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How to Use Social Media Marketing
As an expert, you have a lot of useful knowledge to share -- and social media is a great way to do it. Social media lets you connect with current and future customers where they’re spending time on a regular basis: online. And when customers are hearing from you regularly, they’ll think of you first when they need to hire a pro.
Use social media to showcase your talents, answer questions, announce special offers, and share helpful tips and information. Your followers will know you’re an expert in your field, and you’ll win jobs and grow your business. It’s easy; and all it costs is some time.
Here’s how to make the top social media platforms work for you:
We recommend that you start with just one or two. Choose the platform(s) that will best meet your business goals.
Facebook is the most popular social network, and it is also the most personal and engaging. Facebook helps you build trust, relationships, and awareness about your business. It lets you have one-on-one conversations with your followers; create and share photo albums; and post videos, news and updates. You can also run targeted ads to grow your following for just a few dollars.
Tips:
- Create a business page separate from your personal page
- Post at least once a day – and always post valuable, relevant content
- Post a lot of videos and colorful images – especially of your work
- Post client testimonials – and ask for referrals and ratings and reviews
- Use Facebook’s metrics feature to measure your results
Twitter is an information network where people can share news and learn what’s happening in real time. Twitter is a good platform for spreading the word about your company, listening to what’s important to your customers and providing good customer service. Like Facebook, it lets you post links, updates, and photos and videos; but on Twitter, posts are limited to a maximum of 140 characters.
Tips:
- Follow lots of other people -- and post several times a day
- Listen to and participate in conversations
- Send traffic to your website or Facebook page
- Post pictures and videos within posts to add interest
- Use #hashtags to help people find your posts
Blogs
Blogging – writing short articles collected together on a website -- is a great way to share helpful information and establish yourself as an expert. It’s also a great way to drive long-term traffic to your website. Your blog posts remain on the Internet until you take them down; so as long as people keep searching for the key words in your articles, they’ll keep finding your blog as well.
Tips:
- Blog about topics related your business
- Respond to comments from readers
- Include contact information and links to your social sites
- Use Google’s analytics tool to see what interests people most
- Submit your blog content to be used in online articles
Pinterest works like an online bulletin board. Users collect ideas and inspiration – usually in the form of images, graphics and videos -- from other users and websites by “pinning” them to boards dedicated to their interests. Pinterest is a great way for remodelers, painters and designers to be discovered by homeowners who are serious about starting a home project.
Tips:
- Use pins to show people how your services can help them
- Post colorful, high-quality photos of your work and link them to your website
- Use Pinterest’s analytics feature to see what kind of pins perform best
- Use the same images across all social platforms (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
- Follow other users and like and re-pin their pins
YouTube
If you have a lot of videos to share, YouTube is a good social media platform for your business. YouTube is the largest search engine next to Google, and it allows people to discover, watch and share originally created videos. YouTube offers a unique opportunity to share tips and advice to help and inspire customers. And it is a great way to convey the personality and expertise of your business and employees.
Tips:
- Create and post videos that relate to your business
- Be helpful and provide useful information
- Provide a good description of your videos
- Post videos with high-quality visuals and audio
- Add links to your website and other social channels
Google+
A Google+ page is essentially a website on Google, and it is really helpful in terms of getting your business found in Google search results. With a Google+ page, you can provide a company description, contact information, photos and videos; and you can present an opportunity for customers to post and read ratings and reviews about your business. Google+ connects to your other social media sites, so you can easily cross-promote your content.
Tips:
- Share images and articles for Google search results
- Connect Google+ with your other social sites
- Stay active: post often and respond to questions and reviews
- Add customers and popular users to your circle
- Be sure to connect your Google+ page with your company website
LinkedIn is a business-oriented professional networking site. LinkedIn allows you to share a detailed description of your business and history, as well as business-related links, articles and information to further present yourself as an expert in your field. LinkedIn is a great way to get discovered and establish credibility, trust and relationships online.
Tips:
- Add specialties, links and detailed descriptions on your company page
- Use keywords to help search engines find your page
- Get your employees to create pages and their position with your business
- Join and participate in LinkedIn groups related to your industry
- Prompt customers to follow your page and share their positive experiences
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