Page 70 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

and families about their purchasing decisions. You aren’t the first. In fact, you can
also reach out to expert influencers to help you here. One important consideration
with using social media marketing at the awareness stage is whether your SMM
efforts can give you the type of scale that you can get with television, radio, or
print. For a long time, marketers believed that social media marketing couldn’t
give that scale. That’s changing fast, thanks to the likes of Facebook, YouTube,
Google, and Twitter, which are now among the most trafficked websites on the
Internet. In fact, marketers now recognize that you can get as much scale and
often much more efficiently as TV could in the past. Some brands have moved
toward a digital-only model for all their marketing efforts as a result.

Expert influencers are the people who are experts in a field and have large
audiences.

Here are some SMM tactics to consider for building awareness:

» Publish video advertisements to YouTube and tag them with cate-
gory terms.

For example, if you’re publishing advertisements for orange juice on YouTube,
use the tags orange, orangejuice, beverage, vitamin, and drink in addition to the
brand name. Highlight these YouTube video clips on the corporate website,
too. As you do this, first consider whether your advertisement is YouTube
ready: Would people enjoy viewing it, would they share it, should it be longer,
does it evoke strong emotion, and is it truly enjoyable? Figure 3-2 shows
whether your orange juice video would be in good company on YouTube.

» Nurture relationships with expert influencers, such as YouTube and
Instagram influencers, who publish content related to the specific
product category you’re marketing.
Take the time to share product samples with these influencers, answer their
questions, and invite them to special events. If required, sponsor a post on an
influential blog. These expert influencers build awareness for your brand in
ways that your customers may be more responsive to.

» Set up a Facebook fan page, a Twitter account, and a LinkedIn profile.
Run polls, offer special discounts, publish games, promote coupons, and give
members of these pages or accounts product sneak peeks. Share entertaining
and educational information through them. Boost that content with paid
advertising so that it reaches the right people.

54 PART 1 Getting Started with Social Media Marketing