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Has it ever occurred to you that everyone you know, whether in business or your personal life, forms part of a much larger social circle?

Groupings of like-minded people tend to gravitate towards each other in the real world – hence political parties, hobby groups and sports clubs. But that’s also reflected in the digital arena, with each of us allying to various factions where we feel there’s common ground or interest.

Yet, obvious as this may seem, many of us in business neglect the opportunities this presents to tell our circles, already interested in what you have to say, about your latest blog post or article. That’s perhaps understandable given that each of us is faced with a barrage of online tools when it comes to how we promote material via the web.

EMAIL MARKETING

It used to be that we could rely on permission-based email marketing. This is, after all, a fairly powerful channel. A person has given you their email and permission to communicate information to them.

Yet the emergence of tools like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn now presents any business with an array of alternate ways to take that emailed message and reach out to new audiences. Imagine you run a business communicating once a quarter with an email newsletter containing relevant content that you know will interest the target audience. The challenge is not simply delivering the message but then ensuring that it is opened and actually read.

Business-to-consumer email open rates aren’t great at the best of times, which means that for all the effort expended in creating your compelling content, perhaps as few as one in five of those receiving an email communication will ever get around to seeing the content contained inside.

PERMISSION-BASED SOCIAL MARKETING

That’s perhaps no great surprise given that each of us faces an often overwhelming amount of inbox material vying for attention. But this is where social marketing can play a powerful part – circumventing the inbox logjam and reaching out to circles of contacts who, much as with permission email marketing, have already given some form of consent to a communications relationship with either you as an individual or your company’s Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn identity.

And just as with email marketing, control is in the hands of the recipient. If you start spewing irrelevant messages about new blog posts on your business website, it won’t take long for those who aren’t interested to cease following you.

TOP TIPS FOR SOCIAL MARKETING OF CONTENT

1. Be relevant – if people are following you on Twitter under a business identity make sure the messages you put out are relevant to the business. No one cares what you had for breakfast!

2. Be interesting – social media or any other media, if the content you are promoting is poorly written, even if relevant to the followers you’re targetting, it won’t get read. Quality prose still counts, whatever medium it’s in.

3. Be found – make sure to use hashtags in your updates to add context and help others to find your post e.g. if you write about telecoms of cloud computing make sure it can be easily found by anyone following #telecoms or #cloudcomputing.

4. Do not spam – repeating the same tweet is going to annoy people pretty quickly. You get one opportunity, so use it wisely.

5. Recognise those who retweet to their own followers – it’s small beer, but it’s just plain good manners to thank anyone who subsequently shares your original posting with their own circle of followers. They are, after all, freely promoting your content/blog/update to contacts you may not have.

6. Be responsive – if someone takes the trouble to comment on your tweet, whether on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or even the comments section of the page where your content lives, respond! This is social, so engage. It might be someone who does business with you in the future.

7. Be consistent - don’t post nothing for weeks or months and then rush a bunch of messages out in a matter of days. Don’t hesitate to comment about other relevant content on the web to your followers. It doesn’t have to be all about you/your business.

8. Listen – if you have people following your business take the time to monitor what they’re talking about. It will help you keep it relevant when creating new content.

The bottom line is that social tools like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn now present a great opportunity for companies attempting to reach out to existing and potentially new customers. Certainly, it’s a means of bypassing the logjam in so many people’s inboxes. But that doesn’t mean it’s a universal panacea. It’s simply another part of an ever-growing set of tools that can help you to reach out to potentially interested audiences. Use it wisely and reap the rewards.

Ralph
@ralphenn

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