Your Social Media Startup Kit

Face it: an increasing amount of business-to-consumer and business-to-business marketing is taking place on the social media scene.  While a full-blown social media campaign isn’t for every company, there’s little excuse not to maintain at least some presence on these invaluable networks.  Don’t underestimate the traffic-driving value of this kind of thing—getting your name (and a hyperlink) out where people talk about stuff can do wonders for your website conversion rate.

Yet, for small businesses or non-profits without huge, dedicated marketing departments, social media can be a little intimidating at first.  For those of you just getting started—here’s your official, 3-part, social media startup kit.

Part 1: Get on Facebook

As the free-est, most heavily trafficked social media website on the planet, Facebook is the new, er, face of viral. If you’re not here, then to many consumers, clients, and donors, you simply don’t exist. Set up a basic company page, keying in your essential information and placing a few bits of media on your home page to start out.  If you’re not comfortable with the interface, find someone in marketing that has a personal Facebook page and get them to set it up.

Begin forming your initial fan base by placing a link on your homepage, putting a notice at the bottom of internal documents or newsletters, and mentioning your presence on Facebook in your conventional marketing materials.  Don’t force your employees to become fans, but do place pictures or videos on your page that would tempt them to sign up.  Offer some exclusive startup promotions and contest to raise your numbers even further. Just be sure to follow up—social media has to be social, which means regular content updates and promotions.  Decide early on who gets to manage the effort.

A steady, engaging Facebook campaign will do more than drive traffic and sales to your site.  It will also generate long-term leads and provide valuable marketing data to your team.

Part 2: Keep on Blogging

Social media marketing doesn’t just include off-site efforts.  Placing a blog on your organization’s website can also be a great way to connect with your community and drive traffic your way. This is your platform to wax eloquent on your own services, your take on industry developments, and even random news bits to mix things up.

Perhaps the biggest rule here, as on Facebook, is to keep with it at least on a weekly basis. Lighten the load by divvying up blogging responsibilities among a few competent writers in your organization.  Just for the search engines, do sprinkle some industry-specific keywords here and there. Keep things steady; keep things informative; and keep things fun.

Part 3: Tweet

One tweets on Twitter, the latest in a string of social media tools available to marketers. If you’d like to maintain a friendly, ongoing conversation with potentially huge numbers of clients and/or supporters, then reserve your company’s brand on Twitter and start the fun.  Don’t make this a personal tweet fest for your organization’s spokesperson or CEO—“just got lunch. macaroni to the win!”—but do try to flavor your output with some humanity.  Respond to friend queries, offer advice when requested, and comment on anything people might expect you to—new product releases, exclusive discounts, your organization in the news, industry developments, and anything that gives interested parties a reason to stay that way.

Social Media  can build and maintain relationships with your future and present customers and at the same time increase traffic to your website.

Still not sure how to get started, let Diamond Website Conversion help you determine the social media strategy that will fit into your company’s goals.  From there you can decide which parts of the Social Media Marketing plan to handle yourself, and then leave the rest to us.

Start the conversation today.  Give us a call