Wednesday, August 22, 2012

5 Reasons a Social Media Marketing Agency Boosts Your Business

A social media marketing agency creates, builds and manages your social media marketing program for your business. Yes, when you outsource this aspect of your business to a social media marketing agency, it costs you money. The benefits you and your business receive in return, however, tend to more than pay for the cost of hiring the agency to start. Discover the top five reasons you should consider using a social media marketing agency for your business.

Frees Up Your Sell Time 

The biggest reason to work with an agency is that it frees up your time to do what you do best. Whatever type of business you are in, your role is not social media marketing professional. If you’re an owner, you probably wear enough hats as it is. When you turn the social media marketing aspect of your business over to professionals, you free up a major amount of your time to sell and promote your products and services in other ways, or to focus on completing activities that make your business money.

 Possess the Knowledge 

A social media marketing agency is full of knowledgeable professionals. All they do all day long is focus on social media marketing. These professionals already know what you need to do to use social media marketing for your business. If you decide to use social media marketing as part of your marketing plan and run the program yourself, you first have to take the time to gain the knowledge you need to do so. When you work with an agency, you can hit the ground running instead.

Tested, Tried and True 

Additionally, agency professionals already know what works and what doesn’t work in social media marketing. They have tested strategies. They have tried strategies. They know what strategies are tried and true and which ones are just a waste of time. They can also assess how to personalize and customize strategies to best fit your business.

Dedicated Services 

When you work with an agency, you also have a person or a team of professionals that are dedicated to the effort. This agency focuses solely on the social media marketing aspect of your business. They work in conjunction with your other marketing efforts so that all of your marketing components are in sync, but the professional that knows social media best is running the social media arm of the campaign. 

Stay Ahead of the Game 

Finally, a social media marketing agency stays ahead of the game. They are in the know when it comes to new trends or new avenues you can take your business with social media marketing. They can evaluate whether it is something that can advance your business or is something that you might want to hold off on doing for some time until they can figure out if it is a trend or a tried and true option.

A social media marketing agency creates, builds and manages your social media marketing program for your business so that you don’t have to. The money you pay to the agency is more than covered by the business that comes in from the efforts the social media marketing agency manages for your business.

Need a social media marketing agency to help you boost your business? Visit www.maximizesocialmedia.com for more information.

Monday, August 13, 2012

5 Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Business

Social media marketing is a must for all businesses because it brings many benefits to businesses. Small business social media marketing needs some tweaking to the strategy so that small businesses can level the playing field and play in the same game as big businesses. Experts agree that these five small business strategies for social media marketing pass the test for efficiency and effectiveness.

Set up Google Alerts

 One of the biggest advantages of using social media marketing is that it allows you to monitor conversations about your business. Since you cannot be everywhere, all of the time, set up Google Alerts. Setting up Google Alerts is free.

You can choose the keywords you want to set up as alerts. You’ll want to choose your business name, your name, and names of your products or services. When any of these keywords are mentioned online, Google sends you an email with the page or site where the keyword is.

Not only does this allow you to monitor your own business, but it also permits you to monitor your competitors as well.

Use Video, Audio and Text

 When you are planning your social media marketing campaigns, think about the different formats you can use to spread your message. Blog posts are great. Updates on your social media profiles work. Consider using video and audio files, pictures, diagrams and other formats to get your point across.

Each of your consumers takes in information in different ways. Some are visual learners. Some are audio learners. Try to think of all the different ways to produce content so that you are able to approach all of these different learners appropriately for their learning style.

Make It Consistent

 With so many social media networks to choose from, it is best practice to have several different accounts. The key is to infuse some consistency into your social media accounts, profiles and user names. If you use the same business name, for example, for all of your social media profiles, then brand recognition increases, you have better search engines rankings and it’s easier for prospects and customers to find you and your business.

Put It on Autopilot

 Numerous social media tools are available to help you streamline the social media marketing process. Additionally, these tools allow you to put your social media marketing efforts on autopilot. Hootsuite and TweetDeck are but two of these types of tools. Find a tool that allows you to monitor, update and manage your numerous social media marketing efforts in one place.

Connect all Your Accounts

 Cross promote your social media marketing efforts by connecting all of your social media profiles to each other. Connect your Facebook account to your Twitter account. Connect your Twitter account to your Facebook account. Add both your Facebook and Twitter accounts to your LinkedIn account. This helps to cross-promote your social networks and make sure your message is consistent across all of your channels.

Not only does this ensure that your message is consistent. Connecting your social media accounts also helps to connect with your followers in more than one place. The more connected your followers are to your business, and vice versa, the more loyal they tend to be and the more likely they are to continue to do business with you.

You already know that social media marketing is a must for your business. Social media is a marketing channel you can use that brings numerous benefits to your business. When you are a small business owner, you can use social media steps and tweak them to the needs of a small business. These tweaks level the playing field and play in the same game as big businesses. Experts agree that these five small business strategies for social media marketing pass the test for efficiency and effectiveness, so start implementing them in your business today.

Now you know the top five social media marketing strategies for small business. For more information on social media marketing services, and the benefits they can bring your business, visit www.maximizesocialmedia.com.