Image by: Kropekk
By Giovanni Fields
Creating a social media site and sticking your neck out there for the masses may come off as quite an intimidating task for any budding entrepreneurs. But when you consider how technological our world has become and how many users there are on the web, utilizing social media is an absolute necessity. The reason it is pretty much a requirement for businesses to become tech savvy social experts is quite simple: because you get more customers.
Of course it is possible to keep things old school with flyers, billboards and word of mouth, but while in this day of age why not indulge yourself in the fruits of technology? Social media sites are relatively easy to use, they’re free, and above all they allow you to spread word of how fantastic your product or company is.
With that being said, it can be quite difficult to integrate upon just starting, and you may find yourself overwhelmed by the amount of tools and sudden information you need to get familiar with. But like with anything, practice makes perfect, and if you’ve been struggling to generate a large and consistent media following, then here are 4 ways in which you can do so.
#1) Consistency
The most important thing for those who decide to invest their marketing efforts into social media is consistency. Not adding as many friends as possible, not commenting on as many profiles as you can, and not posting ridiculously professional pictures of yourself or product, but plain old habitual consistency–although those aforementioned could certainly help you as well.
Creating a schedule that you stick to no matter what the situation is will do well with maintaining a consistency that your crowd can get familiar with. Not only will this be a good indicator of reliability for all your potential customers, but this exercise of sticking to a strict schedule will also aid you in building strong habits that can eventually translate into the added progression of your company.
Habits may be hard to instill, but with that they are hard to break as well, and once you decide that you want to dedicate exactly 2 hours a day to boosting traffic, you will be effectively be resolving yourself to something that can do nothing else but benefit your business. This is important with not only tasks in the work place, but social media especially.
Browsers online tend to lose interest in something fast if they don’t see regularly new content that is helpful to them. And to keep these browsers (i.e. potential customers) happy a social media system that’s steady, reliable and quality will do well with building a nice, juicy following.
#2) Stay Informed
Staying cognizant of what’s going on in your specific market is of great importance if you have any plans of accruing even more customers. Keeping a close eye on the news, trends and advancements that products similar to yours are making will keep your media pages fresh, up to date and interesting. You don’t necessarily have to be a copycat so-to-speak, stealing the ideas and innovations of opposing forces, but perhaps taking different concepts, dissecting them, and re-establishing them as your own will keep you clearly distinguishable from those bothersome competitors.
This will help you stay ahead of the curve and will give you a a rather unique way of connecting with your fans and followers.
#3) Narrow Your Focus
The most intimidating thing about starting your social media campaign may in fact be deciding on which platforms to choose. Back in the old days when there was just Myspace, Facebook and Twitter things were a lot simpler and easier to manage. But now in days with sites like Tumblr, Pinterest, Google plus, Instagram, Linked In, and other growing competitors, keeping up with a dozen media sites can prove to be a troublesome task.
A troublesome task indeed, and unless you’ve got more free time than an unemployed college drop-out, then I’d suggest you narrow your focus to only those sites that work best for your business. Even if you only choose a couple sites to put all your energy into, as long as your time invested is lucrative and bringing you much-needed exposure, you can still be making the most out of social media. Also, as your obligations will be narrowed, you’d have more time to focus on expanding whatever social media site it was that you’d choose, making it bigger, better, and bustling with traffic.
#4) Be as Interactive as Possible
Social media exists essentially to become as interactive as possible with those in your niche market–hence, the word social being utilized. The fact is no matter how amazing your product or company is, if you’re shoving advertisements down strangers’ throats and desperately imploring browsers to buy your product, then you will likely scare the customers away before you even get a chance to make a sale.
Social media marketing gives consumers the opportunity to not only get a glimpse of your product, but to also get the inside scoop about the guy producing it. Often times if you present yourself as witty, interesting and accessible, people will respond well and be that much more intrigued to see what you concocted.
Staying closely connected with your friends and followers by making posts that invite responses, answering questions or complaints about your product in a prompt manner, and responding to their comments will suggest that your commitment to your product is boundless. And this should leave them with that much more incentive to jump on the wagon.