Social marketing tips

If you are ready to connect with your customers on a personal level, you need to create a page on social media web sites. Social media is all the rage right now in the business world and in the social world. People can quickly connect with their friends, family, colleagues, and businesses all over the world. Perhaps the most attractive feature of social media is that it is free. Social marketing is one of the most popular marketing strategies right now. All you need to do is create your own page, join discussion boards, and stay active on your page and you will start to generate interest from your customers. Here are some tips to use when you begin a social marketing campaign:

Tip # 1 - Get active
Once you join a social media site you need to stay active on that site. Give people a reason to follow you online. Perhaps you can send out daily or weekly promotions that will encourage people to go to your web site and order. Draw them to your blog or web site where they can learn more about your company by writing interesting "tweets" and other quick messages for your audience. Never let your social media site sit there for too long without any activity because your customers will assume you are not using the site and they will quit following you. The other reason to log into your account often is to check for messages from your customers. You need to see what they are talking about and if you need to respond to them in a hurry. If you don't want to deal with the social media site follow-up, assign it to one of your employees that may need some extra job responsibilities. This is a great way to expand their workload and make them feel valued and appreciated by the company.

Tip # 2 - Listen and Learn
When you are on social media sites, jump into a few of the discussion boards and learn about your customers. Listen to some of the things they are talking about and use this information to your advantage. Perhaps they are talking about some of your competitors and the things they do not like about them. No matter what the discussion is about, these boards provide excellent opportunities to sit back and learn from your target audience and you do not have to pay for research groups to provide you with this information.

Tip # 3 - Don't be selfish
While you may have created a social media site to boost your sales, you need to be careful about too much self-promotion on the site. Social media sites are not like other web sites where people want to hear you talk about your business all the time. They want to see other things that you are doing to help people instead of what you are doing to help yourself. You might try writing a blog and sending out daily tips to your followers. This is a great way to gain a steady stream of followers that are actually interested in your products and services.

Tip # 4 - Watch what you say
When it comes to social media, you need to be careful about what you put out there. You might put up a funny joke that is sarcastic and find that you have offended some of your followers. Avoid text that seems confusing to people and stick with business information and interesting information you customers want to learn about instead of a "joke of the day." This will help to build credibility for your business and it will cause your customers to suggest your site to their friends.