Human-to-human contact is original social marketing. When it comes to marketing, this is one of the most important connections to make. However, human-to-human contact through social media is not a one step process. Making connections with your consumers can take time and money.
Luckily, social media, email marketing and PR are great resources to use for businesses trying to humanize their company and connect personally with their consumers to increase engagement.
Here are six digital marketing tools to start using today to make real, valuable connections with customers.
1. Blogging
Blogging is not a one-way communication tool. Blog posts should create new conversations and debates which will assist in discovering the next ?hot lead? to tackle. In addition to being a great resource for social media and email marketing, blogs are the perfect SEO tool. Blogs can also be used to increase social media engagement and drive email by adding subscription forms, as well as social media buttons to every page.
2. Live Events
While events can be a very expensive way to market to current and potential consumers, there is no doubt that the live environment of an exciting event creates lots of buzz around a brand. Some ways to lower the cost of hosting an event could be to run it at a local library, college or university. These types of venues offer facilities that are similar in resemblance to traditional venues, such as hotels, which are much more pricey.
3. Webinars
Webinars can be a great solution when trying to reach a large amount of prospects without even having to leave the office. Webinars are an opportunity for potential consumers to listen in and learn from others? questions. Push your attendees to discuss your business?s insight in the webinar by promoting a Twitter #hashtag throughout slides in the presentation. Afterwards, encourage guests to reach out if they would like further information.
4. Social Sharing
By including social media sharing buttons within email marketing campaigns, subscribers will have much more of an incentive to share information. These buttons couldn?t make it any easier to spread quality content with others. This is an extremely simple way to see an increase in consumer engagement.
5. Different Levels of Email Subscription
While marketers strive to increase leads into a business, sales managers often want fewer leads with a better insight into the quality of potential consumers. The solution to these different goals is to provide multiple levels of subscription. Offer subscription forms for newsletters that are short and sweet; just a name and email address. Then use these addresses to re-market more detailed campaigns and promote events, webinars, white papers, and more. By offering highly perceived value, you can then get more details, like company names, positions and turnovers. By using sites like LinkedIn, it is not hard to reach potential consumers.
6. SEO With PR
Try using services like PRWeb to compose a strong press release and get the message out to thousands, and maybe millions, of viewers. This will also increase social media engagement and conversions. Additionally, it?s an efficient way to promote new product launches, upcoming events, webinars or announcements to prospects who may not be well aware of your company.
With consumers spending more of their time on social media sites, companies everywhere are trying to reach them by social networking. There?s now a common expectation that a strong online marketing strategy is necessary for any company trying to see an increase in their marketing efforts. Lately, those companies in the hospitality market have been really utilizing social media to see an increase in sales.
Why hospitality? It?s an industry driven by recommendations and reviews. People make purchasing decisions with different criteria in mind, yet peer reviews and recommendations are among the most popular ways to persuade. With the popularity of social media and the growth of the Internet in recent years, consumers jump online to give their positive or negative reviews of brands.
Hospitality is an industry where customer service is crucial, so it makes sense that the industry would want to develop the greatest customer service experience possible. Social networking is being viewed as a new and improved customer service platform for a variety of companies. Social media provides online visibility and lets companies market their products and services online to people everywhere, increasing their reach and exposure to potential consumers.
If you?re in the hospitality industry, there are some things to keep in mind when developing a social media strategy.
Consider what your goals and objectives are with social media. This will assist you in choosing the perfect social media platform to start with. If your company is new to social media, start with setting up just a single platform. Once you get more comfortable using this platform, record how much time it takes you on a daily and weekly business to manage the site then consider making other presences on different social media sites.
Also, have a content strategy. Think about what you want to put out on your social media sites and how often you?ll put it out there. Keep your customers in mind at all times when choosing content. Think about if your consumers want to view constant promotional messages, or if they would prefer to view interesting articles you found and shared.
To make social media work for your business, you must use it regularly and be constantly engaging in conversations with your consumers!
Carefully choosing the right social media platform to start with is very important. In considering Twitter, know that it lets companies connect with consumers, and other companies on both a local and a global scale. If it is important for your company to have fast customer service, Twitter can be used to respond quickly to questions, comments or complaints consumers might have.
Immediate, real time customer service is marketing in itself. It should generate positive emotions from your fans and followers and lead to influential word of mouth recommendations for your company.
With Facebook, your brand?s page acts as the online ?headquarters? of your company. It?s like a marketing hub for consumers to come and see what your brand has to offer. You should give your Facebook fans exclusive information about your latest specials and deals, as part of your online marketing strategy. Also, think about making Facebook check in deals to reward consumers for checking into your business by giving them coupons or discounts.
Blogging can also be used in your marketing strategy. You could set up a company blog on your website, and also find influential bloggers who can review your products and services then direct readers to your site. A business blog lets you position your company as an expert in the industry. Blogs are also good to use for sharing company milestones which consumers would be interested in knowing, like if your company has changed locations, or opened a new office.
YouTube is another great site to consider. It?s a great platform to show off important and fun events happening in your company. It gives consumers insights into your company and promotes curiosity, which can lead to an emotional connection with your brand. You can increase the effectiveness of your videos by posting them on any other social media platforms you might have.
There?s also Pinterest. It?s the latest trend in social media, allowing users to ?pin? their interests onto boards that they create. For your marketing strategy, you could create a board to show off your products, or pictures from company events to catch the interest of users. A great benefit of Pinterest is providing consumers a visual appeal to your brand.
While there are many options available to develop your marketing strategy, remember to start small, then become comfortable with how your strategy is working, then build your social media presence gradually to provide quality customer service to all of your consumers!
This is an awesome article I wanted to share:
1. Setup a solid profile. Your entire Google Plus experience starts with the profile. Just like on Facebook, your profile is key, so spend some time building it correctly. Start with a good headshot. And, if you think the advice is commonplace, just look at some of the pictures on Google Plus now. When you show up in people?s steams, all they will see is a thumbnail. So, choose something where you really stand out. Craft your introduction well. Make it so that people would want to add you to their circles. And, Google Plus allows for live links in the introduction itself, so make the most of it. Add links to your website, blog, LinkedIn profile, etc.
2. Add relevant and remarkable images. My hunch is that Google will index the pictures you share (unless you?ve kept them private). So, use images you want found in the search engines. If you are a speaker, add pictures of you speaking. An author? Add pictures of you at your book signing. The idea is to convey the right brand image.
3. Make sure your profile is OPEN to search. This is key, since Google reigns supreme in the search world, the chances are that your profiles will be indexed VERY quickly. When you hit edit profile, the very last item on your profile is ?Search Visibility.? Make sure you have checked the box that says ?Help others find my profile in Search Results.?
4. Optimize the links to the right of the profile using keywords. Again, a great SEO feature. What are the chances that Google will value these links highly? Pretty good, I?d say. If only to encourage people to use Google plus. On the right hand side of your profile, you can add links and the text that goes with it. Make sure you use the RIGHT keywords to connect to your website. For example, our link to the Marketing Zen homepage uses the phrase ?online marketing.?
5. Use ?Circles? to communicate with clients, prospects, media, etc. This is perhaps Google Plus? greatest selling point. Most people?s lives have layers ? professional, personal, acquaintances, etc. And, Google Circles allow you to make the most of the layers. For example, you can create a circle for prospective clients. And, then cater specifically to them with industry news, a solid case study, etc. (Tip: While Google will inform a person that you have added them to a circle, it won?t tell them which circle.)
6. Use +, Comments, and Share to boost relationships. At the heart of all good social media marketing and networking lies the power of relationships. As you interact with others, show support for their ideas. The +1 on Google is akin to ?Like? on Facebook. You can also +1 and comment when you see fit, and you can also SHARE within your own stream.
7. Add videos to your profile. If only from an SEO perspective, the chances of your videos being indexed into Google?s search is higher. So, if you have online video, share it. If you are still missing the online video boat, go to Dave for some amazing web video help.
8. Add your industry or business name as a ?Spark.? Sparks is a new Google Plus feature, and still in development. But, something tells me that this will also tie into search results or effect them in some way. For now, use it like you would a Google alert, and setup SPARKS for your name, company name, and industry terms. You can also always follow industry news using SPARKS. For example, I have technology and business as my SPARKS, and I follow the top articles in those areas.
9. Market research ?ask questions and use Hangouts as needed. Google Plus is a hot bed for market research right now. People are a LOT more engaged there right now because it is a new playground. It reminds me of Twitter in the early days. Google hangouts incorporates video chat with circles. Want to invite all your sales people for a quick Monday morning meeting? How about a Hangout?
10. Get a custom URL to share your Google Plus profile. Just like the early days of all social networks, there will be a huge rise initially as people try to fill up their circles. And, as time goes on, this will slow. Make it easy for people to follow you, get a custom URL. You can do so at http://www.gplus.to.
Bonus Tip: Follow me on Google Plus at http://www.gplus.com/Shama for more Google Plus tips to come!
Article Source http://www.marketingzen.com/10-ways-to-use-google-plus-for-marketing/
As for your social networking efforts, you should visit your existing social accounts, and focus on how you can bring more visitors to your website. However you have first to determine who your target visitors are, what keywords they use in searching for information in the search engines, and in what way your website can help them. Be sure not to miss any of these as you go through your optimization process. All of the social networking sites and traffic won?t result in anything if your target visitors are not part of your online connection or network.
If you didn?t earn the ROI, don?t fret. Most often, it is based on whom your target visitors are, where they can be find, the kinds of services or products you provide, and if your website genuinely supplies your visitors with what they?re searching for.
Applying basic SEO such as building a crawler-friendly website that is made up of relevant keywords that people often typed in the search engines to find the things you offer, shouldn?t be underestimated. These SEO factors can be considered the foundation of your SEO efforts to achieve results.
SEO & Social Media Marketing Guide is written for companies that don?t have the luxury of a big marketing budget, and don?t have the time or staff to devote to a full-time online marketing project. Get it today!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5573060
In order to carry out good online marketing practices, you need to be constantly learning the latest digital trends and getting training a few times a year. Make sure everyone in your company, or at least everyone involved in the marketing of your company, is up to date on the latest social networking changes, and try to update all your social media platforms about every six months.
Here are some lessons on how to keep your business?s social media marketing campaign running smoothly.
1. Look for new ways to engage your online communities
Marketing is an essential practice for business, and today, social networking is the best way to provide better customer satisfaction and discover insights into how your consumers feel about your products and services. The fans and followers on all your social media sites are your main strategic tools to use to see how to modify your business to meet their needs more effectively.
2. Don?t let staff tweet and comment outside of the workspace
This may sound harsh, but it is a currently trending idea that could really help businesses. Employees? online social networking and tweeting done outside the company could have potential consequences; so to be safe, keep all company social networking done inside the company.
3. Restructure and/or retrain a couple times a year
Because social media is such a quickly evolving field, it is vital to stay on top of all the trends and new tools. If you can make an effort to have your company restructure social media platforms to stay up to date, as well as, retrain employees on the latest social networking changes at least twice a year, your business is sure to continue to thrive with social media marketing.
4. The main way for finding products is becoming social search
Currently, Facebook seems to be one of the main tools people end up using to find information on products and places. With this in mind, it is likely Facebook could take over Google?s rep as the main ecommerce search engine. So make sure you?re aware of social searching, and highlight your products and services effectively on Facebook.
5. Create a long term social data plan
Creating social media campaigns based off behavioral data is now more popular that ever thanks to online conversations, interests, groups and friends, which companies can use as vital information in their social networking. Don?t merely join social media platforms and gain fans and followers, but also be continually thinking about how to build up your social media presence based on interesting information from these sites so you are able to grow and evolve.
6. After your target audience is created, watch your social engagement grow
An average brand oversees multiple blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, YouTube channels, etc. So, what companies must remember, is to maintain a common brand image and communication style that is uniform among every social media account. Consumers will be able to recognize your company amongst other competition and have a solid understanding of your brand image and want to engage with you for life.
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