social marketing Archives -

Do you know what the best social media tools are for your business?

At a networking event recently, I had my 60 second commercial to give. I asked two questions

–

What is the best social media tools for your business?

If you have time to do only one social media thing what would it be?

One person said it depends on your business. I countered with “for your business”.

The answer to the first question is dependent upon what type of business you have. Each of us have a different audience and a different product. Some of us market to other businesses, hence, B2B. Others market to consumers or B2C. Depending upon which type of customer you have depends upon which are the best social media tools for you to use. You can discover more in my series of articles on B2B vs. B2C social media marketing. Once you have determined which one(s) is right for your business, include them in your overall marketing plan.

The second question is a bit of a trick question. Where should you invest your time if you could only spend it on one social platform? My answer is write a blog article. The caveat is that it must be attached to your website like this one is attached to mine. I use WordPress as my platform. My blog is considered self-hosted. This helps your website work because it adds new content on a regular basis to your website. If you are regularly writing posts (regular is different for everyone, but my definition is at least twice a month), the search engines return to your site, find new information, and index your site higher in the search results for your related search terms. Writing a blog also helps demonstrate your subject matter expertise and shows visitors to your website that you are staying current on your industry.

If you have the time to expand into other social media tools, you have automatic items to share from your blog. It becomes a win-win!!

Give me a call, send an email, or reach out on social media, if I can help you establish the best social media tools for your social marketing efforts.

B2B vs B2C – Enews marketing

Last in our series of articles on social marketing for B2B vs. B2C is Enews.

People who purchase smart phones have a variety of reasons why they buy a smartphone but the important one for this article is that 78% of people use it to check email. 1 By 2017, the percent of smartphone users is expected to reach 68 percent. 2 More email is read Mobile than on a desktop email client. Stats say 47% of email is now opened on a mobile device Litmus –”Email Analytics” (April 2014) So what do all of these things tell you?

For a long time, email newsletters had gone out of vogue. Nobody was reading them because they were inundated with emails of all types. With the onset of Facebook, G+ and Twitter, people had other ways to communicate. Now that means that emails might have a “meatier” purpose.

While some might argue that emails aren’t social media, you can share links to your e-news on social media. It is a great way to share a number of items from a variety of areas in one platform, sort of like a “Best of” compilation. AND, as the statistics show, your subscribers are more likely to read them now from their mobile device. That means that you must ensure that they are reactive to any email platform.

B2B

Share offers, news, product information, links to blog articles, places you are exhibiting or speaking, and workshops you are offering. This is also a great way to promote any partnership efforts – for example, one of your clients is offering a product or service that might be valuable to your customers. My suggestion is at least once a month or someone may forget that they subscribed and overlook your newsletter.

B2C

Share offers, upcoming new features, community news, helpful tips related to your industry, how-tos, links to your blog, coupons, pictures of happy customers, and more. One warning to B2C is regulate the number of times you send an email to avoid overloading your subscribers in-box. You don’t want to cause someone to unsubscribe because you are oversharing.

Both

For both B2B and B2C, it is important to time your enews to avoid being overlooked. One article I read said Sunday afternoon. 3 Others will tell you more emails are sent during the week than on weekends, with Tuesday and Thursday being the highest volume days. Changing which day you send your emails may improve your open and click rates. 4 No matter what, do some testing on times and then check your statistics to find out when your subscribers open your emails the most.

What our Customers Say!

Dee and I have worked together successfully since I have been in the Elgin area, and she has been a phenomenal resource. By assisting me in learning to better utilize social media, especially Linked In, I have been able to establish new business contacts, and reconnect with former associates. She is an excellent teacher, and trusted colleague.

- Bill Kousoulas, Account Executive at Gordon Flesch Company

Dee's company, Time2Mrkt, was our choice to design, coach and mentor AirPSG in social media. We were so impressed with what she taught us in a short time that we invited her to become our strategic partner in developing a social media strategy for AirPSG's clients to use in getting new air charter customers.

- Michael Ryan, Managing Member, AirPSG, LLC.

Do you know what the best social media tools are for your business?

B2B vs B2C – Enews marketing

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