November 15, 2013

You’ve jumped on the bandwagon and have added social media marketing to your business. You made your business a Facebook page, Twitter account and a YouTube channel. You added some fans, followers and subscribers to it. Great! Then you got busy with the other 100 different jobs you do as a retailer. Sound like you?

There is nothing worse than a customer (especially a Gen Y or millennial) landing on your social media outlets and seeing nothing has been posted since last year. Their first thought is “Oh… They must have gone out of business.” They won’t bother looking at your website to see that you’re really still in business, because they landed on your social media site first and saw nothing.

So how do you fix this? What’s next? How do you make them talk to you? How do you get them to keep coming back? More importantly, how can you get them to buy from you?

Unfortunately, there is no exact science to make your social media outlets be the best they can be. The most successful Facebook pages are and always will be those of big-name companies. However, you can be like a rock and crush those larger brands in your local community.

Follow these social steps to help tip the odds in your favor.

Update Your Facebook Content Daily!

The key to Facebook is consistency, consistency and, you guessed it, consistency. Don’t do three posts on Monday and then post nothing again until Friday. The best way to keep your fans engaged is to stay consistent and fresh in their minds. However, this can be a double-edged sword. If you publish too often with content that your fans don’t care about, they will hide you from their wall feed. Facebook users have the ability to block all status updates and any information posted by a Facebook page. The purpose of your page is lost once they hide you from their feed. So tread lightly with what you post and how often you post. Try posting one to two times maximum per day. If your content is good, people will notice it.

Be a Resource on Twitter

If you really want people to follow and continue following you, make it impossible for them to leave by providing them with high-quality and interesting updates. This can be done via linking out to an informative article or by giving a thoughtful opinion in a wider discussion.

Use Playlists to Your Advantage with YouTube

Your YouTube channel does not need to be populated solely with videos that you create. Pool a listing (or several lists) of videos through YouTube’s playlist feature. Your playlists will include videos made by other YouTubers and could include other videos such as useful industry resources. For example, maybe Serta released a new commercial about the counting sheep or they are running some sort of promotion. Your YouTube channel could feature these videos to keep your audience informed. Obviously, you want to stay away from promoting competitors’ videos, but any content that you consider to be complementary can be linked to a playlist and promoted on the homepage of your channel.

Quick-Fire Marketing is brought to you by R&A Marketing. Armed with more than 25 years of furniture retail marketing experience as a full-service traditional and digital marketing company, R&A is the industry’s premier agency for retailers in the home furnishings and appliances/electronics industries. Visit us on the web at www.ramarketing.com or email us at info@ramarketing.com.