Mediaboss Marketing

Walking around any populated environment you would notice most people are on their phones. They are more likely to be surfing the web or scrolling through social media pages. Social media is being used for so much more than simply connected people to their friends. It is being used to organize groups, communicate within a family or church organization, sell products, alert people about nearby events, and can even be used to send out graduation and marriage announcements. Also joining this long list of possibilities is the opportunity social media provides as a marketing technique.

Social media is at our fingertips making it an advantage for business owners to reach people regardless of location, thereby allowing one to expand their business outside of their specific geographical location. Businesses can keep their private information and product lists on an all flash array but their marketing information can be most beneficial when it is posted on social media. It allows businesses to stay connected with their customers and help get their name and product information into the world.

Engage with customers in real-time across every channel, no matter the medium. Use visitor tracking and email analytics to know what your customers are seeing.

Like with many business techniques, social media marketing can be the wrong choice if businesses dont take the steps to use it in the most beneficial way. Four tips to help businesses use social media marketing to their advantage are as follows; ask customer to follow your social media sites, use tools to manage profiles while refraining from automation, expand your social media horizon, and remember social media is visual media.

Ask Customers to Follow You

One of the most important things to remember when starting a social media account for your business is that it doesnt help unless you have followers. Letting customers know that they can follow your business on social media will get your name out there and reach more customers. You can also post about new sales and offers leading to more people visiting your store. Another useful tip is to add a link to your business website. This will allow your customers and followers to buy more of your product from the comfort of their own home.

Use a Tool to Manage Profiles While Refraining from Total Automation

Social media management tools allow users to share the same post on multiple websites. These types of tools work especially well with small business who are struggling to maintain more than one social media account. Social media management tools provide tracking and time-saving features such as message scheduling, merging with other marketing and business tools, and social analytics. Some of these tools include Buffer, Hootsuite, IFTTT, SocialFlow and Sprout Social.

Staying away from total automation and posting something new and unique every so often can keep your followers and customers entertained. By posting without using social media management tools, it can show your followers that you are just like them and that your business is user-friendly. Posting personal things and replying to comments can help build a relationship between you and your followers, leading to a professional relationship between the business and its customer.

Expand Your Social Media Horizon

Avoid limiting your business to the top social media websites and keep in mind that not everyone uses those more popular sites. Social media marketing allows small and large businesses to take advantage of social networking. Expanding media uses allows for an outreach to more potential customers. As you determine what social media websites work best for you and your business, take advantage of management tools to keep your business active across several social sites at the same time.

Social Media is Visual Media

People spend hours scrolling through social media feeds. They scroll pasts long paragraphs and are more likely to stop and look at a picture or watch a video. Knowing this, you can get people to stop scrolling and look at your post by using colorful and creative posts that attract attention. Creating interesting images, engaging fans and posting photos of your business events are ways you can add to the visual appeal of your social media presence.

Social media is everywhere and instead of avoiding all the teenage rants and political rumors, businesses should use it to their advantage. Many businesses have created social media marketing teams to help do just that. The goal of these teams is to find ways to reach out to customers and keep them interested in the business. Social media teams connect with other company employees and customers across the country to help the business continue to succeed. Keeping up with the latest internet trends will help businesses, both big and small, to keep the attention of past and future customers.

RickDelgado

Freelance Writer

Ive been blessed to have a successful career and have recently taken a step back to pursue my passion of writing. Ive started doing freelance writing and I love to write about new technologies and how it can help us and our planet. I also occasionally write for tech companies like Dell.

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How to Do Social Media Marketing Right - Customer Think

Investopedia

Adidas Brandishes New Marketing Weapon (NKE, LULU) Investopedia Adidas AG is turning to a new marketing weapon social media influencers. The Germany-based shoe company has assembled a team of 25 social media influencers to reach its target customers more effectively, Adidas board member Eric Liedtke told ... and more »

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Adidas Brandishes New Marketing Weapon (NKE, LULU) - Investopedia

According to Clutch, many small business owners are not using social media, instead harking back to marketing headlines from several years ago that expressed doubt in the value of Likes or Tweets.

"They are missing out because of their own viewpoint on the topic, [made] from believing five- to six-year-old headlines and not recapturing the maturation of the space," said Joshua Dirks, CEO of Project Bionic, a Seattle-based creative marketing agency.

The report by Clutch, 'Social Media for Small Business: 2017', based on a survey of 350 small business owners across the US, reveals that one quarter (24%) do not currently use social media, with 8% saying the never expect to use it.

Of those small businesses that do use social media, Facebook is by far the most popular with 90% on the social network. Furthermore, social media seems have benefited many small businesses with over 50% planning to increase investment this year.

"Social is one of the few forms that allows you to look at the data," said Keith Kakadia, Founder and CEO of Sociallyin, a Mississippi-based social media agency. "It allows you to determine whether there's a return on investment (ROI) for the money spent. When you have a small budget, every single dollar needs to be spent on what works."

Additional findings from the survey include:

- 52% of small businesses keep their social media marketing in-house;

- Audience growth and clicks to website are both considered the most important social media metrics;

- While 23% of small businesses post to social media once a day, and 27% weekly, 43% post multiple times a day.

Tags: small business, SMB Trends, social media, survey

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24% of US SMBs not using social media marketing - BizReport

Jeremy Harris Lipschultz

The growth of social media sites is happening at the same time trust for social institutions, such as the media business, continues to decline. From National Opinion Research Center (NORC) data over several decades to the more recent 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, its clear that we are in search of new paths for finding credible online information. It appears that global public trust in institutions government, business and mass media is at historical lows.

This notion of media being the Fourth Estate, weve come to believe, is eroding, Edelman Chicago Chief Operating Officer Kevin L. Cook told an Omaha campus group.

Were also in an age where technology allows us to completely manipulate our news feeds and tailor what we read to only want we want, only to what suits our sensibilities, Cook said. Peers, and people like you are the most trusted sources of information within an echo chamber. People trust friends, family members and colleagues more than a CEO, media organization or others in power. Its a horizontal world now Its peer-to-peer, Cook said.

Businesses now start inside with employees to promote positive messages. Edelman urges companies to focus on how they recruit and retain talent. The worlds largest public relations (PR) firm has added an engagement practice to address how companies use social media. Collaborator Dynamic Signal offers a mobile app that helps companies share positive news through employees influential social networks.

Employees can leverage their social networks within companies, and also outside, to help advocate through directed communication and channels. It takes a reset of employee culture and a clear collective understanding of company vision, mission and values. It also takes a leadership shift away from social media policies that tell employees what not to do, and toward guidelines promoting effective engagement. Facebook Workplace is among the new enterprise tools that help identify organization thought leaders.

Jeremy Harris Lipschultz

The need for employee engagement ranges from conditions during a business restructuring to the more mundane company celebration. Media storytelling, though, backed by social media measurement offers new opportunities for branding and marketing. It is clear that this new emphasis will demand that employers not only improve their PR efforts, but also hire professionals with skills to evaluate and apply consistent and credible social network analysis.

An ongoing challenge is that people now take the view that, I trust my media, and I trust my newsfeeds, but not content outside of the filter bubble. Academics are increasingly making the case that we need a rekindling of free expression on controversial issues.

Social media marketers, of course, use homogenous groups and like-mindedness to their economic advantage by targeting messages to those most receptive. Jim Sterne, author of Social Media Metrics and president of eMetrics, contends that traditional media and PR are being replaced by relationship building, customer reviews and branding based upon keeping promises.

Still, given the trust data, it may be an overstatement that PR and advertising no longer have important roles. Credibility remains important social capital that must be earned and retained in order to advance business goals and objectives. Thats why we feel so strongly that every company needs to be a media company, and (they) need to have a strong presence where people can go and get the facts, Cook said.

The convergence and integration of PR, advertising and social marketing will continue, even as skepticism remains high for those abusing power. Too often, companies offer lip service to customer engagement without building meaningful long-term relationships.

As we look to the future of social media trust, focus on the newest innovation wave artificial intelligence (AI). Jim Sterne is currently writing about how bots can scrape product review data and empower consumers through tools that help focus on precise needs and wants. There will be more about this in my next blog post.

Jeremy Harris Lipschultz is Isaacson Professor in the UNO Social Media Lab, University of Nebraska at Omaha School of Communication. He is author of Social Media Communication: Concepts, Practices, Data, Law and Ethics, second edition.

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PR Trust and the Social Media Marketing 'Echo Chamber' - Huffington Post

If youre trying to market a business in 2017, you almost certainly need some kind of content or social media marketing.

There are plenty of effective ways to use content to market small businesses in different industries. And members of our small business community have lots of experience using those different methods. Learn more by reading some of their tips below.

If youre going to blog for your business, you probably also want to have a Facebook page. The most popular social media platform can help you promote your content and grow your audience, if you use effective tactics like the ones in this Content Marketing Institute post by Karola Karlson.

There are also some lesser-known ways you can promote your business on social media. Rieva Lesonsky outlines some of them in this Fundera Ledger post. And BizSugar members also shared thoughts on the post here.

Not every marketing tactic you try is going to be a sure thing. In fact, some can be rather risky, but also offer potentially high rewards. The SEO tactics in this post by Neil Patel fall into that category.

Of course you should create quality content because its great for your readers. But there are also technical reasons why quality content can help your website and online business succeed. Dave Davies elaborates in this Search Engine Land post.

When creating content or other marketing materials, it can help to know exactly which customers youre talking to. And thats where customer segmentation comes in. This post by Cate Costa discusses how you can prioritize customer segments quickly. And the BizSugar community also comments on the concept here.

When you want to outsource any of your businesss operations, whether its creating content or some other function, its important to keep your budget in mind. This SMB CEO post includes some tips for how you can outsource talent on a budget that works for your small business.

Social media is an essential part of any content strategy. But with all of the different platforms and methods out there, it can be difficult for small businesses to navigate. Blair Evan Ball offers some tips for navigating the social media maze in this Prepare 1 post.

Creating content isnt only about showing the value of your offerings to customers. It can also help people get to know you and your business. This post by Rachel Strella of Strella Social Media details why sharing who you are is a worthwhile part of marketing a business. You can also see commentary on the post over on BizSugar.

When you think of content marketing, testimonials might not immediately come to mind. But they can certainly help you boost your reputation and share valuable information with potential customers. This Kissmetrics post by Dustin Walker features some unusual tactics for making testimonials more persuasive.

Keywords can help you make your content more visible to potential customers online. But you need methods for actually measuring the effectiveness of those keywords. For more on this subject, check out this Target Marketing post by Phil Frost.

If youd like to suggest your favorite small business content to be considered for an upcoming community roundup, please send your news tips to: [emailprotected]

Content Team photo via Shutterstock

Link:
10 Content Marketing and Social Media Tips for Small Businesses - Small Business Trends