The Four Key Components to Any Successful Social Marketing Platform
The buzzword of social media marketing is “engagement,” a two-way conversation with your customers and potential customers. If that’s true, just what are the basic building blocks that enable those conversations to happen? It’s no longer enough to simply have a web presence (i.e. company web site) and call it done. Today’s consumers are more empowered, and more information savvy, than ever before. To meet the needs of these clients you will need to have communication tools that are both informative and responsive. This involves more than a one-off solution. It requires a comprehensive approach utilizing sound social media strategies. Here are the must-haves, the “bones” of any good social media platform.
Company Blog
The company blog accomplishes a number of goals in creating a successful social media strategy. First, and most importantly, it provides fresh, relevant content to which your audience can connect. And thanks to RSS (Real Simple Syndication), which come standard on most blogs, visitors to your pages can click to subscribe to your blog, and have each new post appear automatically on their favorite reader (i.e. iGoogle.com). You can then begin to build a community of followers. The blog should be topical and casual in nature, providing helpful news, tips and insights into your industry. And where you may have a ten page web site now, a company blog with a weekly posting, will generate an additional 52 pages of content in just one short year. That makes hungry search engine spiders very happy.
Company Newsletter
Building your social media platform means identifying, attracting and retaining your “tribe.” Seth Godin speaks about that eloquently in his book by the same name. One great way to do this is through a well-conceived, well written, e-newsletter. These informative updates can be wonderful reminders to clients, both present and future, of your value to their organization. Again, these are tools for attracting a following and therefore should be helpful, filled with resources, and not a hard sales piece. Invite them to your site by connecting to specific blog posts you’ve made or pages that relate directly to the topic matter. Make sure to have a newsletter sign up form on your home page. Incentivize potential customers to join your newsletter by providing a free white paper or e-book with tips and information.
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIN pages
Tap into the power of personal networks by creating company profiles on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIN. Often these company fan sites can attract more visitors than a static web site, in part because they are more interactive, updated more frequently and therefore more current. And by working with available plug-ins and settings, these pages can be configured to “feed” each other. In other words, your blog posts can be sent to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIN automatically. You can also have a third party console where you can observe, write, schedule and send your updates from one place.
Article Marketing
Information is power, and the more information you can provide, the more you will be perceived and recognized as the expert in your industry. Article marketing, (writing informative newsletter-type articles, for free distribution to on-line editors) provides the perfect opportunity to build both expertise and relevant, inbound links to your website. Not only does article marketing provide relevant content that links to your site, but also a knowledge based resource that potential customers will appreciate.
Blogging, company newsletters, fan pages and article marketing provide a solid platform to expand the reach and influence of your marketing message. Compared to a static web site, this type of dynamic, interactive approach to marketing can pay big dividends for a relatively small investment. And with traditional media shrinking and becoming more fractured, it makes sense to build a presence in new media, which has seen consistent, sustained growth.
