Like most businesses that operate in the socially world of today, channel partners need to make themselves felt in the competitive market, to ensure the target audience is always within their reach. Social media has emerged from being a pass-time activity to a serious mode of communication and promotion, and enterprises across industries and sizes, are using it as an cost effective method to promote themselves and reach audiences. Here are some thoughts as to how these companies can make their social media endeavors more effective.
– Participate in groups and related conversations
Across social channels, discussions take place where there are industry or sector specific issues being discussed. It is important to become a part of these discussions, and also share content (articles, blogs, etc) with the rest of the group that concern them, or where the company has been named. “Join groups that are in your industry and post and comment on posts,” says Mary Cochran, director of marketing, Sleep Easily. “Post articles your company is featured in.”
– Incentive for people to follow you
One of the most effective ways to promote and connect one’s business is to motivate people to follow the business, by offering them discount coupons, special offers, or limited editions of product and services, package deals, etc. As Tim Lavelle, the Director of Social Media and SEO at Interactive Media suggested, “Exclusive offers could include coupons, discounts, freebies, limited editions or other things of interest to your targeted audience. When your audience can only acquire a desired discount, deal or exclusive product/service via social media, they’re far more motivated to connect.”
– Time social media posts
Though content is king on social media, but the crux of the matter is that the social media posts need to be timed well, and according to the audience one if trying to reach. Timing the post makes it most effective way to reach audiences, which are attached to the audience behavior, as they are more likely to get engaged with the same. As Jennifer Matthews, a marketing specialist at Igniting Business explained, “Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter at different times, making it crucial to test which days and times get the most attention for each platform. Finding your ideal audience is all about testing, and you want to post to social media when your target market is active on each platform.” Also, “make sure to keep track of which posts get the most interaction for each platform, and keep all that data in an organized document that you can refer to easily.”
– Include easy to spot links to the company website or company blog
As Matthews explains, not connecting the social media pages to the website could result in disengagement or loss of followers for the company. She explains rather simply, saying “You may be missing out on followers by not including a link to your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter pages.”
– Don’t try to be there for everyone all the time
Though a business ultimately aims to have as large as audience as possible, but stretching too far may reduce the effectiveness of the social media presence. Different audiences behave differently as consumers, but the business has a defined set of objectives and principles which it abides by, and what even applies to their social media policy as well. It proves to be more effective, if the company focuses on a more focused community or group, as they would most likely convert to paying customers later.