Online And Offline Businesses Both Need Social Media Marketing Strategies

Once, it was commonplace for businesses that conducted the majority of their business in brick and mortar businesses to not have a compelling online presence.  That quickly changed and businesses across the globe that offer local services have found the power of harnessing of the internet in addition to their traditional marketing strategies.  Online businesses however, have always focused on getting their customers from internet users.  Social media integration into marketing strategies was first successfully employed by online businesses and now offline businesses understand the importance of having a social media strategy that is woven into their overall strategic plans.  Consumers buy from businesses that have a recognizable brand, a good product and offer it at fair prices.

What Social Media Marketing Does For Businesses

Social media platforms give you the invaluable path for pursuing new customers, nourishing existing customers, and for building buzz about your products and services.  Reaching customers, regardless of the type of business you have, is vital to your success. In fact, one of the biggest marketing and sales challenges has always been choosing the best channels to find customers.  Social media allows businesses to build their brand and their reputation, encourage feedback and sharing, and educate customers on the benefits of your products. Going viral through social media campaigns, is the ultimate goal.  Tweets, videos, blogs, and forums are all pieces of the social media puzzle and are a vital part of your UX.

Using Social Media To Its Full Potential

So Delicious Dairy Free is a company that makes dairy-free milk and other products from nuts.  When they launched their Facebook campaign, they continually asked for feedback on their products, were active in responding to questions, and offered followers coupons and recipes.  As they kicked off their product launches, they had ongoing contests that spurred their customers into action.  Their customers shared their recipes with friends, talked actively about their products, and created the buzz all new companies strive for.  While they had been in business since the late 1980s, their social media campaign catapulted them into new waters and greatly expanded their business.  They created a UX that engaged a passionate community – they had the right message, at the right time.

Most companies do not spend the time or effort necessary to build a community like the So Delicious folks did.  For a brand with non-universal appeal, their over 110,000 “likes” on Facebook and 17,000 Twitter followers is remarkable.  The truth is, when creating a marketing campaign, regardless of whether for offline or online businesses, social media must be integrated into the fold.  The brand message of any business needs to be promoted through traditional media as well as social media to increase the reach and build a strong customer base.  The added benefit of an active social media community are that the more people that are talking about your product, sharing your product benefits, the more your rankings in search engines will improve because of the number of new organic backlinks.  Organic backlinks cannot be achieved without effort; however, they are one of the key components in search engine algorithms for moving your business to the first page.