CWB Readers: Building a successful online marketing strategy

| credits:Chi Tola

Building a successful local business social media marketing strategy takes time. Anyone who has been doing this for a while will agree with me. As usual, I was out and about town checking into local businesses and catching up on what’s happening on Twitter and Facebook, when I learnt something new.

I found out that just having a website is no longer enough for any business without a well-managed social media presence — be it an e-commerce kind of business or just a beauty shop, a political party or even a gym. If you really want to maximise profit and stay in competition, you need to learn how to successfully market your business online.

 Based on my experience, it seems a lot of businesses still don’t really have a grasp on how to leverage social media. Of course, there are tools, processes, and steps to make it easier, but at the end of the day, the point of social media is to authentically engage with people that share similar interests and offer value on a dependable basis.

Here are some keys to successful social media marketing for a local business:

•Determine your goals — Increase web traffic. Increase new/existing customer growth rates. Increase average order value. Grow your prospect list.

•Establish your presence — sign up on leading platforms and customise your profiles so people can easily find you.

•Engage with your local customers online at their place of convenience, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+

•Serve as a local trusted resource online by sharing relevant information on a consistent basis about your industry and product category. Ask and answer questions, provide valuable content, and build relationships with customers, prospects and key influencers

•Implement compelling promotions — leverage scarcity, location, and time to drive demand among your local followers and fan base

•Track everything  — learn and respond to community trends and interactions

•Be prepared to adapt  — stay ahead of the curve as tools and platforms change rapidly

•Avoid common pitfalls — fake reviews, poorly designed ads, unresponsiveness

•Use customer insight to understand more about your customers, and as a result, more about your business.

Integrate social media on your website.

•Above all — Show you actually care!

Find your voice online — Here’s how

When businesses engage in social media, it’s often difficult for the people managing it to build confidence and feel comfortable in what they say online; genuinely participate in discussions with their customers and consistently help others that value your knowledge.

 Based on my knowledge, here are a few strategies you might want to consider to overcome this challenge.

Set some Targets: Map out your goals and objectives for marketing online. Be precise. Establish milestones. Measure Results. Too often, folks just jump in without a goal in mind. Do not fall into this trap. If you know where you’re going, it’s a lot easier to get there.

Be Apparent: Take an honest approach to representing yourself and your company online. If people are going to take the effort to connect with your business on social media networks, they want to deal with a person.

In the short term, they may connect with your business on Twitter or Facebook, because they know your brand, but ultimately, they’ll want to get to know the people behind your brand.

Run-through: Practice various approaches until you find your own style. Do you feel contented tweeting, blogging, or shooting video? There is no need to tackle all three, unless of course you have the resources.

If you are nervous, try writing a few blog posts or shooting a video and saving it as a draft. If you do this every day for a couple weeks, you’ll get better, build your poise and discover what works best.

Add Variation: Mix things up to build trust, integrity and rapport. On Twitter, for example, I endorse you balance

(1) Tweets about yourself or the people that make up your business.

(2) Tweets about your company, products and services and

(3) Tweets about activity and news within your industry or community. This balanced approach allows others to connect with your human side, promotes your business, and highlights your market leadership.

Help others: Build relationships by giving first with no expectation for anything in return. Many companies approach the Internet and social media with a sales mentality. I have no problem with being aggressive, but I do recommend a certain level of tact when it comes to earning others’ trust first, especially in social media circles.

If you offer ongoing value and build mutually-beneficial relationships, people will respond when you present them with a valuable offer.

Maintain motion: Don’t give up. You might write 10 blog posts, upload five videos, and post 75 tweets … yet no one responds. Marketing and networking online takes time. Be patient. You will find your groove and people will start to trust you and engage. Stay zealous and confident in your expertise to maintain your enthusiasm and momentum.

Ask customers for feedback: Once you’ve built a decent following, periodically ask your followers for some feedback. Is your message resonating? Do they find your content convincing? Are you communicating at a reasonable occurrence? A quick email, tweet, or Facebook poll can help uncover any shortcomings and take your online strategy to the next level.