Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies. Michelle Krasniak

alt="Remember"/> Marketing is only part of your company, but all of your company is marketing. Social media is a ripe environment for this hypothesis, where every part of a company, from human resources to tech support, and from engineering to sales, can be involved.

      Improving search engine rankings

      Just as you optimize your website, you should optimize your social media outlets for search engine ranking. Now that search engines are cataloging Twitter and Facebook and other appearances on social media, you can gain additional front-page real estate for your company on Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.

Search engines recognize most appearances on social media as inbound links, which also improve where your site will appear in natural search results.

      

Use a core set of search terms and keywords across as many sites as possible. Book 2, Chapters 2 and 3 deal with search engine optimization, including tactics to avoid because they could get you in trouble for spamming.

      Optimization pays off in other ways: in results on real-time searches, which are now available on primary search engines; on external search engines that focus on blogs or other social media services; and on internal, site-specific search engines.

      Selling in the social media marketplace

      Conventional thinking several years ago suggested that social media was designed for long-term engagement — for marketing and branding rather than for sales. However, more and more social media channels now offer the opportunity for direct sales from their sites. In addition to selling on major social media channels such as Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram, you will also find selling opportunities on smaller, niche social media:

       Sell music and event tickets. SoundCloud and ReverbNation, which cater to music and entertainment, are appropriate social media sites for these products.

       Include a link to your online store on social-shopping services. Recommend products — particularly apparel, jewelry, beauty, and decor — as OpenSky does.

       Offer promotional codes or special deals to followers. Offering codes or deals on particular networks encourages your followers to visit your site to make a purchase. You can also announce sales or events.

       Place links to online or third-party stores such as Etsy (see Book 2, Chapter 1) on your profile pages on various services. Some social media channels offer widgets that visually showcase your products and link to your online store, PayPal, or the equivalent to conclude a transaction.

       Include a sign-up option for your e-newsletter. It offers a bridge to sales.

The chart in Figure 1-8 shows the results of The Manifest’s 2019 Small Business Advertising survey that looked at how effective the different types of advertising were at helping small businesses meet their goals.

      Adapted from The Manifest’s 2019 Small Business Advertising survey

      FIGURE 1-8: Social media is what helps small businesses meet their goals the most.

Include sales offers in a stream of information and news to avoid turning your social media site into a series of never-ending advertisements.

      Finding alternative advertising opportunities

      Although time is money, the magic word is free. If you decide to approach social media as an alternative to paid advertising, construct your master social media campaign just as carefully as you would a paid one:

       Create a plan that outlines target markets, ad offers, publishing venues, and schedules for different ad campaigns.

       If necessary, conduct comparative testing of messages, graphics, and offers.

       Monitor results and focus on the outlets that work best at driving qualified visits that lead to conversions.

       Supplement your free advertising with search engine optimization, press releases, and other forms of free promotion.

      

Advertising is only one part of marketing!

      As you see traffic and conversions building from your social media marketing campaigns, you may want to reduce existing paid advertising campaigns. Just don’t stop your paid advertising until you’re confident that you have an equally profitable stream of customers from social media. Of course, if your ad campaign isn’t working, there’s no point continuing it.

Understanding the Cons of Social Media

      For all its upsides, social media has its downsides. As social media has gained in popularity, it has also become increasingly difficult to gain visibility among its hundreds of millions of users.

      In fact, sometimes you have to craft a campaign just to build an audience on a particular social media site. The process is similar to conducting optimization and inbound link campaigns so that your site is found in natural search results.

      

Don’t participate in social media for its own sake or just because everyone else is.

      By far, the biggest downside in social media is the amount of time you need to invest to see results. You need to make an ongoing commitment to review and respond to comments and to provide an ongoing stream of new material. An initial commitment to set up a profile is just the tip of the iceberg.

      

Keep in mind that you need to watch out for the addictiveness of social media. Individually and collectively, social media is the biggest-ever time sink. Don’t believe us? Ask yourself whether you became addicted to news alerts during the 2016 presidential campaign or couldn’t take your eyes off live coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak. Or maybe you play Candy Crush, Words with Friends, or other video games with a passion, continuously text on your smartphone, or compulsively check email every ten seconds … you get the idea. Without self-discipline and a strong time schedule, you can easily become so socially overbooked that other tasks go undone.

      As you consider each of the social media options in this book, also consider the level of human resources that is needed. Do you have the time and talents yourself? If not, do other people in your organization have the time and talent? Which other efforts will you need to give up while making room for social media? Will you have to hire new employees or contract services, leading to hard costs for this supposedly “free” media?

Integrating Social Media into Your Overall Marketing Effort

      Social media is only part of your online marketing. Online marketing is only part of your overall marketing. Don’t mistake the part for the whole.

Consider each foray into social marketing as a strategic choice to supplement your other online-marketing activities, which may include

       Creating and managing a marketing-effective website: Use content updates, search engine