So do you want to market your business online through social media marketing? Don’t know where to start? Well, here are some strategies to get you started, including the power of hashtags on Twitter. (A subject I will return to later.) They’re free and easy to apply and great for any small business or if you’re just working from home to make money in your chosen industry, plus using the best iPhone apps.
- instagram account for business – One of the key actions that has come from Instagram is that small businesses across the planet are embracing this relatively new phenomenon to market their businesses. Visitors interact with color and image platforms (as well as short videos) and see a different side of the companies. It shows a very human side of a company, thus demonstrating that it is not just about selling, selling, selling. Take action on Instagram if you haven’t already. A cool little app for your iPhone that allows you to interact with your customers even when you’re not in the office or, in fact, not even at work…
- facebook and twitter – FB is still the world’s favorite with Twitter hashtags inside. The saying goes, your friends are who you talk to on FB, on Twitter, you talk to the world. Hashtags are a must on Twitter, although they are still frowned upon in FB and Facebook marketing. Although people do use them, I am inclined not to as they serve no purpose in the way people use FB to search and are therefore not the ideal way to make money for your business. There is a rule of thumb on Twitter, so if you want to use hashtags on Twitter, never use more than this. You don’t want to get caught spamming either site, or FB would shut down your page. Tag your keyword in the search box and see what people are saying about it. Join the conversation if you can, and answer questions if they have any. This is a free thing to do and it will get the world to notice.
- Facebook Advertising – You also don’t have to subscribe to FB’s high ad posts, although I would make use of their ad manager as you can use this to see your audience demographics. The tools on FB allow you to see exactly how many people you could target who are already on FB. FB will calculate the number of people who match your ‘ideal customer’ criteria (so if you haven’t done this, do it! It’s very valuable!) I would also recommend that your friends share your business page and so on. Join groups on FB who are already interested in the area or product you are marketing, view the discussions on these pages, and join. Once people see you as an expert, they are more likely to trust you and therefore buy from you. In the next paragraph, I highlight another useful tool: Google+ and the way to benefit from all of these social media platforms is to be consistent with your content and link them all together for easy posting. The best iPhone and Android hardware apps for this are free and make this process a breeze. I recommend the free Hootsuite account to get started.
- Youtube – cannot be ruled out, and it is constantly growing in social media marketing. It’s used as a search engine by a growing number of people (you’ll also be able to link a Google+ account to this too, and it’s skyrocketed marketing success. Mainly for larger businesses, but small businesses are targeting it too (All owned by Google of course, that’s the big word you need to impress on the net!) I would certainly consider making movies about you, your team, product and giving demos on how to use your product or if it’s a service use the video to tell them how they will benefit from using your service. People need to know what the benefits are.
The art of having, what is…
- As a mantra, always remember this… ‘Has, Which, So’. In other words… tell your customers what you have or what your product has, then tell them what that service/product will do. ‘So’… tell them the benefit of using the service/product. You will also need to use this type of content on your website. Have fun with your videos. Add music (free music of course, several sites will offer free music) and credits, also add a link to your website at the beginning and end of the movie. Don’t do it for more than three minutes; people tend to get bored if it lasts longer. Keep this in mind with your podcasts as well. AudioBoom for Business is a great place to upload podcasts very easily. They do all the formatting with you and you can download the app so you can make podcasts and upload them on the go. Three minutes on this site will get you a free account. If you want to do hour-long podcasts, you’ll need to pay. Around £60 per year is still a good investment, but first of all I’m sure the free account will do just as well.
- blog – I cannot stress this enough. Use WordPress (loved and adored by Google). I also recommend a plugin called Squirrly SEO. Paired with the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, you’ll maximize your chances of reaching the first page of Google results. It is a tool that sits next to your posts in the editing stage and will help you make the most of the keywords that Google searches for. Use the Google Keyword Tool to find the keywords your customers are likely to use to find you. You tap on a keyword and the plugin will tell you who is searching for that word, talking about it from news feeds and social media. It will even give you a range of royalty-free images to use, so the hard word is being done for you. It will also tell you as you type if your post is supported by Google and how to maximize it. You get the first 40 keywords free, then you have to pay after that and it costs around £6-9 per month. An excellent investment and won’t break the bank. Of course, with your blog, you can share it everywhere, including here (!) and other sites like Empire Avenue and Tumblr.
REMEMBER! Google loves links and you will score high G if you have a lot of inbound links to your site from other sites. The best way to do this is to share your content as above. Always make sure that the links are from sites that are reputable and appreciated by Google. Don’t just ask people to link to your site from anywhere. Google will detect you and you will lose credit with them. Publish your articles in places like E-zine, another Google favorite site. If you’re not sure about anything, the best advice? Google first, Google your keywords and see who shows up – the first page is your competition. There is also a WordPress plugin for E-zine that allows you to publish your article the moment you publish it on your blog. I would use WP plugins to the fullest. They are brilliant and helpful, especially the All In One SEO plugin, which I highly recommend and will do all the SEO for your site.
