The Marketing Edge

Businesses should have pages, not profiles.  It is necessary to have a profile to set up a page, and profiles are individuals who administer the pages.  Just because someone can see your business  page does not mean they can see your profile.  Nevertheless, it is important to note that anything you post online that is questionable can hypothetically be found and come back to haunt you.  Use the "Mom" test - if my mom saw this, what would she say?

Set up your profile, then set up your business page.  Upload your logo, contact info, and always link back to your  corporate website.  Use your identified keywords in the descriptions to help impact your search results.

Once the account is set up, you need to implement strategy.  What is the goal of social media usage for your business?  Is it exposure?  Interaction?  Traffic generation for your website?   As I have said many times, tweeting to hear yourself chirp does not grow your business.  Our advertising and marketing consultants at Edge Media actually design a social media roadmap, which details goals, steps to achieve the goals, and how to measure the goals.  As a leading interactive agency, we believe that efforts must generate results for our clients!

Consider some of these strategies that could help accomplish your goals:

• Give something of value.  Why should someone visit your page, group, or website again?  
• Offer something unique: audio clips, video clips, e-cards, downloads, forums, etc.  It needs to be something that they can’t get anywhere else.  
• Make offers.  Create promotions.  Upload a coupon.   Keep these offers fresh to encourage return visitors.
• Solicit customer reviews, and make it easy for customers to post their reviews.   Reward them for giving you their time and support.  Remember that one of the keys to social media is that listening is important.  We are way past the time when simply pushing out information is effective.
• Remember to provide something of VALUE.  A consumer survey by the JC Williams Group ranked consumer content as the #1 aid to a buying decision, cited by 91% of respondents (JC Williams Group, 2006).

Next week we will tackle the benefits of blogging.  In the meantime, craft your strategy or call one of our marketing and advertising consultants!

About Edge Media: Edge Media is a leading interactive agency located in Phoenix AZ specializing in cutting edge solutions and technologies that give our clients significant return on their advertising investment, including our SMS marketing software for bulk SMS services delivery.  Our interactive web agency strategies are innovative as well, rapidly increasing traffic to our clients' websites, and then converting from leads to sales as a result of interactive web agency expertise.  We are a full service advertising agency serving local and national clients and delivering exceptional results.