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Social media may not be the be all and end all of marketing these days but it is an integral part of the new marketing mix. While many small to medium businesses have been hesitant to start making use of this medium, once they have in fact experienced the benefits of social media in their businesses, it is unlikely that all business owners and CEO’s will really “get it”.

There are no other media that you can make use of in marketing that can give you a global reach with many unique visitors to your site without spending much more on traditional advertising and marketing.

Many businesses are starting to see the benefits of social media though, and here are a few key things that it can do for your business, straight from the real world of business:

The 12 Major Benefits Of Social Media

1. Increased awareness of the brand or organisation

2. Increased traffic to the company’s website

3. Greater positive perceptions of the brand

4. Ability to monitor conversations about the organisation

5. Ability to develop targeted marketing activities

6. Better understanding of customers perceptions of their brand

7. Improved insights about their target markets

8. Identification of positive and negative comments

9. Increase in new business

10. Identification of new product or service opportunities

11. Ability to measure the frequency of the discussion about the brand

12. Early warning of potential product or service issues

VIA JeffBullas.com

SOURCE The Harvard Business Review Analytics Services

This isn’t to say that there are no cons to using social media. As a business owner, it is incredibly important to take note of all the positives as well as the negatives of each marketing medium you make use of. The fact of the matter is that in ordinary word-of mouth marketing, a dissatisfied customer will tell on average about 10 people, however, with social media, he has the ability to tell 10 million people simultaneously.

The real challenge then is not to allow fear of the unknown to hold one back from the real benefits that social media can bring to your business. As with any dissatisfied customer, it is not in the complaint alone that the world sees, but in the company’s response to the complaint and how it is handled. This is why it is always best to address a public complaint publicly in a diplomatic way that will turn your dissatisfied customer as well as all the people who read the complaint and your response into happy and active brand ambassadors for your company.

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Many small business owners have been hesitant to take the plunge and develop their social media presence as besides being time consuming, it also requires determining whether or not a social media network makes sense for the business itself. One needs to look at it realistically so that the business’ social media presence can be built up and developed into a network of consistent readers.

So how does one determine whether a particular network is relevant to your small business?

Let’s take Facebook as an example:

Any small business owner will tell you that they are extremely busy as a sole business owner doesn’t always have the staff available to dedicate their time to marketing activities and most of these activities are slipped in between meetings and actually getting the work done. Essentially, the small business owner has to stop ‘real work’ in order to undertake marketing activities.

1. Is your Audience present?

The first question that needs to be asked is whether your audience is present on Facebook, and since Facebook is one of the most used social media networks, you will probably find that at least a part of your audience is available on Facebook.

2. Do you know how the social media network works?

The next question is whether you understand how the network works, what content works better on the network and what kind of interactions your audience will most appreciate from your business. The best way to gain this understanding is to actually spend some time on the network, such as Facebook, in order to get a good idea of how it works and what type of messages other similar brands are putting out there and what type of response they are getting from their audiences. Join a few well known pages, and even some of the pages of your competitors so that you can get the understanding you need in order to target your audience in the future.

3. What are the benefits of using the social media network for business?

Before spending time on something like social media marketing, one should have a clear idea of the outcomes one can expect and what it will entail in order to put time and effort into a social media network such as Facebook. Some of those outcomes may include building awareness within a certain industry, staying at the forefront of your target market’s minds, being able to communicate in real time and to spark word-of-mouth recommendations via internet marketing.

4. Can you commit to real interactions on the social media network?

Facebook and most social media networks are not simply one way conduits for delivering your marketing messages to your audience. They simply don’t work that way and treating it as such will mean that you will lose half your audience before lunch. You can’t simply post sales pitches and hope to gather an audience. Real interaction is required and if you can’t devote the care and commitment to post content daily – such as updates, pictures and videos – and to ensure that when others post on your wall that it is not spam but relevant to your business, then this may not be a job for you to undertake on your own. One needs to ensure that when a user comments that you do at least check these daily, and respond to them timeously – this doesn’t mean that one has to become a complete slave to the social networking platform, but it does mean that a certain allotted amount of time needs to be set aside on a regular basis. The important thing is consistency and your connections knowing that you are indeed available to them.

The important thing with regards to social media, is establishing a presence on a social network that will make sense for your business or brand. If it is on a network where you simply don’t find your audience, it is a waste of time and can be potentially damaging to your brand instead.

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After the manic high of the festive season, you need to get attention back on your small business since cash always runs low this time of year and everyone is clamouring for whatever last bit of budget their target markets possess. You need to capture the market attention now, while you can.

How do you do this, you ask? Well, here are just a few suggestions to get you on your way for the New Year:

1. Create a New and Unique Campaign

You need to be the first voice to be heard as far as campaigns go. It’s all about owning the keywords and instead of climbing on the train after it’s already left the station, you need to be the one up front. Think of some unique ideas surrounding Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and whatever other hypes there may be that your products could offer value to in your industry. If you can plan your strategy in advance, you brand will gain ownership on the web.

2. Keep it relevant

More and more, consumers are making their own choices. If you keep consumers’ desires and needs central to your marketing, you will be able to dominate. Tune in to the content that engages your audience and keep your marketing messages relevant to what they watch and read to gain more favour with them. If your content isn’t relevant, they simply won’t read it and will lose interest in your product or brand.

3. Keep it in context

When advertising, take specific note of where your advertising will be placed. A good message in the wrong place is often lost. If you are advertising computer software, a website such as the SPCA’s or the like will probably not be the best forum. Good content needs to be within the context of the page. The best advertising will be dynamic, provide useful information and engage customers at their level.

4. Analyse Consumer Behaviour

At the end of the day, while traditional marketing doesn’t allow for “counting clicks”, most marketers know that it works. Marketers need to look closely at consumer behaviour to ensure that their campaigns are engaging their target market. Quality content will drive results and analysing the behaviour of our target markets will give a clearer view of reader engagement and retention.

5. Analyse Competitor Campaigns

In order to stay ahead within your industry, look at what your competitors are doing and take note of what works for them. Remember they may have a share of the market and what works for them may not necessarily work for you but you can learn from their successes and failures. You can also easily see gaps in the market which you could use to your advantage to boost your revenue.

I hope some of these suggestions help in your new marketing initiative for 2012. Keep on swimming!

Content Marketing can be a cost-effective and easy strategy to develop awareness and loyalty to your brand, but it can be extremely time-consuming. It is, however, worth the effort.

Here are 10 tips that can improve your content marketing and drive awareness about your product or service.

1. Determine Goals

Be clear on what your goals are and make sure your marketing plan will help you to accomplish these goals. These things need to be thought of before you can determine what type of content you will produce. You can tailor your content marketing plan accordingly. Each goal you set should be measurable and have a deadline by which you perform this measurement.

2. Identify your target market

If you don’t know who you are targeting you will not know once you have reached them, which means you will not know which marketing efforts have paid off. You need to research your target market and figure out what interests your audience. Pretend you are writing for one specific person and try to tune into his thought process. Listen to what your audience wants, and try to use this to get him to be more receptive to your content.

3. Create specific messages

Work out what will differentiate you and your product from your competitor and what will help you to achieve the goals you’ve set. There should be one to three main messages, with sub-messages that offer more detail. Using this strategy will allow you to direct specific messages to different segments of your target market meaning they will receive the right messages at the right time.

4. Define Content Marketing Strategies

There are long-form, short-form and conversation type content marketing strategies. Long-form strategies will include blog posts, articles and press releases. Short-form includes tweets & status updates & graphics. Conversations include participating in and creating conversations through blog commenting, link sharing and comments on videos. Theys helps to encourage discussion amongst thought leaders in the industry.

5. Create a Calendar

A plan is very important in content marketing but things can always change. If you have a calendar which includes strategies, specific tactics and responsibilities, you’ll save time in the long run.

6. Create Content

You have to create the content you are going to use in your content marketing plan. It has to be unique and it has to be different. Look at what your key messages are and try to incorporate these into your content without overly selling the product. You need to create trust by providing information and leaving traditional sales tactics for face to face situations.

7. Relationship Management

At the end of the day, the art of sales comes down to building a relationship with someone and convincing them to buy your product. In content marketing, you need to build relationships with your target audience. You need to share and comment on their content too so that you can establish your own communities across social networking platforms. You should be giving more than you are receiving.

8. Generate a Buzz

Make sure you use the right keywords and tags so that you can generate traffic through your blog posts. Spread the word through Twitter, Facebook, Newsletters, etc. but don’t force your content. If people think you are trying too hard, they may not be interested in what you have to say.

9. Measure your efforts

By measuring your efforts, you can determine whether your plan needs to be altered or not and whether it is, in fact, working. Keep an eye on pageviews, retweets, likes, +1’s, shares and so on. If your audience can take action, you need to keep an eye on it.

10. Rewrite your plan

Pay attention to your results and if something isn’t working, change your strategy. One goal needs to be that people recognise your product based off of the content you have been placing online and off.