You don’t have to be an expert marketeer to know that social media platforms are a little piece of heaven swarming with potential new customers. Businesses, both small and large, will begin their social media journey connecting with their target audience and investing in promotions and advertisements to generate more sales.
Despite what many may think, there is more to handling a social media account than the tingle of pride one feels when a Tweet gets more than 10 retweets or a status gets 20 likes and a few comments. Just take a look on LinkedIn and you will see thousands of ‘Social Media Executives’. So why are businesses investing so heavily in this job role?
If you are posting generic updates like ‘good morning’ or blabbing on about how great your company is, the chances are nobody is listening… This is where social calendars come into play. Planning content to post on social media on a weekly or monthly basis is a must. This way upcoming events, topics, dates and company news can be carefully incorporated without the unnecessary 20 minutes staring at the computer screen wondering what to post. Posts can also be scheduled for optimum times to ensure the right content is getting to the right people at the right time. Don’t forget you can also use Twitter tools such as Hootsuite to help you with this.
Another mistake that many businesses make is ignoring bad publicity and hoping it goes away. Long gone are the days where companies were allowed to delete their Facebook reviews and besides, imagine if you had received bad customer service and then found your complaint had mysteriously vanished… would you be even angrier? A big part of handling a business social media account is reputation management. Resolving issues as they arise publicly and effectively. This is also why regular monitoring is crucial, by the time you respond to a bad review left 3 weeks ago chances are 100 potential customers have noticed this and your lack of response only makes you look guilty. We’ve all seen the Tesco banana with a spider inside clog up our news feed!
Finally, it is common sense to most that social media is amazing for communicating effectively with your target audience and promoting the brand. What many fail to realise is that social media is literally a lead generation and conversion machine! New features such as Twitter’s ‘conversion tracking’ allow you to measure your return on investment by tracking what your potential new customers to after interacting with your ads! Also, a simple social media promotion can literally result in thousands of new email addresses to market yourself to!
Social media is the future of marketing and by investing more time in this, the return on investment can be phenomenal. If you need help managing your company’s social media accounts or want to discuss our social media packages, give one of our social gurus a call on 0161 884 0112.