I have now been on Facebook since 2006, Twitter since 2008 and used both platforms as a way to cultivate my supply company that I used to own. Yes, I even had a very active MySpace account. Within the last few 3 years, I have already been active at Google + and keep my LinkedIn profile updated quarterly. I also am active on YouTube. So let’s better understand and grow your organization with Social Media.
So first off what is the purpose? Why spend time and effort on this? I do believe being an industry we are definitely slow to adapt most of the tools offered to us with social outlets. If you appear at a number of the major players in our industry hardly any time and effort is put into social media. Social media marketing does take lots of time and it’s hard to essentially see the outcomes quickly. Also, for all in our industry, we are more of an analog industry and are simply now getting to the digital age. Pad Printers are a perfect example. Wonderful creative and talented people who stamp ink. They could make almost anything work, but ask a hardcore pad printer their thoughts on the digital sublimation systems is usually “that horrible trouble creating machines can have a flying leap… ” However in the proper environment with the proper market, sublimation can be a savior for a pad printers business. So back again to Social media…
So just why the do we have to be on social networking? 37 million people log onto to Facebook daily, and in the last 10 minutes, 40,250 Tweets have now been posted. Think about Google +? Who do most many of us visit whenever we want to find something on the web? You can find 5,922,000,000 (Yes that is 5.9 Billion) searches on Google per DAY. Google holds a staggering 67.6 percent of the U.S. search engine market share, based on the latest search engine market share figures for April 2014, released by comScore. Being on G+ and speaing frankly about search terms that are important to your organization in addition to sharing links to your website on G+ correctly can help your search ranking. By improving your search ranking you may have a much better likelihood that someone would go to your website who’s enthusiastic about the merchandise and services you offer. So the numbers are right. There is an audience and odds are most of your customers are somewhere on social networking waiting for you really to connect to them.
Another basis for many of us may be the price. The cost can’t be beat… FREE! Being social is absolutely free and just takes some time and effort. You can find things you can spend money related to social networking which will make things only a little easier, but honestly people carrying it out right and spending the time needed don’t have to pay something to market their business and find new customers. What’re your alternatives to reaching your customers? You might exhibit at a trade show or home show or another event. Plan on spending $5,000 to $10,000 to essentially do this right, though. You might do internet advertising with banners or Google AdWords. Plan on spending $1,000 to $2,000 a month to have the kind of reach you will get with social media. You can put ads on the radio, TV or even the local newspaper, but again each of them cost money, a commodity that a lot of small businesses don’t have in abundance yet. Now using social networking to boost the ROI (return on investment) for the above mentioned things is something you should be looking at doing. Let’s say spent the $5,000 to show at an area home show, but by luck of the draw result in a large part behind the local loud mouth realtor and no body comes to see you. Think about using social networking to have people after dark realtor with images of one’s booth, jokes in regards to the loud mouth realtor or otherwise. Be yourself and help people come find you.
Another plus can it be is not one sided like a great many other marketing methods, you don’t have to be alone growing your organization with it. top smm panel Real quality interaction is driven by your customers and potential customers. Your job is always to foster interaction between your company and products. This isn’t the elevator pitch where you’ve 30 seconds to offer your goods and services, this is the time to fairly share things that interest your customer and build a connection which will turn them into lasting customers. Also, happy customer make the BEST salespeople so let them have an outlet to advocate for your brand by having a dynamic social networking plan.
What exactly else can be achieved? With social networking, you can even use it as an instrument for Customer Service. Yes, I am guilty of using our Twitter to vent my frustrations with poor service received with a company. I also try to be alert to shouting out good customer support by companies via social media. Many companies have figured it out and actually do an excellent job of helping, supporting and looking after their customers with social media. Then there are the examples of those people who have made massive blunders. A business that many of us in our industry could have been aware of made the Inc. Magazines top 10 social networking fails in 2014 because of their posting of an image of the Challenger space shuttle exploding as a way of celebrating the 4th of July on the Tumblr page. They took a beating for this and the excuse was the social networking manager was born after the Challenger disaster and didn’t know it was it was. On the flip side with this coin you’ve lots of companies in our industry and beyond that obtain it and do a good job of interacting using their customers and making social networking an intrinsic part of the customer support plan. For example, I’m a dedicated flyer on Southwest due to the help I received via their Twitter team when I was having some challenges traveling with my Autistic son. They sprang into action and made our journey a nice one and now I hardly fly anyone else. You can do things like monitor for comments about your company or product and then just ensure you are doing the proper thing on social media. You have to place yourself in their shoes and wear your “empathy” hat when interacting with others on social media. Check your ego at the doorway!
Social media marketing may also be used as an instrument for research and product development. You can find a number of information regarding your competitors, your customers and potential customers on social media. The secret here is to just be the main conversation. You have to be an individual, not only a Twitter Handle or perhaps a Facebook Page. You have to provide something to have something. What this means is solving problems, giving tips and tricks, opening the curtain to who you’re as an individual and company. Once you do this then you will get people to answer questions like “Do you prefer the black edge plaque with this design or the cherry edge plaque with a different design?” You can even discover if your competitor XYZ Company takes a long time to deliver a product, or has other weaknesses that you could be in a position to make the most of by being truly a the main “group” on social media.
In order you will see in my experience being an integral part of social networking can be a huge lift for your organization and gives you a number of tools to not only promote your organization but to also understand and better service your customers. It’s free to be an integral part of it really takes time. But if you were to think about what your average day seems like, how often have you been just reading the newest click bait article that your friend posted on Facebook or looking at the newest Disney quote on Twitter and other time wasting activity. Why not take those 15 minutes and devote it to being active on social networking in ways that covers your business. Think about encouraging your employees to be active on social networking since it pertains to your business. All it takes is for the phrase to begin spreading and you will dsicover results. They won’t be huge or immediate, if the effort is place in and you’re daily being truly a the main conversation where your customers have reached on social networking, you will awaken in 6 months to per year and notice that it’s working.