14 Ways to Add Social Media
to Your Marketing Plan
There’s so much social
media buzz out there and if you check on how many ways that you can just
“share” something you will find 334 just
on Add This. So do you Join the Social
Media Party or Start Your Own?
Which sites do you
want to promote? You can’t be everything
to everyone, you can’t do them all.
My suggestion, first
join the party then think about having your own.
If you do not already
have a social media marketing plan for your small
business, then you need to get
one because it is very powerful and inexpensive to augment your marketing using
social media. Social media sites have
started to take over the internet and even cellular phones as well. There are
direct applications on smart phones for major sites like LinkedIn, Facebook,
Twitter, FourScore, Yelp and more. Some
people have 24/7 access to their social media sites.
Small businesses can
use these sites to market products, services, and keep their clientele
informed. This is a great way to build up a local small business, an online
small business, or even for a larger business. Nearly every business uses some
form of social media marketing to help drive traffic to their website and gain
new business.
15 Basic and Easy to
do Steps to Add
Social Media to Your Marketing Plan:
1. Decide who is going to be responsible for your
social media community, in other words who is going to be the networker at the
party?
You can add additional administrators but each
person needs to know their responsibility for updating content for your site, Multiple
administrators is a good idea, if one person leaves then you can continue.
2. Claim your name on as
many social media sites as possible but remember you are only going to work a few.
3. Select an image that
will represent your company, the branding should match your website and your
other materials so guests and prospects can identify you.
Important to select an image that will look good in
miniature: think about the size of a
Twitter Profile pic, or how a thumbnail of a Facebook Page looks when the
administrator posts something on the Wall.
4. Social media requires
time and attention. Regular updates, posts and content are key to
your social media community’s success. Come up with a plan for how you’ll
communicate through
your social media community before you launch it.
If you’re committed to updating your social
community regularly and want it to grow, you should list your social media
addresses everywhere that you list your
business website—your brochures, posters, business cards and other printed
information. Be sure to include a link to your social media community wherever
you list your contact info on your web page. There are icons for this at Twitter, at
Facebook and also LinkedIn.
You may also want to
consider listing it as part of your email signature.
5. Any Business Owner
Needs a LinkedIn Profile at the Very Least,
Also Key Personnel should have LinkedIn Profiles then register your business.
Join Groups in Your Area and in your niche
In Your Area—to promote local business
In your niche—to monitor your competition
List your linkedin profile in your signature line of all of your
e-mail accounts, put a button on your
website and put it on your business card
6. Start Your Brand Building . You are the Brand and so are your key
employees. That’s why LinkedIn is so
crucial. You should know that this type of plan can work for anything from a flower
shop to an internet marketing business and everything in between. Social media
is worldwide and used by huge corporations, but it also helps to level the
playing field for a small business as well.
7. Get a Twitter Account
for your Business
 |
| From Twitter Blog |
8. Brand building is a
huge way to get your small business more recognized and more popular. You need
to open a twitter account for your business and actually learn how to use it in
your niche. This can be a line of defense for customer service and it can also
help you to manage and build a great reputation. It may not always be about
promotions, but it is a great way to tune into your market.
Again Your twitter
account should be on your business cards.
· Plan to Follow area
businesses, organizations, non-profits, follow friends of friends who follow
you.
· Twitter can be used as
a promotion as well and you could get a customer a couple dollars off their
bill or a free dessert if they follow you while they are in the restaurant. Just have them do it on their phone and show a
manager. This is a great way to build up followers for a local business.
9. Nearly everybody that
is able to access the internet has a Facebook page. This is one of the most
popular ways to stay in contact and waste time at work , home, on your cell phone.
· You can leverage this
and turn it into business for yourself. Just create a Facebook profile for
yourself, and then create a fan page for your business.
· If you’re trying to
publicize a Facebook Page, be sure to secure your vanity URL. You no longer need 25 fans to get your own
vanity URL. This way you have a short and sweet easy-to-list URL to include in
your overall communications efforts.
Mine for this blog is: http://facebook.com/MondayMorningMarketeer
· Using the restaurant
example, this could be a great way to announce new featured dishes, drink
specials, happy hours, and any events you have going on. Just get people in
your local area to become fans of your page on Facebook. When they do, their
friends will all see it and have the opportunity to become fans as well.
· Then as you get more
accustomed to it: Use Fan Gate and
Landing Pages to track your fans and be able to communicate with then, this is
a private application. You can buy many,
but I have one you can use for free.
Iframe and you can download it at http://mattgarret.com
·
10. If you have a brick and mortar business with a
location you should also be on Facebook Places
· Here you can reward
people for “checking in”. Have special
deals for check ins. Great tool as then
all of their friends will know they are there and encourage their friends to stop
in or frequent your establishment also.
11.
You Should also have a
blog attached to your website, for Multimedia marketing, some of your clients
or guests are going to want to read, some people write blogs and others read
them. Some geeks and consultants recommend WordPress. I personally recommend Blogpot as it is owned
by Google and I don’t think that Google is going to not categorize its own
products. Also there is an ease of using
Blogger and I think WordPress requires a little more computer prowess. However there are advantages as WordPress
will allow you to host your own blog on their site for a small fee.
12.Audios or TalkCasts like this show if you do them on a
regular basis.
13.In the must-have online marketing checklist for your
business: you’ve checked off “website,” “search engine optimization,” “email
marketing,” and “social media” (hopefully some type of social presence relevant
to your audience). So what other online tool can you use to make an impact?
14. Add Video to your social and digital media marketing plan.
Video: video
capability is the fastest-growing website feature for small-business
advertisers--here are some places to post your videos
According to Web Strategist Eric
Tsai, “Instead of
trying to reach broad targets of demographic groups, investing in paid media we
find valuable organic content becoming more powerful, ranking higher by search
engines and shared by passionate communities.”
Go
Figure, the popularity of Reality TV has reached the internet. At Each One Teach One Conference in
Pittsburh, Pa.-----------------------Thornhill spoke that Hollywood is looking
for real life stories and places like YouTube and Vimeo have become the place
to tell those stories.
From blog by Eric Tsai, Business Coach and Web Strategist
At the 2010 Search Engine Strategies
Conference & Expo, Greg Jarboe,
president and co-founder of SEO-PR revealed that:
· Americans watch more videos a
month on YouTube than they conduct searches on Google
· A video is 50 times more likely
to get a first-page Google ranking than a text page
If those finding aren’t stunning, coming from an SEO perspective
check out Pew Internet Research’s recent study indicating that “7 in 10 adult internet users
(69%) have used the internet to watch or download video. That represents 52% of
all adults in the United States.”
Video is an
incredible way to connect with people online. Until the Internet, the
only way to get your video message to a mass audience was to pay for a TV
commercial.
· Storytelling with Video
· tell a story,
· provide product demos,
· customers testimonials
· Videos can be hosted on your website or these
other platforms that can help you go viral:
• Screencasts —Sometimes You can even
create these for free. Great for online
explanations of applications and website.
Screencast Applications that you can
try
· Camtasia
· Screenflow (Mac only).
· http://www.screenr.com--
this one is free
This is an excerpt from my book.
To purchase the book,
"Folly of Marketing Plan in Your Head, 101 Compelling Reasons to Write One"
This blog post can be reproduced in its entirety with the following information:
© Joanne Quinn-Smith 2011, Monday Morning Marketeer™ 412-628-5048
Listen at: http://mondaymorningmarketeer.com
Blog: www.mondaymorningmarketeer.com
Or on its unique radio channel at:
www.positivelypittsburghlivemgazine.com
Joanne Quinn-Smith is the Creative Energy Officer of Dreamweaver
Marketing Associates in Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania and an expert on Web 2.0
Branding.
Joanne has also been designated by the 2009 U.S. Small Business
Administration as the Small Business Journalist of the Year for her work
with information relevant to and advocacy of small businesses.
Follow at: https://twitter.com/monmornmarketer
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mondaymorningmarketeer
Phone: 412-444-5197
