Internet Marketing Digital_marketing_for_dummies | Page 222

channel’s search engine can find you easily when potential connections are searching for
you, your brands, and the topics you discuss and share content about. Include keywords
where appropriate, but remember that you are on social media to relate to humans first, so
make sure it’s readable. Certainly include the names of your brands, relevant people, and
location if that’s an important aspect of your business. Add relevant links where
appropriate. Also important is to be approachable by having active conversations with
prospects, customers, and influencers.
If your business is implementing an email marketing strategy, your initial welcome email
to new subscribers is another perfect avenue for growing your social media following.
New subscribers are never more engaged and excited about you and your brand as when
they first sign up, so use this email as an opportunity to ask them to connect with your
social channels as well. For more on creating effective email campaigns, see Chapter 11.
Bouncing followers
Increasing the frequency of your marketing message increases intimacy with customers
and prospects more quickly. The more often your prospects or customers come in contact
with your message, the more familiar they become with your brand. Luckily, you don’t
need a huge marketing budget to increase frequency. You can use social media to bounce
people from one social channel to another, building intimacy with your brand as they go.
For example, you can send an email to your list that bounces your subscribers to a blog
post. The blog post then links to a YouTube video. The idea here is that some percentage of
your audience will react in specific ways — such as by subscribing to your YouTube
channel. This increases how often they see your marketing message because now, in
addition to receiving your emails, they’re also getting your updates via YouTube. Instead
of investing in expensive ads via TV, radio, print, or billboards, you leverage relatively
low-cost digital channels to increase frequency. Have a look at your current assets and see
how you can bounce your audience from one channel to another to reach y our audience
more frequently.
Keeping your content interesting
The content you share on social media doesn’t have to map directly back to the products
and services you offer. In fact, incredibly boring social channels are those that broadcast
marketing messages about products or services that don’t involve conversation-worthy
topics. Instead, the exceptional social media marketer discusses satellite topics that their
existing market finds interesting.
Rosetta Stone, a language learning software, is particularly adept at this strategy. The
company doesn’t just talk about its language learning software. Instead, it offers an entire
range of topics that various segments of its audience enjoy discussing. Because Rosetta
Stone is in the language-learning business, it posts social media updates about international
travel and culture, research on learning theory, and information about famous multilingual
people. Rosetta Stone realizes that its audience doesn’t want to talk about its software on