Six Fundamentals in Social Media Marketing

1. What Your Customers Say About You Matters

Let’s face it. We live in a world full of advertisements and we just don’t trust what brands say about themselves.
However, we do trust what our friends say.
That is why so many people are willing to try something new based on what their friends say on social media.

Some call this word-of-mouth, some call it peer-to-peer recommendations. No matter what you call it, getting people to recommend you can go a long way to driving both new and repeat business.

2. Online Recommendations Translate into Purchases

Good or bad, people are influenced by their friends. So friend recommendations have a significant impact on purchasing decisions.
How big is that impact? According to a MarketingProfs survey, 73% of the U.S. participants had learned about a product online and 51% had purchased a product based on an online recommendation.

3. You Must Provide a Great Customer Experience

Social media provides every person with a stage to share their thoughts and opinions with friends and other consumers.

• If you provide them with a great customer experience, social media will reward you with positive reviews and endorsements that attract new business.
  
• If a customer has a less than perfect experience, social media will let you know. But that's not such a bad thing so long as you take the opportunity to respond to them and use that feedback constructively to improve the way you serve your customers.

Bottom line: There's no marketing cure for providing a poor customer experience.

4. Permission is Key

In a world full of interruptive marketing noise, permission-based marketing is a powerful tool for fighting through the clutter.
Simply put, by obtaining consent from your customers and prospects to contact them with marketing messages they are more likely to respond to your offers, more likely to share with their friends, and less likely to ignore you or consider your messages spam.
Permission comes in many forms:

• Opt-in with an email address
  
• Facebook "Like"
  
• Twitter Follow
  
• LinkedIn Connection
  
• Attendance at an Event

That permission is part of what makes both email and social media marketing so powerful.

 

Permission is Good for Business

People who like a brand on Facebook, follow a brand on Twitter or subscribe to a brand’s email newsletter, are more likely to buy and recommend.

ExactTarget, "Subscribers, Fans and Followers: The collaborative Future." September 8, 2010

5. You Must Listen and Respond

To be a good conversationalist, you need to be a great listener.
Social media marketing is more about listening and responding than it is about broadcasting a message.
It's critical that you monitor what people are saying to you and about you, your industry, your areas of expertise and your competitors. (Don’t worry, we'll show you how easy it is to monitor the online conversations.)
You've also got to be responsive—whether it's to respond directly to a customer’s question or suggestion or join a discussion where you can share your knowledge.
Remember: To build relationships you don’t need to speak “social media,” you just need to be yourself.  Talk on social media the same way you do in real life.

6. Social Media Marketing is a Commitment

Don’t worry, you don’t have to put a ring on it, but just like in real life, it takes time and effort to build relationships. And unfortunately, sometimes that effort doesn’t generate immediate results.

With social media marketing, you need to be consistent and patient. Those relationships you build will pay off over time through increased customer loyalty and advocacy.

To be an effective social media marketer you need to:

•     Invest time in both talking and listening (Even just 10-20 minutes/day)
  
•     Have a plan for creating engaging content
  
•     Find the right tools that will help you save time (We can help you with that!)