Many of the people we have helped in the past had the same situation: they had great marketing campaigns, but ailing social media sites. Businesses often view social media as a necessary evil. They know they need to at least create a page to have “a presence” and compete with other brands in the marketplace. They understand that social media users can find their brand in the site’s search engine and “friend” them, and that they can use the site as a place to dump links to their blogs. However, they fail to capitalize on all the innovative ways one can integrate these new social media sites with existing marketing campaigns to maximize value.
Here are 8 ways to connect your marketing and social networking efforts…
1. Re-purpose Old Content.
You are probably using Facebook, Twitter and Google+ as a place to push all your latest blog entries, and rightfully so. These sites are great avenues to reach more eyeballs. But don’t forget about old content that is still relevant to audiences today. You can upload old Power Point presentations to Slideshare, post old videos to YouTube, share photos on Flickr, and add documents to Scribd. You’ll find these once-buried documents get a lot of search engine love.
2. Run #Hashtag Promotions Here.
Large brands love to use hashtags to organize their marketing campaigns by niche. For instance, Domino’s Pizza in the UK ran a promo where they agreed to drop the price of their Pepperoni Passion Pizza by one pence every time someone posted a tweet with the hashtag #letsdolunch. The £15.99 pizza dropped to £7.74 after 85,000 responses. The company agreed to sell at that price from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. that day. (Read about a few other interesting promos here.)
3. Use Social Media To Turbocharge Offline Promotions.
Are you offering any special discounts, offers, or seasonal promotions right now? Chances are, you used email, flyers, radio ads, and store sales associates to push the deals already. Social media is one more forum to get the word out. Instead of just posting to your social media page, you can create a special showcase page or app to call extra attention to your promo. You can feature the contest winners on social networks to encourage people to get involved. As we just mentioned, you can create hashtags for specific contests.
Image Source: Wallblog.co.uk
4. Improve Search Engine Optimization With Google+.
Google+ is fairly new, so a lot of people overlook this social network. However, when it comes to improving SEO, it makes sense that content shared via Google’s own social network would naturally be given more weight. Google presumes that the more people that “like” and share content, the better it is — and more worthy of a top ranking. We’ve seen it in action!
Check out my previous blog post to discover 8 ways social media affects your SEO.
5. Use Social Media To Become A High Profile Expert In Your Field.
Journalists are always in need of credible sources for articles. Social media is a great place for them to look for who is creating buzz. Follow journalists, comment on their pages and share their content. Try to get involved in the conversation. The interviews will follow if you can demonstrate thought leadership. Also, don’t forget to share relevant press releases with your new journalist friends!
6. Build A More Robust Customer Service Department.
Fans like to use social media to air their grievances and ask questions. Rather than using your sites as a “dumping ground,” plug into the feedback loop by responding to all customers who use the channel to contact you. This is an easy and inexpensive way for small businesses to demonstrate superior customer service and make repeat consumers happy.
7. Popularize Your Social Media Sites Through Email Marketing.
Include social media icons in all your email communications so readers can easily find your social network pages. Add “share” buttons to all articles sent out via email, so readers are encouraged to share your content through their social media pages. Share all your social media campaigns in your email communications. Convert social media followers to email contacts using Aweber.
8. Tap Into Freely Shared Testimonials.
Social media sites are home to a wealth of freely shared testimonials. Don’t let these positive comments go to waste! Check out third-party software applications that make it easier to capture these informal reviews and use them on your website’s product pages.
If you are looking for more than just 8 marketing tips and would like a hand executing some of these tasks, contact us here!
