Do you put your Twitter handle on your marketing materials? How about your Facebook address? In our experience, we've found that whilst a lot of businesses have social media accounts, very few promote them effectively through tried and tested traditional methods.
What To Consider When Marketing Through Social Media
Consider this, why do you use social media? Is it to gain extra business? Increase revenue? What are you doing to get your brand noticed on social media? It is surprising that so many people choose to have social media yet don't actively use it, at least in the way we would expect them too.
Social media is a worldwide phenomenon, if you are only targeting customers within a five-mile radius, then you need to promote your social media channels to that radius to ensure it is effective. If you were choosing to advertise in the magazine, you would ensure that you were targeting your specific location to ensure maximum ROI, the same goes for social media.
Perhaps, if you haven't already, you should consider mixing traditional and digital printing methods to promote your social media channels. By this, we mean putting links to your social media channels via all of your printed marketing materials. Some companies, ourselves included, have a number of different social media channels through which we interact with customers, so you need to choose which channel you would like to direct people to.
The Effectiveness Of Social Media
Some businesses find that it is easier to direct people to their Twitter page, as it is a smaller handle and one of the most popular social media networks. Depending on your target audience, this could work well for you or you may find that other social networks work better.
The way in which you use social media can also have an influence over its effectiveness and ultimately your ROI. For example, if you 'over-post' or post irrelevant content then people are likely to disconnect themselves from your brand. Research shows that 40% of people who connect with brands via social media do so because they want a discount or exclusive offers. Of course, this doesn't mean you need to constantly be posting offers on your page, as you don't want to 'cheapen' your brand, but you can bear this in mind and consider seasonal promotions.
So, are you one of those businesses that prints your social media addresses on your low-cost promotional items? Have you considered it yet? If not, then it's time to reconsider.
Main image from Pexels.