o your online store is finally paying off. You have a well-designed site, you’re fully optimized for organic listings and your paid search program is providing healthy returns. How do you prevent stagnation? Or, perhaps your business is starting to take off but you don’t have the time or resources for traditional marketing. Where do you turn for growth? Examine Social Media Marketing. Some call it a trend, others call it evolution of the Internet, but either way Social Media is the new home of the masses.
Wikipedia defines social media as “the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into content publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism to a many-to-many model, rooted in conversations between authors, people, and peers.†Hmm?
Traditional marketing was rooted firmly around broadcast. You had a product and you broadcast it to potential customers as much as possible through mailings, radio ads, television ads, billboards etc. Even pay-per-click ads for search engines simply broadcast to the widest “specific†audience possible.
Social Media Marketing lets you communicate your message and by allowing your customers to interact with this message, mash it up and re-invent it, all while generating instantaneous feedback.
One main Social Media arena that facilitates this flow is Social Utilities, with sites like Facebook, Myspace, Nexopia, etc. They’re networks of people connected together by common interests, geographical locations, schools, or places of employment. The cleanest and fastest growing social utility is Facebook. Recent numbers show Facebook growing at over 3% a week with 3 million users age 25-34 and over 380,000 ages 35-44. With 47,000 college, high school, employee and regional networks, the chances of finding your target niche is high.
Moving In
A Facebook profile can house your company’s unique content, whether it’s a video of your latest product, a blog describing a positive user experience, picture albums of a new design, or a podcast explaining its benefits. Your e-commerce store houses your products and Facebook is the PR van that hits the road to connect you directly with potential customers.
Participate & Connect
Millions of people are connected to Facebook through shared interests, videos, pictures, messages, blog posts and stories. Sellers of skis can search millions of Facebook users for skiers. By sending out a custom message inviting them to be “friends†with your company you open your doors to your customers.
The key is to offer a product or social object compelling enough for customers to share with friends and increase your potential for viral marketing.
Create a Group
“Groups†are based around interests and can update the members about certain news, activities, events or causes that interest your niche. Toy companies can create Facebook groups to promote awareness of toys from China. They could push for safety legislation, or be an information hub with the latest list of recalled products. This builds trust in the community and can result in more traffic to your website. If your message matches the pulse of your customers, they’ll help you spread it. You can also make announcements, post updates and announce sales.
Build an Application
By far the most powerful aspect of Facebook is its open source nature. Facebook gives freedom to outside developers to create custom applications. The cost of Facebook’s code to develop this is—zilch! With a little technical know-how you can create a custom application that will capitalize on the viral components of the social utility, spreading your company’s story and products throughout the community.
A prime example is the Washington Post’s Compass application. It sits on a user’s profile page and can be clicked and added by friends. With this application you take a simple survey and a compass is put on your home page showing how liberal or conservative you are. This is a simple concept, but when shared among friends becomes a powerful branding tool for the Washington Post.
Facebook is completely free. Free to store pictures, free to post fresh content, free to create groups, free to network with customers, and free to communicate with your niches. Now that you’re familiar with Social Media what do you have to lose?
