Social media marketing is all about gaining website traffic, exposure or sales through the use of social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. These campaigns often focus on creating content that encourages readers to spread the word, make a purchase or just produce a greater sense of brand-identification within the reader’s mind. Let’s take a look at some tools for a successful campaign.
QR Codes
Quick Response (QR) codes are a type of barcode that are readable via optics, such as a scanner on a smartphone. They were first utilized in the automotive industry in Japan, but today are often used for quick access to a company’s website or a specific promotion. QR codes do not incur a fee for placement or use and are ideal for marketing campaigns. As such, they can be a real boom for retail business owners who display them so shoppers can quickly access their Facebook page in order to ‘Like’ it and stay in the loop about store events, product news, sales and other useful information.
Contests/Sweepstakes
Contests or sweepstakes are marketing promotions that are often used to get customers excited about products, hopeful about their chances of winning and ‘talking up’ the brand involved. Consumers submit entries which range from filling out personal information or just signing up for an email list, to turning in a creative piece about the company or product. This generates enthusiasm, improves brand recognition and typically has a great return on investment (ROI). Prizes can come in the form of cash, a chance to further creative ambitions or products such as electronics or cars.
Keyword Traffic for Prioritization
Paying attention to keyword traffic can help to gauge what content on your site is driving/attracting the most traffic or creating the highest number of conversions/sales. Regular keyword traffic analysis can help guide the decision toward which topics to touch upon in your social media communications.
Blogs for Better Quality Traffic
The prose found in blogs can lend itself to improved long tail keyword traffic. Long tail keywords are a type of keyword phrase that has at least three words in the phrase. Long tail keywords are typically utilized when a searcher is looking for something specific. Since these keywords are highly specific, they will draw less traffic, but more quality traffic to your website, leading to more quote or sales conversions than normal keywords. Use your social media outlets to point customers toward blogs you feel will benefit them, rather than just sell to them.
An effective Social media campaign is entirely about engaging your audience properly. It is also about balance: to find a sweet spot between too much and too little contact, a tone that speaks to your subscribers and a level of involvement that pleases your customers. The benefits of a well-planned social media marketing campaign can be both broad (exposure) and deep (loyal, repeat business). The success of social media is earned, not paid for. With the clever use of social media strategies such as keyword analyzation, blogging, using QR codes and running contests, your business can easily achieve great results.
