{"id":14205,"date":"2012-07-06T11:21:18","date_gmt":"2012-07-06T10:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=14205"},"modified":"2012-07-06T11:23:32","modified_gmt":"2012-07-06T10:23:32","slug":"social-media-marketing-is-yours-failing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/social-media-marketing-is-yours-failing\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Media Marketing: Is Yours Failing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are 800 million Facebook users and 225 million Twitter accounts worldwide (SocialSkinny.com<\/em>). Everyone seems to be on the social networking bandwagon. As a business, you should be too, but you need to approach it in the right way. You need a clear social media strategy, as you can\u2019t simply delegate the task to an intern and hope for the best. There\u2019s more to social media marketing than just an occasional update and getting people to like you on Facebook. Many businesses think that it\u2019s an easy process, but this mindset will guarantee blunders. Here\u2019s what to look out for and what you can avoid.<\/p>\n

1. You\u2019re not giving incentives<\/strong><\/p>\n

People usually won\u2019t follow or like your business if they don\u2019t have a driving factor to do so. Forbes uses the analogy of being in a restaurant and seeing a sign on the wall that says, \u201cLike us for a free dessert\u201d. Obviously, people will like them, as a free dessert is a great incentive! You need to think outside of the box; use discounts, coupons or any other form of incentive that will create engagement with your customers and which will allow you to re-market to them (Forbes).<\/p>\n

2. You don\u2019t give a reason for people to follow\/like you<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is similar to lacking incentives, as your customers need to know why<\/em> they must follow you. According to Upstart.BizJournal.com<\/em>, many businesses simply demand that customers like or follow them (for example, stating \u201cLike us on Facebook!\u201d). Give them a reason to like you. How about, \u201cFollow us and get recommendations for the best bars in town.\u201d You need to convince your fans and followers that you provide some kind of relevance or usefulness to them.<\/p>\n

3. You\u2019re not asking questions<\/strong><\/p>\n

Social media marketing is all about engagement, so you need to get people talking! According to Upstart.BizJournal.com<\/em>, the perfect way to get communication started is by asking a question. For example, \u201cBeers tonight $2\u201d versus, \u201cWhat\u2019s your favourite beer?\u201d The former might just get ignored in a news feed, whereas the latter could actually start a conversation.<\/p>\n

The key to avoiding social media marketing blunders is to give your audience good reasons to follow you, give them incentives and engage with them. Just remember, you can do all of these things, but if you lack consistency, you\u2019re still doomed to fail. You must have a regular online presence. Upstart.BizJournal.com<\/em> recommends that you spend 30 minutes each day on your social media marketing. It takes time to build up fans and a following, but a little perseverance will certainly pay off!<\/p>\n

This post was written by Ang Lloyd, a freelance writer based in Cape Town, South Africa. Ang relishes the challenge of writing on a diverse range of topics, including the importance of social media in marketing courses in Australia<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are 800 million Facebook users and 225 million Twitter accounts worldwide (SocialSkinny.com). Everyone seems to be on the social networking bandwagon. As a business, you should be too, but you need to approach it in the right way. You need a clear social media strategy, as you can\u2019t simply delegate the task to an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[408],"class_list":{"0":"post-14205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-twitter-marketing"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}