This is the second part of my five part series of posts on the 5 Rules of Social Media Marketing.
Integrate
By this I mean make social media a part of your overall marketing strategy. Even though I am obviously a huge advocate of using these platforms in your marketing effort, I also believe you shouldn’t put all of your eggs in one basket.
Whether it’s simple things like including your Twitter username or Facebook Page address on your business cards or more involved strategies like viral competitions or having complimenting campaigns running both on social networking platforms and mainstream media like TV, seamless integration is the key to a solid and successful social media strategy.
Probably the most basic way to integrate your online marketing effort is to present everything you do in a uniform way: the same image and logo on every social networking platform, the same font on your emails and web presences, even the same writing style in everything you produce online.
Just on the subject of graphics, if you are going to set up Twitter accounts or Facebook Pages that represent your business at the corporate level then always use an image or logo that is representative of your business. If you are going to set up separate accounts for yourself or other employees then they should be done with individuality and human element included – right down to a clear head shot or other image that best represents the person who will be making the updates to that account.
And don’t be afraid to be a bit different. The image of me that I use on all of my blog posts, social networking profiles and websites is one of me in a floppy straw hat that was taken by my wife when were on holidays in the Philippines.
To be honest, I look dopey and quite unprofessional in it.
But it’s also one of the things that I am most known for in the online world and people often say to me when they meet me in person, “Hey you’re the guy with the hat”. It is always a talking point to people and frankly for the amount of business that picture alone has brought me, I am happy to look like a goof off on it.
When researching this subject in my own social media channels, 92% of the 1,400 people surveyed said they trusted an account with someone’s face on it, regardless of the content they were promoting, compared to an account with either a logo or generic photo. That’s pretty compelling.
Check out upcoming posts for the next 4 rules of social media marketing and please let me know in the comments below if you agree or disagree with how I think small businesses should be doing their marketing online.
If you would like to see how I can help your business’ social engagement strategy through any of these means, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594.
This article appears in full in my book, The Business of Being David – How to use social media to make your small business big. To read the sample chapters and to purchase your own copy, click here.
