Is your business on social media? Even though social has been around for years, a lot of businesses find it overwhelming, intimidating, and confusing to get started.

The good news is that it’s easy to add social media to your marketing toolbox. There are tons of  resources out there to help you get started, and more are being posted all the time. In fact, just as I was finishing up this post, I received Constant Contact’s latest blog post, “50 Expert Tips for Getting Started on Social Media.” (It’s worth a read – number 11 is one to frame!)

Clearly, social media is a timely topic. Now it’s time for you to get started. 

1. Pick One Social Media Site to Start

In a perfect world, you’d be active on every social network. To start out, though, try choosing one network and focusing your attention there first. Consider one of the big five: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, or Pinterest.

How to choose? Generally, most businesses can benefit from having a Facebook or Twitter presence. LinkedIn and Google+ are good in B2B, software/technical, and financial markets. If your product is visual – think food, home decor, and fashion markets – Pinterest could be great for you.

2. Make a Plan

It’s easy to spend hours each day building your social media presence – but you probably can’t afford to dedicate that much time. Instead, create a time budget that limits your social media time to a daily or weekly chunk that fits into your schedule.

Next, decide who in your organization will be responsible for curating content, posting to the social media network(s), monitoring comments, and reporting on social media metrics . Social media is not a set-it-and-forget-it enterprise – unless, of course, you’re using marketing automation and/or content syndication tools (more on that in a bit).

3. Define Your Social Media Goals and Objectives

What do you want to accomplish with social media? Generating leads, establishing yourself as an expert in your industry, or being top-of-mind the next time your customer needs to make a purchase? Make sure you are clear on your goals – and check your progress against them to stay on the right track.

4. Consider Automating Your Social Media Efforts

One of the biggest challenges with social media is time management. Tools like Zift can help you manage your social media time more effectively by allowing you to auto-post syndicated content, schedule posts across multiple dates and channels, and even capture social media activity for automatic re-posting.

While you don’t want to over-automate, the right tools can make the process of using social media much more efficient.

5. Post Often – and Well

How often should you post? That depends on your industry, your social network, and your audience. The key is to find the sweet spot between being informative, entertaining, and delightful – and being flat-out annoying.

While there’s no set, solid answer or formula, you might consider starting with these guidelines and adjusting as necessary:

• Post to Twitter 1-5 times a day.
• Post to Facebook 5-10 times per week.
• Post to LinkedIn once per business day.

Now that you’ve got a handle on when to post, you’ll need to figure out what to post. The possibilities are endless! Just be sure to post content that adds value to your community – content that makes your followers think, laugh, solve a problem, or engage with you.  Be interesting, be knowledgeable, and find a balance between promoting your product and being human. Remember – not all of your customers’ needs relate to a purchase!

6. Measure Your Success

It’s true – social media ROI is notoriously difficult to measure. After all, what’s the dollar value of a comment, like, or retweet?

So how do you really measure social media marketing success?  There are three key metrics to monitor: reach, engagement, and conversion. You should know:

• Reach: How many people did you impact with your post? (Number of followers / page likes)
• Engagement: How many people interacted with your post? (Clicks on social media links, shares, comments, retweets)
• Conversion: How many people took action because of your post? (Registrations for content downloads, webinar registrations, lead gen form completions, online sales)

These metrics are readily available in all of the major social media platforms as well as your social media dashboard or automation tool.

Be patient (social media success takes time), provide value, and be ready to adapt and you will produce results. Be sure to check back with us once you’ve gotten started – leave a comment below and tell us what’s working for you!

The post 6 Steps to Getting Started With Social Media appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Do your contacts relish your news?

Is your email newsletter extraordinary?

You know that a good email newsletter can be a powerful marketing and communication tool.

The problem is, if your newsletter is not extraordinary, no one is going to read it. On average, subscribers receive 416 commercial emails each month! So how can you ensure that your newsletter stands out from the crowd and is opened, read, and acted upon?

Here’s the key: people like email newsletters if – and only if – the newsletters bring them value. It must be relevant, timely, and interesting.

In other words, extraordinary.

When it’s time to publish your next email newsletter, be a hero to your readers and consider the following:

1. Keep it simple

The average reader skims a newsletter for 51 seconds. So don’t overwhelm them by squeezing too much information on the page.

Think about the last time you opened a marketing email. Did you read every single word in it? Probably not. It’s more likely that you scanned for important points, absorbed the overall message, and decided whether you wanted to take any action. In that vein…

2. Make it skimmable

If your reader can’t sift quickly through the information you’re presenting, they may not click through – or even keep reading. Find a way to summarize your content in a compelling way, and let your readers click through to a landing page for more detail.
Adopt the golden rule of newsletter writing – focus on five – and limit your newsletter to 4-6 text sections.

3. Know your purpose

Make sure you’ve determined your newsletter’s goal. Is your newsletter supposed to help you generate leads? Announce a new product? Send traffic to your website? Tailor your email around a few simple objectives – and ask yourself why (and if) your reader wants to know what you’re sharing.

4. Remember your Call-to-Action

Once you’ve identified your newsletter’s primary objective, create an irresistible CTA that will prompt your reader to take a specific action related to that goal – submit a form, download a whitepaper, click for an offer, sign up for a demo, etc.

5. Use links and images wisely

We live in an image based culture. A compelling image can stop your readers in their tracks, draw them into your content, and keep them reading. But if you include too many images, you risk distracting your reader or triggering a spam filter.

Want to link back to your website, blog posts, and social media channels? Do it – but don’t overdo it, or you’ll risk triggering spam filters.

I hope that these tips help you to get started on the path to optimizing your next email newsletter! Just remember – be brief. Be simple. Be selfless. Put yourself in the shoes of your target reader and work backwards to reverse engineer your newsletter.

What are your email newsletter tips and tricks? Let us know in the comments section below.

The post How to Create a Fantastic Email Newsletter in 5 Easy Steps appeared first on Zift Solutions.