social
media marketing
Social marketing can be quite confusing. Basically it's
a bit of an umbrella term which includes interactive broadcasts
such as blogs and podcasts, as well as social networking
websites - all marketing tools for your business. These
usually allow visitors to become users or members, create
profiles, and upload and share content.
Popular social networks include Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, Pinterest,
Linkedin, Instagram, Bebo, Delicious, Digg, MySpace, and Yahoo! Buzz.
You may feel that they aren't relevant to your business, but
you can use them to your advantage.
There are hundreds around but we've taken a look at Facebook
and Twitter in a bit more detail and covered a couple of other
social media related items of interest. Blogging is covered
in a separate article.
Facebook
You may already have a personal Facebook profile for interacting
with your friends and family. However, you can also have one
for your business. This can be a great traffic generator to
your website. If you would like to do this just go to Facebook
and click on the link (at the right on the home page) to create
a business page (or we can set it up for you).
Then you upload your logo, images of your products and anything
else to give your business a friendly face. You do need to
update your profile regularly with news, or special offers
etc and send out a weekly message to keep yourself top of
mind. Links back to your site from the Facebook profile will
increase your inbound links and help improve your search engine
ranking. Of course, include a link to your Facebook profile
in your website and newsletters as well.
Forums
A forum is really on online chat room where people have conversations
with other people. The topic discussed really depends on the
website that the forum is on - it could be anything from accommodation,
to children's toys, to interior design. The most successful
forums are usually on objective or third part sites which
have more credibility than on your own website. So, have a
search for some forums that relate to your industry or business.
Find a discussion you can participate in, "post"
your comment (which needs to be genuinely valuable, accurate
and relevant) and put a link to your website at the bottom.
Pinterest
Pinterest is basically a virtual pin board which enables you
to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on
the web. People use pinboards todesign their gardens, promote
your jewellery, plan their weddings, decorate their homes,
and organize their favorite recipes.
Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people.
Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and
get inspiration from people who share your interests.
Twitter
Twitter is an online community where people share their thoughts
or opinions in less than 140 characters. For businesses, it's
another way to get yourself in front of a potential customers.
Go to Twitter and sign up for an account then find interesting
people to follow - generally they will follow you too. Then
start tweeting - always include a link to your website, make
your tweets valuable and aim to add a new tweet every day
or so.
Social Bookmarking
Enabling visitors to your site to 'share' articles and web
pages with or link them to their social networks or blogs
which will increase the number of incoming links to your site
and help boost your search engine rankings.
There are lots of free 'bookmark buttons' available which
can assist you to do this. One in particluar is the 'AddThis'
bookmark code to relevant pages or articles on your website.
Visit 'AddThis' tor have a look in your favourite search engine
for a list of similar tools and widgets by searching with
the keywords "add this" or "share this".
If you can incorporate these techniques into your website
marketing strategy, you will keep your site fresh and interesting,
and have a much better chance of improving your exposure and
maintaining a flow of interested visitors to your site.
If
you'd like to discuss whether social media is suitable for
you, give us a call or you could complete
our enquiry form and we'll contact you.
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