Is your business awake to the social media revolution?

Is your business awake to the social media revolution? As an entrepreneur, I initially approached social media with trepidation. My progress accelerated rapidly as I grasped the enormity of the need to incorporate social media marketing into my overall marketing mix.

However, I became overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information I was bombarded with on a daily basis. Frankly, I couldn’t get why people would want to thrust their latest money-making venture at me on Facebook when they hadn’t even stopped by to say “hello”?

But with time I learned that these people just hadn’t grasped the power of positive social networking and how to use it effectively for their brand or company.

What are the five key factors that you should be aware of before launching your online social marketing strategy?

1 Commitment

There is no law/requirement for you to get involved. If you are going to get involved, you had better be committed. Demonstrating a lack of commitment will do your brand and customer loyalty more damage than no presence at all.

2 Know the soul of your brand

Know how to communicate your brand in a way that people feel it. They require to feel your brand heart. Facts tell, stories sell. So tell your story of your brand and what impact it will make on your target audience. This will bring awareness and sales and loyalty to your brand.

3. Know your target audience

Know who you are aiming your message at. Knowing this will drive your success in online social marketing. You will know where to get involved in the conversation that will bring qualified prospects to your brand. You don’t sell, people will buy from you when they find your brand and it is relevant to what they want and how they feel.

4. Make sure participants representing your brand are passionate about social networking

Participants acting on your brand behalf on social networking sites require to be passionate about the brand because social communication is very human and transparent. Apathy doesn’t cut it here. Just because a member of staff carries a VP title does not give them the right to participate in social media unless they are passionate about this marketing medium and how to use it effectively to communicate and participate in the conversation.

5. Have an online media strategy, vision and action plan and share it with every representative of your organization

Know how you are going to get your target customers to care about your brand. Are you going to run a blog? Who is running it? Everyone in your organization needs to know your online social marketing strategy and vision. Customers can interact with anyone in your organization via social media so it is critical that there is cross-company consistent brand and social media awareness.

So what is the point?

Social networking is so relevant to your brand awareness, sales and customer loyalty today that if you are not participating, in my opinion, the future will be very bleak indeed. Social media is the glue that holds your entire sales and marketing process together. It is the way customers will talk about experiences with your brand between each other and with you. There is no longer business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-customer (B2C) it is rather customer-to-customer (C2C) talking about business (B) and therefore you require to get in the conversation if you truly care about your brand.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Tagged as: attraction marketing strategy, Social Media, social media marketing, social media revolution, social media strategy, social networking, social networks