7 Ways to Use Social Media for Business

Tips on 7 Ways to Use Social Media for Business and Marketing Every business wants to be involved in social media. With over 800 million users on Facebook alone, why wouldn’t a business selling a product or service want to be part of such a large audience? The frustrating part for most business owners is that they just don’t understand how to make it work. We live in a country that loves instant gratification and if we don’t instantly see results, we don’t believe that it will work. This type of thinking is incorrect when it comes to social media for business. Traditional marketing has us throw a bunch of stuff against a wall and our sales come from what sticks. This approach doesn’t work with social media marketing. The way to increasing sales through social media marketing is simply through making your customers part of the brand. Marketing is no longer a one-way street and this type of change scares many businesses. So why is there such a shift towards social media for business? According to a recent study reported by IBM, despite the fact that most CMOs admit to not truly understanding how to utilize or implement a social media marketing plan, some 82% said they planned to increase their use of social media over the next 3-5 years. Social media marketing works if you understand what you’re doing. Here are 7 ways to use social media for business. 7 Ways to Use Social Media for Business #1. Always advertise your social media sites. Every email sent from your company should contain your company’s social media links in every employee’s email signature line. This is a great way to get thousands of eyeballs on your social media links, plus, people reading email are already online so it’s pretty simple for them to just click on over to your site. #2. Consistency. Use the same type of skin on your Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube page. Your business social media profiles should be branded to match the look and feel of your website. Also, be consistent in your messaging. Make sure that both your online and offline marketing match. #3. Sharing is Caring. Facebook says companies who integrate Facebook “Like” buttons throughout their website see an increase of 65% more referral traffic from Facebook. There are plenty of easy to add plugins available on websites, so make sure you make it simple for a reader to like your content from your site. #4. Media matters. Create a media page on your website. Anytime you have an event, issue a press release, or if your company gets mentioned by a third-party blog, include links of this in your press room. This helps establish credibility. #5. Blog away. Companies that blog get 67% more leads per month (http://pwb.com/blog/?p=603) than companies that do not blog. This doesn’t mean use Posterous or Blogger. Instead, make sure you integrate the blog under your corporate domain by using a platform like WordPress. #6. Pass the hashtag. If you’re hosting a conference or event, provide a Twitter hashtag so attendees can tweet about the event. The average Twitter user has 126 followers (Source: The Guardian). If ten people tweet during your program, that’s over 1,000 additional people exposed virtually to your event. You can even use Twitter hashtags to let audience members tweet questions during a panel discussion. Tweets can be projected on a screen behind the panelists. #7. Measure and manage. Analyze your search engine traffic to see what keywords people are using most often to arrive at your site. Then, create an automated search feed for these keywords on Twitter to identify conversations people are having using these keywords. These people may be prospects. Tweet with them. For More Information on How To Use Social Media for Business visit: www.socialmediain7minutes.com