Social media presents an incredible opportunity for the shrewd entrepreneur. Through social media you can reach a lot of people who wouldn’t have known about you simply through your website and blogs.
Here are three ways you can use social media to deepen existing connections and attract new customers.
1. Build Relationships with People Who Don’t Give Email
It takes a lot for someone to give you their email address. Even top marketers rarely get more than 20% of the people who land on an email capture page to actually give them their email address.
Contrast that with what it takes for someone to “Like” or follow you.
In order to like you, people just need to see a piece of your content that they connect with anywhere on the web, or through their friend’s feed. It doesn’t take much and can be just a passing thought.
The same goes for tweets. If someone sees one tweet of yours that they like, they can decide to follow you.
2. Social Media Is a Two-Way Street
Email marketing and (most) website marketing is a one way street. That means that you’re the one who’s providing the content, while your customers consume the content. You put out emails, they read the emails.
While this should be included in your marketing strategy, it doesn’t establish as real a connection with your customers as a dialog with them does. Social media allows you to have a two-way conversation. They can comment on your stories, tweet back, answer polls, like, post on your wall and express their opinions however they like.
This gets people much more invested in your brand and in your service or product. Someone who just reads your emails versus someone who’s in active discussion with you are two completely different kinds of customers. The latter will vehemently recommend your products, buy from you regularly and share your content, while the former may only purchase every once in a while.
3. Access to People’s Friends
Finally, social media gives you access to other people’s social networks.
With email marketing, you only get access to one person. On social media, if you make a post or a tweet that someone strongly agrees with, your content will immediately be shared with hundreds of other people. Among those people are more people who might re-share your content.
[tweetthis]How to use social media to deepen existing connections and attract new customers[/tweetthis]
Social media is a powerful tool for building two-way connections and reaching friends of your customers. If you don’t have a solid social media strategy yet, now’s the time to create one.
Your turn: What other ways can social media deepen business relationships?
Deidra Miller
Administrative Consultant
