Social Media 101

 Posted by Brittney Ervin on Wed, May 08, 2013 @ 07:05 AM

Engaging your customers via social media is a day-in and day-out process that requires serious creativity and a continual effort to post relevant, eye-catching and informative material. You should simultaneously promote your brand and impress your customers. If this sounds like a lot to juggle, we understand; effective branding and customer interaction via social media is a new art that can seem like a vast, undeveloped frontier where companies are essentially flying by the seats of their pants.

Most companies who are using social media correctly know the value of a strong blogging presence to inform and entertain their customers. But while social media is a multiple-times-a-day priority, your followers will start to get a bit bored if you post links to your own articles exclusively. That leaves a lot of space to fill in your various social media universes, meaning your company will have to utilize other forms of interaction to keep your company’s brand on the front page of your customers’ feeds and visual planes.

If you’re in need of some ideas for filling up the space, consider utilizing an idea from our list below: 

1. Landing Pages

Providing links to landing pages on your various social media outlets helps you, the business, capture form conversion information (a fancy phrase for the names and emails of interested parties). The people that are already connected to your brand, i.e. the people who follow you on Twitter and “like” you on Facebook, get exposure to your brand’s name, logo and tone, and you get to present them with the opportunity to communicate back with you, providing you with leads that you can hopefully transform into customers.

2. eBooks for download

Similarly to a landing page, the value of attaching an “ebook for Download” to your various social media networks is to entice your customers with information that they find attractive enough to click on, thus upping the chances that they will provide you with their information. All of this helps give your brand visibility on your chosen social media platforms, as well as providing you with valuable leads on potential customers.

3. Specials and Deals

We might be stating the obvious here, but the value of posting special deals, discounts and coupons on your social media sites lies primarily in the uncanny ability of discounts and coupons to drive traffic to your business’s page. If they like your product enough, they’ll be more than willing to continue purchasing it at full price.  

4. Relevant News Items

Knowing your customer base’s interests can create tons of value in their loyalty to your brand. Posting news items that you think will be of interest to the people who buy your product, or the people whom you would like to buy your product, can go a long way in keeping them in your social network circles and actively paying attention to your brand.

5. Your Employees’ Personal Blog Content

Showcasing your employee’s blog content helps give your company a human aspect that is attractive and engaging to your followers.

6. Links to Your Other Social Media Websites

If you feel that your Twitter or Facebook can’t fully encompass all of the aspects of your brand’s personality, you can give your followers and fans the rest of the story by leading them to your other social media outlets. Your brand gets exposure, and your followers get to know your company more personally.

7. Memes

Everyone loves a good laugh, and getting in with the trends when it comes to internet humor almost demands that your company know a good meme when it sees one. Posting appropriate memes on your business’s social media networks helps build a personality among your followers and gives them a laugh at the same time.

8. Videos

Visual content simply performs better on websites like Facebook and Twitter. Providing your followers with instant gratification visual stimulation does more to help keep your business in the forefront of your customers’ minds than simple text. And an interesting and engaging (and short) video that details your product or service is an excellent way to pull potential customers in.

9. Surveys

Conducting a casual survey via your business Facebook or Twitter is an easy way to give your customers the chance to interact with your brand, and it also communicates your business’s regard for its customers’ opinions.

10. Contests

Another way to drive traffic to your page and give your followers a little competitive jolt amid the usual drudgery that is their Facebook or Twitter feeds is to create a fun contest wherein the winner gets a special discount or other attractive reward. After all, people like to compete.

 Posting engaging content on your social media outlets can’t be limited to blog posts and other text-only content; doing so is the easiest way to push your business’s brand to the bottom of your followers’ interest-meter. Just remember that variety is the spice of life, and creating variety in your business’s social media presence can create a telling advantage over your more uniform competitors.

Posted by Brittney Ervin on Wed, May 08, 2013 @ 07:05 AM