Social Media Marketing, small business primer.

If you own a small or medium size business, chances are you’ve heard about Social Media Marketing (SMM) but never understood what it really encompasses. In this article, I am going to break down exactly what it means, and give you some ideas on how you can leverage social media to help promote your website for very little money.

Admit it, you don’t even know what it means...

Don’t worry, a lot of people don’t know what Social Media Marketing is either, especially business owners who are busy running their company. Simply put, Social Media Marketing means using social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to generate buzz about your company. So, if your company has a Facebook page, or if you have product videos that you have on YouTube, generating discussions with people linking to it, you are already participating in a form of SMM! In fact, you’d be surprised how active your company may already be in what is considered SMM. For example, does your company have a blog? Or how about specials that you post to a mailing list or through your Facebook page? Those are all considered Social Media Marketing, and it’s something that a lot of companies are doing right now.

Where to get started.

The great thing about social media is that for the most part, getting started is free. Creating a Facebook page or a Twitter account doesn’t cost you a dime. You can start a Facebook page in minutes, start plugging in updates and begin communicating with your audience. Well, not really. The great thing about social media is that the user has control over what they see, and more importantly who sees them. So how do you get people to start seeing your page? Like everything social, you start with your friends! Invite your friends to your page, and have them invite their friends as well. That will only get you so far, so you need to actively work to get more people to ‘Like’ your page. Here are some ideas:

Write consistent, engaging posts that people enjoy reading.
Integrate plug-ins with your website so visitors can Like you right from your website.
Put a link to your Facebook page in your email signature.
Use Facebook ads to get people to become a fan.
Put a sign at your sales counter. You’d be surprised how many customers will remember to look you up.

OK I have a following, now what?

Fortunately, this is the fun part. You now have people following your company, either on Facebook or maybe Twitter. What you need to do now is keep them interested. How? Well, that’s where your creativity comes in. Remember, you want to engage your fan-base. You don’t want to notify them, you want to facilitate a conversation with them. You want them to read/watch what you post, then comment on it as well as share with their friends, so that they in turn can share it with their friends. So think of some creative things that you can share with your audience to get them to interact with what you post, and hopefully share with their friends. Here are some ideas:

Post something that ends with a question. For example, “I love to wake up early and workout before everyone else wakes up. It makes me feel energized, and gives me a great start to my day. What is your favorite time to work out?”
Acknowledge your active fans. Mention them by name, it goes a long way in creating loyal audiences.
Post ‘Fan Only’ promotions and encourage your fans to share it with their friends as well. Offer them an incentive, and encourage them to interact!
Post casual pictures of the daily life in your company. Again, you want to engage your audience, spur discussions, make them feel like they know you!
Offer ongoing updates on new products and services that are not yet available. Build buzz around upcoming products and service offerings to your followers. By the time you are ready to bring your product/service to market, you already have educated customers.

Next steps... going viral!.

Of course the above are real simple, cost effective ideas that everyone should be doing. Once you are doing the ‘regular’ stuff, you can then start thinking of some real interesting campaigns that will hopefully go viral. Ever watch the Coke and Mentos videos where they create fountains of exploding Coke by adding Mentos to the bottles? Or maybe the ‘Will It Blend’ series where the blender manufacturer shows videos of their blender blending things you would have never thought of! These types of campaigns do not require huge budgets to get off the ground, they just need creativity. Think of things that your company can create that will hopefully get shared, and re-shared over and over again to build brand recognition and increase your fan-base!

Social Media Marketing is certainly a buzzword that is thrown around quite a bit. A lot of companies are already involved in some form of Social Media Marketing, so it’s just a matter of building a plan to expand your efforts then actually implement it.