The key to using social media is to have a defined strategy before you even start. If you are an individual user of any of the main forums, you will probably have used them to complain when you’re not getting results anywhere else. If you haven’t, you certainly will have seen other people doing so.
This is why it’s not acceptable to just start up social media accounts for your business without a strategy. It could work against you. And yet when done properly, social media can be an incredible way of promoting your business on a budget.
Reaching Out to your Customers
Being a presence on the main social media networks is a great opportunity to get your name out there. This is particularly applicable to small companies who don’t have a huge budget to spend on offline advertising. And yet, we can all learn a lot from the big companies who have got it right.
Something simple like using particular events or dates in your favour can have a great impact. If you create something worth noticing, people will share it for their own benefit. They’re not doing it to promote you, but who doesn’t want to give their friends a laugh on social media. These April fool pranks were some of the most recent things to go viral, as the Telegraph point out.
The more genuinely excited you are about your company and product, the easier social media marketing will be. And yet some expert advice is crucial to make sure you don’t get it wrong and attract negative attention. When it comes to digital marketing in Edinburgh, experts mash-marketing.com help companies to engage in a way that is helpful and will be appreciated.
Listening
The other use for social media is as a listening platform, and the Telegraph wade in again here to explain why. People will criticise your company, it isn’t perfect because it is run by human beings. None of us are perfect, and we can’t please all of the people all of the time. But these days, if you have a bad experience of a product or service, you take to social media to tell your friends about it.
While this can create some bad publicity, it should also be seen as an opportunity. By using specific tools to tune in to what your customers are saying about you, you can address the criticism and change what is wrong. You can also accentuate what is going right. Social media is like a true version of 360 feedback. It can help you to make your company better by taking on board what people are saying is wrong with it. As an added bonus, you can then utilise the same channels in which your business was criticised to tell people how and why you’ve improved it and why they should give you another chance.
