In our experience, we’ve observed many businesses embrace one of two basic approaches to social media:

1. They have no website, but get their message out on one or more social platforms
2. With a website as the epicenter of their marketing galaxy, they launch one or more social platforms as satellite(s) to propagate communications

Depending on your budget, creativity, and expertise, either option is viable.  In addition to evaluating internal resources, businesses should look externally – spending considerable time thinking about where and how their target audience searches for, answers, or consumes media.

A picture is worth a thousand words

If your product is very visual, then a platform like Instagram becomes more relevant.  Even more so if your prospects skew female and young.  For example, a landscaper with many before and after pictures might resonate to a female homeowner seeking to spruce up their garden.  A home inspector who relies on referrals could share relevant posts on LinkedIn targeting local real estate professionals.

A video is worth a thousand pictures

Whether a brief 30 second branding snippet or a 15-minute how-to explainer, video is a compelling medium that could be deployed on email, your website or a platform like YouTube.

Regardless of platform or format, to build and maintain a community, it is important to be consistent in output with relevant posts that demonstrate thought leadership or creativity.

If you are having difficulty achieving that synergy between your website and social properties, contact WSI Vital Marketing for a free consultation and an expert implementation, if warranted.

The power of social platforms is they allow companies to “fish where many of the fishes are.”

On social media, new content could be as simple as publishing planned parking locations of your food truck for the coming week.  Menu updates or sharing recipes likewise qualify as items of interest to your followers.

When well executed, having social extensions reinforce and extend your communications in a positive feedback loop with your website.  If you have a long-form piece of content on your website, you could share a few bullet points on Facebook or LinkedIn with links to the article inviting those ready to take a deep dive to read further on your site.

One thing to avoid is chasing metrics simply from FOMO.  How relevant is it to get more likes or retweets if it does not result in engagement with your company?

Social Media Discoveries

Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins reported these percentages of U.S. respondents 18 – 34 year old “discovering products” on these platforms:

Testimonials can be pivotal to prospects who do not know you.  What are you doing to garner reviews?  Which community forums should you participate in?  How to handle bad reviews or manage your reputation?

Besides posting content, should you undertake social media advertising?  How might social properties help your search engine optimization?  How can you glean insights or perform research on your social properties? If your product is business-to-business, is your LinkedIn profile up to par?

If you are having difficulty achieving that synergy between your website and social properties, set up an appointment for an Internet Business Analysis with WSI Vital Marketing to determine if we can add value to your business.