The TanWall Blog

Social Media Marketing is a hot discipline these days. Everyone wants to know how to harness the networking power behind all those Social Media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter.

There’s plenty of techniques to use. Many of them are probably effective. Everyone has their own story on how to dazzle the web with their social networking skills.

Many companies offer services or publications that claim to get your business tons more traffic for very low cost. A lot of it probably works well too.

However, if you know how to market already, all you need to know is the core assumption behind social media marketing: people want more than ever in this Internet era to interact.

That’s it. As mysterious and powerful as all the latest professional social media marketing techniques seem, they usually boil down to the fact that the consumer wants to interact with their company of choice.

So how to apply this principle? Well, jump on those social media sites, create pages for your business (if you haven’t already) and get interacting with those customers.

Make sure you have buttons on your website that allow visitors to “like” or favorite your business on their favorite social media platform. This allows you to acquire your initial following of enthusiastic fans.

Then have your employees interact with your customers. Make friends. Inform them about current events in your company. The key is making your company a human interest, and not just a logo.

If you build good relationships with your customers that is sustained in their day to day lives, they will mention you to their own friends with similar interests. And so your name spreads.

How you go about interacting with your customers is up to you. Coupons, advice columns, shared picture galleries, discussion forums…these are just a few of the ways you can get people involved and emotionally attached to your business.

In the end, good social media marketing is simply an extension of good customer relations. You have sales reps and other marketing people that can provide a human face to your customers and engage them. The Internet just lets you do this on a widespread level.

One of the keys to marketing a successful business is to simply keep control.  I do not mean doing everything. What I’m trying to say is you should manage or at least keep track of all aspects of your marketing and, furthermore, you should not hesitate to give input where input is needed.

When it comes to marketing, a consistent message is fundamental to a successful business.  Many salon owners find it easier to delegate that responsibility to someone else or to an outside marketing firm.  Not to say any of these solutions are no good, but nobody truly knows or understands your customers, and your business, better than you. In order to sustain a consistent message that follows your business game plan, you must be involved in the focus of your marketing messages, the design of artwork, researching your customers in terms of their likes and dislikes, and continually monitor the progression and success of your marketing campaigns.

Sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? That marketing firm is starting to look very appealing, isn’t it? Well, before you pull out your yellow pages or start running an online search, let me give you an example—a scenario—that just might help you understand the importance of control and how to easily maintain it when it comes to marketing your business. Read more…