Many businesses fail to adopt a social media strategy into their marketing plan. The simple reason they do not is because they have lack of knowledge and this is why when it comes to Facebook most businesses just don’t know where to start.  Different campaigns have different goals and below are some strategies that business can use to make Facebook work for them.

Facebook Events

Another way of influencing Facebook pages for business purposes is by directly creating events and posting them on your Facebook page. For example, on your website you have created an event for people to register.  Visitors complete a form on your website and then receive an auto responder email thanking them for their registration and confirming their entry details.

With a Facebook event you use the same principal. However, the big difference is the information will be passed along through friends in a viral way. Once the Facebook fan accepts the event invitation, this will appear as a notification on their news feed on their Facebook profile wall telling their entire network of friends about the event they are attending.

The big difference here is that the event on your website sends a confirmation email but the event on the Facebook page not only confirms attendance, it also lets their entire network see the confirmation and possibly persuade them to attend.  As an admin of the Facebook page you have the functionality to send a message to the entire list of guests invited including attendees, declined and undecided.

 Conclusion

The reality whether you like it or not is that Facebook is here to stay permanently. As a business you need to determine just how you can monetise this particular social network. If you don’t you will be way behind your competitors. With over 850 million users if you don’t reach the customer your competitor will. Facebook is no longer a college student site where friends and family connect. Businesses need to include social networking sites such as Facebook into their overall marketing strategy. So if you have not already, it’s about time to give your online marketing strategy a facelift by joining Facebook!

Many businesses fail to adopt a social media strategy into their marketing plan. The simple reason they do not is because they have lack of knowledge and this is why when it comes to Facebook most businesses just don’t know where to start.  Different campaigns have different goals and below are some strategies that business can use to make Facebook work for them.

Facebook advertising

By using Facebook ads, businesses are able to reach their exact audience and connect with them. For example if a business was going to run an advertisement campaign on a search engine such as Google, they can target their audience by telling Google the following:

• If someone searches for this specific phrase (exact, broad, phrase)

• If someone searches for it in this region, radius

However, when it comes to targeting an audience on a social networking site like Facebook the possibilities and criteria are much greater. Using Facebook ads you can target your exact audience according to:

• Gender
• Status – married, single, divorced etc
• Age
• Where they live

These demographic possibilities are not available on search engines. As they do not have the data of who is conducting the search.

How to maximise your ads on Facebook

It is important to remember that when using Facebook for ads for your business you are using push marketing which is much more traditional and is totally different to Google Adwords where people are searching for your product/service. By narrowing down your exact audience you have the opportunity to connect with the exact people you are looking for and more importantly the right customer base for your business. When creating ads on Facebook, bear in mind the following:

1. Visit www.facebook.com/business to get started and determine if there is a target audience on Facebook for your product or service based on the demographics you wish to reach

2. Visit https://www.facebook.com/help/ads-and-business-solutions to learn more about writing optimal ads, character limits, image size and resolutions, and terms and conditions

3. Always tag your ads using parameters in the destination URL, so you can determine using your analytics which ad copy or image is driving the best results.

Nine times out of ten many people will search for a company name, brand name or product on the internet using a search engine before deciding to go ahead and making a purchase. When promoting your brand online it is very difficult to monitor and manage. Just one negative listing in a top search engine can prove harmful to your brand and can even drive away potential customers. What this means for you is instead of your brand going north it will end up going south.

Any business that has an online presence regardless of their product, service or target audience can influence Facebook. Most businesses can use Facebook to create another landing page to tell people about their company. Why is this important? Facebook has a high page rank, is a very trustworthy and reliable source, is constantly updated and even more importantly has millions of pages and links which are all the reasons why Google will rank a Facebook business page. Having a Facebook page is just like having a Wikipedia entry which also ranks highly on Google search results.

When Google gives your page a page one ranking, you push down your competitors down the list as well as any negative listings that can impact your brand. This strategy combined with other social networks can help your business dominate the top position on Google for your branded term.

Connecting with your customers

It has already been established about the amount of time users spend on Facebook each day. Businesses cannot ignore this and have no choice but to use these networks to connect with their customers.  Rather than announce new products on your website and wait for the customer, why not publish the information directly to Facebook and other social networks they are spending time on.

This way you can collect feedback, product reviews, ask for testimonials and push out any promotions you are running. Engage with your customers by asking them to participate in competitions and discussions.

February 4^th 2004 was a day which changed the use of the internet forever. Mark Zuckerberg created and launched Facebook from his Harvard dorm room. Initially started as a Harvard members only site, registration soon spread to other universities and then eventually anyone over the age of 13 with an email address. Fast forward to today and Facebook now has over 850 million active worldwide users. The average Facebook user spends just under one hour a day on the social network.

The business world slowly realised people were spending huge amounts of time on Facebook and banned the use of Facebook during office hours as they saw it as a distraction to employees. However the launch of Twitter and YouTube confirmed the usage of these sites was changing the way people were interacting online.

Businesses had an about turn and realised that to be ahead of the game and keep up with their competitors it was imperative that they started to use these social tools to reach out to their customers by engaging with them as it became apparent their customers were spending a lot of time on these networks.

To date over 1.5 million businesses have Facebook branded pages.  Businesses should ask themselves the following questions to determine how they can monetise Facebook for business purposes:

• What would it mean to an organisation if they had customers talking about their products and services to their friends?
• What would be the value of reaching out to customers to tell them about your new services or promotions?
• What would be the ROI on having your brand exposed and built on social sites like Facebook?

Why Businesses Should Promote Themselves on Facebook

It should be noted that not every business will use Facebook. Most organisations that use the social network will use it in different ways. The first step in determining whether Facebook is suitable for your business is to find out if your customers, clients and prospects are on Facebook. Whether your business is B2B or B2C, Facebook can be a suitable platform where your business can influence.

Here are some reasons why a business should start to engage them on Facebook if they are not already.

Protecting your brand on Facebook

The thing businesses fear the most is people talking negatively about them on Facebook and other social network platforms. Anyone is free to create a Facebook page about your business, create a blog and even upload YouTube videos. However, if a business fails to start a conversation on these platforms they are giving the control to their customers to say what they please. Not only that they are allowing their competitors the chance to damage the company image/brand.

Using Dingwuddles Video Promotion Website

You can use Dingwuddles to promote your business, promote an event, display a video CV to be viewed by prospective employers, advertise a vacant role within your company or post video’s of items you wish to sell.

Our involvement with Dingwuddles has been to develop the Social Media properties like Facebook, Twitter and many more. The blog is often the starting point, but much content is also distributed our through the many social media channels that  we are managing across all platforms.

With a name like Dingwuddles people are unlikely to forget it in a hurry so our aim is to get in front of as many eyes as possible and building up likes, followers etc to achieve the critical mass needed to make it a success!

WSI Yorkshire have also been appointed as consultants for the launch process and to oversee any other social media functionality on site, like Facebook signing in and social sharing. As our responsibility has been quite broad we have also used our natural SEO skills to help structure the website to be better found on Google.

Dingwuddles on Twitter

When it comes to finding Dingwuddles on Twitter there are choices a plenty.

Follow @Dingwuddles for updates across all areas of video uploads and general Dingwuddles news.

Follow @DingwuddlesJobs for recent UK job & recruitment news, Video CV uploads & Job Vacancy Videos.

Follow – @DingwuddlesSale to keep a track of all new Product Video uploads and see what wonderful things people are selling

So Where Else Can You Find Dingwuddles Online?

So we have Twitter covered and whatever else  your Social Network flavour of choice may be we are likely to have you covered, take a look –

Facebook

LinkedIn

Google+

Squidoo

YouTube

So there you have it Dingwuddles is well and truly out there in the social universe so pick your link and like, follow or add away!

Social media can be integrated into your email marketing strategy in a number of ways. However, the method that you choose depends on what you want to achieve. For example if your goal is to syndicate your content online then you will want to target your campaigns to encourage readers to share your content on their social networks.

In 2010 Aweber conducted a survey. The results showed that 36% integrate social media into their email marketing with the purpose of asking readers to send the email on to their social network followers.
The three main tactics for implementing an integrated social media and email marketing strategy to share your newsletter content are as follows:

1. Include ‘Share’ buttons in your newsletters

Including social sharing links in your email newsletters is a great way of combining social media with email marketing. It is also a great way of encouraging your readers to share content. Most websites have a share button on them to make it easier to share.  Five tips you should consider:

1. Identify the most relevant social networking sites.
2. Integrate the ‘share’ icons in your newsletter templates.
3. test the new  newsletter template with a focus group.
4. Roll out the news letter template to the rest of your database.
5. Track shared article metrics.

2. Increase your social following through email marketing

As well as including the ‘share’ icons in your email newsletters, it is equally as important to include links for your subscribers to follow you on social networking sites.  Add call to actions including ‘Follow us on Twitter‘ and ‘Like us on Facebook‘, even ‘Subscribe to our YouTube Channel’.

Also change your email signature to include these ‘follow’ links.

3. Promote your email content in the social Media Platforms

Be confident and cross promote your email marketing and social media.  Just like you inform your subscribers to your email marketing list about your social media profiles, you can do the same on your social networks informing your followers of your newsletter.

Remind all your Facebook fans, Twitter followers, Linked In Followers and YouTube subscribers that you have a great email newsletter and encourage them to subscribe. Email marketing should be used as a catalyst for starting conversations online about your brand.

Conclusion

Email marketing is the least costly method of marketing but the most measurable, most effective and easiest to implement as part of your online marketing strategy.  More importantly, by incorporating social media into your email marketing strategy you can boost your business, keep your audience engaged and enhance your brand reputation.