Hi! Does your company effectively use it’s social media pages to add value to your followers, or are you just posting blatant ‘asks’ for a sale? Through a blog posted on my website I broke down some of the 5 annoying things brands do on social media. You can read the article https://bulbbraincreative.com/2018/03/23/5-annoying-things-brands-do-on-social-media/. Most brands treat social media as another chance to boast about a new deal or to remind their followers as to why they should buy their product.
Your customers are looking for entertaining and educational content about your brand which will then ENTICE them to purchase your product or service. They want it in your voice and your personality so they get to know you better through your business.
The conversation on social media shouldn’t be treated like a one time ad in a newspaper, but a constant conversation you’re having with a friend about your business. They know what you do but they’re interested in the nuances.
If you’re a restaurant is there a special cheese or ingredient or sauce that helps make your food special? Talk about that for a couple posts. Break that down and explain why you chose it, how you came up with it and why it’s important to you.
If you’re a dentist are there certain foods or drinks to consume to help either strengthen teeth or help whiten teeth? Talk about that for a couple posts. Try not to get too technical, but explain about different acidity and what too much can do to your teeth.
If you’re an auto repair shop are there little tips to either help customers get more miles per gallon or help a car extend it’s life? Talk about that for a couple posts. Break down the different parts and things that need more attention than the other parts.
An extremely important thing to remember is if someone comments on your post: Respond! They’re reaching out to you so respond to them! Then whomever visits your site will see your response, know that you care about your customer and know that they’ll get the same support from you when they have a question! (managing negative comments is a whole other conversation, but if you acknowledge their issue and try to make it right you’re showing them and everyone else who sees it that you take pride in your business and want to do everything to make it right. Don’t ever go head to head with them or air any grievances. Be mature and make things right and you could potentially earn them back)
Being engulfed in your business for years you become the expert and learn every little nuance for you to become the expert, but those tips are things your customers as a beginner may not know. Going back to the basics can be a great source of expert content for your social media pages which help educate your customers and help you become the trusted advisor in your field.
My name is Michael Rataj and I’m the owner of Bulb Brain Creative. We specialize in creating video and photo content for distribution over social media to full hands on social media management like posting, engaging with customers, replying to comments and messages, etc. I have mobile studio where I’d bring lights and camera to your business or I have spaces to film interview content. Call me at 708-942-1791 or mike@bulbbraincreative.com if you want me to give a no obligation review of your social media and the story you’re telling. You can follow me on instagram or facebook at bulbbraincreative.
An informative article with all the points discussed well. The blog is also amazing. The conclusion is perfect. The social network strategy is essential for the social promotion of your business. But I’m still baffled, what’s the difference between marketing through social media and marketing content?
Hello Jerry, thank you for the kind words!
I think the biggest different with marketing through social media is actually distributing whatever materials you create via social media. IE, this blog, which i did NOT post on my social media, but it’s on my web site. So that’s part of my marketing content as the whole SEO thing is concerned.
The point of social media marketing is as a 3rd party thing where you can poach people to bring them into your sphere via website and your social media pages.
For example with SEO you’re posting on a website and hoping you show up in a search when people are looking for relevant things to what you’re offering.
On social media you’re able to create the same stuff you’d post on your website but post it onto youtube or fb or instagram or whatever as a way to get it in front of OTHER people who aren’t necessarilly looking for what you offer, but, maybe haven’t been convined they ever needed your service, and that’s where social media comes in.
People hang out on these sites so it’s important to have your website/marketing content POSTED onto your social media, so, having a business fb/ig/whatever and posting content natively there would be part of social media marketing while your marketing content is what you post on the fb/ig/whatever pages AND your website.
I hope that helps!
Hey, you’re a really good article writer, I want to be conscious about your topic, what are the basic benefits of Social Media Marketing? What is the basic meaning of choosing an audience? How to optimize your blog post for social sharing through making commenting easy?
Hello Emmet Jack! Thanks for your reply. Let me answer these questions and then I’ll turn it into a blog.
Basic benefits of social media marketing – By now it should be apparent that’s where the majority of us spend our time. Even if we’re not on it every minute of the day, when we do sign on we receive a fire hose of information, from, almost everyone trying to sell us on changing our mind or getting us to buy something.
So it’s important to be there because the majority of people are on there. If you’re connected to 700 on your personal facebook page, it might make sense to share a great video you made from your BUSINESS facebook page (which has 15 followers) to your personal page (which has 700 followers).
Now just because you share a video doesn’t mean it’s going to ‘work’, ie, people won’t just flood your door, but, you’re now giving yourself and your business (or hobby, or whatever your FB page is about) an almost 450% increase in visibility to new eyes.
And that’s all it’s about. B/c you can spend money to get in a daily shopper, or post on a bulletin board as you’re walking out of the grocery store, or EDDM, or a billboard or TV ad, but social media is currently where you can access a bunch of random people, effectively.
Basic meaning of choosing an audience. If you’ve been in business for some time you have a general customer that buys your products. IE, is it males 35-50? Females 28-40, married with a family, is it divorced, single males 50-65, etc. If you can understand where your hot spot is of people that buy your product or service the most, you can then understand the different things they like and respond to and cater your marketing and/or content creation to be of extra interest to this specific audience, in the hopes that it will attract similar people.
Conversely, imagine if your product only sells to men but you would like to sell to women too. Then you work on creating content for the female audience. It will differ if the woman is single vs married vs a mother vs a grandmother and so on, so again understand who exactly you’d like to reach will help you create content for the audience.
IE if you’re going for the mothers aged 28-40, understand what concerns and issues and needs they have and then address them with your product or service.
How to optimize your blog for social sharing through making commenting easy
Essentially make sure your pages are public and you allow those things, that’s step 1.
Going back to the personal FB page or even private instagram, if you’re trying to reach NEW people you need to make sure your page and everything on it is public. Which is why if you’d rather keep stuff private where you post pics of your kids, your food, if you go out to bars or see live music, etc then it’s important to create a separate PUBLIC facebook and/or instagram profile to be used exclusively for pitching your business or service.
Now this also relates to the TYPE of content you create. Once you have a public page with visibility, you want to attempt to create a conversation about something, so instead of just telling someone ‘hey i do video services, brand stories start at $2,000’ for every social post, i’ll lose people.
However, if I continually show people the cool brand stories that Bulb Brain Creative makes, then people would attempt to comment asking questions about how they could get one, because i’ve shown then what we do and if they were moved emotionally by a random persons story, then in theory it should be possible to do it for them!
But comments are essential because they could guide your content.
Now this is the other magic part.
Listening.
If people are commenting, and they’re not anonymous trolls, listen to their feedback. If a lot of people like a certain shot you do in multiple stories, do a tutorial on setting up that shot, or at least explain it more in depth to people. Explain why using this type of shot after setting up a character helps drive home who the character is, or something.
Or, if someone asks a really good question maybe that can turn into a whole other blog! (Thanks Emmet Jack for the great comment that inspired this blog 🙂
You can also gauge the pulse of the community through your feed, which can also lead to you creating more content if you see how you might be able to answer someone’s questions.
And I think this was what you were asking, but, you have to imagine you’re having a conversation with someone. A lot of times people may not actually respond, but if you get them to think in their pause, that’s usually enough for the first couple of times.
I hope this answers your questions, thanks for the feedback!