In the last few years, digital marketing – particularly those involved with social media – has gone big. Almost every day, new social media sites and applications appear. I have been personally a part of offshore back office solutions, particularly those that handle social media for about a decade now. And I have seen how it is very beneficial to our freight, transportation, and logistics clients. Here are my two cents on how to effectively use social media for your business.
Infuse Social Media with your Company’s Digital Marketing Plans
The first thing that you should think about is that social media should not be separated nor isolated from a company’s digital marketing strategy. It’s an important part of your marketing campaign and should be used to achieve your company’s key marketing goals. Choosing which platform to use and how and when they should they be integrated should be considered part of a company’s business plan. The social media plans should connect directly with your company’s business goals.
Social Media should Support but not Take the Position of your Traditional Methods
Social media can be used to boost brand awareness for the company’s services, look for potential customers, and create engagement. However, having your own website is helpful as a form of online resource. Person-to-person marketing can provide face-to-face communication with customers. Social media can actively target and inform customers of below-the-line activities, events, and best practices performed by the industry and the firm. Social media provides another level of enhanced customer experience. But the world shouldn’t revolve around it.
It Takes Time for Plans to Materialize
Like most segments of sales and marketing, ensuring the effective use of social media needs your focus, time, and effort, lots of it. It will consume a chunk of your time to write interesting content and post them in different pages and platforms.
If you lack time to commit, you have these options. If you have a budget to outsource, it is wise to invest in creative solutions services. Once you have partnered with a third party supplier, make sure you create goals and measure performance. If you don’t get and measure results, hiring a social media person will be futile.
If you don’t have the money to outsource, you have the option of starting slowly and just exerting effort for a small targeted group or holding back any social media project until there is someone who can do it for your company full time.
Social media marketing is not too different from traditional sales. Being successful in sales require you to be able to flex your muscle over extended periods. In traditional sales, not being able to check on clients will result to poor return of investment. The same principle can be applied to digital marketing. As a business begins to play in this medium, engagement is expected. The scarcity of participation from your target market leads to poor results.
Take this word of advice a bit more seriously. In order for you to succeed in social media marketing, you should be passionate and possess the ability skill to create engaging content effectively on a regular basis. Successful content creators must keep up with the times to create fresh material. This task is not a walk in the park for some individuals.
To be honest, it’s enjoyable to be immersed in the field of social media marketing, but before attacking social media marketing head on, always bear in mind these pieces of advice.
