As a small business owner, social media can be a complicated and daunting task. There are so many platforms, tools, and strategies out there that even a few minutes of searching can leave you scratching your head and with more questions than you had to begin with! No need to fret though, even the tallest building was built one brick at a time. Take a look at these 5 easy tips for getting your social media campaign started in 2014!
Use tags for your LinkedIn connections
Sending out communications on LinkedIn is a great way to get a response and stay active in the community, however, often times you will have several connections that cover different disciplines or facets of your business. Ensure that you are sending out relevant and helpful information by tagging your LinkedIn connections.
You can easily create a list of tags to group similar connections together. Once tagged, you can then send out messages to up to 25 connections at the same time. Tagging connections is simple, too! Search your connections for your chosen keyword and navigate to their profile. On their profile you should see the Tag option, which will allow you to tag the connection with whatever tag you prefer. Simple as that!
Use Twitter’s Advanced Search
Prospecting potential clients can be difficult, especially if you are in a very niche industry. Lucky for you, Twitter can help! You can use Twitter’s Advanced Search function to help you prospect all kinds of juicy nuggets that are searching for your exact niche or business.
Using the advanced search function is easy too! Say you are a plumber in New York and you are looking for more clients. All you have to do is log into your Twitter account, go to Advanced Search, and type in a keyword or phrase that a user my use when they are searching for your service, in this case “looking for plumber”. Restrict this search using the “Places” option, selecting a place that is in your geographic area and then hit search. Voilà, a list of clients that are looking for your service in your area right now!
Grow your audience by giving away your stuff
People love free stuff, there are no two ways around it. A recent study done by Forrester Research found that over 90% of purchasing decisions start online. This means that potential clients are searching for your product or service before they contact you. Why not give them a good impression before they even pick up the phone or fill in that contact form!
Sometimes providing a great piece of content or a great service for free is just what a potential client need to push them over the line. Offering free incentives to social users is a great way to get them involved and help spread the word about your business. Offer free consultations, free eBooks, or even give away some of your products for free on your social networks. Your users will thank you for it, and potential customers will see that you provide a valuable service to your users.
Build niche communities
With as complicated as social marketing is today, sometimes the simple things work the best. Building niche communities online is a fantastic way to reach potential clients that are related to your niche while providing a valuable service to the community.
Identify Q&A boards such as Answers.com or Yahoo Answers and establish yourself as an expert in your field. Answer questions that users have regarding your industry, and offer to help them out via email. These small touches could lead to something big in the future, and it builds loyalty with the user when you provide them with free value.
Use Slideshare Pro
Slideshare is an old platform with a new face. If you aren’t familiar with Slideshare, it is a social platform for distributing presentations (such as Power Point). Slideshare has been around for years, but it was recently purchased by LinkedIn, which makes it the largest sharing platform for presentations on the web.
Slideshare offers a Pro account, which starts at $16 a month. With a pro account, it lets you collect leads and subscribers. You can also imbed your presentations, and they offer all of the common sharing options for social media. With your pro account, you can overlay contact forms in your presentations to collect contact information. These overlays are easy to skip, and are very unobtrusive to the user, but it still allows you to collect this valuable information. A simple $16 a month could add hundreds of leads to your funnel that your competition isn’t prospecting.
And there you have it, 5 simple social media marketing tips to get you through 2014. How many of these are you using for your small business? If you like some of these tips and have trouble putting them into motion, why not give us a call? DirectiveGroup has years of experience in the social realm, and we can help breathe life into your marketing plan! Give us a call today at 813-341-3800.
