This begins a series of posts for small business owners, startups and B2B marketers that are new to using social media to grow their companies. Or, are ready to reconsider established marketing tactics and look for new ways to achieve customer and business growth.
Every dollar and every minute you spend on marketing tactics is for one purpose:
business growth! If you’re not satisfied with the growth from your current marketing tactics you’ll want to explore new options for attracting prospects. That’s what I’ll be posting about in the coming weeks.
According to Gary Vaynerchuk, venerable social media entrepreneur, blogger, successful retailer, WineLibrary expert, and author of the best seller Crush It! ,
Regardless of what business you’re in, you’re really in the content business. –Gary Vaynerchuk
So the sooner you get into the I-am-in-the-content-business mindset the better.
Also, I firmly believe that social media marketing and content marketing are excellent tools for small businesses. Social media marketing is no longer a nice to have—it’s a must-have. But before you jump on the Twitter/Facebook bandwagon, there are some key steps to take to get your small business marketing ducks in a row.
This means:
- Define your goals
- Create tactics that support your goals
- Think though the benefits
Here’s the first example of a goal, content marketing tactic and benefits to using the tactic.
Goal: Sharpen your ability to stay on top of developing customer trends, issues and problems.
Tactic: Build your own process for listening online. You probably have some proven ways of monitoring what on your best customers’ minds. (Taking them to lunch or just checking in with a periodic phone call.) Map out a process that works for your company to accomplish the same goal online.
To keep up with online mentions of key terms used by using Google Alerts, Google Reader or other free tracking tools. Fine-tune the list of keywords you track.
Review the terms your customers are using to search online for solutions and answers. Issues may crop up online before your customers mention them to you or your staff in offline conversations.
Think how in control you’ll feel after setting up your own process to monitor your industry’s online conversations!
Related posts about monitoring online conversations and finding the right keywords to track:
Mashable’s post on How to use Google Reader
Identifying Keywords, How to Listen Online to Find Content Topics That Lead Prospects to Your Site
Colin Alsheimer’s great post How to Set Up a Listening Station
Photo: istock
Thanks for including my post! I think you’re spot on with your advice here.