Tips For Running A Successful Social Media Marketing Campaign

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For many businesses, advertising online has become their primary marketing plan. With social media sites offering free to cheap opportunities to promote your business and interact with your customers, it is no surprise that it is so popular. Being online and advertising or interacting and marketing isn’t always easy however. Knowing the ways you can utilize the Internet will help you and your business get the most out of the resources available.

The main reason people use social media to market is not just that it is free to be on. It is that you can interact one-on-one with your customers in ways that traditional marketing doesn’t allow. You get to build trust and build relationships with people. Talking to your customers not only works for customer service, but it also provides valuable feedback and allows you to build your business in the way that your customers want.

Having goals and a plan in place before you get into your social media marketing campaign will allow you to track your progress and build off of your plan. Comparing your plans with what is going on in real time allows you to adjust the plan if necessary or more importantly, to react to what your customers are saying in real time to add on to the plan for the long term.

Another reason social media marketing has become some popular is the ability to cross-promote on different platforms. When you publish something to your website or your blog, you can point Facebook fans in that direction to read it. You can post it to Twitter and LinkedIn for more exposure. Perhaps you have a photo or a recipe that you want to share. You can have different audiences for the same content on Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr, for example.

Remember that there are different demographics on all of these platforms, but that often times, you will have a lot of carryover. The larger demographics vary, but the common ingredient for your business is that your message is going out specifically to fans of YOURS that are on these platforms. Be aware that your one post may hit the same customer five times if they follow you on all platforms. It is always advisable to customize your content for each platform so your audience gets the message in the way they want to be marketed to.

Don’t forget that the key to social media marketing is relationship building. Don’t overwhelm your audience by constantly selling to them when there are many times that it is far more appropriate to simply talk to them. Not every post should be selling something. Heck, not even half should. The majority of posts should be conversation.

Social media marketing is a powerful tool. Use it to talk to your customers and build relationships. Having a strong, likable brand will translate into more sales than having a page that tries to sell the most often. Be a friend to your customers and good things will happen.