Given that social media marketing has been around in
earnest for a several years now, you would think there wouldn't be a lot of rules or
guidelines to follow, and for the most part there aren't. But when it comes to
getting the word out about your company on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn,
there is actually one ironclad principle to stick to: being boring, overly "corporate," or mundane is the kiss of
death.
Why? Because the men and women who typically use social media
sites – no matter what age they are – are already savvy to all kinds of
advertising. They've lived through Super Bowl spots, Internet pop-ups, stealth
marketers, and enough variations on print, radio, and TV solicitations to stop
the shopaholic in his or her tracks. We've even gone through spam. When they go
on to social networking sites, it's primarily to see how friends and family
been doing, or even to ask for advice and products, but not to be sold in a
heavy-handed fashion.
That means you have to promote yourself, your business, and
whatever you’re offering in an entertaining way, or at least one that can
attract enough attention to compete with the dozens of other things that can be
immediately clicked on. It's okay to talk about great savings, but you'll get a
lot farther if you can wrap it in some kind of joke, photo collection, or fun
story.
Does this mean you should sell out your marketing plans and
just hope that people will reward your creativity with their attention and
business? Absolutely not. What it means is that you're in the same boat as
every other company on the face of the earth: dealing with a public that's
tired of boring marketing messages and wants something more. You should still
envision your offers in the same way, just be sure to wrap them in a package
that's a little more entertaining.
For the past few decades, it's been getting harder and
harder to convince people to buy if you have an uninteresting message. With
social media, the only thing that's changed is that it's harder to run from
that fact.
One of the hardest things about Internet marketing is that,
even though it moves and changes at a rapid pace, progress never comes as
quickly as most of us would like (and especially those of us in the business
web design industry). And so, when we come across a rare opportunity to improve
what we do instantly, it's important
to jump on it.
With that in mind, we'd like to share one of our top tips
for getting more from all the things you do online. It's so simple, but so
effective, that it can make an enormous difference in a very short period of
time:
Stop repeating the
same mistakes you’ve been making in the past.
For most companies, following this one single piece of
advice can prevent them from losing time and money that has been slipping away
for months or years. To get a sense of what we mean, here are some common
mistakes that businesses tend to make again and again:
- Choosing the lowest-cost Internet marketing
provider even though they have a poor track record, or can't offer the ROI that
someone else can.
- Emphasizing the look of their website over its
functionality or the viability of a long-term Internet marketing plan.
- Placing too much importance on search engine
optimization and not enough on the process of converting visitors into actual
sales opportunities.
- Making inconsistent investments of time and/or
money that lead to big gaps in the Internet marketing plan, or periods where
nothing gets done.
Obviously, we could go on and on, but the point is that old
habits are easy to slip back into – even if you know you're not getting the
kinds of results you should be. But, if you're really serious about making
things happen this year, it's time to shed the ideas and habits that didn't
work in the first place.
If you're ready to
get to the top with your Internet marketing this year, contact a member of the
Kinetik team today and ask for a free consultation.