Page 331 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

Tips and Tricks for Website SMM

Follow these steps to enhance your website’s social media potential. Many of
these tips and tricks may seem small, but time and again, we’ve seen them directly
impact how a potential customer views a brand on a website. They are easy to
remember as the four As — Aggregate, Amplify, Align, and Apply.

Aggregate information for your

customer’s journey

Social media has empowered consumers to form stronger opinions and express
them more broadly. More people are blogging, commenting, and rating than ever
before. According to a 2018 article by Orbit Media (https://www.orbitmedia.
com/blog/blogging-statistics/), the average blog post is 1,151 words (an
increase of 42 percent over the last five years).

These contributors provide a rich base of knowledge for other consumers to use
while making a purchasing decision. Consumers who tap into these blogs know
more about your brand than you probably do. Rather than try to control the
message, serve as the hub and the aggregator of all information regarding the
brand. Let your website become the amphitheater for the conversation. Even if
the conversation is negative, you win over the long term, as Chevy did with its
Tahoe campaign. The user-generated advertisement contest resulted in 629,000
visits to the website, and Tahoe sales took off.

Amplify business stories

So, you can’t control the message anymore. Your consumers would rather listen to
each other than to you. But you still have messages that you want to disseminate.
You can do that by shaping, influencing, and amplifying business stories that play
to your brand’s strengths.

Just because your consumers are more interested in talking to each other doesn’t
mean that you have no voice at all. Publish your favorite business stories as widely
as possible and direct consumers to the individuals or groups already predisposed
to your products.

CHAPTER 21 Practicing SMM on Your Website 315