The Importance of Social Media Marketing

If you want to increase brand awareness and gain new leads, it’s not enough to simply maintain an official company website. These days, most businesses rely on search engine optimization (SEO) to get higher rankings on search engines and thereby grab the attention of their target customers. Surveys show that a good number of consumers use the Internet to find local products and services, a factor that solidifies the importance of online marketing.

Aside from straightforward SEO, a lot more businesses also tap the power of social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. Businesses that actively participate in social media and successfully build meaningful relationships with their consumers get positive buzz about their products and services in return. Once you’ve set up a cool new Facebook or Twitter page, you need to constantly update it so your customers can get the 411 on your products and/or services.

According to Statistics Brain, there are now 1.2 billion Facebook users worldwide. The market is already shifting, and you risk missing out on this huge potential if you don’t have a solid social media marketing plan. If your business is not big enough to maintain a social media marketing, you can simply outsource this function to a reputable online marketing firm that can manage multiple social media accounts on your behalf. This way, customers regularly get to see new an exciting posts on your Facebook, Twitter, and blog.

Upgrade your Social Media Status Updates

Your status updates may not be seen by all of your contacts at any given time, but this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t put some thought when you make one on your local business’ Facebook page. By following certain strategies, not only will your updates be visible to many people, they will also be more effective tools for marketing.

Scheduling your posts is the best way for your updates to be seen by the majority. If you post when people are about to go to work or are about to sleep, the next time your followers log-on to their accounts your update is already going to get buried underneath other posts. Post them at a time when most of your followers are likely to be online. If you are online when most of them are also on, you will be able to interact with them by posting replies to their comments in real time.

More often than not, a post with an image attached to it is deemed more interesting than one that’s in plain text. An accompanying image would also help your post look like more effort was put into it. A post that looks interesting and well-put will always collect likes from generous Facebook users.