Shape your online community by the power of suggestion with these Social Media marketing strategies.

It can be difficult for Social Media marketing teams to brainstorm new content for their social networking sites day in and day out. Some companies are even updating their sites several times a day. But if you relax the controls and take input from industry bodies, employees in other departments and your followers, your online community will be stronger as a result. Here are seven ways to source content for your pages.

User generated content

The most satisfying of Social Media marketing strategies is to encourage user generated content. When you first start social networking, admittedly it may be a bit of a hard slog trying to build a community but once you have cultivated a group of loyal followers, you will reap the rewards in an active site. The dynamics will change and it will be a ‘give and take relationship’ as they proactively post material on your Social Media accounts.

Content ideas from other staff members

There may be a dedicated person or team updating Social Media accounts and depending on the size of your company this may be the sole proprietor or a marketing team. If you have the luxury of a sales team, call centre staff or other staff members, it would be ideal to ask for content ideas from people who are out in the field or working with customers day in and day out and are aware of topical issues that are important to them.

Ask your community

Some internet marketing teams may assume they know what their social networking groups want from them but the best way to find out is to ask them directly. You can run surveys or post questions on your social network pages for example. Matt Cutts, the Principal Engineer at Google will regularly ask his online community what topics they would like him to address in his videos on the Google Webmaster Help Channel.

Business networking groups/industry associations

Every company regardless of whether it’s the liquor or the plumbing industry will have an associated industry body or business networking groups. By adding yourself to their Social Media accounts, subscribing to their email newsletters or looking at their website, you can find interesting material you can share on your pages. This may include new industry regulations, events, webinars, interesting blog articles or industry-related links.

Company-related news

The whole premise behind Social Media marketing is to bridge the gap between your company and the customer. It presents the perfect opportunity to inject life into your brand and give it a personality. Ways in which you can do this is post images and videos of company events, interview staff members about their roles in the company or invite readers to post questions that can be answered by key members of staff like the CEO.

Guest posts from industry experts

Asking people to write guest posts is a great Social Media marketing strategy. It’s a win win for all parties involved: your regular blogger can have a break and devote their time to other tasks, your website gets kudos from having an authority write for your blog, the guest blogger receives a link back to their website (it’s only fair!) as well as exposure to your community and your readers get a completely new perspective on the subject topic.

Analyse your statistics

When you post a link on your Social Media accounts, you can analyse what the click-through rates were to assess the interest level for each topic. URL shorteners such as Bitly.com will also provide statistics. You may find strong indicators that people are interested in more promotions and special deals, learning about new tools or titbits about your company and you can hone in on topics that are more relevant to your audience.

Every platform is different so these ideas will not work for every site. But if you are open to suggestion and are guided by your audience, you may be pleasantly surprised by the results. Interacting on social networks is meant to be a spirited dialogue not a monologue. Put some of these Social Media marketing strategies into place and you may find yourself having a rich conversation that is reflected in your conversion rates.

Here at Social Media Works, our focus is on assisting you to develop the best social media strategy in conjunction with a tactical social media plan to implement your strategy. Whether you are seeking custom social media consultant services or one of our social media marketing packages, the team at Social Media Works has the experience, expertise and innovative solutions to drive your social media presence and maxmise your Return On Investment (ROI).

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