How to use social media to talk to your customers and build your business

One of the major benefits of using social media networking to build your business is that it can give you the opportunity to have a conversation with your customers. This can be one of the best advantages of using social media, since traditional marketing methods, rarely give you this opportunity. If you are not using social media networking as part of your marketing strategy, you may be losing out on reaching a great number of potential customers. However, it is important to understand that using social media networking does not mean just placing a lot of ads and hoping for responses. It goes far deeper then just advertising your business, if you do it right. Here is what you need to know about how to use social media to talk to your customers and build your business-

• Educate your customers-One of the best things about using social media networking is that you can teach your customers, about your business, and its products and services, that it often hard to do with other types of business promotion. You can do this in a number of ways. Many times businesses will post in their blog about a certain topic, and then include a link that takes interested readers right to their social media networking pages. This can also be a great way to let your customers know about a new product or service that might interest them. By offering these sneak peeks into what you can do for your customers, you can build a higher page rank status, because your can build links. This means that you are not only educating your customers, but gaining more exposure, for your business, as well.
• Be involved with your customers-As mentioned above you can use your social media networking to interact with your potential customers. Keep in mind that your customers will want to see your company as having a more “human” side. You can use your social media networking to build your business by interacting with your customers. An important part of this is to become active in blogs, forums and other discussion groups. You can use this to not only post a link back to your website, but more importantly offer valuable information, to your target market. If you really want to be involved with your customers, then jump right in and start the discussion. This will show your customers that you care about establishing a relationship with them, rather then just trying to sell them what your have.
• Measure how much your customer’s participate-It is important to determine how much your customers are involved in your social media networking. You want to strategize your online marketing efforts, so that your customers want to participate with you. You need to make sure that your social media networking efforts are paying off in order to justify the time and effort that you spend on them. You can do this by measuring your customer’s participation in your social media networking marketing. In addition, you want to use your social media networking marketing in order to find out as much about your customers shopping preferences as possible.
• Focus on your customer’s needs-In order to be successful with your social media networking you need to make sure that you are meeting the needs of your target market. You want to make sure that your marketing messages are going to meet what your customers are looking for. Interacting with them through your social media networking efforts can show you if you are marketing effectively. The final key to having a conversation with your customers is to do what is needed in all relationships, listen to what they are saying.