Using Social Media Sites to Engage Customers
Social Media sites can be very helpful in promoting your online business. They are the new meeting place where you need to engage customers. If you have not yet made your company’s presence known on these sites, here are some tips to help you get started.
On your website, offer a survey asking your customers what social media sites they visit. Provide an incentive such as a freebie or special offer to those who fill out the survey. Ask them how often they visit the sites and what these sites mean to them. Once you have this information, open an account on one or two of these sites. Don’t dive into all of them at once. Concentrate first on the ones your customers use.
Check on what your competitors are doing on social media sites. Visit their sites and see how they are engaging customers.
Plan a strategy for using a site such as Facebook or Twitter. Send your customers an email letting them know you have opened these accounts and inviting them to visit. Offer them a special deal as an incentive to “like” your Facebook page.
Once you have a fan base, use your Facebook page to introduce new products, give news about your company’s future plans, and invite feedback about how people use your products and testimonials about their benefits.
Your social media page should be central to your advertising campaigns. But if ads are all you offer, people will not become very engaged. Relate your company and its products to events that are going on in the world and in their lives.
Advocate for improvements they can make, involving your products if possible. Show your concern for people’s well-being. Successful social media campaigns have been waged by promoting ideas for health and fitness, associating their products with these efforts.
Place interesting content on your site that will encourage visitors to share it with their friends. This is how social media expands your customer base. An intriguing or humorous story, an appealing photo, a contest or a challenge –these are all ways to enlist your fans in spreading the word about your web page and your company.
Your expansion into social media offers a new way to brand your product. Adopt a cartoon or animal figure of some kind that is appealing, and make it a part of your company image. Keep a running commentary on the adventures of this mascot. This will humanize your company and personalize customers’ relationship with it.
Unique, challenging content is what you need in order for your site to go viral. Use your creativity to come up with such content that relates to your business. If you are successful in this, a wave of sharing with friends will spread out over the Internet, bringing popularity and attention far beyond what any other advertising campaign can achieve.
Now that you see the possibilities of how social media marketing can help your business, plan a promotional campaign on one or two sites, and track the results. It can greatly expand your company’s visibility and likability.
