Social media is an effective way to market a business on the Internet. Businesses are promoted through friends and their networks, which is a viral form of advertising. Viral or word of mouth advertising is a part of the social networking platform. To benefit from social networking a business must first determine how to use each social media outlet.
Below are six steps that provide a road-map for implementing a successful plan to use social media as a marketing platform.
Step 1– Determine How Social Media Can Benefit Your Business
- Familiarize yourself with all social networks-How can you reach your targeted audience?
- Access the value of using social media to help you reach your business goals – What do you want to accomplish?
- Have a well defined goal- How can you use social media to help you grow your online presence and increase business?
Step 2– You Must Develop A Strategy on How to Integrate Social Media into Your Business
- Determine how using social media is going to change your business-how will you adapt to the changes?
- Find administrative support for the implementation of social media – Do you need to hire additional personnel to support this new social media platform initiative? Or is there someone within your company who understands social networking technology?
- Formulate a plan to reach your targeted audience – what are the demographics of that audience? Who do you want to reach?
- Determine if your competitors are using social media-who is your strongest online competition?
Step 3– Use the Correct Applications within the Social Media Networks
- Setup Applications that will spread the word and support your business goals-develop a company blog
- Train all personnel how to use the company’s social media page, how to update profiles and how to maintain professionalism when linking to their personal pages
- Build a social media team, use online forums and message boards to increase followers, engage your followers in conversation with thought provoking updates
Step 4– Always Keep the Company Brand in the Public Profile Searches
- Write a profile that people want to read, show people how joining your company’s page will benefit them and they will share that information with their family and friends
- Keep the content fresh and original-always include keywords in all content
- Include a link to your business in all online content, use videos and photos
- Provide frequent updates, good writing skills are important
Step 5- Use Integrated Digital Media Solutions
- Use widgets to encourage interaction such as share and like buttons
- Use syndicated button like RSS feeds and blogs
Step 6- Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Feedback
- Monitor your company’s media page
- Ask for feedback – make it easy to contact key members of your company’s organization, plan for both positive and negative feedback
- Track comments posted on your company’s social networking page to determine the effect of your social media strategies and make changes as necessary.