If your company does not have a social media presence, you are falling behind. Starting out with social media marketing does not need to be a big production. Many small businesses will hire a social media consultant to take over this initiative, but many others do not have the resources to do so. In this case, you must still try to develop a social media presence and the easiest, most time efficient way to do so is to infuse social media efforts into your current marketing campaigns.
You are probably utilizing other forms of marketing– email campaigns, direct mail campaigns or advertisements for example. If you are spending your resources here then you should be directing contacts to your social media sites as well as to your website.
Here are 3 simple ways to add social media to your mix:
1. Use image links in your signature block to direct contacts from your e-mail campaigns to your social media accounts
Using an image is more visual than a link. You want to optimize your e-mails in this way. As many links as you can have, without being overkill, is the key. You should have link images to all of your social sites, blog (if you have one) and definitely a link to your website.
2. Hold a contests on Twitter or Facebook and announce it via your other channels
Make sure that the prize is something of value– a free trial, a discount or just something free if you can do it. Tell people in your direct mail pieces and emails where to go to enter and that they need to “like” or “follow” you to qualify.
Instruct participants to invite friends to join by forwarding your e-mail or showing them the directions.
3. Cross- promote your social media channels
People who like you on Facebook may not necessarily also be following you on Twitter, LinkedIn or Pinterest. Every once in a while make sure that everyone who is exposed to your company is aware of all of the channels that you are on. Just a simple “did you know we are on Pinterest? Follow us here” is enough. If you are doing a contest on one social channel direct people from your other channels to that one. Also, if you are active in any LinkedIn groups (and you should be, these are great resources), post about your social channels and let the group know that you sometimes host contests or giveaways so that they know that there is something in it for them to follow or like you.
Doing these 3 steps will help enhance your social media presence using campaigns and marketing strategies that you are using. Also, read our blog posts on how to use social media to lead capture (click here), or how to learn which social media channels you should focus on (click here) if you would like to learn more.
If you have any additional ideas on how to incorporate social media into your current marketing tactics, we would love to hear them– leave them in the comments below!
