with, as well as your current customers. You can also connect to other professionals in your field and anyone with whom you want to communicate on a business level.
How to use LinkedIn
Follow these steps to increase the opportunity to generate more sales and profits by using LinkedIn:
- Establish a strong personal profile page
- Build your 1st level of connections to 250 people as fast as you can
- Create your company page
- Post status updates daily
- Join and participate in LinkedIn groups
- Deepen relationships with targeted prospects
- Collect recommendations & endorsements
LinkedIn for Business Statistics:
- Over 200 million users
- 2 new users join it every second
- 47% of B2B businesses use LinkedIn
- 77% of users access the site to research a business or an individual
- 69% of users earn $60K/year, and 39% have salaries over $100K/year
- 74% of users have college degrees
Instagram Resources
Google+ for Business
Google+ has quickly grown to the second largest social media platform with 359 million monthly active users. It is Google’s social layer that enhances it’s other online assets. Google treats your Google+ content like another website page; therefore, when it comes to SEO and social media, Google+ content trumps content on any other social platform. For businesses, Google+ helps you attract new customers and build deeper relationships with current ones, by making it easier to connect to the more than a billion people who search on Google every day and by making all the marketing you do with Google even better.
How to use Google+
1. Create Company page
2. Create Community page
3. Use company/community page to share informative content.
Posting Best Practices:
- Remember to delete the link in the copy.
- Add relevant hashtags.
- Always post with a comment or question encouraging further engagement.
- Respond! When people engage with your post make sure you engage back.
- Avoid sharing the same piece of content with the same context in a community and with your circles. What you post in communities will show up on your Google+ company profile page already.
Google+ Advanced Strategy: Hangouts
Host video-based Google+ Hangouts to connect with customers, clients or prospects and make your Google+ page a hub for activity related to your company’s brand. Google Hangout is a tool that allows you to have a group conversation where you can capture photos, share your screen, and message people. You can also turn any Hangout into a live video call with up to 10 people. Once you hit the “broadcast” button on your Google Hangout, your Google+ connections can watch your video live on your Google+ page. Another great benefit of Google+ Hangout is that after you’ve held your Hangout, the video will also be posted to your YouTube account to allow for promotion.
YouTube Resources
YouTube for Business
YouTube (which is owned by Google) is the king of video sharing communities where video content can be uploaded, viewed, and shared. YouTube is also the #2 search engine. You can bring your business to life with a YouTube video channel that features video footage that informs, educates, and/or entertains. Embedding your YouTube video into your website helps to add value to your text-based content pages.
How to use YouTube
One effective way to leverage video is to create content that has the potential to become viral. The following are some tips to leverage YouTube to grow your business:
- Create a YouTube channel for your business
- Create a trailer video for non-subscribers
- Make valuable video content – not ads
- Include a link to your website in the first line of each video description.
- Become the face of your business
- Promote your YouTube channel everywhere
- Leverage YouTube videos for SEO
YouTube Statistics
- 800 Million unique visitors per month
- 72 hours of video uploaded each minute
- 4 Billion hours of video viewed each month
- #2 seach engine (bigger than Bing, Yahoo, Ask & AOL combined)