It’s a little mind-boggling to know there are so many various social media channels available. To best determine what works best for you means understanding that each one has its own unique purpose and target.
If it sounds like something that could take a lot of time, look at it like this. Rather than thinking of it as just another marketing channel, think of as a multiplier – a factor that integrates, enhances and stimulates your existing communication strategies.
First determine which of the social media channels work best for you. The categories look something like this:
- Communication Channel
- Collaboration Channel
- Multimedia Channel
- Reviews/Opinions Channel
- Entertainment Channel
- Information Aggregators Channel
From there you have the sub-categories to choose: blogging, social networking, etc. within the Communication Channel; Digg, reddit, and such for Collaboration and so on for each channel; where you want to be and why.
Why not make all of your marketing campaigns social, instead of setting social media apart? Some viable strategies might include some of these ideas:
- Create a Twitter channel for customer-service response
- Integrate email and social media
- Convert social followers to email contacts
- Reach out to journalists using social media
- Create campaigns to reach influential bloggersIntegrate social with traditional marketing using hashtags on Twitter. (Using a hashtag before a keyword shows you all Tweets marked with that keyword.)
- Integrate social media into sales, customer service, and marketing processes
- Carry over other types of marketing campaigns into social such as contests, special offers and seasonal promotions
- Integrate live events with social media
- Incorporate customer ratings, reviews or testimonials into your website
Witmer Group works with many of our clients to help them get up to speed on implementing social media channels into existing marketing program. To find out how Witmer Group can help you, contact us today!