Effective Social Media Marketing

Effective Social Media Marketing

Effective Social Media Marketing begins with identifying the key features of Social Media Marketing and how to utilize them to your benefits.  Some of these are relatively straightforward, and require little to no explanation, other keys are less obvious.

Guidelines & General Rules to Follow for Social Media

Find your Brand

Knowing what you stand for as important as knowing who your trying to attract, knowing your brand and staying genuine is what you should be aiming for.

Garnering your Audience

Once you know what you stand for, its time to attract people who are interested in your brand.

Engage your Audience

The pendulum swings both ways, you want to be careful not to neglect your audience, but overstimulating them can be just as daunting.  You need to find a balance for your audience, 3-5 times a week can be more than sufficient in most cases.  The key is to engage them, listen and not pester them. 

Keep it Professional & Appealing

Careful of what you say, once you say it its out there for the world.  With social media becoming all the rage it is often forgot that we can over-share, and frankly they're not all gems.  Be careful of what you say, and keep any opinions or thoughts that might be offensive to yourself, you don't know what will come back to bite you.  Think of it like holding a political office, every word you say will be scrutinized, dissected and examined.  With that in mind try to keep everything on a positive beat.  As the saying goes, Kill 'em with Kindness.

Create a Genuinely interest in your Brand

While engaging your audience you want to keep them on the hook.  Giving away too much information at one time, or updating too much can be a put off.  I say think of it like a first date, your testing the waters, a little nervous, and really want to get to that second date.  You don't have to tell your life story, just some interesting anecdotes.

  Multiple Channel Usage is Key

With Social Networks rising and falling like the great Empires of the past its hard to know who will be on top tomorrow, so expand your reach and use multiple networks to engage your audience.  You may find that you have some members of your audience who have a preference in how they follow you, even though they may be members of multiple social networks.  In addition you may also see that certain channels may have other benefits in how things are presented or communicated.

Find your connection and nurture it

When you find your audience you have to keep them captivated, but also need to listen and connect with them.  Engaging your audience through personal connections can nurture and grow that audience, giving them a feeling of importance and selling your brand.  Think of it as sales, if someone has a bad experience will tell 10 people, but with a good experience you may only have 1 other person hear about it.

Dedicate your time

1 Hour a week, 30 minutes 3 times a week, 5 minutes 5 days a week, dedicate it!
Find out what your schedule will allow, what time you can permit, block out some time in your schedule, something.  So often time is not set aside and you can let your Marketting plan go by the wayside because you didn't dedicate the time to nurture it, you simply phoned it in.  Spending a dedicated, set amount of time with goals of what you are looking to do, a Rhythm if you will, will allow you to make sure that you are staying on track, and growing your Brand in a way that serves your end goals.

Have Fun With It!

Why does it have to be work?  If your having fun with this and connecting with and engaging your audience then it isn't a job, its not a task, its a stress reliever, its something that you enjoy doing and that passion will be conveyed to your audience and allow you to further yourself in this endeavor.