This post is part of a series… If you missed the first article, check it out here: Part 1 – The Point of Being Online: Your Website

“The main point here about being “online” is that half the world is there.” – Sharni-Marie

There are just over 7.3 billion people walking the planet today. 53% of this number are living in urban/developed areas. That works out to be around 3.8 billion who should have access to the internet.

According to statistics dug up by We Are Social there are just over 3 billion people using the internet around the world. Of this 3 billion, just over 2 billion people have active Social Media accounts (1.6 billion accessing them from a mobile device). Hmmm….

Have I got your attention?

Marketing your business online

The common misconception about online marketing is that you can “dabble” and expect results. This is definitely not true. For you to see any real results let me make something very clear: Your message needs to be united across a large variety of marketing platforms. You simply cannot post a single “ad” on one website or social media site and hope that it will open the financial floodgates of your business. To see maximum return on the investment of your time and finances, you need to have a very clear strategy that connects your website, content marketing (blog, videoes, podcasts), a number of different social media platforms and offline traditional marketing that you may still be doing.

Social Media Marketing

So now I hear some of you saying that your business doesn’t have to ability or the vision to service a global community of people. You missed my point. If 2 billion people in the world have social media accounts, chances are your local community – your target market – are frequenting at least two (if not more) social media networks numerous times every week, and you need to be there to greet them when they turn up.

Social media is no longer child’s play. It is now a very powerful marketing tool that is leading the way in todays current marketing climate. You can no longer ignore it and hope it goes away. Ignorance is not an option here.

Now if you have tried a business Facebook page and had your office staff posting a few cute pictures and sharing your local coffee shops’ quote of the day, I am not surprised that you may have written off social media as a non-event in your overall marketing strategy. You are probably not achieving any results worth  mentioning. But it is not just for the experts. And it doesn’t usually cost any where near as much as traditional methods.

Social Media Marketing is all about unifying your message across every platform, both traditionally and digitally, with brand consistency and a a clear presentation of who you are and what you do.

Getting started:

Make a plan.

Outline what your business is about. Brainstorm a whole list of ideas that relate to your business. Topics, areas of interest, pictures. Your plan will develop. For now, just get as much down as possible. Think about what you really want to achieve.

Brainstorm

Write down a description of everyone who interacts with your business in anyway. What do they look like? What do they do? Can you define what you think they would do for leisure? And more importantly – why do they choose your business over everyone else (or in the case of a startup – why should they choose you?).

Research Local Hang Outs

Do a little research about what platforms are being used most regularly in your country. There is a surprising variation depending on where you live. This might help you: 2015 Social Network Popularity By Country. Then pick 3. That’s it. No more than 3 that you are going to focus on to begin with. When you are expert you can add more into your overall strategy. But for now go with what you can mange. Three will work.

Get Set Up

Set up your profile pages on each network. Some important things to remember are the following

• Get your login/profile names as close to your actual company name as possible. People are busy and don’t want to spend energy and headspace trying to figure out what you name you are using for your listing.
• Make sure you have your company logo as your profile picture. If you don’t have a logo, GET ONE! Need some help with this? Contact us here.
• Have an amazing, eye-catching, visually stimulating clear (not blurry!) cover photo. If you can have something that relates to your branding even better. Check on a desktop and a mobile device to make sure it looks good on both.
• Each social media network has different specifications / measurements for photos and posts. It is important that you pay attention to this, or you are going to immediately look unprofessional. There is an excellent and simple-to-use site set up to help you with this. Let me introduce you to: Canva. 
• Don’t rush your set-up. Make sure you are thorough with the details on all of the set-up pages such as writing your “about me” descriptions etc. A visitor to your social media site should be able to learn almost as much from your social media networks as they would from your website.

Establish your “tone” or your”voice”.

Before you start to post anything on any network, just hold your horses! This is your business page! Think about what you are “saying” and the message you are conveying through your content and images. This includes anything you are considering re-sharing. THINK BEFORE YOU CLICK! Each social platform should be united as one voice. There should be no contradictions; just a very clear purpose, strategy behind your posts and a professional presentation of who you are and what you do. Be authentic, and focus on creating content that your customers are going to be interested in.

Create a Routine – Set up a Social Media Marketing Calendar

One of the most important things to remember with social media marketing is that it need to be CONSISTENT. Consistency is the key to success.

“A jug fills drop by drop” – Buddha

Consistency builds brand recognition and helps potential and past customers remember you. There are a number of templates you can access online (like these from Bluewire Media), or simply buy a calendar or diary and start writing. You can use a scheduling tool such as Buffer, which allows you to sit down for a set period of time each week to schedule the entire weeks’ posts in one hit.

In following blog posts of this series we will look at a selection of the most popular and effective social media platforms currently and work through a strategy to suit. But for some guidelines on how often you should be posting, here’s a start (Thanks to Buffer for allowing me to share this with you – for more from them check out http://blog.bufferapp.com)

 

Make It Interesting

Now that you have your reminders set up so that you stay consistent, then next step is to stay interesting. Think about that coffee date you had with a recent relative or friend who told you the same drab stories again that they told you last time you saw them. (Insert YAWN here)… Or worse – all they did was talk about themselves the whole time??!  Bring this to the front of your memory when you are 3 months into your your new fabulous marketing plan on your social media networks.

Business accounts that post “hard sells” all the time, talk only about themselves, constantly post one liner updates of new shipments etc are not successful. The social media accounts that are gaining a lot of attention and customer engagement are ones that have mastered the art of interesting.

Be creative. Be interesting. Be unique.

Change up the content of your posts as well as the method of communication. And master the art of adapting the content of your post so that it portrays a clear message but is tailored to the ‘style’ and ‘trends’ of the social media network you are posting to.

Observe what is getting the highest engagement. In a following blog in this series, we will discuss utilising analytics to refine your marketing strategy. For now, just do a quick review to help you stay on track.

Don’t Forget To Socialise

Social Media is all about being social. This means you need to be checking your notifications and messages regularly. Thank people who have re-shared your content/posts. Answer questions. Respond to enquires. And most importantly, check out other people’s pages and interact with them. Find businesses that are like-minded people or operate in a similar industry to you and help build their exposure. Social Media is the epitome of the “sharing” economy. The more you share other people’s posts, photos and promotions, the more interest grows in yours. Remember the person you meet with who only talks about themselves? Don’t be that person on your social media networks!

In closing, a quick summary for those of us who are ‘headliners:’

Have a goal. Be engaging. Be consistent. Be where your customers are. Be social.

Coming Soon – Part 3: Facebook – Tackling the Giant

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Leave a comment too – let me know what you think of my series. Thank you.