زيادة متابعين تيك توك! It’s all around us. Everywhere you look it’s: ‘Like Us On Facebook’ here and ‘Tweet Us’ there. We are surrounded by social media networks, and new ones are springing up all the time. Even though some businesses have seen the value of social media, many more have failed to grasp the effect social media is having on the way businesses need to market themselves.

Effective marketing relies on being able to target and reach the greatest possible number of potential customers. If traditional marketing methods become ineffective or outdated, what should a business do?

In the past, most people would read a newspaper daily. So when a business took out an advert, it was seen by most people. Today, many people catch up with current events either through news apps or from the latest hot topics circulating around in social media conversations, many of which don’t use adverts. Where does this leave the small business?

If you can’t get your marketing materials seen by your target audience, then not only will you be wasting your money, but you will see a big fall in your revenue, and no business can sustain that for long. Your only option is to go where the people are – and that is on Social media.

The time people spend on social media networks is growing, almost on a daily basis. They interact with people globally, make friends there, ask others for advice there, even shop there. Because of the options given to people within the social network communities, people are much more savvy about the products and services they want to buy. How do you get YOUR business voice heard among the literally millions of other voices that are talking daily on social media?

There is no such thing as a ‘captive audience’ within these social networks. Businesses need to relearn how to reach out and engage with their potential customers but they need to approach it in the right way. People need a good reason to investigate a business page on social media and an even better one to come back for more!

You don’t need to make mistakes to learn… you can benefit from looking at the mistakes people have made in the past so you don’t repeat them. Here are some lessons others before you have learned the hard way.

THE OSTRICH

There are 2 main reasons for ignoring social media – Businesses either think it to be a fad that only kids use to chat on and pass funny photos around, or they don’t take it seriously as an option, thinking that there are better ways to spend their marketing time than talking to teenagers.

The facts show social media IS here to stay:

• August 2013, ExportedRamblings.com reported Facebook had clocked up 1.15 BILLION active users
• 21st March 2013, on its 7th Birthday, Twitter announced that it had over 200 million active users creating over 400 million tweets daily.
• In July 2013, Semiocast revealed Pinterest had over 70 million users

What’s more, the user figures for each of these, and other, social media networks show no sign of waning. Social media networks continue to grow month on month. Every business should ask itself the serious question ‘Can my business afford NOT to be using social media?’ (The answer, by the way, should be NO!)

You have to be in it to win it.

JUMP ON IN… THE WATER’S FINE

So that’s it… You’ve decided to take the plunge into the pool of social media. So you’re going to tell people about your vacation and then WHAM! Hit them with your sales pitch! Smooth! Not really. That would be like jumping into a swimming pool when you can’t swim – you would just sink without a trace.

Each social media network is different. They have their own individual user profile, their own way for users to interact with each other, their own communities, their own rules and social etiquette, and their own way of getting users to engage with one another. Unless you investigate each network, you can’t be sure which ones are going to be the best fit for your company. As we said before, you need to market directly to potential customers in order to promote more sales, so you need to be sure your customers are actually there BEFORE you start.