Every small business needs to have at least 1 active social media channel for their business. The top 6 Social channels to consider are

The numbers appearing next to each channel indicate the active number of subscribers to each social channel. For most small local businesses access to mere fractions of the people within just one social media channel is more than their business needs to be successful.

Social Media channels can’t work, for a business, without a presence…. So, at minimum, your business must have a profile / page on the social channels of your choice. A business's Social Media channel needs followers or fans or the presence will generate no benefit for the business. A business with followers and fans need to generate engaging content or the content generated will deliver no benefit for the business.

The Big Social Media Mistake Many Businesses Make

The classic mistake many businesses make is thinking posting content related to product and services offered by the business is the type of information their followers want to see. Nobody signs up or onto a social channel to be inundated with advertising content. For this reason, each social channel that supports advertising has ad management portals to help business get maximum reach and engagement for content that pertains to marketing messages.

Facebook, the Social Media giant with the most subscribers, actually utilizes computer based programs (algorithms) to filter content it delivers to the Facebook audience. Facebook believes they have figured out exactly what their subscribers want as it relates to content.

Without a computer algorithm, you can also measure how well your content is being received by monitoring the engagement level of your followers. If your followers are not liking, sharing , retweeting, or commenting on your content post chances are you are failing to provide content your followers want to see.

Every business wants more leads and sales. Most social media channels provide multiple methods to reach more fans and followers. There really are only two approaches to reaching your businesses social media followers/fans:

• Organic - without paying ad fees to the Social Channel
• Paid - paying ad fees to the Social Channel

Organic Online Marketing Strategies

The only way to reach your audience and beyond your audience on any social channel is to create content. Now, what do I mean when I say content? When I say content I am talking about:

• Posting links to Blogs from your website
• Posting Photos
• Posting Videos
• Curating Data (sharing content from other sources)
• Posting updates
• Sharing post
• Follow Up on Mentions

The frequency level of posting is different per social channel. The bottom line, the more you post, the more people you reach organically. The more people you reach the greater the opportunity will be to convert your followers into leads and sales.

Okay, so how does a Blog post, for example, convert a follower into a lead? Posting a blog post into a Social Media channel with a great title, thought provoking photo and a good teaser description is all it takes to get your fan/follower to click through to read the complete blog post. Once the fan is on your website you have a great deal of more flexibility to introduce website lead capturing forms, link bait and capture marketing-retargeting data.

Content posts such as photos, non-marketing videos, curated content and other posts will not necessarily drive traffic to your website but these content types will keep your business engaging with your followers. Your followers will begin to rely on your post to provide them with information related to your field of expertise.

So, your businesses next steps need to be:

• Create blog post
• Make a video blog (or Periscope and post)
• Curate Content (find interesting website topics and share with your followers)
• Post an update or share a new photo

Try not to over do it with advertising in your post because doing so may decrease your reach or impact your engagement levels. A cool side effect of great content is additional followers/fans. When your followers engage with your content some of their followers and friends see the engagements and as a result, begin to follow (like) your business social profile.

Paid Online Marketing Strategies

If you are stumped for content, don’t have the time to manage your online marketing solutions or your small business is looking for a fast ROI on social media you are going to need to make some investments in advertising.

The types of online marketing campaigns you can take advantage of on most social channels include:

• Increase Followers / Fans
• Increase website visits
• Lead Generation
• Increase post reach
• Increase sales (conversions)

Unlike organic strategies, which typically downplay the sales and lead generation aspect of a business, paid online marketing strategies are solely dedicated to driving traffic , leads and sales.

The frequency rate at which a business should utilize paid online marketing depends on the type of campaign and the expected results of the campaign. Paid ads should be measured and monitored to ensure you get the maximum out of each dollar invested.

Ideally, you want to make an investment in each campaign type that will provide your business with the greatest amount of leads on a daily basis. Before deploying marketing campaigns in any social channel, get your website in order.

There are tracking tools offered by Facebook, Twitter, and Google that help you capture information related to the actions the visitors of the social media channels take. For example, Facebook’s tracking pixel can let you know which pages Facebook subscribers visit. With this type of information, you are able to remarket targeting campaigns back at these same visitors to help increase leads and sales.

Once the tracking tools are in place you need to figure out landing and exit pages for your campaigns.

The Landing pages will be the website pages your campaigns will deliver the campaign visitors assuming your campaign is geared toward driving leads and sales to your website. The landing page must deliver, immediately, the product, service or information the campaign ad’s description promised. Failure to deliver as promised will result in wasted advertising dollars. Online consumers don’t like to guess at what to do next. The landing page must be easy to follow, mobile ready/friendly, consistent with your brand's image and provide a call to action element.

The exit page is the page the site visitor will see last, after completing the intended landing page action. The exit page should be identified in your marketing campaign tracking to help measure conversions. Most exit pages are simple"thank you" pages. These "thank you" pages should be hidden pages that are only accessible to site visitors that complete the call to action of the Landing page.

The added bonus of paid advertising is the campaign messages are not limited to just your business fans and followers. In fact, that is what makes social media so awesome! The ability to market to a bigger audience is great. The best part of all is the ability to create your target audience makes online advertising portals a hard to beat marketing source.

Conclusion

You need to grow fans in your social channel. A strategy that includes a combination of organic and paid is the best approach to improving your online presence. Online Marketing Strategists generally bill by the hour. The rate per hour for most Marketing Strategists range between $65 - $150 per hour. For long-term projects, you can expect better rates and hands-on activities offered by the marketing agency or strategist.

We provide both short-term project planning at $75 per hour and long term online presence management services starting at $125 per month for 4 hours of online marketing optimization and maintenance services.