Join Absolute Exhibits at our Facebook site to see the latest trends at trade shows, videos of marketing techniques on the show floor, and of course our newest and latest exhibit designs both in pictures and videos. Then try our Twitter postings – especially as we walk current shows. All of our account executives will be tweeting as they walk shows in the coming months. We have a new position within our company, our Social Media Director, Rocky Khamken. Rocky is bringing all of us into the new decade – actually for some of us he is pulling and tugging. But think about this – on today’s front page of Yahoo, Things Babies Born in 2011 Will Never Know. Included in the list are video tape, travel agents, books, magazines, newspapers, movie rental stores, watches, paper maps, wired phones, long distance, newspaper classifieds, dial-up internet, encyclopedias, forgotten friends, CDs, film cameras, catalogues, telephone books, – well they just kept going on and on. It is scary isn’t it? However, just think how many things have changed since January 1, 2000.
By now, it seems, everyone has a website. Your audience has increased a thousand fold. If you are selling a particular line of bicycles in Iowa, your next customer may be calling or emailing from Maine, or Missouri, or Arizona. Dependent upon the depth of your website and your SEO you can be selling everywhere, not just on Main Street in your town. So now it is time to move on, up your game, let people know you are out there.
Social media marketing – what is it and how does it work within a marketing program that includes tradeshow attendance? Social media represents low-cost tools that are used to combine technology and social interaction with the use of words. These tools are typically internet or mobile based. A few that we all have become familiar with, it seems over night, include Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Social media gives marketers a voice and a way to communicate with peers, customers and potential consumers. It personalizes the “brand” and helps you to spread your message in a relaxed and conversational way.
The internet provides a set of tools that allow people to build social and business connections, share information and collaborate on projects online. Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention, generates online conversations, and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. The message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it is coming from a trusted source, as opposed to the brand or company itself.
Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet access, opening doors for organizations to increase their brand awareness and facilitate conversations with the customer. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns. Organizations can receive direct feedback from their customers and targeted markets.
To be successful in the utilization of social media, you must keep the engine running so to speak – uploading constantly giving constant momentum and attention coming your way. If you think that social media is only for the small business owners that are trying out an experiment that is not true at all. Many large companies BMW, Absolut Vodka, even our president have mastered this new universe!
Social Media is another tool to inform consumers about products, who we are and what we offer. Social media provides an identity to who we are and the products or services that we offer. We can create relationships using social media with people who might not otherwise know about our products or service or what our companies represent. Social media makes us “real” to consumers.
If you want people to follow you don’t just talk about the latest product news, but share your personality with them. We can use social media to communicate and provide the interaction that consumers look for.
How do you do social media right? IT must be integrated with other vehicles of marketing. You must reflect your own personality – this is not just another way to broadcast your products and offerings. Personality is everything – but you must be consistent, so that people will look forward to your message. The role of social media in your marketing is to use it as a communication tool that makes you accessible to those interested in your product and makes you visible to those that don’t know your product. Use it as a tool that creates a personality behind your brand and creates relationships that you otherwise may never gain. This creates not only repeat-buyers, but customer loyalty. Fact is social media is so diversified that it can be used in whatever way best suits the interest and the needs of your business.
The key to success within the parameters of Social Media Marketing is to leave the corporate attitude at the door. In social media marketing, customers are looking for validity and a trusted bond with the organizations with which they are building relationships.
