The Dreaded Question
How are you using social media to Market your Business?
Every day, I have the pleasure of creating & executing
marketing plans for companies. When
creating a plan, there is always a business discussion around business objectives
for the next year so that I can align the marketing plan to those goals. During this process, the executive is very appreciative
to this type of discussion around marketing.
When aligning marketing with business goals it provides a different
perspective to the conversation.
Until, I ask the
dreaded question…“How are you unitizing social media to grow your
business”?
Then, the easy flowing
conversation, just became a long awkward silence.
Social Media is here to stay
Most business are behind the curve when it come to their
social media presence, I get it…but we still need to discuss it as it’s not
going away. Typically, most of the
Executives I speak with are more mature in age so they did not grow up using
social media so it’s understandable that the answer to my standard question is
usually, “I am not sure how that works so we have not really put forth focus on
social media” or “We really have no idea how to use social media to grow our
business”. As a marketer, I pride myself on trying and learning new
marketing techniques every day. Staying
ahead of new ways to market is crucial to any business. I understand that trying new things is out of
people’s comfort zone but in today’s work of technology, social media is a
necessity.
Social Media Stats for 2017
22%
of the world’s total population uses Facebook.
If that number does not astound you, remember that each of those people
have at least 100+ friends. Here are
just a few more stats to help understand how social
media is driving sales in 2017.
Why Social Media?
-Educate
-Engage
-Communicate
Social Media is a great way to educate your
audience on what you do, your services, your culture, your solutions, your
super star employees. Each social media
platform has a different audience, Facebook is a more mature audience, and
LinkedIn is more professional where Instagram is younger so targeted education
on each social platform must be geared to that audience.
Engage your audience with
call to actions to direct them back to your website using content, video,
promos, incentives, free services and landing pages. Another way to engage is to respond to
comments on your social media platforms, which increases the algorithms.
Communicate who you are as
a company, what you do, services you have to offer. Do not be afraid to toot your own horn, post
awards your company has earned, share contracts your company has won, and share
how you helped a particular company save budget with your solution. Share about a superstar employee, employees
loved to be recognized and doing it on social media shows them how much you appreciate
them and that employee has friends on social media whop will read that post
thinking, “Wow, that is pretty cool”. Many companies
give back to their communities, social media is great way to share.
Getting Started
It's totally understandable how overwhelming social media
can be, so getting started is the hardest part.
Outsourcing is the best way to get started, having an outside perspective
looking at your business to see which social platforms meets your target
customer. Research, Planning, execution and
follow up are the key factors when it comes to social media.
Georgianna Strauser
Strauser
Marketing
https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgiannastrauser/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgiannastrauser/
