Another week, and another week of excellent posts from the blogging world. Working in digital marketing I am always looking for inspiration for future projects and initiatives to roll out for Approved Index. This week I had an epiphany as a friend has just entered the world of digital marketing and they were asking for some tips on social media.
This got me thinking about businesses and how they employ social media to communicate with new and existing customers, evangelise their brand and generally increase their own social media standing. So this week I have pulled together some great posts all relating to social media and how this can be utilised for business.
Outsourcing Your Social Media Activity
The first article I want to talk about relates to outsourcing your social media activity to an external agency and what you need to consider when doing this. I am personally not a fan of outsourcing this type of activity as I feel it goes against what social media engagement should be. That is, the company interacting with its customer base on a more personable and social level. Giving this to an external company that doesn’t fully appreciate or understand your brand could be very detrimental, and from working in an agency in a previous life I have seen this happen. But, at the same time I can appreciate some businesses don’t have the time or the necessary experience to implement a full social media campaign.
Thus the reason for me liking this article so much as it gives you five top tips on what you should be doing when employing an external agency to manage your social media campaign. To surmise the tips within the article, they’re all about communicating regularly with the external agency, making sure they blend seamlessly with your corporate message and fully understand your brand and also making sure you get regular reports on the progress of your campaigns. To read the full article 5 Key Elements for Success when Outsourcing your Social Media Activity.
If you decide to go down the route of doing your social media activity internally then what should you be taking into consideration to ensure a successful campaign is achieved. The following two articles are both good introductions in how to monitor your brand using various forms of social media. The third article is an excellent introduction on how to use Twitter effectively for business.
Fundamentals of Social Media Monitoring
You’ve decided to take on the social media challenge internally. It’s a big step but one that if done correctly will pay off dividends. You can expect to receive more sales leads, increased communication with your clients and increase the promotion of your products and services.
The article Putting the “Fun” into the Fundamentals of Social Media Monitoring has some great tips on how to monitor your brand and business within the social media world. It has tips on how to utilise the search functionality on all of the key social media platforms. I particularly agree with using the social media monitoring tools such as Hootsuite, one other tool that we use regularly is Followerwonk, this simple tool searches the profiles of Twitter users and enables you to do some basic searching of businesses that may be in the same market as you are.
It is key when implementing a new social media campaign to be aware of what people, companies and rivals might be saying about you. Do the initial research and it can pay dividends later on down the line by enabling to see where you are getting mentioned most regularly. So do what this article recommends and you will be on a good footing, I’m continually monitoring our brand and what people are saying about us, enabling Approved Index to build up that rapport.
10 Twitter Tips for Business
This is a really good article for people in business who want to get into using Twitter to bolster their social media standing. The 10 Tweetable Twitter Tips for B2B Marketers is a great article for novices and experts alike.
I really like the final three points, and they are tips that I still regularly employ whilst at work. The rest of the tips are also extremely beneficial so I would highly recommend getting stuck in and trying them out to see what you think to them.
In the article I felt point six was of particular note, as its one that we are regularly testing ourselves. We regularly test different formats, link to different types of content and analyse what proves successful, don’t be afraid to try something different. Standing out from the crowd could give you that edge that propels you up in the social media stratosphere.
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