The Ms. CEO Show

Social media is all the rage right now and with good reason. No, it’s not because Ashton Kutcher now has a million friends on Twitter and even Oprah is “twitterfied”.  It’s because these useful tools are FREE and super effective if you find an efficient and measurable way to integrate them into the marketing strategy for your business.

First things first: There are as many social media tools as there are alphabets and it is way too overwhelming, cumbersome and ineffective to try using all of them, most of them or even, in my opinion, more than four of them in your business.  Moreover, even once you settle on just a few of the tools, using them requires a planned approach and the human resources to make your social media strategy work. 

Making it work does pay off, though.  Ruthie Lopp founder and chief designer at Nature Girl Designs has found success with Facebook.  She posts “Friend-of-a-Friend” $50 off gift coupons on her Facebook page and she says these special discount links, which go back to a unique page on her website, quickly become viral within her 600 person network on Facebook.  Once people start to pass the link along Ruthie starts ringing up sales.  Not bad for a free tool that costs her just a little time and creative thinking (and the $50 off).

Here are a few quick tips for employing social media into your marketing mix:

• Use the tools that make sense for your customer base.  If the people you are selling to are not really on Facebook (or another social media platform you are considering), setting up a page and account there and trying to get your customers to sign up will not be that useful.  So select the tools and platforms that the people you sell to are already using.  That way, you simply have to conntec to the existing network and let them know you are there versus trying to build and attract them from scratch.
• Leverage the power of compound marketing by funneling your existing messages through the social media tool but adding another component.  If you give periodic customer appreciation discounts or share information with your customers regularly that helps them in life or business, then also disseminate that information via your social media tool and platform with a deeper discount or extended offer to incent your customers to join your social media network and pass the word along to others in their networks. 
• Be consistent.  Once you have followers, friends, connections or whatever the people in your network are called on your selected social media platforms be in touch with them consistently.  The brands, companies and professionals that people remember most are the ones that connect with them most frequently through as many channels as possible.  Make sure that’s you.  

Be Encouraged,

Felicia Joy