Social media has helped bring friends together in online environments to share their experiences through images, videos, updates and 140 character micro blogs. But it’s not only individuals who are looking to utilise social media such as Facebook and Twitter, brands are looking to get in on the act. But just how could a brand such as a price comparison website use social media?
Here are just a few examples of how social media can be used by price comparison websites…
Customer Service
Customers can now provide instant feedback to brands about issues with their products or services. Via a tweet or post on a Facebook page, customers can directly highlight if they’ve experienced a problem or are unhappy about something. By monitoring mentions of their brand name or twitter username, a price comparison site can easily reach customers talking about them and help provide assistance with problems and hopefully turn a negative experience into something positive for customers.
Product information
By using social media, price comparison sites can market product news, offers and discounts straight to customers. Customers who have elected to follow or like a price comparison site are signalling that they are interested in the products and services they offer.
Competitions
Aiming to drive interactivity between price comparison sites and customers, social media can be used to run and promote competitions to existing and potential new customers. As a communication tool social media allows those customers to then further share something they think their friends may be interested in. If a price comparison site can gain retweets for a popular post, they are opening themselves up to a much larger audience. With the average twitter user having around 140 followers, gaining just one or two retweets allows the message to reach a much more diverse audience and target those who might not possibly have heard of the site before and for those getting involved in competitions, there’s the bonus that they might just win themselves a prize.
Create personalisation
Creating accounts and profiles on social media can allow price comparison sites to become more personal with their customer base through friendly, approachable and more human actions. Personalisation can be tied in with the customer service aspect of social media and simple actions such as signing off a tweet or message with the name of the person representing the site allows the recipient to put a name to the profile rather than the traditional faceless side customers often see. By forming a more friendly and personalised relationship with customers, price comparison sites can work to build customer confidence in a site that customers may then share with friends and associates.
About author
This article was written by Jamie Gibbs, the resident blogger of http://www.confused.com comparison site.
Social media is one of the hottest trends right now and is especially popular to use as an overall website marketing strategy. Those who are interested in how to plan a social media marketing strategy have already realized the many advantages it has to offer if executed properly. Planning how to run the marketing strategy is essential for it to be as successful as possible.
Identify your Goals
For people who are researching how to plan a social media marketing strategy, having a clearly defined set of goals right out of the gates is essential. A successful social media marketing strategy has a specific goal, although others may be attained as side benefits. There are a variety of different goals that can be achieved by utilizing social media properly including:
- Increasing the company’s bottom line by increasing sales
- Gaining valuable information about customers
- Gaining inbound links to improve the company’s online ranking, which will in turn help to increase sales
- Getting customer testimonials and sharing these reviews with potential customers
- Monitoring the reputation of the brand
- Building authority
- Educating customers about the product and brand
- Finding new audiences
- Forming a direct relationship between the customer and the company
Design the Strategy
Once the goals have been clearly laid out, it’s time for those learning how to plan social media marketing strategy to design the strategy itself. This strategy should be based heavily on research into strategies that have been used in the past. The best social media agencies learn from other people’s failures and avoid them in their own campaigns by researching what has worked and what hasn’t worked.
Here are a few ways you can measure what you are doing:
Measure Success
Social media companies need to clearly determine a way to measure their own campaign’s success or failure. Without this measurement, there will be no way of determining how effective the marketing strategy was. This measurement should be a direct reflection of the chosen goal of those deciding how to plan social media marketing strategy. For example, if the goal is awareness, things such as shares, likes and new subscribers are good ways to measure growth and engagement. There are a variety of tools and tracking programs that can help determine social media searchers for a specific company or marketing plan.
Overall Trends
As an additional measure of success and of social media trends involving the company, overall trends should also be examined as an answer for how to plan social media marketing strategy ideas. Look for mentions of keywords in the industry, the company name, key employees’ names (such as the CEO), brand names and product services and compare them to mentions of competitors. Depending on which social media outlet is being used, there are also many different tools that social media companies use to help track these overall trends quickly and accurately.
Communication Policies
Communication policies are an integral part of how to plan social media marketing strategy. Make a plan as to what the answer is to customer questions and complaints before they happen. Clarify the role that different team members will take and reiterate the goal behind the communication policies. Make a reasonable timeline for different success measurements and when the associated tasks will be completed. It is important for even the best social media companies to have a written plan identifying which different networks will be used and how the goals will be accomplished.
Growth and Promotion
Once those interested in how to plan social media marketing strategy have implemented their ideas, make sure that the momentum is kept going. There needs to be consistent promotion of social media platforms company-wide, including adding the networks to letterheads, signature lines, business cards and promotional literature. Make use of plugins and icons on the company’s website to thoroughly link to the company’s different media outlets. Promotions such as Facebook ads and contests are affordable and easy ways to draw more attention to the company. Try live webinars, question and answers, guest blogging and expert interviews to keep growing and promoting.
Deciding how to plan social media marketing strategy involves a variety of facets, as outlined above. Promotional policies, goals and communication policies must be clearly laid out before any campaign begins. Make sure to keep measuring to see how successful the strategies were. These evaluation processes can help to develop different strategies over time that may be more successful with the company’s target audience.