Social media is a highly effective tool that, if used effectively and in conjunction with your SEO strategy, can lure new customers and generate extra business for companies.
Engagement
The whole point about social media can be encapsulated in just one word: engagement. How to attract people to follow you on Twitter or “like” your company on Facebook or join you on Google+, and then make your posts actionable? It means engaging people to the extent that your posts create a follow-on effect, whereby they click on a link that takes them to your website or blog or they respond directly to special events such as promotions, sales or competitions. Here’s an example: Company X sells shoes and has a surplus of stock that it wants to quickly get rid of to make way for incoming designs. How to swiftly shift them? One effective way is to use Twitter and a hashtag such as #flashsale. Simply inform your followers, and all those many people who regularly check bargain hashtags such as #flashsale, that for the next hour you’re going to be selling various types of shoes at rock-bottom prices. Readers will flock to your site and scoop up the deals.
Facebook & Google+
This strategy can be duplicated on Facebook and Google+ and has the advantage of boosting a firm’s presence on social media because people will want to follow, “like” and join to keep up with your offers. The same can be done to inform people about the arrival of new products – it’s a powerful and no-cost way to advertise your company and its products and services.
Using Blogs
Another way companies can increase their social media impact is by regularly publishing blogs on specialist subjects and linking them on social media with relevant hashtags. This creates an authority effect and people will want to know about the latest developments. The internet is evolving into an enormous storehouse of rich media – because that’s exactly what people want. The new phrase “gone viral” is proof of the massive popularity of such content, where people repost or retweet videos and images that they like. Firms can get in on this wave of interest by uploading relevant material to their sites and linking it on social media.
Use an Online Marketing Agency
Don’t worry if no one in your organisation has the skills or expertise – or the time – to start producing high-quality video snippets or professional photographs. Sign up an online marketing agency and they’ll do it all for you. Firms can also engage in social media advertising, so that their posts will appear in prominent positions in users’ streams on the various sites. Along with good SEO management, where a company’s website and other online material is geared towards high returns from search engines, using social media in a highly engaging way will ensure real and quick results for companies. It’s all part of the thriving new digital economy where people expect to be instantly informed – and make instant purchases.
