Why should you use social media when marketing your business? 

It allows you to make your company more visible. Additionally, it lets you convey your sales pitch to a global audience.

Do you need more convincing? Check out these latest statistical facts.

On average, a person spends around 7 hours and 45 minutes on his or her Facebook page each month. (Source Facebook statistics)

If Facebook were a nation, it would rank third among the world’s largest countries. And, with around 901 million active users, as of April 2012, (source 3) it has a population twice bigger than that of the United States. (Source infographics)

On the other hand, Twitter has over 140 million active users as of February 2012. (Source )

There are over 340 million tweets in one day. (Source )

YouTube has around 490 million active users generating an average of 92 billion page views every month (excluding those seen on other websites and on mobile phones). (Source Social Media Statistics)

As of March 2012, Google+ has more than 100 million active members. (Source Larry Page)

Now, these are not the only amazing insights on social media. It would probably take several pages to list them all here. But, since we need to concentrate on the main topic – benefitting from it -, we have to continue with the next part…

Before anything else, you must be aware that you should not use any social media strategy as a substitute for online marketing. Instead, you have to consider it an addition to your existing methods. This way, you can put across your marketing message more effectively through targeted techniques. These usually include the following…

 

Social Media Optimisation for the Website

If you have an online business, you must also have a site, where you can promote your goods or services. While you can use search engine optimisation (SEO) to direct potential customers to it, you can take advantage of other means too. Since the idea is to combine social media marketing (SMM) and SEO, you can let a professional Web designer help integrate your webpages with buttons or icons (such as the ones on the image below), comment boxes, and rating icons (usually stars and thumbs).

Through these elements, you can encourage sharing and user engagement.

 

Social Media + Content Marketing

To carry out this strategy, the first thing you have to do is to come up with interesting and useful information through blog posts or e-newsletters. Then, urge your target audience to subscribe (to your newsletters) or comment (on your articles). You can also place buttons, which the users can click bringing them to your network profiles.

 

Social Media + SEO

One vital optimisation method fit for your social pages is keyword use. You can practise this by incorporating your profile bio, other important fields (space for additional information), and update posts with popular and relevant search terms. You can also link to your official website, blog site, and to authority sites or other social profiles.

 

Social Media + Online Advertising

Though not several potential customers are fond of pay-per-click and display adverts, it pays to put any of your profile page’s URL to your pop-up ads. You can also place buttons, which tell the users to “Follow”, “Share”, “Retweet”, or “Become a Facebook fan”. This strategy may be hard selling but some people actually click on the icons or links.

 

Social Media + Market Research

Using management or Webmaster tools, you can obtain vital data such as the number of users visiting your profile pages. You can also monitor comments and send automated replies. However, you should not depend entirely on these functions because you can learn more about your target customers if you interact with them by responding to comments or queries personally.

In addition, you can check out your competitors’ social pages to discover their SMM methods and determine if these are effective. Then, you can get an idea from their campaign to help you have an edge against other businesses.

So, do you think these techniques are easy?

Hmm, these tasks may seem tough at first. But with practise and assistance from experts, it will not be too hard to grab the attention of your potential customers. With that said, start improving your Facebook or Google+ page today.

Do you have one already? If you do not have a profile or fan page yet, now is the best time to sign up.

 

About the Author: Emma Tomlinson is the Head of Retail at Smart Traffic, a UK-based specialist company delivering organic SEO solutions to several companies across the globe.