So in the past few weeks, we’ve told you it’s a bad idea to be a digital sharecropper, building your business entirely on someone else’s land (like Facebook, Tumblr, or any other third party you don’t control).
We also poked a pin in the sacred cow of social media authenticity, telling you that your audience and customers don’t want an unedited version of the “real” you.
So you may be asking yourself — OK, what should I be doing with social media marketing?
How are savvy businesses using social media effectively to find more customers, boost their reputations, and make more sales?
Here are the seven essentials that will turn your social media marketing from an annoying time-waster to an effective bottom-line booster.
1. Get your home base together
Your home base is your blog or web site. It’s on a domain you own. You control the user experience — from the content to the site design to the user interface.
This is where you show that you know your stuff. That means building a nice cornerstone of high quality content that demonstrates your expertise in a likable, accessible way.
First impressions matter, so make sure the design is clean, professional, and smart. It can still be stylish or funky, if that’s your thing, but it shouldn’t look amateurish or confusing.
Your home base is where you post content to answer your readers’ questions, give them interesting tips, and help solve their annoying problems. When someone wants to know more about you, this is where you send them.
Your home base is a marketing tool, which means you need to be communicating primarily with customers, not with other experts in your topic. Don’t just pontificate to show what you know — tie your news and opinions back to how those things affect your customers.
2. Who’s the face of your...
