Master Your Marketing: Leveraging Social Media By Todd Hendrickson

In today's post, guest author Todd Hendrickson will share his knowledge on the role social media marketing plays in the way you get the message out about your business and brand. Since starting the blog in 2009, I've always looked for ways that authors could learn marketing techniques that people in any business can use.

It's often a foreign concept to many new authors that their book can be looked at as a product, but in a sense, that's exactly what it is. The same marketing techniques that help other products can help get the word out about your book as well. Todd has a lot of great ideas for you as you look to flesh out your book marketing plan.
(Image: cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) by giulia.forsythe)


Master Your Marketing: Leveraging Social Media
By Todd Hendrickson



Social Media is changing the way we interact, communicate, and the way we do business. The question any business should be asking themselves is how they can integrate social media into their marketing, and why is social media such an important part of a marketing strategy.

Follow the Leader

According to Forbes.com, 94% of all businesses that keep a marketing department integrate one of the three major social media platforms (Twitter, Google+, and Facebook) into their marketing strategies. If this many companies recognize the value of social media in marketing, it would be a step backwards for a company to ignore social media.

Hitting the Target

Social media is used by all ages of people, but the core demographic still tends to be the 20-35 range that most marketers target on the major platforms. That being said, social media is not just the big three platforms, there are niche social media sites that specialize in every age group, and every interest. This means less time with the blanket marketing, and more time finding your target audience and interacting with them. Kotex's "Women's Inspiration Day" Pinterest campaign is a perfect example of targeted social media marketing done right. It didn't target a huge group of people, but it spread like wild fire over all social media channels.

The Benefits

The benefits of social media integration into marketing strategies are enormous. One of the strongest benefits is exposure, by using social media, a company is now putting their name and their brand in more places, and using social media is putting the brand where the people are.

Since social media is web based, there is also a reduction in marketing costs, and most companies find an increase in leads, and sales.

Most importantly, the benefit of social media for businesses is the real time engagement of their customers. When a customer feels a connection to a company, they become loyal customers, and social media is creating the perfect platform for connecting and creating this kind of following.

Dangers of Social Media

There are potential downsides to social media, mostly with the real time nature and connectedness of the platforms. It often only takes one negative Facebook comment, or a viral YouTube video and companies can quickly find themselves in a negative spotlight on a global scale.

To deal with this, companies need to be aware, and monitor social media for anything that could potentially go viral, and immediately deal with it in an honest, straightforward manner.

What it takes

So we can agree that social media has evolved into a crucial part of a company's marketing strategy, but how do they go about doing it? Commitment is key. Most successful businesses that employ a marketing strategy will consistently update their Twitter, monitor Facebook, and work on their blogs and video channels. This usually ends up being a full time position, so it's a good idea to consider hiring a social media specialist.

Daily deals, blog posts, following customers on Twitter, answering emails, and engaging customers through Facebook are all ways that a company can integrate social media into their marketing strategies. As long as they are honest, and consistent with their message, social media can elevate their business to a new level of success.



--------

Todd H is a writer with a specialty in mobile marketing and social media. He has written articles for print and online for over 5 years, covering topics from qr codes to frugal shopping with coupons, and even a few car reviews.








  













--------
Tony Eldridge is the author of The Samson Effect, an action/adventure novel that Clive Cussler calls a "first rate thriller brimming with intrigue and adventure." He is also the author of the Twitter marketing book, Conducting Effective Twitter Contests. His new novel, The Lottery Ticket, was just recently released on Kindle.