Key Questions to Consider Before Joining a Social Network

For small and large businesses alike, the limitless potential social media holds can be a double-edged sword. Billions of people from all backgrounds glued to their social accounts on a 24/7 basis, just waiting to be engaged and influenced by brands like yours.

All well and good, but where on Earth do you even start?

No business can realistically afford to spread itself with even effectiveness across all social networks. There are just too many of them, and the whole thing would be far too time-consuming.

 

Instead, therefore, it is a case of considering which social networks are likely to work best for your business. Something that can be surprisingly simple to figure out, after considering the following five questions:

1. What is your main motivation for choosing this platform?

This will instantly help you narrow things down, as you need to consider your motivations carefully. Are you considering joining a social network because it is popular, trendy and has a massive global audience? Or are you doing so because the platform could genuinely support the mission and objectives of your business? Be where the temptation to bandwagon-hop where social networking is concerned, as it often paves the way for wasted time and money.

2. Do you have the resources?

You also need to consider carefully whether you have the resources you will need to run a viable campaign on the platform in question. It’s important to remember that the content creation process on platforms like TikTok is completely different to that of Facebook or Twitter. You may have your needs covered comfortably for your current social requirements, but do you have the resources to branch out into new territory?

3. Are your customers using this platform?

A little research is all it takes to discover exactly who is using which platforms, and for what reasons. Depending on the age, location, preferences and even income level of those you are targeting, some platforms could be entirely more suitable than others. For a good indication of where your audience is, take a look at the platforms your biggest (and most successful) competitors are focusing their efforts on.

4. Who will oversee the project?

Two options here – one being to handle things in-house, the other being to outsource. Of course, you’ll need to be involved in your own social media efforts to at least some extent, due to the nature of the beast. They want to see you, talk to you, hear about you and connect with you – not with an unrelated third party. Even so, outsourcing at least some of your social media marketing activities could help you get the most out of your project.

5. What are our specific goals for this initiative?

Last up, a social network selection should be based primarily on your brand’s broader goals and objectives. Are you looking to generate leads, get new customers on board, boost your brand image and reputation, sell more products, diversify into new markets, or simply build better customer relationships? Some platforms are better than others at helping businesses achieve these and other goals, so consider your selection wisely.

8 Rather Revealing Social Media Marketing Statistics

Regardless of whether you yourself are personally active on social media, you are probably aware of its power and potential in a business setting. Which makes it all the more surprising that a striking proportion of businesses are still making little to no effort whatsoever to capitalise on social media. With no less than a third of the entire global population now actively using at least one social platform, never in history has there been a marketing tool with such extraordinary reach.

So with this in mind, what follows is a quick overview of 8 social Media Marketing statistics that could (and perhaps should) prompt a change in your current marketing policies:

1. First of all, a recent study carried out by Pew Research found that no less than 76% of Internet users now regularly use at least one social media service. What’s more, heavy and routine social media use is no longer confined to millennials – every single age group has grown over the past five years.

2. On a global basis, there are now somewhere in the region of 1.98 billion mobile social media users. Considering the fact that the total global population of social media users is around 2.3 billion, this clearly illustrates the importance of focusing on mobile. After all, mobile is the access method of choice for no less than 85% of social media users.

3. According to MediaPost, the average amount of time every Internet user is spending interacting with social media is increasing all the time. In fact, people are now spending an average of 109 minutes – or 7% of their entire day – using their chosen social media platforms. That’s 7% of every single day, 365 days a year.

4. And in terms of time spent online, the folks at comScore report that one in every five online minutes is now spent using social media. Which means that for every hour the average web user spends online, a solid 12 minute are spent using social media platforms.

5. By the year 2020, the vast majority of businesses will be spending somewhere in the region of 25% of their entire marketing budgets on social media. That’s according to a recent CMO Survey, which found that even those businesses that are already investing heavily in social media intend to up the stakes enormously going forward.

6. In terms of communication, millennials are much happier to get in touch with businesses via social media than by any other conventional means of contact. Which technically is nothing but a good thing from a business perspective as communicating via social media really couldn’t be easier.

7. Despite the fact that more than 80% of professional marketers say that they understand the power and importance of social media, the majority remain entirely unaware of how to fully capitalise on it. Reluctance to outsource or involve third-party professionals is one of the biggest of all roadblocks when it comes to social media marketing.

8. Last but not least, while so many businesses continue to regard Twitter as something of a one-way communication channel, research has shown that almost three-quarters (72%) of consumers expect a response to their customer service tweets in less than 60 minutes.

Use Social Media to Make an ‘Emotional Connection’ that Increases Brand Loyalty

Take a peek in your wallet. How many brand loyalty cards are you currently carrying?

It’s reckoned that the average UK household is signed up to 12 store/ retail loyalty schemes – everything from collecting points to save money on your supermarket shopping and cash-back on credit card spends, to getting a free cappuccino for every 10 purchases made at your favourite high street coffee shop.
It seems all our favourite brands are leveraging the power of brand loyalty – encouraging customers to shop with them more often.

Many of the top brands like Starbucks and Coca-Cola have long recognized the increasingly important part that social media plays in their customers’ lives and are using it to their competitive advantage.

Using established interactive social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to bring together fans of your brand makes perfect sense, because you will be harnessing the ‘share’ potential of the Internet.

But how do we define brand loyalty? And is it necessary to make the distinction between someone who will buy that 10th coffee from you just to get the freebie, and those who love your Java recipe so much, as well as the ambiance of your café bar, they’d never go anywhere else regardless?

If you belong to a Frequent Flier Programme, ask yourself whether you would still fly with that same airline if a competitor launched a significantly cheaper, but similar service in terms of standard and quality. And if you’re someone who checks price comparison sites regularly, as an increasing number of us do these days, then brand loyalty may not be something you’re driven by, as much as value for money.

As creatures of habit, many of us shop at the same places, at pretty much the same times, week on week, whether the retailers concerned have a loyalty scheme in place or not. These shopping ‘repurchases’ are justified through considerations such as convenience, price, service, or quality. You see, ‘repurchasing’ is not the same as loyalty.

True brand loyalty is achieved when our brand makes an emotional connection with its audience: We love it that Innocent smoothies are 100 per cent fresh fruit and no junk; that Apple computers are cool; that Lego has built a great online community we can be a part of; that Harley-Davidson represents the “adventure of a lifetime.”

And, as fans of brands, we love connecting with those brands via social media, because they reward us with something extra for our loyalty. There’s newsletters, competitions, giveaways, online interaction with fellow enthusiasts – all the extra stuff we get for free, just for signing up to their sites. And here’s the thing, we’re getting an exclusive deal other people are missing out on because they choose not to be a part of that community.

These socially-connected brands have established an emotional rapport with their followers that that goes way beyond ‘repurchasing’ and creates ‘fans for life’.

By using social media to engage and communicate with your target audience – and by offering exclusive deals to those who follow you – your brand could do the same. A recent study found that 37 per cent of Facebook users who have ‘friended’ a brand, cited ‘product discounts and special promotions’ as their main reason for doing so.

Consider how your brand might use Facebook Pages and other forms of social media to connect with more like-minded people who could become valued customers. What emotional message might your brand build its fan base around? And how will you reward your followers for their loyalty and thus create fans for life?

Creating exclusive offers for your online community is a proven way to establish a fan base and encourage more sign-ups. As well as making more sales, you will have a ready-made focus group that will help you with research into your current business, as well as ideas for developing and marketing new products and services.

How to Use Twitter to Advertise Your Business

Twitter is just one of many social networking sites available these days and if you know what you are doing you can use it to help advertise your home business. It allows you to network with likeminded people and help you spread the word about what it is you do. You can provide information about your products or services as well as marketing to people of offers and discounts that you may have. It can also be a great way to receive feedback on how others perceive your business and what you could do to grow.

1. New to Twitter?

If you have never used Twitter before then you may be wondering what it is all about. To put it simply, a ‘tweet’ is the text that you create and post to your account for others to see. This is normally a maximum of 140 characters and allows you to tell all your followers what you are thinking. In this way you can use your ‘tweets’ to inform others of any special promotions or discounts and keep them up to date with what you are doing. This helps to provide a way for you to advertise your home business venture.

2. Target the Right Audience

Once you have set up your Twitter account it is vital that you make sure your ‘followers’ are people that would be interested in what it is you do, or who can offer you help and advice. You can then try to interact with your followers by commenting on their ‘tweets’ or asking questions on yours. In this way you will hopefully build up a good rapport with people and they will see you and your business as worthwhile and you will gain a good reputation.

3. Be Professional

Of course, it is important to remember not to spam your new ‘followers’ as people can view this as being a little desperate and they may choose to delete you. Make sure that you remain professional at all times to avoid alienating your potential customers. Avoid over ‘tweeting’ and try to mix up the posts you make to include some more light-hearted elements so that it does not seem like you are constantly promoting your business. The key to good advertising on Twitter is to find a good balance.

Overall, be sure to keep your ‘tweets’ professional and to the point since the number of characters you can use is limited. It can be a great way to get some free advertising for your business but make sure that your followers feel that you value their friendship and business. Treat Twitter as any other method of marketing and remember that it will take time and effort to begin with.