Whether you are an established entrepreneur or a small-time businessman, Social Media is the place to stage your show. In this age of high digital exposure and huge competition you can’t afford to be sitting on the back-burner. Many businesses have lost no time in building their online presence as they realize the gravity of these platforms in the digitally-smitten, fast-paced world.
Earlier, websites and blogs were primary means of spreading the word online about your brand. With the advent of social media sites, your promotions can only be accelerated! More importantly, you can build a strong brand image across the online community by merely adhering to some basic etiquette.
If conventional advertising medium builds your brand image, Social Media goes a step ahead and also connects with your audience. There is a lot that businesses can benefit from these platforms including low cost, loads of technical aids and an eager audience waiting to provide their inputs. Research provides evidence of the biggest brands converting small pieces of feedback to hammer out their sales. People on Social Media sites are hungry for information and love to be responsive to it. When they interact with brands their final goal is to get value through rapid conversation, and social media furnishes them with such media through sites like Facebook, Twitter and more.
Since online users are more conditioned to receiving information from different online platforms, they can be quite selective of what they watch/listen/read. If you constantly batter them with promotional messages, you are bound to push them on the threshold of disassociating with your brand. Provide users with information or news that they’d want to know. When they get value from you, the audience will warm up to your brand and may want to spread the word about it. The ‘socially’ mature audience seek more interaction that sounds informal or personal. Here, the rules of communication are more open and two-way. So don’t make the mistake of trying to be in control of the conversation with endless advertising and marketing messages. Respond to their messages as you would have in person.
Some brands have yielded benefits out of the social interaction. They have stuck to the idea of two-way communication by using user feedback to their advantage. Using Social Media Marketing, these companies have built an active audience and engaged in conversations involving feedback and opinions from users. This reflects positively on the user as it shows genuine involvement and interest from your side. Although it’s not possible to interact with each and every user, be sure to implement their ideas and feedback to improve your business. Often, ideas germinate into constructive outgrowths.
Here are a few pointers to help you improve your brand positioning in the online world:
- Social Media is deep. Keep your audience hooked with information through articles, videos, blogs, and other useful online services.
- Listening is observation. Get creative and find ways to reach your audience for feedback. Interactive conversations can be one of them. Multiple participants will only help you understand shortcomings and improve upon them.
- Only delivering marketing messages is not a good practice in Social Media. Since social media is a two-way channel, see that there’s more user involvement. Good and bad, user feedback can be an excellent source for improving your business.
Resource:
Know more about the innovative and inventive world of Social Media and the wonders it can do to your business. Download an entire chapter of Sales 3.0 – The New Contact Sport How To Use And Leverage Social Media Marketing For Small Business Sales Success by Doug Dvorak – CEO Digital Marketing Group & Milind Mody – CEO eBrandz.
About the Author:
I am actively involved in social media marketing and also write for the same. The book – “Sales 3.0 – The New Contact Sport How To Use And Leverage Social Media Marketing For Small Business Sales Success” has helped me get a detailed insight about the growing need of social media in today’s net-savvy world. This book is a must-read for people who want to win business and build concrete network through social media.
Doug Dvorak helps companies and professionals achieve results through customized, creative and non-traditional sales training systems that are “one size fits one” and developed to the unique business needs and “sales pain points” of each client. He is available to speak on these topics.
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