Social Media Marketing

Transcription

1 Social Media Marketing

2 Introduction SOCIAL MEDIA One of the biggest reasons a business s social campaign fails to produce measurable results is because their messages are all about them. Too many businesses simply shout THEIR message to anyone who will listen. The secret to unleashing the power of social media marketing is discovering what people are talking about and then talking to them about it. Sadly, most business owners fail to realize this and run a traditional one-way marketing campaign. As a result, the social media effort falls on deaf ears, fails to attract followers and is dismissed as being ineffective. Contents The good news is once you figure out how to listen and engage you ll build a loyal community and become a trusted advocate in your marketplace. Why Listen?...3 Opportunity Knocks...3 Customer Support Market Research....4 Customer Relationship Management.. 4 2

3 Why Listen? You re listening for an opportunity to engage with your customers. You re looking for an opportunity to establish trust and build rapport with people. It s really about building relationships. Listening allows you to bridge the conversation by engaging people with helpful and useful information. You instantly become the welcome guest instead of the annoying pest. Opportunity Knocks Listening to social media chatter allows you to find opportunities to engage with people. You need to know what people are talking about to engage your prospects with meaningful information, right? Here are three ways to listen in on social media conversations. These strategies help convert social media conversations into opportunities for your automobile dealership: 1. Customer Support: People ask questions all the time online. This is why Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers and Quora are so popular. By listening for questions being asked about your brand you ll be able to engage these folks by answering their questions. The really smart businesses will answer questions about their own products and their marketplace as a whole. In one example, a prospect posted a simple question to an automotive client s Facebook page: Any Presidents Day specials for the 2012 Silverado Crew LT s on the horizon? Our social media team immediately engaged this person by his first name, thanked him for his question and offered him helpful information. In addition, we gave him the name and number of the dealership s General Manager and alerted him to expect a call from the GM right away. 3

4 Four days later, after an exchange of phone calls, the customer walked into the dealership and purchased a brand new 2012 Chevy Silverado Crew LT. Had this dealership not been listening, the opportunity would have been missed. 2. Market Research: What are other business owners doing to make their customers happy? What are they doing to tick their customers off? What kind of car buying experience are your potential customers looking for? Listening in on social media chatter is a great way to conduct your own market research and custom tailor a buying experience your customers will love. 3. Customer Relationship Management: The cold hard truth is this: there are going to be times when your customers have a less than enjoyable buying experience. In many cases, these unhappy buyers will go to their social media platform of choice and voice their displeasures. If they re angry enough they will blast it across many platforms. It s important for you to be listening for: Bad Stuff: This is pretty self-explanatory. You want to know when people are saying negative things about your business. When you find these situations, you want to address them right away and NOT ignore it. Good Stuff: A lot of businesses miss out on a great opportunity to respond to positive feedback. It s important to engage people who are saying nice things about you. A simple thank you and a few words acknowledging them for their comment and their business go a long way. Competitor s Mentions: You should listen for any mentions of your top competition to see what others are saying about them. When you discover a situation where someone is unhappy with your competitor s services, you have an opportunity to engage this person and offer an alternative. You can also see what they re doing to keep customers happy and figure out how you can implement similar strategies in your marketing. 4

5 Conclusion Social media is about building relationships and trust. The best way to do this is by offering helpful information and becoming an advocate in your marketplace. You need to engage in the conversations happening online, but if you re not listening,--how will you know how to craft your message? 255 Great Valley Parkway Malvern, PA P F facebook.com/streamco 5