Startup Guides > How to Get More Out of Your Social Media Marketing This Year

Social media marketing has become more important than ever for businesses. Social media is only getting bigger, and if you don't embrace it, you're going to miss out on a lot of amazing opportunities to connect with your customers.

You have to utilize social media more this year. But, in order to achieve that goal, you have to have a game plan. Below is a list of specific ways that you and your marketing team can embrace social media in the new year and beyond.

Integrate Your Blog

Those who haven't yet integrated their marketing blogs with their social media accounts are seriously missing out. This is, quite possibly, the easiest way to stay current and active on social media without actually having to put forth much more effort than you're already making in developing your blog posts to begin with. Each time new content is posted to your blog, it will also feed into your social media accounts, creating a new post. You may even consider including a teaser or summary to encourage your readers to check out your latest post.


Increase Interactions

If your previous social media marketing efforts have been more or less limited to you talking at your audience rather than with your audience, it's time for a change. Designate a single person within your organization as the voice of your brand. This person should be in charge of regularly responding to questions and comments - positive and negative - that are coming from your current and prospective customers. The more that you respond to consumers who reach out via social media, the more customers will continue to engage with you in this manner, thus increasing your ability to gain insights and information about your target audience.

Speaking of audience, social media marketing sites like 40Billion.com specialize in promoting your content to a large network of several million users in order to increase interactions and engagement. They broadcast your posts across the most popular social networking sites - including Twitter, LinkedIn, 40Billion, and even Facebook. Innovative services like tweet ads, future retweets, and promoted company listings were created for online marketers to tap into a growing, active network online without spending thousands on pay-per-click ads or traditional advertising.

Get Live

Although Twitter's Periscope and similar live social media technologies have been around for a while now, the live concept has really only started to take off with the emergence of Facebook's Live. People are slowly but surely embracing the idea of tuning in on live postings by their friends, and interacting with them in real-time.

As a small to mid-sized business, live marketing presents you with a host of opportunities for connecting with your audience in ways that will take your brand to the next level. Consider putting on live demonstrations of your product in use. Here, your audience will have the ability to ask their questions about how to use your products as you demonstrate, providing you with the ability to back up and address their inquiries and establish a higher degree of product awareness and understanding. Or, you can increase excitement about your company's events by posting live from a conference or trade show.

Be Consistent

If you're going to commit to becoming more actively involved with social media marketing, you need to make sure that you're sticking to a regular posting schedule. When you post consistently, your audience will know when to expect new content, and will be much more likely to interact with you and your business.

Recommended: Selection Of A Good Marketing Manager - 6 Must Have Qualities