9 Killer Apps For Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) January 16, 2012 -- Social media marketing is not just a new buzzword. The tactics and strategies available to all businesses through social media provide a new and very powerful set of tools to complement your more traditional approaches. I have identified 9 great applications to use as part of your social media marketing compendium to help grow your business .

1. Listen:

Blogs, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter (and a number of other sites) all provide a vehicle to listen to your clients and customers , to receive feedback (sometimes instantly), and to better understand their needs. Listening to customers has not been so easy in the past. We all know the shortcomings of focus groups, or calling a few customers to get their reactions: you don’t always get a true picture of what is needed. The new social media sites can provide you with an enormous amount of continuous information on which to adapt and modify your marketing message, your products and services , and the ability to snag new business.

2. Inform:

Providing valued information to your clients and customers in a timely fashion helps build trust and belief in you and your products or services. Most social media sites now offer the ability to have a company page where you can display your products and services and write about them. This attribute cannot be over emphasized as an approach to help create creditability, to enhance relationships, and ultimately to drive new business and keep existing customers coming back. Whether it is a timely blog, Facebook entry or update on Linkedin or Twitter, this is a powerful mechanism that social media can uniquely provide.

3. Targeting Customers:
Just who are your customers and clients anyway? What are their backgrounds, what do they like and not like, what groups do they belong too? Now, more than ever, information is available through social media sites to start to answer some of these questions, and for the first time provides you with a channel by which you can reach your customers in a targeted way.

4. Brand Awareness:

Social media is used by many companies to create awareness and clarity of their brand, and the products and services offered. You can do it too. Your brand image and positioning should be carefully thought through as an important part of your overall social media strategy . It is important to ensure consistency across the different social media sites you use which will enhance the perception of your brand. I will cover this subject in more detail in a future blog.

5. Public Relations:
Social media sites can provide a powerful and timely tool to communicate important information and news regarding your company, your accomplishments, activities, products and services. Linking your sites, your blog, twitter, Facebook, website and others can help. Of course, not just good news travels fast in the social media world, but bad news too. So be prepared with a Public Relations Plan that addresses how you want to communicate bad news or to handle negative comments. It’s important.

6. Advertising:

Many of the social media sites offer specific company templates from which you can advertise your wears, provide promotions and create a need for your products. The company website is still an essential tool and is seen by many as the most important and trustworthy site to obtain information about products. Making sure your website is up to date, easy to navigate and easy to initiate a purchase is key.

7. Interactions:

Social media creates a new vehicle for two-way communications with your customers to better understand needs, product acceptance, discuss ideas and solve problems. For the first time, you are able to receive comments, questions, ideas and criticisms directly from your customers and able in most circumstance to respond to them. This is in itself is an important aspect of social media, and great care should be taken to ensure the quality of the responses and interactions. Remember, this could lead to gaining or losing a valued customer. I will cover this topic in more detail in a later blog too.

8. New Business Leads:

So now we are getting down to business. Having set up all these customer friendly sites, explaining who you are, describing carefully your products unique features and benefits and how this meets your customers needs, just how do you find the customer that wants to buy. The beauty of social media marketing is that the process of setting up the information and making it available to your target demographics and potential customers through various social groups, events and announcements, will attract the very people you are looking for. Those that respond and interact with you, those who provide their contact details or request more information, will be your next business leads. This is an incredibly powerful tool to generate additional business, as you will have already identified an interested group.

9. Customer Relations:

We all know that it is much harder to find and convince a new customer to buy your product or service, than it is to keep an existing customer happy. But it is this latter goal, which generates, hopefully, repeat business, and spreads the word to others about you in a positive fashion that can also create new business for you. So how do you keep these people engaged and positive? Not easy if you don’t know your customers or have very little interaction with them, except at the point of sale. This is where your social media strategy can really help consolidate your relationship. Don't be afraid to interact with your customers, answer and ask questions, provide information and be helpful. A happy, satisfied customer will buy again and will promote your company to others. Social media allows you to maintain and evolve the relationship over time. I will cover this in more detail in a future blog.

So, lots to think about in this blog. Next time, I want to talk more about how one sets up a social media network and what are the important elements not to overlook to ensure you create the image you desire. I hope you will enjoy this and send me your comments, subscribe to my blog, and if you need help, ask me questions?

Free Guides are available from my blog site on a number of business subjects including: Strategic Planning, Business Plans, Marketing Plans, Social Media Planning, Public Relations Planning, Time Management, Negotiating Strategies, Effective Business Meetings, Due Diligence, and many others. To visit my blog, go to
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MP Consulting Services specializes in the areas of strategic planning, leadership, marketing and social media. Mark Philip, principal at MPCS, has over 20 years experience in managing businesses, both small and large, has orchestrated multiple turnarounds, built product pipelines, launched new products, sold companies and created significant shareholder value. Let me know how I can help you with your business challenge.

For More Information: visit my blog at http://mpconsulting.wordpress.com or visit my LinkedIn account at http://www.linkedin.com/in/markpconsulting

Copyright © 2012 Mark Philip

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