Is Your Brand Current On The Latest Social Media Strategies?

Here at Edge, we pride ourselves on our ability to successfully implement both traditional and cutting-edge marketing strategies. As part of our efforts to stay up-to-date on as many of the latest social media strategies as possible, we continue to reach out and grow in our abilities. To that end, I recently attended a seminar at the KGW Media Group studios, presented by Frank Mungeam, who revealed the “Secrets of Social Media.”

To top off the KGW seminar, Late Night show host Jimmy Fallon made an appearance. When asked how his own social media strategies were coming along, he replied that he must be doing something right because he now has almost 11 million Twitter followers. What is his secret to recruiting such a huge following? Well, back in 2008, Fallon realized that people were talking about him on Twitter, and so he got an account and began to interact with fans. He built relationships, actively listened to fan feedback, and utilized sharing power to expand his social reach. Here is a break down of the top three strategies of social media marketing:

Paying attention to the conversation going on about your brand and then joining in on the buzz can make a great impact on your overall brand appearance. Social media lends itself to relationship building in a non-obtrusive and natural way, by allowing for frequent engagement with a broad range of people. If your company responds quickly with authentic comments, it will make an impression on your customers – as well as prospective clients – and can build loyalty.

At some point, your company will want to learn about your customers and get feedback about your products, brand perception, and customer service. Traditional research procedures include paying for a series of research campaigns that are often time-consuming. Now, instead, you can use social media to engage with current customers and gain valuable information about the public perception of your brand by strategically placing questions on social pages, taking the time to ask for feedback, and then listening to the fans. Advantages of social listening over traditional research include lower cost, faster results, and interaction with real customers.

Fans who are following your company on a social media site are often loyalists – and loyalists can make the best marketers. A way to tap into this loyalty is to find causes or values that both you and your customers share – and then ask your loyalists to participate in social “share power.” Often times, if the public sees that a company does good, is generous, and has the same values as them, they will become new fans.

So, how useful is social media for marketing? It is really a new and necessary part of business – and can be invaluable to your brand. If wielded well, your social media strategy can be an easy, organic, and inexpensive way to maintain and grow your company's fan base through strategic marketing.