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Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Cost-Effective Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Small to Medium Sized Business

Ten Ways to Develop Cost-Effective Social Media Strategies

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Many small to medium sized business owners find themselves too busy to develop solid social media marketing strategies that will do what they are supposed to...grow their business. Instead, business owners are working in their business, 50 to 60 hours or more per week, not having any time to focus on what matters most. Social media marketing is a way that business owners can expand their reach, but there are certain strategies that business owners should follow to make their campaign as successful as it should be. 

Social media marketing allows you to grow relationships with your potential customers and current consumer-base. If you don't have the time  to focus on social media efforts alone, you might want to consider utilizing a company that is known for growing businesses and their social media efforts

The article below discusses ten ways that you can develop your social media strategy to ensure that it provides you with the results you need:

  • Does your business lend itself to showing off its work? Strutting your stuff brings to mind visual portrayals, like photographs and video, although it can include other presentation formats. Social media is very useful for businesses where prospects perceive there are high risks. Many bridal photographers use blogs to highlight their work while many bakers use Flickr to show off their masterpieces. Show real patrons using your services with before and after photographs. Don’t forget to get patron’s permission to use their likeness.
  • Can you give prospects information they find useful? Think in terms of small bite-size chunks of content. Twitter is great for providing a tip of the day whether you’re an accountant or a massage therapist. Clothing stores could provide an outfit of the day. Think outside of the box when it comes to information. How about food recipes or scrap-booking.
  • How do you solve people’s problems? At the core of most marketing is fulfilling prospects’ needs. Therefore, create content that helps people with their problems. For example, if you’re a financial advisor, why not give out tips on budgeting so that prospects have money to invest. Here’s some advice to create a professional blog.
  • Does your product lend itself to some form of education? This is a great way to win prospects over. Teach them! Not the old-fashioned school marm but the fun stuff. Think: how to add memory to your computer or how to apply makeup. You can use videos, webinars or ebooks.
  • Can your business disseminate entertaining content? This information doesn’t need to be your business’s main focus. Orabrush built its brand with the use of entertaining videos. Is there something funny or engaging about your product?
  • Are there targeted or niche communities where your prospects and customers naturally congregate? While this doesn’t apply to all businesses, where it exists, it’s a useful way to participate in the community. You can participate in the social media community and advertise to targeted prospects. For example, yarn shops participate and socialize on Ravelry, a knitting community.
  • Does your business tap into people’s passions and/or hobbies?When it comes hobbies and special interests, participants often make different spending tradeoffs. The strength of these interests is great since your customers want to share their share their hobbies and special interests using photographs, videos and blogs. This can apply to fishing as well as it can to quilting.

You can read the rest of the article here.


For B2B businesses or small to medium sized businesses who would like some tips on successful marketing and social media marketing tactics, please contact us at Classic Image today to see how we can help your business with all of your marketing campaigns from social media marketing to direct marketing. We strongly believe that combining inbound and outbound marketing tactics is a great way to help any business flourish.

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