One of the biggest mistakes that a business can make in Facebook marketing is to link a Twitter account to their Facebook page. You may think that this is a timesaving solution, but there are some very good reasons why each network deserves its own updates. Continue reading
Twitter is the simplest of the major social networks but the most powerful for marketers. Its hashtag (#) system allows you to reach out to groups with specific interests, and puts your content in front of a massive potential audience. Twitter allows for instant impact, and long-term relationship building.
The power of Hashtags is their ability to connect people with common interests. Label any 140 character tweet on Twitter with a #keyword, and it is instantly available to everybody in your industry, and to your potential customers. Continue reading
One of the continuing questions in marketing and public relations is how to use Twitter to its fullest with a big return-on-investment. Twitter is a free micro blogging service, but it does take time to use. Continue reading
Small businesses have long recognised the power of the Internet, but the coming of Web 2.0 has left many of those firms behind. As more and more people turn to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, it has never been more important for businesses to make use of those same marketing platforms. Continue reading
Twitter hashtags are simply words or phrases with the hash symbol (#) attached to the beginning (e.g. #hashtags, #Twitter, #marketing.) They are used by Twitter users and social media experts to search for tweets related to their area of interest. Many Twitter users subscribe to specific hashtags using the saved search facility, while others perform regular hashtag searches of topics that they find interesting. If you have used your hashtags correctly, your tweets will show up in the list of search results when a Twitter user searches for your chosen hashtags. Using hashtags as part of your Twitter marketing strategy means that your tweets will be read by a much wider audience.
Choosing your hashtags
When choosing which hashtags to use for your tweets, it’s important to think about your target audience and which search terms they may be using. For example, if your company sells cat food, your target audience may well be cat owners, but they are unlikely to search for hashtags like #catfood. They are far more likely to search for hashtags like #cats and #pets. Ideally, you should use no more than 2-3 hashtags per tweet. Don’t annoy your audience by making every word a hashtag.
Where to put your hashtags
Placement of hashtags is generally best at the end of your tweet. If this is not practical, try to place them at the beginning. Placing hashtags in the middle of your tweets can be distracting and confusing for your audience.
Using “trending” hashtags
Trending hashtags are hashtags that have become extremely popular within the Twitter community. Hashtags “trend” when they are being used, and searched for, by large quantities of people. Trending hashtags are usually short lived, but if you use these hashtags at the right time, your tweets are likely to be seen by thousands of people who you would not usually come into contact with.
Use your Twitter homepage to keep an eye on which hashtags are trending. When you spot a trending hashtag that you think you can contribute to, send out a tweet using the hashtag. Make sure that your tweet is relevant to the topic. Don’t “piggyback” on the success of a trending hashtag by using it to market unrelated content, as this will only serve to annoy Twitter users.
Starting your own trend
Getting a hashtag to “trend” is no easy task. However, if you can come up with an original hashtag, or even resurrect an old favorite, to capture the imagination of a large amount of Twitter users, you can create a huge amount of exposure for your marketing campaign. Choose hashtags that encourage Twitter users to share something about themselves and their lives. For example, hashtags that encourage people to divulge their favorite movie (e.g. #myfavouritemovies) are more likely to gamer attention than a simple movie (#movie) hashtag.
Using hashtags to communicate with your customers
Hashtags can also be used as a way to receive feedback from your customers. Choose an individual hashtag that no one else is using and ask your customers to use the hashtag in their communications with you. This can be a good way to answer frequently asked questions, rather than having to reply directly to every single query. Remember to keep track of your hashtags and reply regularly. Desktop clients such as Tweetdeck and HootSuite can help you to organize and keep track of your hashtags.
If you’d like help with your social media campaign, check out how Grafton Media can help you and your company.
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Are you tweeting randomly in the hope that it will bring you a customer one day? Are you blogging because they say that this is the best way of putting your business on the map? Have you really thought about how you are using social media to market your business?
Without a social media marketing plan it is difficult to use social media effectively as a marketing tool and you can’t keep track of the results. Without a plan, you are wasting time on the wrong actions – you might be using the wrong media or you might be doing things that have no effect on your target audience.
A social media marketing plan is not complicated to make and our social media experts at Grafton Media offer the following advice on the matter. If you answer all of the questions below, you will have a workable plan to start with.
1. What do you want to achieve by using social media?
Do you want to tempt more visitors to your blog or website, establish yourself as an expert, gather testimonials and recommendations, sell information products like e-books or video tutorials, approach potential customers, or build up a network with other businesses?
2. Who is your target audience?
Draw up a profile on your ideal customer, by gathering demographic information, like occupation, education, age and location. Next look at psychographic traits, for example, values, attitudes, and the so-called AIOs (activity, interest, and opinion). Look for patterns that match your marketing message.
3. Where does your target audience gather?
Which social media network is your target audience using? Is it Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or any other site? You need to make sure your company is on the site with your strongest customer base, and focus most of your efforts there
4. What does your target audience need?
What kind of problems is your audience experiencing? What kind of questions would your target market like to see resolved?
5. What are you going to offer to your target audience?
You can write informative articles, make videos or podcasts, share links to other blogs, or answer questions directly on Twitter or LinkedIn discussion groups. Just keep in mind that what you do need to do is to speak about the problems and answer the questions your target audience has.
6. How often will you use social media?
You could for example, send out e-zine (email marketing) once a week, twitter three times every working day, and take part in a LinkedIn discussion group twice a week.
7. What action do you want your target audience to take?
You might want people to subscribe to your newsletter, or to ask about your workshop and tutorials. Or maybe you want them to register for your workshop, or react to your blogs or tweets.
Now that your plan is in place, you can start measuring the results of your social media efforts. It will take some time to find out what works best for you when it comes to frequency and even time of activity. Take into account that social networks have peak times. Peak times can be helpful to reach a larger segment of your target audience, but there may also be other distractions around those times, so your message could be overlooked more easily. That is why it is important to measure your results on different social media websites carefully.
Grafton Media can help you put together a Social Media Marketing Plan that will perfectly suit your business.
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Grafton Media is proud to announce the launch of it’s latest client site!
Edwards Services and Solutions (ESS) - http://www.edwardsservicesandsolutions.com
ESS managing director, Sue Edwards praised Grafton Media for their exceptional service and quality end produce. Speaking on Thursday, she said:
“The Grafton Media team recently designed a new website for my company. The quality of this site is unbelieveable. It’s eye-catching, professional and most importantly, the SEO is of an incredibly high standard.
The quality of service I received from the team was exemplary. They worked in close consultation with me, the most minute detail was discussed until I was happy, and the team kept me updated with developments. One of the challenges facing them was working with me to design a logo for the company… Again, no detail was left to chance, and they explained everything in detail and ensured I was totally happy before forging ahead.
I will definately be using Grafton Media in the future for my on and off line advertising and marketing. I cannot recommend them highly enough.”
Grafton Media has also been appointed to manage all future media communications and media buying for the company, along with other services to be announced soon.