Why Use Social Media to Market?

by Barry Brennan on / No Comment

Category: Sales & Marketing

SPECIAL GUEST BLOG By Barry Brennan, Marketing and Business Development Mentor, Mentors.ie

Barry-Brennan

Decades ago there were limitations when it came to opportunities for marketing. The internet has opened the door to alternate marketing methods. Businesses and companies can now use traditional marketing tools and those central to the internet. Using free marketing methods like social media has become a staple for many businesses.

It doesn’t matter, what field or industry that you represent. You can benefit from the use of social media. Twitter, Facebook, and various other outlets are terrific when it comes to marketing new products. They are also opportunities to gather diverse clientele through simple techniques. Social media has served to transform the way that business is conducted. At the same time, you can change your own model for success by using social media daily.

Introduce Businesses and Products

Many businesses utilize their social media presence in order to introduce themselves to new customers. You could be a boutique owner or niche café location. Social media is a terrific option for making that first impression on the public. This is a massive spin on word-of-mouth marketing. Businesses count on the use of their followers to earn them even more business.

From Followers to Customers

The uniqueness of social media is very beneficial to businesses and companies. You can attract followers even before they become your customers. If these customers love your products or services, they will likely share it with their friends and contacts. This becomes an renewable source of business. It allows you to constantly market yourself, while gaining customers.

Increasing Productivity

You can use social media to increase your company’s productivity. Having multiple avenues to earn profits is essential to any business. The internet is certainly one of those realms that businesses seek to master. Linking tweets, comments, and blog posts to your webstore helps you to benefit from your social media presence.

Social Media started as a way for people to simply communicate. Today, these outlets are used to conduct business. They are avenues to reach out to many people in a semi-personal way. You can use social media to stay connected with existing customers. This method of marketing also ensures that your products will be seen by a host of potential customers as well. Social media gives you an additional opportunity to make your business a success.

The Money Is In the List

by ColinLewis on / 1 Comment

Category: Sales & Marketing

SPECIAL GUEST BLOG By Colin Lewis, Marketing and Business Development Mentor, Mentors.ie

There is lot of talk, and therefore, a lot of confusion as to where to start to focus online. In reality, you can have all the Facebook, SEO, PPC, Twitter and Linkedin you like. However, in my experience, the one thing that is head and shoulders ahead of SEO if you want immediate, trackable results is email marketing

Think of the trail of activities that has to happen for somebody to get your website. Firstly, they have to search for the product or service, then hopefully their keywords used will match your keywords, your content will update to date and relevant and your site will be favoured. Then, the potential customer will have to search through your site to find the right product or service, and with a bit of luck, find the correct product at the right price for them to make a purchase.

There are a lot of steps in this process. This particular trail is fraught with danger. You have no way of hearding your potential customers into your corral.

However, if you already have a decent list that you have worked on, and knows who you are, and like receiving offers, then you can get results with five minutes of sending out a relevant email. Why? Because you have shown the potential customer the offer, the timing of the offer, and given them a direct link to your website (hopefully, you will have deep-linked the offer directly!).

To me, building your opt-in list is the most important part of online marketing. You can do this and almost forget all the other stuff, and still get results that will impress the boss. So, put everything aside, and make sure that every single touchpoint of your organisation is focussed on collected names and emails address. I built a list up by 150% by some very simple activities within the organisation; within a year it was providing 10% of total revenues.

So, make sure you have a programme of collecting every email address, every business card, every touch point with current and potential customers collected and put into a (simple) database, and communicate with them. How often?  Lets cover that chestnut in another post.

Communication Monitoring – Listening In Matters

by Micheal O Callarain on / 55 Comments

Category: Sales & Marketing

The social media craze has made it more important than ever to stay abreast of what is being said on the internet. In 2009, a rumor surrounding a possible bankruptcy for Blockbuster Video started spreading like wildfire in the social media circles.
A Twitter post was created that referenced the stock exchange symbol of Blockbuster as BBI. A reply then came from another user inquiring if the rumor was about Best Buy Electronics, whose stock exchange symbol is BBY.
Fortunately, all ears and eyes were open at Best Buy when their team of online monitors caught the post and quickly put to rest any gossip regarding any financial problems.
Social media is not going anywhere; as a matter of fact it is more popular than ever. This makes it essential for a business to have a system in place for monitoring the internet so that any potentially damaging posts can be put to rest quickly.
The danger of posting rumors does not exist solely with social media sites, either. The postings can occur on blogs, product review sites, YouTube, and other locations. Communication monitoring has other uses too, and the price of the tools to do it varies from free and on up in the $1000′s of dollars.
There are other benefits for internet monitoring as well. Businesses can follow customer feedback comments, catch potential issues early on, and also open up the lines of communication with their customer base.
Google Alerts, TweetDeck, HootSuite, and Social Mention are just a few of the methods a business can use to monitor and listen in on what’s being said on the internet.
Many companies are realizing how important it is to monitor this information online. Having the ability to take action and avoid a problem escalating into a much bigger one is well worth the effort and expense.
Customers are surprised when they discover that someone is actually listening to them, and not only that, companies are responding and trying to remedy the problem. This instills brand trust in the customer, and that is money and time well spent.
The world wide web has continually necessitated changes and upgrades businesses need to make to their systems. Staying up to date and in touch with customers is essential for success. Communication monitoring can end up paying for itself many times over if it is used correctly.

Your Business… Your Image

by Micheal O Callarain on / 5 Comments

Category: Sales & Marketing

The Social Network movie is out in theatres these days, bringing the social media company Facebook front-and-center in the minds of consumers this year. Interestingly, Facebook has recently said that they’re struggling to develop better privacy settings to allow their users to filter content. If you’ve ever been on the social network and found yourself the recipient of too much information about a co-worker, you’ll understand that this is a genuine concern.

Most SME business owners find it difficult to separate the personal from the business side of their lives. They frequently have vendors, partners, and co-workers listed as “friends” on the site when it’s felt it would be rude not to. And when they want to update their status to say that they’re visiting their local pub on a Friday night, they hesitate as to how it would be reflected on themselves as leaders and business owners.

Social media is a gray space for businesses, where one wants to create an “image” for the business, without making it seem too personal or unprofessional. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogging… all are accepted and almost expected of a business of a certain size,  but which also introduce the risk of offending existing customers if you choose your words incorrectly.

If you’re a SME owner, it’s worth the time to see what the “Internet” (aka the world in general) thinks of your business. Google (or Yahoo) your business name and see what comes up.  If there are any elements which don’t match your corporate brand, your values, or your core product or service offerings, its time to take action and ensure that your company is represented well. Generally, this task falls under the auspices of the Marketing Department, however if you ARE your Marketing Team, the onus falls on you …  and you need to act accordingly.

 Unlike Facebook, there is no filtering for the message your business portrays on the Internet. Don’t you think you should find out what that message is?

- Cheers, Mentors.ie

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