// our blog

social media tips

by marketing team in thoughts at 8:00 am

social media is invaluable to consumer brands, however, some small businesses get overwhelmed just thinking about how to get started. social media should be a part of an overall marketing strategy and not the strategy itself. Once setup, you can focus 30 minutes a day on social media marketing and realize tangible results. the keys to being effective using social media are to: listen, act and engage.

listen

• what are your customers and the general public saying about your goods or services?
• what are they saying about the quality of those goods and services?
• what does the public say about your competitors?

act:

• respond to comments and questions about your goods and services.
• recognize and reward your fans and evangelists (those who consistently say good things about your product or service and endorse you to others.)
• answer customer complaints about you or your competitors and  learn. excel where your competitors falter.

engage:

• provide useful content to your consumers about topics related to your product or service.
• be social, not everything should be business related but it should be relevant.
• use rewards to show appreciation for the  fans, followers and friends of your business.

to use of social media effectively, you have to know what is happening, as it happens.  keep track of what is working and what is not working, and adjust your strategy as you move forward.

here are some free tools to help track and analyze your social media activities:

google alerts (www.google.com/alerts) allows you to create queries on just about anything and have those updates sent directly to your email.

social mention (www.socialmention.com) provide email updates of the latest relevant social media results based of your choice of search phrase.

bit.ly (www.bit.ly) allows you to shorten, share, track and analyze your links.  you should never send out a link without some way to track who is clicking and sharing your link.

google analytics (www.google.com/analytics)  – web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness.

nutshellmail  (www.nutshellmail.com) is a free online service that allows you to track your social networking activity through your email.

tweetdeck (www.tweetdeck.com)  is a personal browser for  connecting you with your contacts across various social networking sites.

the most important part of social media is being social.  social media is not about hard selling. if you share relevant information with people, they will spread the word.  don’t be afraid to get social but remember, good or bad, once it’s out there… it’s out there. get social!