In today’s episode we’re talking about your digital marketing presence on the web and how a mix of social media and your website build a good framework for digital marketing success. One of the challenges for businesses is determining how and where to use your limited time and resources while still maintaining visibility and communications in this online world that we live in. Listen as we share a framework we use for managing your online presence.
Links in this episode: How To Find The Right Social Media Marketing Mix
Transcript
Welcome to the Get Digital Marketing Results podcast where we give you information and actionable tips to grow your organization.
Bob: Hi, I’m Bob Clark.
Donna: And I’m Donna Botti. We’re with Delos Inc and we make the web work for you. In today’s Tech News Tuesday episode we’re talking about your digital marketing presence on the web, and how a mix of social media and your website build a good framework for digital marketing success. Using your website as the center of your strategy is important because you own your website and you control the content there.
Bob: That’s right Donna. And social media channels are rented land, meaning you don’t have as much control over your presence. Social media is in the moment too, so it is difficult to find the information about you that doesn’t change very often.
Information like why you do what you do, and the range of products and services you offer is not always visible on social media. Have you ever tried to find something that was posted last month? It’s not easy, which is why your core content should be on your website and you can link to it periodically on social media.
Donna: Were you impacted when Facebook and Instagram went down for hours recently? A platform used by billions as a vital communications tool could halt the way that we use the web today. Now technology outages are not necessarily uncommon, but this one was highly unusual. So how do you mitigate this risk so that your business doesn’t depend just on one social platform? One of the challenges for business owners is determining how and where to use your limited time and resources while still maintaining visibility and communications in this online world that we live in. Let’s share a framework we use for managing your online presence.
Bob: The first thing you want to do is set goals for your web presence. On your social media platforms and your own website, your goals should answer the question, “What do you want your web presence to accomplish?” The goals are tailored to your business, but a few examples are lead generation, orders and sales, events, getting people to your location, or providing customer service and support.
Donna: Those are good and when you have those general goals, the next step you need to do is define what your success looks like. Make it measurable. That’s one of the benefits of digital marketing in that everything can be tracked. Use your goals to plan and evaluate your next actions.
You have to remember, not everyone is your audience. So your messaging is important and should be through the lens of “Who are you trying to attract?” Look at your business from their point of view. What do they need? What are their habits? What social media platforms are they using? Use the social media channels where your customers are.
Bob: Once you determine who you want to reach, you’re going to want to focus your efforts. There are so many different social media choices and just when you think you know a platform it changes! In order to be effective you also need to coordinate your message across the various social platforms. You can’t be on every social media channel, so it’s best to try just one or two and you can add others as you get more comfortable with social media and start to see results.
Donna: There are a number of reasons why you want your website to be the center of your strategy. The main one is that you own and control it. Building a long-term web presence on a social media site where you don’t control the terms of service can be costly. With the constant changes in the social media arena, it’s important to always link back to your website where you decide the content and the presentation.
Social media is great to get your message out there, when people want to find a product or service, they are not searching social media first.
Google is the number one place consumers look online for information about a local business and Google’s market share of US search is now over 92%! People scroll social media for entertainment and information, but they go to search with intent on getting answers to specific questions or finding a product or service.
Bob: Your business has to be found on Google. Along with claiming your business listing, regularly updating your website with new content will help you get found in search.
Your content on social media is important for customer engagement and can increase your website’s ranking, but if your primary content is only on social media sites, it is not as visible to Google and new customers won’t find you.
Donna: The bottom line is this. Use the content you put on your website as the center of your marketing strategy where you’ll include calls to action for what you want your customer to do next in the process. Use social media to extend the reach of your content, and for more in the moment type posts like, Happy Taco Tuesday!
Bob: That’s it for today’s episode. You can find a link to an article on this topic and a transcript of today’s podcast, at DelosInc.com/207.
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