Utilising Social Media In Marketing.

This is part five of a five part series on Social Media For Your Business

• Part One: Introduction
• Part Two: What is Social Media?
• Part Three: How to Sell Yourself through Facebook
• Part Four: Social Media Essentials
• Part Five: Utilising Social Media In Marketing

Part Five: Utilising Social Media In Marketing

Social Media enables you to draw out and express the personality and colour of your business. It allows you to show that your brand has a personality of its own and is run by regular humans (just like your target market). This, in turn, allows your customers to perceive your business as one with integrity and trustworthiness.

Here are 3 key approaches to Social Media for marketing and why it can benefit your business in completing your image

Speak! And be heard!

Social Media extends your business’ visible presence. So be visible! Speak!

The most immediate benefit of using Social Media is that it extends the reach of your business. A Social Media profile is like an always-open shop-front, or an automated telephone, or a ubiquitous brochure.

Previously, we have stressed the necessity of listening to your customers and competitors and taking onboard their feedback. Every conversation, however involves both listening and speaking. So make sure you use your Social Media channels to speak.

Speaking is important because it opens the door to a conversation with your customers and potential customers and stimulates them to respond.

There are various ways one can go about using their Social Media platforms to speak. Here are four:

• Write a blog post about a past project, or previous event
• Write a status about a future project, or a new deal or featured product
• Post a picture of a current project
• Share a topical or off-beat news story related to your industry

Respond quickly

How ’bout now? How ’bout now? How ’bout now?

Your customers are a lot like that when they have a problem. The speed with which you respond is a major factor in the perception of your brand (customers and non-customers alike).

Answer quickly and you achieve two things:

• You can publicly fix someone’s problem (or at least let the know you are on the case), which more often than not turns a negative comment into a positive live discussion thread.
• Show people that you are real and attentive to their needs

Here are the highlights of the average time taken to respond on Twitter for your favorite brand names.

Give your brand a personality!

Creating a memorable brand experience through your Social Media platforms helps build a strong relationship between your business and customers.

The tone with which you communicate to your customers is in itself a branding element. It is a point of distinction between you and your competitors and gives customers and potential customers an insight into your business. Exposing your brand personality will predispose your potential customers to your business

Perhaps your business is a young, creative agency and has a hip, fun and not-so-serious vibe. Your social media presence should reflect this. Share a story or upload an image or video of shenanigans that happen in your office.

A good example of this is Connected Ventures, who produced a single-take lip-dub video to promote their young, fun and creative business (see below)

//vimeo.com/173714

That is it for this month’s posts on Social Media! If you haven’t check out the other posts and have an interest in learning more, just hop onto the blog section of our site and browse through the tags.

Have a great week!

Spicy Team.