Social Media Marketing - a conversation with your marketplace?

An increasing number of small businesses today are using social media marketing as a main way of marketing their business. They even consider it more essential than having a website, convinced that social media sites are the ultimate marketing tool.

However, what is right for one company may not be right for another. Social media marketing could actually lose your business money if you're not cut out for it.

Will social media marketing work for your business?
Answer the following questions to help discover if social media marketing could work for you:

1) Is your target market using social media sites?
This is perhaps the most essential question. If the answer is no, there's little to no reason for you to be using social media for your own marketing.

Do a little research to find out if your target customer base is using social networking websites, and if so, which ones? You don't want to waste your time on Twitter when most of your customer base is on Facebook or LinkedIn.

2) How is your target market using social media?
It is simple to sign up for an account and begin pounding your potential customers with information. Beware, that's not how social media works. Your potential customers will not pay attention to you if you haven't put the time into working out how to use social media tools the way everyone else does.

If your target market is on LinkedIn for instance, you should start building relationships by doing the following:

• Complete your profile with information that supports your work expertise
• Find groups that are concerned and discussing topics in your area of expertiseand join them
• Respond to the messages being raised there with useful, interesting or topical comments and ask your own questions to uncover where you may be able to add value
• Link to new sources of content (from your website and other industry sources for instance)
• Share your personality – after all, it is about being sociable

Doing these things before you promote yourself will help establish you as a person who knows his or her stuff and is willing to share expertise.

3) Do you have the time to use social media?
If all of the above sounds time consuming to you, then you may simply not have the time or inclination to use social media effectively. As mentioned, it is, after all, about being social. You'll need to be able to log on regularly and spend a fair amount of time on simply creating relationships, not just promoting yourself.

Invest your online marketing budget wisely
In many recent surveys, small businesses said they planned to increase their spending on social networking, though most did not intend to change the amount of money they spent on online marketing overall.

If your target audience already responds well to email marketing, it probably isn't wise to take money away from that to put into social media. However, if that is declining in effectiveness or there is a new market you wish to reach then go ahead.

WSI recommends adopting a strategic approach to social marketing. This will give you  a better return on your investment, rather than just diving in because everyone else is doing it. 

If you would like to talk more about how Social Media may suits your marketing efforts then call us to talk it over. We may be able to focus your attention onto the right channels immediately thus avoiding wasted effort and time.
 

Call us now to get started
on 01905 758 038