It is our belief that Social Media is one of the most cost effective and targeted ways of promoting your business. Like any marketing communication tool you need to realise it will take time for you to be established, Rome was not built in a day and you need to start the process by asking yourself a few simple questions.
• Why do you want to use Social Media? What do you want to achieve?
• Who are you going to target on Social Media? (i.e. what type of customers)
• What is the general outline of what you are going to do and say?
• Where do you want customers to follow you (Twitter) or Like you (Facebook)
• How are you going to do it and can you set aside time to do so?
• How are you going to measure and evaluate it?
We recommend doing this for any marketing communication and you should frequently go back to assess it. Social Media may not be expensive to do but it is time intensive and you need to know at the outset what you want to achieve. And what success looks like. Then the important thing is to get started and to keep going. But you ask yourself does it work?
Yes it does, Bright Light Marketing has had direct business from using social media and we know that we have increased awareness of Bright Light Marketing as a result of our activity on particularly LinkedIn and Twitter. But don’t take our word for it. Here are a few examples from some of the clients we have worked with.
Firstly professional services. One of the legal firms that we work with has effectively used LinkedIn. By meeting up with people who link with and not only getting direct business as a result but also increasing their referrals. By having an up to date LinkedIn profile the legal firm has not only been asked to tender for jobs but has actually got the job over other legal firms who are not using LinkedIn. As it makes the company look up to date and in the know. You would think that Twitter might not work for a legal firm? Wrong. Again Twitter has worked well for them particularly for raising awareness in new geographical areas and by being seen to be a legal expert and answering simple legal questions on Twitter getting actual business as a result.
Secondly retailers. We work with a number of retailers large and small and a key component of this is social media. Social Media particularly Facebook and Twitter is ideal for retailers to not just showcase their products that wouldn’t work if that is all you do. But to communicate with existing and potential customers with updates about your business, running competition and general information that is of interest to people. As a result we have seen sales significantly rise for our retail customers both in store and online.
Finally tourism. Hotels we work with have seen customers not just like and communicate with hotels on Facebook and Twitter but actually reserve tables for dinner, book accommodation and get group business from tour operators on Twitter. We also have recently worked with a bed and breakfast operator to start her on her social media journey by holding a workshop and then being at the end of the phone. A last minute three day cancellation usually is an anxious time for a tourism operator but this is where social media worked for her advantage. Social Media savvy, this bed and breakfast operator simply mentioned her cancellation on an event Facebook page that was happening that weekend. And five minutes later she had another booking!
If you would like to talk more about how we can help you get business from social media contact Fiona Drane on 01750 505053 or email fiona.drane@brightlightmarketing.co.uk.