I recently ran across an interesting article on Social Marketing published in the Pike County Courier journal. The article was based on a workshop hosted by the Tri-State Chamber of Commerce at Delaware Valley High School.
The purpose of the Social Marketing workshop was to educate and share with 60 new entrants to Social Marketing the essential 4Cs to implement this new marketing channel:
- Create
- Communicate
- Collaborate
- Connect
Social Marketing is undertaken primarily to open a communications channel with your existing clients so that they may act as active enablers for new customer acquisition for your business.
Make no mistake in understanding that creating and maintaining a Social Marketing campaign is a time commitment. Mandy Pennington, Director of Internet Marketing at Net Driven advises that this task requires Social Marketers to keep regular hours, as in any conventional office job. Meaning check your Social Media accounts daily and hourly and update regularly between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM. Moreover, do not wait until the weekend to respond to your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter feed.
Create and publish content that is engaging and germane to your target audience. Seek feedback from your clients and industry peers and collaborate with them when possible to create content that touches upon issues that resonates with your audience.
Connecting with your audience will be an endeavor of trial and error. There are no magic steps that may be undertaken to get people to start following you and/or re-posting or re-tweeting your content. Whether it is a blog post; videos that you upload or your own comments that you post on someone else’s post, making a connection with another person is a matter of continuous effort. Write clearly and use facts citing your source whenever possible to make your case. If your comments and/or post elicit rude and boorish responses, do not engage in rebuttals that are deemed by others in your audience as equally offensive. Remember that the purpose of your Social Campaign is not to prove how smart and witty you are in putting rude people in their place, but rather, to build up your brand and awareness of your company’s solutions one individual at a time.
When you share your contact phone numbers on your Social Marketing Accounts, Katrina Foster of KKPR Marketing and Public Relations advises that you should never give out your cell phone number. In fact in lieu of a cell phone number or your business phone line, you should use different call tracking numbers for your Social Media accounts at Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.
If you find yourself in an unfortunate situation where you are being harassed by a Social Media follower, use the call blocking feature of your Call Tracking numbers to stop menacing and nuisance callers from reaching you. Use the Whisper Feature in call tracking numbers to allow you to know the source of the Social Media Campaign call.
Additionally, call tracking numbers allow you to record inbound calls such that you may listen to conversations to develop content for your future posts. You can also use call tracking account to create transcripts from recorded conversations to spot specific keywords that you may use for your Paid Search Marketing and Search Engine Optimization Campaigns.
Summary
- Create engaging content that speaks to your audience in an authentic manner
- Communicate effectively by writing in a clear and concise manner that relies on fact.
- Collaborate with your clients and industry peers to develop content that may be deemed valuable.
- Connecting with your audience is a full time job and will require you to commit time.
- Use unique call tracking numbers and the functionalities of Call Tracking numbers for your Social Marketing Campaigns to allow you to determine the source of engagement and to evaluate the level of engagement of your Social Media Audience.
