Most Businesses Don't Understand How To Use Social Media Marketing
Here is what happens with most businesses, they hear about how social media is a great place to find customers so they create a twitter and Facebook account. They tweet a few, "hey we have X for sell, come get it" type of posts. After months of doing this they lament on how social media marketing doesn't work and how it is a waste of time.
If this is how you use social media, don't feel bad, most business mistakenly use social media in this way. They have people who don't understand social media running their accounts and those people can't really be blamed either. Marketing is a skill that has to be developed.
If that is the wrong way to do social media marketing, then what is the right way to do it? Thank you for asking! To understand the right way to do social media marketing, you have to change your reason for doing social media marketing.
The average business owner is only doing social media marketing because they were told that they should do it and they heard about people finding new customers from social media. Those are all good reasons to use social media but if that is all you understand about social media, then you will fail to attract new customers.
So, I mentioned that you have to change how you think about social media and now I will tell you why. Social media marketing should not initially be used to try and make money. Everyone likes to buys but no one likes to be sold to. People get on social media to have a good time and to joke around.
Today's consumer knows how to locate your business or one like it, what they need are reason to do business with you. They also want to know more about your business on a somewhat persona level. Social media marketing should be used to build rapport with people. You should share interesting and funny things. You should share your office culture with the world and share your new ideas with them and even ask them for new ideas.
There was one restaurant owner who used social media to show himself in the kitchen making meal and he would ask his friends and followers on social media for new menu ideas. Guess who packed his restaurant to try this new creation? Exactly!
Rapport, means that if you build it, they will come.
This is a topic I love to write about because it gets right into the nuts and bolts of how to use social media. Please apply some of these ideas to your own business and put your own spin on them. Remember that social media marketing is more about building relationships than advertising your products. Your goal with social media is to build a large group of loyal fans who will take a serious interest in what your company does.
Think about fans of Apple computers and have they care just as much about the Apple brand and culture as they do about the products.
