Social Media Strategies and Technologies

If you are reading this post - I am sure atleast once you might have came across Social Media Marketing; lingo and you already knew  ‘What is Social Media?’ [let me repeat that social networks are a small part of social media:)'] - in this post I am going to discuss few aspects of Social Media Marketing and how businesses could focus on it.

Wikipedia defines Social Media Marketing as ‘a social engagement with online world to generate more exposure,opportunities and sales for businesses’ - however one of the biggest concerns I have seen people talking about using Social Media Marketing is  ‘How do we start?’ and ‘How  do we measure the value for our efforts?’

If I can quickly summarize few benefits - Social Media platforms provides a wonderful opportunity to describe benefits of your product/service,engage with your customers online and start meaningful conversations around your product/service/industry news/latest happenings/useful stuff , track what is  your brand awareness and reputation in online world , generate new leads/prospects/sales  and check how satisfied customers are with your service? etc . The problem in Social Media Marketing isn’t about what kind of benefits , it can deliver but it’s more of how do we  execute it.

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Few things that I have learned from my little experience are:

Study the current online state of your brand and competitors - this will give you a fair idea on where you are currently?.

Identify business expectations -  list down your goals (branding, customer engagement etc) and targets(sales,leads etc) from running a social media marketing initiative.

Identify product/service value proposition - and educate the guys who are running your company SMM   initiatives about the benefits not just your product features.

Choose the right channel & early adaptors - Identify your target market users and start with one social channel (either a corporate blog,customer forum,twitter,facebook business page,podcast etc) as your primary platform to deliver the message - stick to that unless you really see a need for another channel.Help your customers who are complaining online , show some love to your happy customers and engage with prospects. Also focus on your existing brand loyalists first - they help you to spread the message faster and better.

Contribute and Empower users - Whatever business you are in - try to create/share/discuss a useful content that your consumers would love to use [tips ,suggestions,best practices etc], a content that empowers your prospects to make a buying decision and a content that brings in community feeling among users to contribute further. Don’t try to sell instead focus on helping them make decisions .

People love to spread your message if they see value in it - so content is the king , discussions brings out the best and engagement with users will help you to increases loyalty and sales.

What is your experience and take on SocialMediaMarketing for businesses?.