The following is reprinted from the March 2011 issue of New Business Minesota. For a full copy of the articles, download this PDF or click the image to the right.
Social media has changed the way people interact with businesses on the web. A simple website with text from your brochure (that hasn’t been updated for months) is no longer enough. To get the best results, your site needs to be a central hub for everywhere your prospects and customers spend time online, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and more. The good news: it’s not tough to manage if you use the right tools and ask the right questions before you start.
Here’s what BizzyWeb asks our clients to help them “generate buzz without getting stung”:
1) What do you do? Think about your best, most lucrative and fun customers and answer these questions: “Why do they buy from us?” and “What makes us different from our competition?” Work the answers into your website and social media.
2) What do you need to accomplish? Know where you need to “move the needle” before you begin any online campaign, redesign or program. Know how you’ll give your customers what they want, and how you’ll use online tools to make it happen. By themselves, the following goals are useless: more Facebook fans, followers on Twitter, hits on your website, or showing up higher in Google searches.
3) What tools will you use? Once you know what you need to do and who you need to reach you can make something happen. A quick cheat sheet:
• Twitter is great for sharing useful tidbits with your followers.
• LinkedIn is fantastic for corporate branding and reaching out to professionals. (See a great article on how to use LinkedIn company pages at Freelance Folder)
• Facebook is perfect for companies who want to reach out to the public (recent Company Page changes have made pages more simple to use).
• Your website should be the central hub where everything comes together, and where you can post to all the above with one click.
4) How will you measure results? Don’t forget to track what you’re doing so you know if you’re successful. Free tools like Google Analytics, search.twitter.com, HootSuite, TweetDeck, and advanced searches on LinkedIn or Facebook will give you data to work with. Keep your end goal in mind when you measure to avoid wasting time.
5) How will you keep it current? You MUST keep updating your content and listen to what your customers are saying. Set a schedule to check your accounts and respond to customers (weekly at a minimum) and be sure to post something new at least as often. For a great reference of recent news to pull from, check out alltop.com, which features syndicated feeds of hundreds of great blogs.
If the above seems daunting, consider bringing in a pro to help set you up to succeed. Online tools don’t need to be difficult to use – search to find someone you’re comfortable with (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are great places to start) and dive in.
What questions did we miss? Speak Your Mind below and add your essential questions for online marketing!
Congrats to BizzyWeb clients and friends Swanson Law, Triton Marketing and S.O.S. Communications for being featured in this month’s issue along with us!
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