Why Your Business Needs A Social Media Branding Strategy
Every business starts off with a Facebook and Twitter page at least. They are great to have, however social media is NOT fool proof! If every one of your posts is only a shameless plug for your products then you will definitely turn people off. Or even worse, lose customers as well as potential customers
Social media is a place where people go to have FUN! To engage with their friends and relatives. It is important that you become almost a friend to your customers. By becoming almost a part of the family you will cement your place as part of the fabric of your community!
Some Things To Consider
What Are Your Company’s Goals Regarding Your Social Media Strategy
In business goals are important, if you don’t make quotas and if your company doesn’t stay above water you will definitely drown. So why should this be any different with your social media branding strategy?
Some business owners seem to think that social media is some type of game and can be crudely hacked at with a blunt object. However, your social media branding strategies should have sharp and precise objectives just like your business plan.
Social Media Goal Objectives
Here is a list of possible goals that you might have for your social media campaign. Not only should you have these goals in mind but also, a time frame to accomplish them!
- Obtain More Fans (Or Followers)
- Generate Leads From Your Social Profiles
- Increase Brand Awareness
- Give A Human Face To Your Brand
- Projecting The Company Voice
Find Out Where Your Target Market Is Active On Social Media
This point ties into our last blog post entitled “Social Media Sites To Promote Your Business“. There are multiple social media websites and all of them are great for promotion. However, you must find out where your community spends their time. At Climb New Heights we promote multiple businesses and these businesses do great on many different social media platforms. However, we carefully pick and choose where to promote each one
Make sure you do some research beforehand to find out if your niche will find a nice following on every social media website you chose.
How Quickly Can You Publish Content?
Content is king, however in today’s fast paced internet world it doesn’t last very long. Large corporations have entire teams dedicated to PR and social media content. In order to keep up with them you need to post great content and post it often!
Social Media Branding Strategies For The Big 3 (Google+, Twitter & Facebook)
Google+ Branding Strategies
It’s no doubt that if you use Google+ it will be extremely advantageous to your overall social media branding strategy. Google+ is not that popular among actual people, however if you use it frequently (and effectively) Google will definitely reward you with high rankings.
For local businesses it is a MUST! A page on Google+ will help you show up on Google Maps which is extremely beneficial. Even if you have sub par SEO on your actual website, showing up on Google Maps can mean first page results for all local searches. Make sure that you focus on quality in person customer service and encourage your patrons to leave a positive review on your Google+ profile!
Some other important game plans for Google+ are to implement a +1 sharing button to your blog posts and website. To publish useful and engaging content and most importantly to engage with actual fans and potential customers on your page.
Twitter Branding Strategies
Twitter is extremely fast paced, however compared to Facebook at least everyone who likes your business has the opportunity to see every one of your posts! Facebook is important to have, however since they have begun to limit organic reach on posts it has become much less valuable. Unless you pay to have your posts shown. For that reason I put more importance on Twitter at this time.
Some key things that will help out your overall social media branding strategy is to gain a large following on Twitter. You can do this by following this article entitled “How To Get Targeted Twitter Followers“. That way your posts have a much better chance of being seen as well as retweeted between a large number of people.
Twitter is all about engagement so make sure to engage with your industry by retweeting the latest industry news. Twitter is also a place where people love to comment as well as complain about brands so make sure to get in the conversation. With large companies people expect to be acknowledged within an hour for their posts about said company. So make sure you stay competitive and try to respond to your admirers and criticizers quickly!
By handling situations quickly and maturely you can turn an unhappy customer around as well as show others how well you treat your client base!
The last thing to remember with Twitter is to craft your brand voice. Each tweet is only 140 characters maximum so this may be hard to conceive. However make each character count and come up with how you want your brand to sound. Sarcastic, funny, serious, friendly, fun, etc! It’s all up to you.
Facebook Branding Strategies
Now on to Facebook. Facebook does a lot of things that make most of it’s users unhappy. Regardless, it’s still a semi-valuable tool to have in your social media arsenal.
Remember to post engaging content, this will help to entertain your existing fans as well as recruit new ones! Make sure to add a like and share button to your posts and website so your customers can do some of the social media marketing FOR YOU!
Entice, prospecting clients to like your Facebook page. Rewarding your business with their email, their credit card number, etc may be a little overwhelming of a request at first. By getting them to be a fan of your Facebook page, they can grow to trust you more and buy when they feel more comfortable.
Finally, make sure to use all of Facebook’s features to engage your users. Polls, questions, etc are all great for getting public opinion on matters pertaining to your business. Posting pictures of your latest products is a great way to receive feedback from your customers as well!
Well that’s it for this article. Thanks for reading. Be sure to let us know what you think by leaving a comment below!