Is Your Brand Social Media Marketing Ready?
Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ have become the new destinations where consumers gather to “hang out.” While they are visiting these sites and using them with staggering frequency for social purposes, they’re also in a prime position to make purchasing decisions, seek out reviews and recommendations, and ultimately purchase and consume.
In fact, Facebook recommendations have become a prime source of buying decisions by consumers. Even if it’s largely subconscious, they’re ready to absorb without much objection when they’re in their relaxed, social space.
To fully exist online, your brand must have an online presence and appear frequently on social media in a unique and interesting way that will encourage people to share and recommend your services or products. But your brand has to be ready to stand up to social scrutiny, and become a recognized and trusted part of your target customers’ lives.
Before you bring your brand fully to fruition on social media, make sure you’ve completed all the steps below to make sure your launch is a successful one for your business. Social media marketing is a strategy, it takes thoughtful planning, testing and implementation to reach your and connect with your target audience. It is a delicate balance between promotion and building relationships, with the latter being the key in improving your bottom line.
Do Your Research
Prior to picking a brand name and logo and putting it out into the social media channels, you need to do your research. Begin by understanding what people are already saying about your brand online, and also see what’s being said about your competitors as well.
You should also immerse yourself in social media, and see what kinds of content, information, reviews, products, or services your target audience is talking about, sharing, and recommending. If you align your posts, messaging, and promos with what people are sharing and posting about most in your field or industry, then you’ll make a bigger splash with your brand by immediately delivering things your social customers want and crave.
Validate Your Name And Logo
Having consistent and recognizable marketing messaging on all fronts begins with a brand name and corresponding logo that people will be drawn to, and remember. If you already have a name, logo, and existing customer base who are familiar with both, it’s a great move to ask what they think through a survey. Often times, you’ll be prone to get stuck in an idea or logo that just isn’t working, and one of the best ways to understand if you’re being remembered by the people you’re seeking to interest, is to ask them.
Make A Plan
Wandering into the land of social media with no plan or direction will likely cause you to get lost in the masses of information already abundantly infusing the online social scene. However, if you go in prepared with a solid plan identifying all the objectives you want to achieve, and how you’re aiming to accomplish them, you’ll avoid being swallowed up.
Writing your goals down is a great, and often underutilized tactic for making a social marketing plan, so give it a try, and see if it helps manifest your success more quickly.
Additionally, testing conversions and results from all channels that you plan to use is important to avoid wasting time on venues that are not meeting pre-set goals. Not all social media sites will be effective in all industries and business models and testing allows you to weed out the winners.
Collaborate…And Listen
As you’re brainstorming ideas, and making plans for a thriving brand on social media, remember that collaboration is essential. You should work within your team, or bounce ideas off a trusted and knowledgeable colleague to make sure you’ve covered all the vital aspects of your market research, and leverage the power of sharing ideas and solutions toward a common goal.
And don’t just throw your ideas out and hope they stick. Really listen to all the feedback, ideas, and objections you receive so you can make your brand and your message even stronger.
Test, Review, Improve, Repeat
If you’re unsure on a new logo design, or a marketing idea, sleep on it. But don’t take too much time tinkering or picking at unimportant details either. Social media evolves rapidly, and testing out your ideas, and improving and changing along with it will keep your brand fresh.
How To Transform An Instagram Account With SEO
Social media marketing campaigns can be tricky to navigate. It is hard for the average Instagram user to remain fully up to date with all of the latest trends. That’s what makes social media marketing services so important. They allow a client to get the most out of their social media marketing in Florida, without experiencing the usual pitfalls.
Those who are looking to expand their online presence would do well to read on and learn more. Social media marketing services can be helpful but taking the time to master the process is even more crucial.
1. Use Hashtags
Hashtags are a great way to spread the word about a West Palm Beach business. Any Instagram campaign that does not utilize hashtags is not going to be as successful as it should be. Be sure to research the trending hashtags on a consistent basis. Those who take the time to do so are placing themselves in prime position to maximize their visibility. The account will gain followers at a steady clip, which also increases the chance for viral posts to take place.
2. Use Captions Wisely
To piggyback on the previous point, hashtags are a great way for a company to make sure that they are using their captions properly. People who use Instagram to search for goods and services will often rely on individual photos, as opposed to pages themselves. Using popular hashtags in the captions is a great way to increase search engine optimization. Think of them in the same manner as a keyword.
3. Back Links
If other accounts are linking to the posts, this makes it far more likely for the page to appear at the highest level of search engine rankings. The more back links that the site relies upon, the easier it becomes to rise up the search protocol rankings. Building partnerships with related South Florida businesses is the best way to go. These partnerships are mutually beneficial but they are time consuming, so they must be handled correctly.
4. Place Keywords Properly
In these instances, it is not always about what we say, it is about how we say it. Positioning of keywords is pivotal. The keywords should be placing in the user’s bio and in the name of the account when possible. Rotate keyword use as well. This allows the user to cultivate a larger following. In a perfect world, the keywords allow the account to come up during a specific search.
5. Link All Social Media Accounts
A failure to link all social media accounts is one of the most common mistakes that is made. If the business already has a presence on Twitter and/or Facebook, it would behoove them to add a link to their Instagram on both of these sites. Make it easy for the viewers to find all accounts, on all platforms. The company’s primary website should also feature links to every account.
This May Be Why Google Is Shutting Down Google+
It came as a rude shock to virtually everyone when Google announced that it will soon retire Google+, its social media platform. This sent cold shivers down the spines of a lot of people that have been doing some social media marketing on the platform.
Even though Google did not state the reason for the planned closure of the social media marketing platform that seems to be doing well, it is believed that this may have to do with the security issues the platform encountered in March. The issue led to the exposure of more than half a million accounts.
Google Plus
Google didn’t report it because it felt nobody gained considerable access into the exposed accounts on the platform. Unfortunately,Google was wrong on this. News later filtered into the air that well over 400 applications created by some digital marketing companies were able to gain access into some of the accounts pulling data like age, gender, occupation,email addresses, and usernames.
Although Google fixed the issue as soon as it was discovered, it was already too late and a lot of information had been pulled by numerous digital marketing companies. According to Google’s announcement,Google+ will be closed by August 2019. Since it was created to compete directly with Facebook, this may be good news for the latter.
However, it won’t be a total shutdown. Only the consumer version will be shut down while the corporate version will still continue to operate. Users of the platform in South Florida, West Palm Beach, and other parts of Florida have begun to get ready for the shutdown.
It is necessary to mention the fact that expectations are high that Google will replace the platform with a better one pretty soon. In fact, they may be working on it right now. May be the replacement will be ready before August 2019 when the consumer version of Google+ will be shut down.
There are several lessons to be learnt from this new development. Companies that have adopted only Google+ as its social media marketing platform will have problems now. The first lesson is that companies should market their products and services on multiple platforms.
Secondly, the security breach that occurred on Google+ in March is an indication that no platform is 100% secure. Remember, saying that Google+ will be shut down because of the security issue it encountered, is a speculation. However, if the speculation is true, it could mean that the security breach was much more than what Google thought and it is just a matter of time before the truth is blown out just like the Facebook – Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The point is, if you have registered on Google+ before March, chances are high that your accounts could be among the ones that have been compromised. As a response, you should change all that can be changed.
