Not too long ago companies reached their target market through a combination of trade shows, print advertising, and other traditional methods. Although those methods still work today, consumers have shifted how and where they begin their search for products. They often start that search using Internet search engines, blog reviews and social media networks.
If businesses are to remain competitive they must begin to harness the power social media marketing can provide. Developing communities of followers that are passionate about your product is one way to ensure building not only brand recognition, but also repeat sales. The viral marketing aspect alone that social media channels provide can launch virtually any product’s sales over the top.
However, with all the hype over the use of social media as a marketing strategy, many business owners find it difficult to not only grasp the concept, but to implement it as well.
What is Social Media?
Social media is a channel or group of channels of online media where people are talking, participating, sharing, networking, and bookmarking products and content that interests them. Typical social media services encourage user interaction through discussion, feedback, voting, comments, and sharing of information.
Unlike traditional marketing methods which are often one-way (you sending a message to your target), social media marketing involves more of a two-way conversation (you and your prospects interacting back and forth together in conversation.)
Social media is about staying connected or linked to other sites, resources, and people. It’s about developing and building relationships with individuals who are interested in the products you offer and the company you represent. It’s a powerful channel that can help gain exposure and build lifetime value.
Types of Social Media
Social Media marketing involves a number of components working together to build awareness of a particular point of interest. In the case of ecommerce businesses, that point of interest might be a product. For others, such as local contractors, the point of interest may be a service.
You might be familiar with popular social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and more. Social media however takes many forms. It commonly takes the form of blogs, podcasts, video, forums, wiki’s or some other content driven community.
How Social Media can Benefit Your Business
- Increased brand awareness.
- Provides the ability to manage your reputation.
- Inexpensive alternative to generating traffic which is interested in what you offer.
- Higher search engine rankings (through blogging).
- Builds customer lifetime value.
- Adds a viral component to your business and gets you closer to your customers.
- Offers various ways to measure and track performance.
Wondering if you would benefit from tapping into this growing channel of social media? The answer is a definite yes and we can help!
Voom Ventures will plan and implement a Social Media marketing package that helps your business grab hold of the benefits it provides and assist you in gaining the exposure needed to build your business.
Our Social Media Management services follow a proven two step process that achieves maximum reach for our clients.
Step 1: Social Media Strategy Creation
This service assesses your existing marketplace as well as business goals and resources to give you a comprehensive Social Media Strategy. This will give you the exact blueprint for what your Social Media Strategy should be.
The strategy creation will aim to find where your market is, where they hang out, what causes them to engage, etc… (could be different related to the courses being offered ) and then deliver a plan of action which can be followed to achieve the objective.
Step 2: Social Media Management
Social Media Management has two parts to it. Part “A” focuses on brand exposure / awareness and consumer acquisition. The purpose of part “A” is to create TOMA (Top of Mind Awareness) for potential customers. Staying in front of them as often as possible to make sure that when they, or their friends need something the client offers, they think of the client as their first option before thinking of others.
Part “B” focuses on reputation management of the client / brand(s). Reputation management includes monitoring various channels across the internet and then responding to any items that may raise surrounding the brand(s)—whether that be a simple ‘thank you’ or responding to a negative mention (i.e. ‘damage control’.)
We monitor in real-time the major social channels of the internet in addition to wider coverage including broad reach channels such as search, blogs, forums and review sites to name a few. As the need arises, we report any mentions of the brand to the client so they can respond to them as they see fit. In cases where the client prefers a hands off approach, we can respond for them on their behalf.
(A) Brand Exposure / Consumer Acquisition
Includes full service posting / management / implementation for Social Media profiles deemed applicable during the Strategy Creation phase.
Our typical Social Media Management package includes the following individual services:
- Strategy and planning. Who is your audience? What resonates with them? Where are they? What are they liking, sharing, tweeting, commenting on?
- Researching posts. What kinds of posts have been getting the most engagement lately? What else can we post that is similar but not the same? What are other people saying online?
- Formatting / quality control. Is this link working? Is all information correct? Do the photos have attribution? Have we posted something like this before? Is this a post that needs to be scheduled? Does it have the proper tags and hashtags?
- Creating content. Crafting content specifically designed for your audience that will delight, entertain and resonate is so much easier said than done. Our mantra — remember where. Where your customers are and what they want to hear, not where you want them to be and what you want to say.
- Responding. After something is posted/tweeted/pinned, etc…, respond to questions and comments.
- Acknowledgement. Post and tweet “thank you’s” and acknowledgments of people who shared your content.
- Measurement. Are your posts helping you accomplish your goals? Measurement is tracked using Google Analytics as well as our internal reporting system.
- Monthly reporting on your progress. Preparing reports and attending meetings / conference calls to discuss progress towards social media goals.
- Continuous improvement. Always working on improving the message and determining how it can be better. What is working and what is falling flat? Learn and adapt.
- Explore. Becoming familiar with the changing landscape. Facebook is constantly changing. New social media channels arise every week. Don’t get caught up in shiny new object syndrome — but don’t ignore the latest trends either. Thoughtfully and strategically evaluate if the new platforms might help the company accomplish its goals.
- Linking profiles together to achieve maximum cross channel relationships as available.
(B) Reputation Management
- Monitoring outside channels across the internet. Continual monitoring of outside channels for brand related posts that may need responses. This could be from a simple ‘thank you for the mention’ to ‘damage control’ over a negative brand post.