In today’s social universe it’s easier than ever to get your business, products and message out to the world with tools like email marketing, your business blog and social media. With the simple click of a button business owners and marketers alike can send content of all shapes and sizes out for all to see. This shift in how businesses communicate with customers and the public has caused marketers to transition from outdated metrics to dabble in the new currencies of web traffic, followers, likes and views. As dashboards get more complex it can be easy to get lost in all the noise and forget the one thing that really matters – Not all views are created equal.
Yes, marketing tools are incredibly powerful and can help businesses interact with people in new ways but these tools still need to serve the fundamental purpose of getting products and services in front of people who need them. For example having 300 Twitter followers is good. It’s better however if you know that in those 300 followers there are potential users, resellers, or decision makers for your product or service. Otherwise you might as well just be shouting your business updates into thin air.
The next logical step then is to make sure your message is getting out to the right people no matter what conduits you use. Traditional media outlets such as trade magazines still cater to specific industries but newer outlets have tools to help narrow the wide web into a more concise field of focus.
From mirroring current followers to tracking users who have interacted with your website, Facebook offers a variety of advertising options that let businesses build a complete profile of customers to target with messaging campaigns. On the free side businesses can share and tag other businesses or people to organically grow and reach their target consumers.
Similar to Facebook, Twitter also offers targeting options, albeit less advanced. Where Twitter differentiates themselves is the platforms natural sharing design with retweets and its ability to allow businesses to search for users based on what people have tweeted.
LinkedIn is the business to business social media platform for a reason. Where Facebook builds their ad targeting demographics around demographic information, LinkedIn builds theirs around business characteristics. On the free side LinkedIn has sharing and tagging functionality similar to that of Facebooks.
Email Marketing
Through social media and a website popup businesses can continually request and collect emails to build out lists to nurture sales leads, reconnect with opportunities and more.