Social Media Marketing for Business

So if I'm a prospective customer and I'm looking for a local place to buy gourmet cupcakes, I would go to Google or Bing or Yahoo! and type in 'west palm beach  gourmet cupcakes', hit Return, and your web site would come up on that first page or the second page.

Social Media Marketing for Business

Then after everybody started getting comfortable with the idea of web sites, along came the notion of a blog, which is a web site, but it is something that is much easier to keep up to date and it has some unique features about it that helps you market your company as well. It could replace your existing web site; your entire web site could be a blog with pages that allow people to purchase services and so on. Or, more often, it's a supplement.

So then we come to social media, first, we had web sites, then blogs, and now social media. So it gradually opens up as we talk. Social media is a place where everybody sort of on equal footing. It's not just a blog author who responds to comments, but basically everybody is talking via comments to each other. There are all sorts of social media venues. There are ones where you share your pictures, like Flickr or Pinterest, or your business contacts, like LinkedIn, your videos on YouTube, bookmarks on del.icio.us.There is Twitter, which is like a micro blog and Facebook, which is like a little neighborhood, all these different kinds of venues.

What do all of these have in common? First of all, they all form social communities. Once you set up an account on one of these, you get to feel like it's your second home, and the other people who'll become part of your group in those social communities become like your friends. It adds a human touch to what's essentially everybody sitting alone in front of their computer typing. Many of these online social networks allow a business to establish themselves as a community member just like any other individual, and so when you are there representing your business as just another citizen of the online network, you can also pick up friends or fans of your brand.

You can speak as though you are writing a blog post in that there was an actual human being hiding behind your company name. As long as you're a good citizen on the social network, that you are not trying to spam anybody or scam or just use it for your own advantage, that you're actually contributing to the network as a regular community member, then you will usually get very good reception from people, and the stature of your company is elevated. And of course, while you are there interacting with other users, sharing video, sharing pictures, whatever, you also have the opportunity to subtly and quietly market your service. to promote upcoming events, to provide customer service to your clients over there.

One of the most powerful features of a business being involved with social media marketing is that your message can get spread virally, what we call Word of Keyboard, because in all of these services, everybody has a group of friends and when they share something, it's shared with those friends, and those friends can re-share.

This is what we call viral marketing, and it's extremely powerful. Now, normally, the kind of work that you are doing on these services isn't just for itself. What you're trying to do is establish a funnel.

You are trying to engage people in these social venues and make them want to go to another location, to your web site or to your blog or to walk into your store, for that matter. So, you're using it to talk about products and services and events that people can actually commit to, or could get one step closer to closing in, in another place. Out of all of these services that I've mentioned, and there are many more.

So what this means is that your customers are on Facebook, Twitter and others. And if there is an opportunity for you to get there as well as your business, you know you want to be where your customers are Essentially, all you need is an email address and online access. They work together synergistically; you can use Twitter to help your Facebook presence, use Facebook to help your Twitter presence, and they're both quite friendly to businesses.

Facebook has this whole concept of Facebook pages, for example that are just for promoting your business. There are a great number of businesses who are on Twitter and who are able to promote their businesses there as well, and Twitter loves that. One of the best things is that both of these services are completely free. So, in view of the overwhelming number of your potential customers and existing customers who are already on Facebook and Twitter, the fact that they are free and they are easy to get started with, why aren't you there?

We can help you establish a successful business presence on both Twitter and Facebook and other social media properties.

Steve Steinberger

www.klicktwice.com

561-281-8330