The number one reason most social media campaigns fail is because they didn’t have a specific goal in mind when they started. If your ready to jump into social media but still aren’t sure what exactly your using it for, here is a list I compiled of ten cheap and easy ways your business can benefit from social media.
You will find it most helpful to to choose one or two of these and be sure to measure and track them along the way. Make sure you stay focused on the one or two goals you have chosen and if needed, periodically alter your strategies throughout your campaign to keep them inline with those goals.
1.Responding to customer complaints.
All too often one of the first places customers with go to complain about a product or service is online. Use services like Google Alerts and Advanced Twitter Search to find out what people are saying about your brand online. Then quickly respond with either the answer to their problem or an easy way to reach someone at the company who can help them.
2.Build brand loyalty.
Give your customers a reason to visit your social sites. Create interesting content that gives them something to explore, something to talk about, something to share or just something to do. They will remember and appreciate you for it.
3.Recruit employees.
LinkedIn is arguably the best social networking site for recruitment purposes. Not only does LinkedIn allow you to easily network with other professionals, it also allows you to see their work history, recommendations, resume and any mutual connections you may have among other things. Recently they even added the ability to post job listings that LinkedIn members can apply to directly from the site.
4.Re-purpose your existing content.
Didn’t get enough readers on the last blog post? Not enough comments on the YouTube video you posted last week? Try reposting it somewhere else or incorporating into another medium such as your e-newsletter.
5.Manage your reputation.
One great place to do this is Wikipedia. Wikipedia, which has been cited to be more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica, is often one of the first places customers will go for objective information on a brand.
Fill out your Wikipedia page completely, before someone else gets the chance to. It may still get edited by someone else in the future, but getting there first and keeping a close eye on it will make a big difference on how your brand is portrayed on one of the worlds most popular websites. Just make sure your entry is actually being objective or it will get flagged for removal.
6.Conduct crisis communications.
This one can be handled similarly to #1, but the difference is that if your brand suddenly finds itself in crisis mode, you want to be monitoring what people are saying immediately. You want to begin issuing statements via your social networks, as well as respond to individuals who have inquiries or opinions about the situation – especially those with the largest followings.
7.Demonstrate thought leadership.
You know a lot about your industry. One great way to draw traffic to your site is to demonstrate that knowledge with thoughtful and insightful blog posts, videos or photos.
The most important component of a good social media strategy is good content creation. In order to build a following, you must first give them a reason to follow you, i.e. helpful, entertaining or otherwise useful content.
8.Crowdsource your audience.
If you have already been doing #7 for sometime and thus built yourself up an online audience, it can easily become daunting to constantly come up with new content. So why not ask your audience to do it for you? Countless companies are already taking this approach by asking their followers to submit written content, photos or videos defined by a certain set of parameters.
Such requests must of course be accompanied by some incentive for your audience to create content for your brand, such as cash, non-monetary awards, or simply the opportunity to display their work in front of your audience and receive creative feedback. Most often this is accomplished through online contests. If you’d like to learn more about using social media to hold contests, leave us a message in the comments section and we’ll do a post about it.
Crowdsourceing is also very valuable when you are looking for feedback on your site, products or services. There is no better way to find out how your audience feels about something than to ask them yourself.
9. Showcase your products.
Social media is great way to easily and inexpensively showcase your products to your audience. You can easily display the uses and features of your products through online product videos, hi-def photos, or how-to videos. This is becoming easier and easier with the addition of photo-sharing add-ons like Flicker and Picasa on Twitter, easily posting youtube videos to social networking sites, and the new ability to create your own website with nearly whatever features you want – even E-commerce – right within your Facebook page!
10.Issue tweets and blog posts instead of news releases.
The days of the quarterly newsletter are gone. Customers want to know whats going on with your brand right now, not three months ago. Give them regular updates via your company blog or twitter account. It’s fast, easy and whole lot cheaper than a thousand pounds of printed paper and ten-thousand stamps.
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