Marketing Your Business Online with Social Media

 Rad Davenport

Businesses are spending more than ever on social media marketing, according to Duke University’s CMO Survey taken in Fall 2014. In the next five years, social media budgets are expected to increase from their current rate of nine percent up to almost a quarter of businesses’ entire marketing budget.

What’s the reason for the big increase? According the latest report from Shareaholic, Facebook accounted for 23.39 percent of social referrals to websites in the second quarter of 2014. This is a 10 percent gain since March 2014 and a massive 150 percent gain from the second quarter of 2013. Facebook is such a valuable referral source because 64 percent of Facebook users visit the site on a daily basis, according to Pew Research. Facebook leads in social referrals because its users are loyal, constantly staying plugged into their News Feeds and finding content shared by friends valuable.

Other social networks are also on the rise. Twitter and LinkedIn generated 1.14 percent and .04 percent of social referrals, respectively. Pinterest and StumbleUpon also showed gains year over year. Almost 20% of adults use Instagram, making over 200 million active users who photo-share an average of 60 million photos a day.

Besides being an outstanding venue for marketing, social media marketing allows you to connect directly and personally to potential customers and business partners all over the world with just a few clicks and keystrokes. The number of social media networks can be overwhelming. This overview should help you determine which are right for your business.

Use Facebook to...

  • Connect with over 1.4 billion members and 1 billion active daily users

  • Post informational and promotional content

  • Market your company to potential partners through business to business relationship building

  • Appeal to those who like visual communication and story telling

 

Use Twitter to...

  • Connect with the movers and shakers on the fastest growing social network, used monthly by 23% of the world’s online adult population

  • Express your company’s personality through posts

  • Engage directly with mass audiences

  • Build relationships with individual members of your audience

  • Communicate in real-time

 

Use LinkedIn to...

  • Join more than 3 million companies and 380 million users who have profiles on the world’s largest professional network

  • Network within your specific niche market

  • Share your expertise and gain knowledge

  • Increase visibility and awareness of your company because your audience exists on the network and communicates within groups

  • Leverage your individual employee knowledge by answering questions and further expressing your expertise

 

Use Pinterest to...

  • Market your business to over 70 million users (80% are female) on the social network that leads in ecommerce

  • Share products or highlight services

  • Maximize search engine optimization efforts

  • Express unique company personality

  • Build a sense of community with your audience

  • Become the go-to source of information in your area of expertise

  • Sell your products to the 88% of Pinterest users who purchase a product that they pin

 

Use Instagram to...

  • Count your business among the 70 million photos and videos uploaded every day

  • Target the younger consumer ages 18 to 29, 53% of whom use Instagram

  • Tap into client creativity

  • Express your company’s image through photos and videos

  • Host photo-based campaigns and contests

 

Use YouTube to...

  • Reach more adults ages 18 to 34 than any cable TV network

  • Put a personable face on your organization

  • Extend brand messaging with video content

  • Increase search engine optimization efforts

  • Express your company’s creativity

  • Engage with your audience through contests and/or user-generated content

 

Use Google+ to...

  • Join the second largest social network in the world with a 35% growth rate

  • Increase search engine optimization organically

  • Engage directly with potential clients and business partners through publically broadcasted Hangouts

 

As of early 2015, 93% of organizations were using some form of social media marketing. Your competitors are doing it, and you should be too. Maycreate can help. Set your business apart from the sea of others on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Vine, YouTube, Tumblr, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc. by working with us to develop and execute an in-depth social media marketing strategy. We’ll develop a plan that fits the needs and personality of your company. That’s what we’ve been doing for clients since MySpace was today’s Facebook.  Contact us today to see how we can make social media work for you.