Online Marketing Ideas

Online Marketing Ideas

By Elbert E. P. Hill Smith

1.    Meeting potential customers where they are most comfortable
         a.       develop a profile of our customers’ social media comfort levels              
            b.    most frequently used sites or online tools.

             c.      the age group, gender, career, and other demographics, social media activity, (e.g.:  of our best customers)

              d.     asking our customers for their email addresses, Facebook profile names, Twitter addresses, LinkedIn profiles, etc.  to include them in the fun.

              e.  Sending out a quick email survey to our mailing list to ask readers about their social media activities.

2.    Spending time social networking for the company:
  

a.     Tweeting messages,

b.    Updating Facebook status

c.     “liking” relevant posts

d.    Retweeting links and articles

5. Keeping a shared log of your social networking activities

               (prevents retracing your steps, forgetting to follow up on important discussions, missing out on specific opportunities, and duplicating efforts by other team members. It will also help you assess your progress and measure results.)

3.  Encouraging audience participation –the sense of connection and interaction. including a call to action in our updates:

       • Asking questions in the form of surveys or polls
       • Stating a problem and asking for suggestions
       • Raiseing discussion topics
       • Offering simple low-cost contests 

        4.  Sharing news about our business (new products, event photos, interesting facts, employee profiles, insightful statistics) have a friendly face, share motivational quotes, what books we’ve been reading lately, funny photos of us at work, even pictures of our pets. By the time our new customers contact us to inquire about our Hawaiian shirts, they’ll feel like they already know us. 

This trust is priceless, so we’ll always put our best foot forward.

5.  Protect your brand:
       Searching on the name of your company to see what comes up.

        If someone posts something negative about us or our company, do what we can to resolve the issue, and apologize (even if you have to grit our teeth). Depending on how it goes, consider offering a refund or free gift, and ask the customer to revise their review or post an update showing how you made efforts to fix the problem. Let our followers see how we resolve issues in a timely and respectful manner. 

6.  Keep it simple

posts on any social media site should address only one message at a time, and should be short, sweet, and to the point.

   

Whenever possible, we will include a photo, clip art, a video clip, or a link to add interactivity and supporting information.

Facebook offers a lot more options for B-to-C (Business to Customer) interaction, LinkedIn is great for B-to-B, (Business to Business) and Twitter is a fast and simple way to broadcast to both. It’s probably a good idea to establish at least a modest presence on Google+

7.  Be buzzworthy

the most challenging aspect of social media marketing – generating interest and keeping it. The ultimate goal is to go viral.  (ideally an audience of likely prospects)

LinkedIn: have completely filled in profile.  Upload resume, post the link to our blogs

Blogs:

Start a terrific blog about products or services, reviews new products, talk about the competitive landscape, compares regions, etc, etc.  Make our articles good so people will link to them, start showing up in Google searches for the similar brands (and such), start growing your reach.

Have a big "Reach" on social media.

Use advanced search.

Post answers to questions in the LinkedIn Q&A section. Become a known expert.

Using specific keywords.

Showing on LinkedIn that we are an active networkers in a group in our industry.

Follow specific company Twitter accounts.

Promote our community Impact: Show how we are making a difference via social channels, raising funds for a local charities?

Work our connections.
 
Google ourselves.

Do our homework:  reading profiles, visit relevant websites.

Use good spelling and grammar.

Demonstrate being creative thinkers who are contributing to discussions or producing interesting content.

Demonstrate being well rounded human being.