With the rise of social media, especially the use of sites like facebook, twitter and even hulu are making traditional marketing obsolete and even a waste of money for many companies, especially entrepreneurs. Affective advertising now is more dependent than it has ever been before upon making a personal connection with your intended audience and/or customers.
How do you make this connection? It's a lot easier than it might seem at first glance. The simplest and best place to begin is creating a business page on facebook. From there make a twitter and get on every single platform you can because there is somewhere you can reach everywhere; not too mention, they're all free, so you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying!
Now, if you're anything like me, you're probably asking something like, what do you do with all these social media outlets?
There are so many possibilities on what you can do to be successful in using your social media. The most important thing for you to do is to control your image. You want to make sure that you project a feeling that represents your company and your product in an appropriate and positive way that will draw in your audience, bring you respect, support and loyalty, which are all vital to success. Be careful with not only what you say but how you say it. In correlation to this, no matter how many platforms you are on, make sure the message that you are sending is consistent across the board.
A third thing that is vital to keep in mind is how the generation now perceives companies (or writers, singers, bloggers, etc.) today. In the advertising world in present day it's important to make sure you make it clear to the customer that they have a voice and that you are listening and that you do care about their issues and opinions. Don't be afraid to contact your audience personally or to apologize if you make a mistake. This will change the perception of your brand and will gain customer loyalty.
In this vein, also, the generation now has become less shallow. They love to spend money on companies and products that give back to charities, causes and the community. This is definitely something to keep in mind because it makes your brand more appealing. Pick a charity, cause or community project to support and make a clear statement on how you are going to give back. Generalized statements are simply not good enough anymore.
I suppose that's all on social media for now! Any questions?
Labels: advertising, blogging, facebook, hulu, marketing, networking, social media, social networks, twitter
