Archive for category Social Media Marketing
How A/B Testing Can Help You Improve Your Online Sales
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing on April 11, 2013
Most businesses can benefit from A/B testing. Whether for social, SEO, or even your web design, AB testing can help you to figure out what works and what doesn’t so that you can improve on what you have. Improving means making more sales, converting more traffic, and in some cases, even getting more traffic. So what is A/B testing and how does it work?
What is AB Testing?
A/B testing or split testing is the process of experimenting with web, social, and marketing content until you achieve the best results. Usually A/B testing uses direct comparisons so for example, two things would be launched at one time and their performance compared. A good example would be in marketing ads, you can launch one ad with a blue background and one with a red background, A/B testing is the process of seeing which gets more clicks. Most A/B testing introduces small changes to previous designs and then directly compares results. You can repeat this process with landing pages, social sites, shares, website color, ads, SEO tactics, and more.
As you can probably guess, A/B testing is an excellent way to improve things because you can make small changes and launch them together so that you can see which works better without hurting your sales by trying something drastically new. Ready to try it out?
Utilizing A/B Testing
The first thing you need is a marketing program, SEO program, or web page you would like to improve. Let’s say you would like to increase your social related purchases. In this case you would simply try different types of posts, measure them against each other, and see which get the most hits, click-through’s and impressions. So post 1. Could be “Check out our fan only sale, now through Saturday’ with a link. Post 2. Could be a photo with ‘Fan only Coupon, get your 25% discount’. While you would obviously have to post these on different days, and maybe even different weeks, you could easily see which option incited more sales.
A/B testing for SEO and website conversions is a little harder, but it does use the same basic idea. You change one small thing and see how it performs against something else. So for example, you could create two different landing pages, each with different text, different colors, and a different call to action, and see how they perform against each other. A smaller change would be to make only the call to action different to see how one tiny part compares.
This form of testing is most commonly used in ads where it is very easy to utilize, but A/B can be used in almost anything. From social posts and tweets to web pages and SEO, you can utilize A/B testing to examine, test, and improve your online sales. In fact, even changing up your descriptions and the photos on any products or services you might have can be considered A/B testing
Online Reputation Management and how it Can Benefit Your Social Media
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on March 14, 2013
Anyone with a business should invest in some form of reputation management, even if it is something as simple as starting and keeping up a positive blog or social site. Reputation management begins in creating a positive media buzz around your website or company for positive media attention, brand awareness, and customer awareness. Despite its origins in covering up negatives about a company, brand management doesn’t necessarily have to be for hiding negative media. In fact, you can utilize it now to positively increase your presence on the web.
What is Reputation Management?
If you’ve ever lived in a small town then you know that saying something you shouldn’t can get you in trouble. You probably also know that doing something good can get you talked about in a positive way. Your Seattle social media, and website brand management, operate under the same premises. The internet is essentially a very small place because while spanning the world, it allows information to be exchanged instantaneously. This means that a potential shopper in Boston could read about how great your online shoe store is and buy shoes or a Seattle restaurant critic like Providence Cicero might see your restaurant online and decide to pay a visit. Reputation management is about controlling and managing the information that goes out about you online so that you create a positive vibe online.
Four Basic Online Reputation Management Tips
Your online reputation starts with your SEO, your blogging, and most importantly, your social media. While any DIY technique isn’t going to mimic the in-depth management of a professional, you can get a good start on your own, especially if you don’t have a lot of negative content up about your site. Here are four easy tips for reputation, and brand management for your Seattle SEO.
- Keep a Blog – SO what does a blog have to do with your reputation management? A lot actually. The thing is, the more you are saying about your business, the less room there is for other people on the first page. Another good thing to keep in mind is that a blog can draw traffic to your site, especially if you take the time to write high quality articles that reflect your site and your content. If your website is a blogging site then obviously you don’t need this advice, but it is important to remember that a regularly posted blog can do wonders for your social, your traffic, and your reputation.
- Take Care of Your Social – Your social is the hub of what people say about you online, so you should take care of it. Talking to people on your social, taking the time to create real working relationships, and making connections can really help to get positive word out about your website. On the other hand spamming people with links to click on and expecting them to automatically like your business won’t get you anywhere. Usually it’s a good idea to approach your social with care, and remember that each person who ‘likes’ ‘follows’ or +1’s your pages is a human being as well as a potential client, customer, or subscriber.
- Resolve Problems – So what next? You might not have any problems yet, but you’re likely to get some eventually. One of the hardest parts of online reputation management is resolving issues as quickly and efficiently as possible, and without getting into arguments. Making customers or clients feel like they are important is the easiest way to create positive brand awareness, so make sure you handle issues effectively. For example, were you the shoe store listed above and someone commented on your social, or left a review on Yelp, that their shoes had fallen apart, you would want to respond with an apology, and perhaps the offer of a new pair of shoes or a refund. While giving out the money might hurt, it will hurt less than the irreparable damage a bad review can do to your reputation. Likewise, a restaurant or even a freelancer with a bad review could
- Watch What You Say – Did you know that comments you leave on a blog can come up in search if someone searches for your email? Or that those comments will be there for years into the future? Everything from a tweet to a comment can come up for literally years into the future whether you like it or not, so watch what you say. Anyone who works extensively with their social should attempt to keep personal and business social accounts as separate as possible, and potentially even consider creating a personal Facebook that is private to all but close friends and family. An unintended joke or photo of a night out with friends can look bad to a professional, especially if you depend on your reputation for work.
The good news is that once you get the hang of managing your online reputation, you shouldn’t have that many problems with it. Key issues are keeping up with your social, creating a positive buzz through articles, blogs, and networking, and resolve any issues as quickly as possible. Remember that the internet can turn a city as large as Seattle into a very small place information wise, so taking care of your reputation can be one of your best business strategies.
Seattle Social Media Tips: Five Ways to Get More Facebook Interaction & Conversion
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on February 11, 2013
Facebook is the largest social network on the planet and despite the lure of many other social sites including Twitter and Pinterest, Facebook consistently shows the highest social media conversion in recent years. With more interest generated per post, more follow back and interaction with links, and generally just more driven traffic, businesses cannot afford to ignore Facebook as an important marketing tool. But with recent Facebook changes, it can be difficult to get the interaction that you need. These Seattle social media tips are designed to help you optimize your posts to get the most interaction.
1. Be Human
‘Being Human’ might be the name of a popular television show, but it is also something that many Facebook business users forget to do. In the rush to convert traffic and sales, many businesses only post about themselves, expect without giving anything back, and in general simply share everything from their website in the hopes of driving traffic. Statistics have proven time and time again that this strategy (if it can be called a strategy) simply does not work. Facebook users respond the best to interactive, communicative, and personal posts. While you shouldn’t necessarily post about what you had for breakfast or what your child’s favorite color is, you should post about your opinions, talk about why you’re posting something, and give people a personal reason to look at or do something.
2. Ask Questions
It is a truth that people respond to questions, so make sure you ask them. Whether you are asking about someone’s day or asking about what features or products your fans would like to see on your site you will still increase interest and conversion. Questions lead to answers which lead to more people seeing your page, possibly liking your page, and maybe clicking on your website.
3. Post as Few Links as Possible
As counterproductive as it might sound, you shouldn’t post a lot of links to your Facebook page. In fact, Facebook is limiting how many people see links on your page unless you pay to promote them. If you do not have a large budget to promote your links, you should consider simply posting links rarely. Having a great deal of content on your page that has only been seen by 11% of your following can be bad for your social media ranking because it shows poor conversion rates. Posting more solid content including photos which many people will see is more beneficial to your page and your site. Conversely, you can post about something on your site and then link to it later in comment discussions without suffering viewing penalties.
4. Your Facebook Page Uses SEO Too
Most people do not realize that Facebook pages utilize SEO as well as their website. While individual posts do not use SEO and do not normally come up in search, Facebook pages and page notes do come up in search on Facebook’s new Graph search as well as Bing, Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. Utilizing basic SEO rules including optimizing names and descriptions can help increase page conversion directly from search. You can check SEOMoz for professional tips on the subject.
5. Post Frequently
Posting frequently and regularly is important for any sort of interest and conversion, so ensure that you post on a regular schedule. For the best results, utilize a free social media helper such as HootSuite to send out posts at specific times. Statistics show that weekdays after 4 PM tend to get the most hits, so ensure that you try to post something right around then.
While there are a lot of rules to optimizing your posts for Facebook, these quick Seattle social media tips should get you started in the right direction. Remember that a genuine post is more important than not posting at all, and if you don’t have anything else to post, you can always share relevant content from another page to help build a relationship with another Facebook user.
Seattle Social Media: 5 Reasons Google Authorship is a Must-Have for Any Blogging Website
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on January 12, 2013
Google Authorship is one of Google’s newer tools for authors, and one of the newest ‘SEO kittens’ available for site owners. With recent and forthcoming updates to Google’s search engine algorithm, Google Authorship is expected to be very important to blogging websites, and an integral part of Seattle social media optimization sometime in the very near future. So what are the benefits of Google Authorship, and how can you utilize it for your site?
Attract More Attention to Your Post in Search
The first and most obvious result of using Google Authorship is that you will eventually see a photo, a small bio, and a link to your Google + directly in search. While this might not seem like much more than a vanity point, consider two things. The first is that the post is bigger than any posts that do not have authorship, this immediately attracts more attention. Second, and most importantly, anyone looking for a quality article can see who wrote that article and that you are confident enough of its quality to put your name and your face on it. Google Authorship has sometimes seen as much as a 30% increase in click through rate based on impressions, meaning that you could be getting a lot more traffic just by adding your name and your face to your results in search.
Increase Author and Site Credibility
Not only are you putting your name on your post, you’re allowing Google to see what you are claiming. Based on your user reaction, the helpfulness and SEO quality of the blog, and of course, the amount of social media sharing you get, Google will ‘remember’ that you post good content, and start placing you higher in search. Readers can also see how many followers you have on Google +, a great indicator as to whether or not you deserve to be read.
Easily Access Statistics and Click-Through Rates
If you’re attempting to track your content to see click through rate, traffic, or even average position in Google search, there is literally no better tool than the Google Authorship statistics. Currently the tool is only accessible via labs (meaning that it may break, vanish, or disappear at any time), but it is well worth your time and effort to check out. Want to see for yourself? Log into your Google Webmaster Tools, click ‘Labs’ and then choose ‘Author Stats’.
Does Google Have a ‘Favorite’ Child?
It has been rumored in the past that Google has a tendency to ‘play favorites’ with its own content, so you might want to consider using Google + and utilizing Google Authorship with it for that reason. Google currently owns about 65-75% of internet search, meaning that of the estimated nearly 300 million internet users in 2012 at least 195 million used a Google search engine.
Benefit Your Local Seattle Social Media Optimization
Last year, Matt Cutts, head of Google’s webspam, talked about how a well ranked Google Authorship website might continue to place well in search, even if the site changes hands to someone who doesn’t worry quite as much about quality. But this doesn’t mean you should start being lax with grammar and content, instead, it means that once you have a reputation, you will keep it for some time. Google authorship allows you to build your SEO over time by simply posting great content and engaging with your readers, customers, or clients. Social activity involving your posts, sharing, number of clicks, and of course, your number of followers will all contribute to your ‘credibility’. With the many new changes to Google search engine algorithms, including the introduction of Penguin, Panda, and Google Authorship; you can’t afford to exclude this great tool from your Seattle Social Media optimization. If you have not set your Google Authorship up yet, you can find out how here.
Seattle Social Media: Four Easy Ways to Get the Most out of Your Google Authorship
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on January 11, 2013
Google Authorship is a relatively simple tool that uses rel-links to create a link back to your Google + profile, adding your photo and bio to the description of the post. The result is that you get a link back to your profile which will mostly help to increase your social sharing, and that readers can see who wrote the post, and how many people are following you. Seattle social media experts, including us, have begun using Google Authorship to integrate social and SEO. If you’ve already set up your Google Authorship, here are a few easy ways to optimize it for the best results.
Use a Clear Head Shot
A photo certainly does not sound like it might be important to a search engine, but in this case, it’s not Google you’re trying to please, it is your readers. While implementing Google Authorship has been shown to increase click through rate on a site by as much as 30% or more, you won’t see good results if you have a bad picture. For example, let’s say you created your Google + one night when it first came out, uploaded the first image you found on your computer and then left it at that. You don’t use Google + so it was never that important. Now that you’ve implemented Google Authorship, you can see a rise or fall in your traffic based on your image. Is it clear, professional, reflective of your business? Chances are that unless you are a professional comedian, you probably shouldn’t be making a face. Instead, try using a passport photo, smile, look professional, and make sure there is enough light.
Interact on Google +
Whether or not you like Google + or just have it out of necessity, you can increase your Google authorship optimization by interacting and engaging with users on Google +. Invite your friends to the social site, chat and interact with them, and always remember to share your content to your Google +. Leaving a personal message instead of a simple share also helps to increase conversion rates.
Check for Links
Did you know that a study last year of each website that had implemented Google Authorship showed that only 9% had actually linked back to their Google + profile? If you link to your content by confirming your domain email, ensure that you also add the site in the ‘Contributor’ section of your Google + profile. You should also use a Google + link using the rel-me and rel-author tags on your site. An author page should contain ‘rel-me’ and each post should contain he ‘rel-author’ in the biographical section of the post.
Set Yourself Up As a Professional in Your Field
Does your bio say absolutely nothing about what you do? If you spent the first few sentences in your Google + profile talking about your dogs, you might want to go back in and rewrite it. Try drawing attention to your area of expertise from the start rather than talking about it later. Google Authorship does not show the full bio in search, so you will be relying on those first few sentences to convince potential readers that you are indeed an expert in your field. Start off with what you know, and talk about your life later. For example, if you were an expert in Seattle social media, you would mention that in the first or second line of the post.
Seattle Social Media: What is Google Authorship (And How to Set It Up)
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on January 7, 2013
What is Google Authorship? And how does it affect your Seattle social media? Google authorship is a markup that you can insert into a blog or website to claim ownership, get extra stats, and use for a few interesting features. There have been many changes in recent Google search algorithms, and one of the biggest will soon be the implementation of authorship into search results. But first, let’s learn a little bit about Google Authorship itself.
Google Authorship uses a rel tag, which is part of HTML5. This tag can be utilized in author boxes, most web pages, blogs, and pretty much anywhere you can place content. Before you get started, make sure you have a Google + profile (it doesn’t matter if it’s active) and then proceed. If you don’t have the profile, you can sign up for free by creating or using your Gmail account.
Setting up Google Authorship
There are two ways to set up Google Authorship with a few special considerations if you have multiple people posting on your site. You should also use a clear headshot on your Google + profile (Google does not like their authors to be ‘companies’ so no logos if possible).
Method One: Use or set up an email account with the domain server that you have (For example info@RoryMartin.com) , then check to make sure each page of work that you intend to claim contains a clear byline (for example ‘Written by Rory Martin’) Check to make sure your byline name and your Google + profile are the same (I.E. you can’t use Rory Martyn and Rory Martin). Finally, visit the ‘Authorship’ page of Google and submit your email address, confirm it, and from then on, anything you publish on that page will automatically show up with your Google + photo in search.
Method Two: If you do not have an email with the domain you want to claim, you can use the Google authorship markup to claim the content as well. For this method you will need the link to your Google + profile to an individual page using the Google markup.
<a href=https://plus.google.com/109325933900468965289? rel=author>Rory Martin</a>
Edit the markup to include your Google + profile, and if you like, edit the tag, for example,
<a href=https://plus.google.com/109325933900468965289? rel=author>Rory Martin</a>
Minus the space, it would appear as
<a href=https://plus.google.com/109325933900468965289?rel=author>Rory Martin</a> <a href=” https://plus.google.com/109325933900468965289?rel=author”>Rory Martin</a>
Next, visit your Google + profile, click ‘Edit’ and scroll down to the ‘Contributor’ section. Add a link with a title to the site you’ve added your markup to, and you are all done. Websites who post work from multiple authors and who use an author bio box can actually include the markup in any author bio plugin that supports HTML5. This can save time because you won’t have to post the markup each time that person posts a blog.
Joomla: For Joomla sites you can choose to use an HTML5 reader, install a rich snippet reader, install author link, or edit your CSS ‘Written by’ to include the authorship markup. You could also directly modify the author link to any pages of individual authors to include the ‘rel=author’ markup. Not sure your rich snippets are right? Check them here with Google before posting them on your site.
What does Google Authorship Do for Your Seattle Social Media?
Social media helps drive traffic to and from your content, and as Google’s baby, Google + and therefore Google authorship are tools that you cannot afford to ignore. In the first eight months of authorship alone, more than 17% of Google search results for articles and websites consisted of pages with Google Authorship markups. Considering that during that time, Google Authorship was only being used by about 3% of web publishers, which shows a definite lean towards favoritism. If you want your content to come up in search, Google authorship is a great addition.
What else does Google authorship do? Each time your post shows up in search, it will have a link to your Google + profile, the headshot that you provided Google, and the number of Google + followers you have. You’ll also be able to view statistics for your work no matter where it is on the web. Logging into Google Webmaster Tools, going to ‘Labs’ and clicking on ‘Author Stats’ will take you to a dashboard where you can view everything from average views, to click through rate per article, per day! Essentially, Google Authorship helps your Seattle Social Media by allowing you to claim your content, increase traffic by giving it visibility and an author, and of course, great free stats that you can use to see how your content is doing.
The Rise of Social Media Marketing and How it Affects Your Local Seattle SEO
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on December 28, 2012
Seattle is one of the world’s largest e-commerce hotspots, with commercial giants including Amazon, Etsy, Zappos, Groupon, and more, calling the city their home. These companies, like smaller businesses in Seattle, utilize SEO to target local and international traffic, but unlike those big businesses, you as a smaller company have one disadvantage. You’re invisible. In fact, Google doesn’t even see you. Unless you have a reputation, a stake in Google stocks, or happen to be a Google employee, your website or blog is entirely at the mercy of Google’s ever changing algorithms and bots, meaning that you, or the Seattle SEO company promoting your site, must follow the rules.
But what are those SEO rules? Google’s constant release of new updates and changes have left many people confused about correct SEO keyword density, what backlinks are permitted, and now, what social media has to do with your SEO.
Google Algorithm Changes
“There’s been a Penguin update” five little words that are guaranteed to send every webmaster and blog owner scrambling to check their ranking and traffic. The last Penguin update in December of 2012 affected more than 1.6% of queries, and new updates next year could affect more than 6%.
Penguin went live on April 24th of 2012 and with sister Google Algorithm update Panda, proceeded to turn the world of SEO upside down, affecting a combined total of more than 18% of searches. The aim of both of these updates was to lower the ranking of poor quality sites and raise high quality ones to the top of the search. What Panda and Penguin also did was hit any quality sites that were using ‘black hat’ SEO techniques, link farms, or other ‘fake’ SEO. The first wave of changes promoted quality over quantity for both links and content, but changes are not over yet.
The Integration of Social Media and Authorship
In October of 2012, Matt Cutts posted a video on the Google Webmaster Help YouTube channel about guest blogging, explaining that to most sites, the guest blog was obsolete. Posting a great deal of poor quality articles linking back to other sites is only likely to raise a red flag to Google search bots, which would lower the traffic. He then went on to explain that if the author were respected, qualitative, and had a following, the guest blog might be very much worth the websites time. This was the first indication of how the new Google Authorship will affect search engine rankings.
Google created a Google ‘Author’ page earlier this year, allowing site owners to link their Google + to their website or to guest blogs. The result is that persons who utilized authorship could view their search rankings and impressions, and anyone looking for the article could view the authors name and photo with Google + profile just below the article in search.
Now, that Google + profile, combined with Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and other social media accounts will be affecting search results. Authors with influence, a history of writing quality content, and a strong niche will soon be ranked above authors without that following, and who write about anything and everything. Social media interactions from company social will also affect search. This new algorithm is beginning to roll out now, and is expected to be fully in place as soon as June of next year.
How New Google Algorithms Affect Your Local Seattle SEO
Whether you’re trying to promote your services or company to the world, or just doing a bit of local SEO, the new Google algorithms affect your results in many ways. With the pure volume of affected search results, you can’t afford to ignore new algorithms, and you can’t afford to ignore your social. Rather than a simple promotion platform, the interaction on your social sites will soon be just as important to your SEO strategy as your content and your back links. International and local Seattle SEO are both affected, so it is important to focus on spreading your optimization through social, quality backlinks, and quality site content.
Get the Most Out of Your Branding – Twitter Cover Photos
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on October 23, 2012
Branding is one of the first marketing steps that a company usually takes. The basic questions asked start with ‘How do we want the customer to feel about our company?’ ‘What tone should the company take?’ Often, the answers to these questions boil down to a few words. Sporty. Out-going. Friendly. Professional. Trust-worthy. Wholesome. Everything which a company then does in terms of marketing, advertising and other forms of publicity and outreach are then done with this brief in mind. This used to be relevant mostly to print media, but, nowadays, we have to consider social media branding.
At the most basic level, social media branding is similar to regular branding. The most instantly recognizable aspect of a business is usually their logo, and this should be used somewhere predominate. For Twitter and Facebook, where users have updates scrolling past them faster than they can read, it’s best to have the company logo as the profile photo. It’s easier to spot a recognizable picture in a list of updates than it is to even skim-read users names.
However, now that both Facebook and Twitter have implemented ‘cover photos’, it’s possible to get creative with your homepage. Your Twitter profile picture will appear in the center of the Twitter cover photo, so using a team photo will often result in someone’s face being obscured – but it might be possible to use this to a humorous advantage. For example, we’ve seen some pretty creative cover “hacks” like this one from Ryan Seacrest
This juxtaposition shows you exactly who Seacrest is in his cover photo. Just make sure to estimate spacing for your tagline and webpage.
The cover photos on Facebook and Twitter are an incredibly useful tool when it comes to social media branding, as businesses are no longer limited to just a 180×180 square company logo. Cover photos can be used to indicate the purpose of the company in a fun and interesting way, or to show people interacting with the company in a positive way.
Have you integrated the new Twitter cover photos into your branding strategy? Check out some quick twitter branding we did for artist, Wyly Astley!
Why Social Media Makes Marketing Easier
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on September 11, 2012
What if you could reach five hundred local customers in just a couple of minutes? What if you could click just ONE button, and watch the product orders flood in? These are just a couple of promises made about why social media is going to be great for your business, and the kicker is – they’re true.
If you have 500 (or more!) followers on Twitter, then you can easily write and share a tweet in a couple of minutes. When you have engaged readers of your blog and website, you just have to hit ‘Publish Post’ to alert your community to the new, awesome, item you have, that will improve their lives no end.
Long-time readers of social media advice might notice that we left out a couple of steps. In order to get 500+ local, relevant followers on Twitter, someone has to put in a concerted effort to make your fan base aware of your online presence. The same with creating that blogging community, or finding Fans for your Facebook page. Social Media makes it so much easier to share news and information, but it’s no longer a case of ‘If you build it, they will come.’
Social Media Marketing needs to be fully integrated into all other avenues of marketing
This includes print and tv marketing, if you want to see your marketing campaign achieve its full potential. If you’re a big enough brand, then maybe people will make the effort to search for you on Facebook or Twitter, but smaller companies will need to make it as easy and as clear as possible to potential customers where they can be found on-line.
Integrating social media into a print or tv marketing campaign need be no more taxing than adding in your Twitter handle where you already have your address and telephone number onto your next batch of catalogues or flyers. Use traditional marketing to pull people in, and engage them on social media to keep them interested in and aware of your brand.
Have you successfully used traditional print marketing in conjunction with social media marketing? How did it go?
Sales and Social Media Marketing: What’s the ROI
Posted by Rory Martin in Social Media Marketing on August 28, 2012
Here’s something we’ve touched upon before at RoryMartin.com, but which people quite often seem to forget: social media is not the place for sales. Saying this straight can cause businesses to throw up their hands and exclaim “What’s the point?”, but hear us out. Social media is first and foremost a marketing tool – and your social media marketing strategy should reflect that. Even people who use social media to tweet about their breakfast are still thinking about how they’d like the world to think of them – although they probably don’t have plans to become ‘Breakfast Food Consultants’. Social media can be used to build brand awareness and positive customer (read: potential customer!) engagement. Of course, social media can be used to make sales, but if your updates are chock-full of SALE! And OFFER! people will quickly switch off.
One of the reasons why social media is not a sales tool is because people don’t go to check their accounts thinking ‘I’d like to purchase something today, I wonder what that will be?’ Social media catches people far earlier in the buying process than, say, a storefront window. Followers and fans may not even be aware that they need your product or service, let alone want to purchase it right then and there.
However, this doesn’t mean that your followers and fans will never purchase a product or service from you via social media, but the process is a longer one. Social media marketing is a long-term sales strategy. Sending out five tweets in a row about your latest OFFERS and SALES everyday won’t make you any friends, but providing constant and consistent advice and information about your products and services will. Users typically turn to social media for entertainment and information, so give it to them!
A new Follower or Fan may not immediately make a purchase from you, the same way that someone in your internet store or on your shop floor might, but over time they will come to trust and respect your authority in your business niche. Then, when they do decide it’s time to get a glazier in, they’ll turn to a name they remember – yours.
Customers who discovered your services on social media are very high value after the sale as well. They can, and often will, turn to their accounts to praise, or demonise, your business. Make it easy for them to give a positive review, and that will influence their followers, and yours. With people turning to peer reviews before making their purchasing decisions nowadays, this is the true ROI when it comes to social media – positive feedback and an increased sphere of influence.
If you’d like to hear more about how social media can benefit your business, then email Rory Martin today.
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