My co-worker, Lee recently shared an article with me from Forbes.com, The Hidden Benefits of Social Media Marketing: Why Your Strategy May be Working Better Than You Think. It actually put a positive spin on all the social media marketing efforts that most companies are investing in. It kind of hit home with the two of us. Sometimes it can be challenging to measure your return on investment with social media, especially for small businesses. This article discusses 10 ways in which social media may be working for you that you don’t realize. Give it a read if you have a chance.
The big benefit of social media for Pinnacle is that it is a place where we can build our community and create a forum for our clients and partners. We share information, articles, and new & unique products that we think our clients would be interested in and monitor their engagement. From time to time we will ask our community questions about what they are looking for or what they would like us to offer more of. The feedback we receive is taken to heart. We discuss our clients needs as we continuously plan our future efforts online and off.
We also utilize our social networks as a place to reward our loyal followers or fans. We do free promotional giveaways and offer exclusive discounts and sales. This offers our customers an additional incentive to follow us and engage. Everyone likes to receive something for free, especially if it is a unique product they couldn’t get anywhere else. We recently gave away Gadget Grip Dot’s on Facebook, little tactile buttons you can place on your smartphone or tablets that offer a very unique branding opportunity.
Our clients that won seemed genuinely excited when we contacted them to let them know. It makes us happy to make our customers happy :)
So far we have seen that Facebook has been the social network that we receive the most engagement on. It has been really fun to grow our community there however Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and YouTube have also been networks that we’ve seen growth and opportunity. What social networks are you participating in? What have you found has been your biggest benefit?
-Heather
-Merchandising Manager