Which of the following do you prioritize marketing dollars toward?
A. Online advertising
B. Social media efforts
I wouldn’t knock a well-planned online advertising campaign. In fact, the recent programmatic approach has been generating great results for today’s ad buyers.
But you can’t ignore the compelling return-on-investment social media efforts deliver. The great thing is, all the main platforms are right at your fingertips. You have so much control over when and how you’d like to engage with your audience.
Most companies recognize that engaging on social media networks is pretty critical. But some aren’t sure how to approach it. The fact is, often there are more pressing initiatives to handle each day.
Step Up Your Social Media Game
You’ll find brief overviews on the major social media platforms, here: “Navigate Your Social Media Marketing Options.” In the meantime, here’s some advice to help you maximize the return on your social media investments:
1. Drive and Attract
Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest enable you to expand your reach and engage in timely conversations. Email efforts and social media help drive website traffic rather than just attract it. So, contributing ideas through social media marketing channels helps your company stay visible, relevant, and authoritative.
2. Get Started
Assign a social media point person who can establish accounts or pages. Give that person time to engage with fans and followers each week. Try focusing on a few social media networks that make sense for your business.
Consider tools that can streamline your posts on several networks according to a schedule. Research #hashtags that make sense for you when using Twitter — and draw up a long list of post ideas that complement topics you’ve posted on your blog pages.
3. Keep It Going
Once the social media networks are selected and secured, apply branding that helps synchronize your efforts across different channels. From there, you can fine-tune hashtags, optimize timing, and then evaluate social engagement levels after posts go out.
“…it’s important to figure out how to natively tell stories on each platform and which visuals and copy will enhance the likelihood of a given post’s going viral.” —Gary Veynerchuk
Sometimes social media can seem like an ever-expanding initiative that requires ongoing attention. But, you only get what you put into it.
4. Build Your Twitter Following Quickly
Adopting a Twitter handle also provides visibility and helps you drive traffic to your website. Additionally, you can categorize the tweets you post by topic using #hashtags, so people can find ideas they want to learn more about. When you weave hashtags into your tweets on a regular basis, it helps you build visibility and authority.
“A brand can experience up to a 50% increase in engagement when they use a hashtag.” — Aj Ghergich
It will serve you well to contribute on Twitter. If your tweets are all self-serving, folks won’t be as motivated to follow you. Also, try structuring your Tweets much shorter than the 140-character limit. It allows others room to add a short comment if they choose, so they are more likely to be retweeted.
5. Share and Engage
Offer relevant ideas, useful updates, or even some humor on a regular basis — and you can build an audience of unique followers who are open to hearing from your brand.
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