Web Design, Development & Online Marketing - Serving the Central and North Texas Markets

Marketing on Social Media sites is one of the most effective ways to market your products and services to your customers. Considering that Facebook alone has 500 million users; this should show you the importance of having a social media marketing strategy in place for your company. What may be surprising to some is that people actually enjoy interacting with companies and brands because it makes them have sense of control. If a customer can go online and comment about good or bad service (And typically bad) then they feel like they have a voice about your company's services and products.

Establishing a Goal

The first steps you should take when it comes to social media is establishing the goals for your company's online marketing strategy. Are you selling products directly to clients? Focused on managing your brand identity online? Using Social Media to reach new business? Or using Social Media to retain current business?

These are all important questions to consider when setting up your social media goals.

Don't Sell on Social Media

Most people do not want to login to Facebook or Twitter just to see blatant advertisements thrown in their face. After all it's THEIR account and they CHOOSE to follow you. The can easily choose not to.

The best approach is to interact with your fans and followers about your product and let the users take control. If you have a new widget you want to advertise, then ask people about your product. Don't just advertise it and leave it alone. The best way to approach this is by using an interactive tool such as Facebook polls to see what your customers like. For instance when you use a Facebook Poll to introduce a new product, you should create a webpage or video about your product and link to it from your Facebook Poll. This not only informs the user of your new widget, but also lets them interact back with you with opinions about it and allows for some nice feedback and data collection.

Creating Unique Content

One of the most important aspects of your social media strategy is to include content that your audience wants to see. Photos and Videos are key to achieving good results. After all, people join Facebook and Twitter to share their own photos so why not as a brand or company share yours and directly talk to your audience about your content. Never assume just because you post a comment, photo, or video that someone is goign to interact with you. Best approach is to directly interact with them by talking to your audience and asking them questions about what they like.

Building Your Online Community

What's the point of your social media strategy if no one is following you on Twitter or liking your page on Facebook? You can't just create some social media entities and hope people find you. You need to go to them.

Step 1 - Setting Up Social Media Properties

First step of course to create user accounts and pages on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.

You more than likely already have traffic on your website and/or blog, so the most common sense approach is to link to your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. properties from your website and blog. Easiest way to do so is add some 'icons' or 'badges' to your site and link to your social media pages. Click here to download a few we have collected. You can also include these badges and link directly in your Outlook signature.

And I highly suggest using a widget like AddThis to add sharing tools to each of your blog posts (Take a look at the bottom of this post!).

Step 2

Have your company 'follow' and 'friend' your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Start creating content on Facebook and using #hastags on Twitter. Hashtags (a 'tag' or 'topic' about your Tweets, but with a # in front) lets other users find content based upon trending topics and keywords. This will let users stumble across your content.

Social Media Strategy Webinar

Next month on July 7th 12:00PM CST, WSI will be having a free informational webinar regarding Social Media Strategies for your business and brand. Click here to contact us, or here to sign up for the free webinar.

A Facebook Static page

A Facebook Static page adds advanced functionality to your Page using the Facebook Static FBML application. This application will add a box to your Page in which you can render HTML or FBML (Facebook Markup Language) for enhanced Page customization. It will also allow you to create a landing page so your Fans can get a custom message from you before they can navigate through the rest of you Page. The FBML application is only for Facebook Fan Pages, not personal or group pages. You can use this application to set your company’s page apart from your competition. Adding a static page can be a do-it-yourself project if you have some knowledge of HTML.

A detailed Information page

A detailed information page is critical for the success of your company’s Fan page for obvious reasons. When people go to your page, they want to know who you are before they “like” you. It is critical that all the information be complete. A complete page includes your company logo, location and hours or operation (if applicable), a description of who you are and what you do, and other pertinent information about your company. If you are unsure what to put here, use the information from your company website so there is some consistency with your brand.

Facebook is a social platform. So, don’t forget that beyond the technical components, your focus is to engage with your fans. Post pictures, reply to comments, and stay active with them. This will help fuel the fire for your fans to stay active also, which makes a happy camp fire!

A Facebook fan page is a way for businesses to connect to current and potential customers, and engage in conversation related to your business. To set up a Fan page and get your own vanity URL like facebook.com/yourbusiness you must start the process with a standard Facebook URL until you have 25 “likes.” Once you have 25 people who “like” your page you are now eligible to create a customizable URL that fits your business. Congrats!

Getting to the 25 “likes” should take you a week or less; just email everyone in your organization and tell them to like the page. If your organization is smaller than 25 then reach out and email people in your personal network. You can invite people to “like” your page through Facebook or through your normal email client, either way let the people in your network know you have created a new page and start engaging in conversation with them.

A Fan page is great for businesses because Facebook Pages are not subject to a fan limit and can automatically accept fan requests, unlike a personal profile which has to manage friend request. Every time someone becomes a fan, comments, clicks the “like” link, or shares your post, it shows up in that fan’s news feed for all their friends to see. So “viral” is built in which should increase your “likes” as long as your posting regularly which should be included in your company's social media marketing strategy.

Not sure what to post, or how to get started? Contact your WSI consultant to get started with your Facebook Fan page today!

When is Exposing Yourself in Public a Good Thing?

Now, behave yourself.  What I am referring to is the urgent need for small business to get with it when it comes to Social Media in order to gain additional visibility into your business offerings and activities….and secure company branding.

Will Exposure Make Me More Popular?

In the case of Social Media it certainly will get you more attention.  But, like any “new” thing some think the jury is still out on the effort vs. rewards balance of working the Face Book, Linked In, Twitter and other popular tools and websites for promoting themselves or their business.

Just like in real life, some have to work harder or more creatively at being popular.  Easy or hard, we at WSI coach businesses in this process and, yes, you can be popular amongst like-minded niche market.  And doing so will pay off.

The Me Focusing on the You.

You have some sort of goal or objective that you want to get out of it, but it will never be successful unless you focus your actions towards delivering valuable content that is impactful to them.  For business, this can be an important announcement, tips that help your audience or even humor, to name a few approaches to messaging within Social Media.

I think one of the top-level goals for business and Social Media is to remain “front of mind” with your connections without being “in your face”.  The goal for Social Media is rarely a direct sale.  It is the constant “courting” of the relationship -  the “getting to know you” and “are we meant for each other” or “let’s hang out…and introduce me to your friends” kind of thing. 

Don’t be Annoying or You Will get Dumped

Find a balance of ongoing communication that doesn’t drive them to “un-friend”  or unsubscribe your connection to them.  Ouch. …The modern “break up”!

What do the Experts and Data Say About Social Media Right Now?

I like to refer to eMarketer because they give nice charts.  A picture is worth a thousand words.  And since no one would read a thousand words on line anyway, here’s the data they share by way of American Express OPEN survey.

What You Must Do Now!

Whether you buy into the mass rush to Social Media or not, you must take steps to secure your brand name online.  If you don’t your competitors or others may register your company name as their own.
It used to be the only thing a business had to secure was a domain name (www.YOURNAME.com) that matched their company name or product brand. 

Who’s in Control of Your Social Exposure?

Social Media sites now make the brand protection issue much more complex.
WSI is ahead of the trend on helping our customers secure a company brand across tens and hundreds of social media sites.   It is too affordable to let your company be at risk of your name being “high-jacked”.   Allow us educate you and assist.  Because you should be in control of how you choose to expose yourself and monitor what others are saying about you online.

One of the latest internet phenomenons is the super popular Groupon.com

Every day Groupon posts a new special advertising for a local company in your area for their customers to take advantage of.

For instance today's Groupon.com for Dallas is a $30 cuisine dinner for just $15 bucks. Pretty good deal actually, 50% off. And at the moment they have already sold 392 groupons.

Some quick stats on Groupon.com:

Why is this so popular and what does it mean for you?

In case haven’t noticed there’s a slight recession going on these days, but that doesn’t mean customers still don’t want to spend.  People LOVE coupons.  Hence the explosive popularity in Groupon, I mean $135million in funding just after 18 months of being in business? (I’m going to say success)

After learning from my previous post how important Facebook is to any business, a mix of discounts and coupons, along with an effective Social Media advertising campaign, can be an extremely useful tool in boosting this quarter’s profit.

If you need help devising an online marketing strategy during these tough times, contact us today to receive a FREE online marketing and website analysis for your business.  I mean seriously, it’s free why not?

It seems like just a few years ago, college students were joining Facebook every day to keep in touch with their friends, post their photos, and post their status update to the world.

Eventually Facebook opened its' user base to everyone, not just college students, including businesses, fan pages, and more.  Today Facebook would be the 3rd largest country by population, hitting 500 million users last week.

The online world has changed rapidly in the last decade, especially for businesses having the ability to reach millions of customers practically for free.  Here some interesting stats you might not have seen.

• Coca Cola - 8,702,146 fans
• Lady Gaga - 13,740,529fans
• Ben and Jerry’s - 1,377,491fans
• Starbucks - 11,084,778 fans

While these are big name brands, the same is true for any size of company.  Customers like to be involved with companies and brands online because it gives them the sense of being a part of it all.  Not to mention if they want to complain about a product or service, they can post it on their Facebook wall for the world to see!

From an internet marketing standpoint this is one of the most powerful tools a company has access to.  Online brand management has become crucial to every business.  Whether you like it or not your customers do talk about you online, positive and negative.  Brand reputation is essential whether offline or online.  How many times have you looked up company reviews online before deciding who to go with?  This is no different for your own company! So why not be at the forefront of your brand online on second most popular website in the world?

And not to mention having the ability to reach your customers every day of their lives during one of their favorite activities of the day!

If your not sure on how to devise your business's social media strategy request our 60+ page Social Media Strategy Kit to help educate you and your staff on your companies social media policies, brand management, measuring social media, and more.