Creating Social Media Marketing Synergies for Your Digital Content
Social media marketing can’t be ignored in the modern business world, but how do you make it work along with the rest of your digital media strategy? This challenge is one of the things that hold some companies back from exploring what could become a great tool for branding, product awareness, and customer engagement. Here are some tips for ensuring that your social media content and accounts work in harmony with the rest of your content.
First of all, be sure not to have more accounts than you can keep up with. You can’t have a Facebook account that updates once a week, and a Twitter account that never responds to comment, simply because you are so busy also maintaining a LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, and other social networking accounts. Pick the ones that fit your business needs the best and give you the best forum to engage your target audience. For example, Pinterest has to be number one on your list if your primary target audience is women in the 25-45 age group.
A call to action can get your customers involved. People like to know what you expect from them. Use that to your advantage. It can be as simple as ending a blog post by saying, “If you liked what you just read, share this post across your favorite social networks.” You will be surprised how many likes, retweets, and +1s you get from simply asking for them. It also doesn’t hurt if you offer an incentive. For example, “Act now by liking this post to be entered into a drawing for a $100 gift card!”
It is also important to provide a simple way for your customers to share your content across various forms of social media, and not just the ones your business uses itself. Your readers may not be using the same social sites as you, but they can still share your content. So even if you just stick with just Twitter or Facebook, include easy to click buttons that allow your readers to instantly share your content on Pinterest, Instagram, or any other social site you can think of. Any site that you leave out is a missed opportunity.
Finally, be sure to have a plan in advance for what to do about negative feedback on social media. This is the other thing that scares many businesses away, but the opportunities are too good to sacrifice. Simply decide how to address negative comments and posts in advance so that one team member isn’t stuck making a decision that will affect how the entire company is viewed in the public eye.
