All businesses need a cost-effective way to communicate with customers to remain competitive. A common method used by all types of industries is social media marketing. For many, our wildly-wired-world seems like an impossible maze and it’s only getting started. One very successful social media expert (owner of Virtual Assist USA and creative director for PGH Marketing), Daniella Cuomo put together this great list below for which she titles: The 10 commandments of social media marketing.
1) Use It! Top companies such as Starbucks, Dell and Ford use social media to communicate and market to their customers. Creating stellar content for your marketing materials is great. But great content doesn’t distribute itself. It needs vehicles for people to pass it along, discuss it, blog it and tweet it, which is where social media comes in.
2) Locate the exact people you want to talk to Companies can select specifics – moms of teenagers, young professionals, those looking to buy a new car. Learn how to search for people based on their age, location and preferences. For example, a wedding planner could look up everyone in the area that is engaged!
3) Foster the Trust You know your customers have choices when it comes to where they do business. You also know customers buy from people they like and trust. Social media marketing is the way to build relationships.
4) People are taking about your brand and your company. Be a part of the conversation. Keep a close eye on the ongoing online conversations about your dealership – blogs, posts, tweets and more. It’s important to enter the conversation to listen and participate. You make your customers feel connected to you and your dealership.
5) Blog Like Crazy Blog about your new employee. Blog about next month’s special. Even blog about the company’s history. Lots of business owners think that they cannot blog, but they are wrong. Existing blogger sites – Blogger.com, GoingOn.com or WordPress.com – offer customized templates, to get you started.
6) Make it Easier Use programs like Tweet Deck to set up Twitter messages in advance, just one time a month. Use PingFM to distribute a message that you only have to type in once. Use WordPress to create a customized blog with the same design as your website.
7) Let Them See You Photos, videos and podcasts. They are free to create and upload; they only cost you time. What is better for a future customer to see than a current customers’ happy, smiling testimonial on your website? Set yourself apart from the competition by making your pages active and engaging; include MP3s of your top employees talking about their favorite parts of the company.
Know When It’s Happening Set a Google Alert for a search engine. It will send you an email every time something gets indexed with your name. You need to know what people are saying about you so that you can participate.
9) Do It Often The social profiles that come up highest on the search engines are the ones who are most active. Spend time 3 times a week sending updates, making creative posts and sharing news.
10) Know the benefits Social media is cost-effective marketing! You can use LinkedIn to send the message that you are hiring new employees and use Twitter to send out quick messages about short specials. By staying involved in social, you show your customers that you are transparent, authentic, up-to-date and most of all, you are a real person!
Social media and social networking aren’t going away any time soon. The major players and the types of social sites may change, but this is a new medium and professional marketers are quickly adapting. Don’t be left behind.
As I always say, social media is not for everyone–yet. Remember, good business is built on solid relationships and it takes more than a tweet to gain trust.
PGH Marketing
Tags: PGH Marketing, social media
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Do you feel programs like TweetDeck defeat the original purpose of Twitter – answering the question “What am I doing now?”
Does that matter if you are pushing your brand or service or is the real value of Twitter its timeliness?
Keith
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