3 Up-and-Coming Social Tools and How to Use Them to Market
OhioMBE – December 1, 2014
If you’re like most small business owners, you’re probably too busy to stay on top of the latest and greatest social media marketing tools. And with more coming online all the time, it’s understandably frustrating to know which are worth paying attention to, and which are just noise.
Here we look at three tools that can benefit you, as well as explore how you can use them to market your small business.
- SnapChat. While SnapChat is big with the teens, it can also be a fantastic tool to market your business. Essentially, it’s a mobile chat app that, in addition to letting you converse with your contacts, lets you send images or videos that will expire after a set period unless you say otherwise.
If you’re seeking to connect with the 18-35 year-old demographic and use text message marketing, there’s ample opportunity here:
- You can use it as a visual customer service tool to illustrate how to use your products.
- SnapChat stories let you craft the message and image of your brand that you want to share.
- You can create customer engagement by launching a scavenger hunt.
- Share behind-the-scenes photos of events or company activities.
While brands are still trying to figure out how to use SnapChat, by jumping in now, you’ll be ahead of the curve by the time the rest of them figure it out.
- Piktochart. You know that infographics are a visually appealing tool to disseminate information to your blog readers, but you’re by no means a designer. Today, you don’t have to be if you have the right tools. Piktochart helps you create professional-looking infographics with customizable templates — no design skills needed.
It’s smart to vary the types of content you present on your blog, since not everyone absorbs information the same way. Some people prefer to read their content, while others prefer video, audio or visuals like infographics. Including a custom-made infographic once or twice a month can provide respite from the words, words, words you’ve published, and attract new readers as well.
Infographics are ideal for:
- Relaying dense data, like statistics or survey details.
- Telling a story using images and information.
- Freshening up what would otherwise be less-than-exciting data like sales charts.
Spend some time getting to know Piktochart and its functionalities. You might be surprised at where beyond your blog you can apply your infographics, such as social sites and emails.
- Places. The problem with encouraging your customers to check in from your business location or share photos there is that there hasn’t been an easy way to aggregate what people are saying about your brand across social sites. Now, Moment.me Places does just that. Let’s say you own a restaurant. You can create a mini webpage that gathers all the food pictures people take, checkins and comments they’ve made, and reviews of your restaurant. You can share this mini site on your own website or social media and encourage people to see what’s happening at your location right now.
You can use Places to:
- Encourage people to go where their friends go. The power of a social network often influences people’s decision about where to spend money.
- Build up excitement around an event and bolster attendance.
- Enhance your existing online presence and create a sense of community on your own social sites.
There are dozens of other marketing tools springing up, so keep your eyes open and try out any that sound interesting to you. After all, anything that helps you drive sales and get customers coming back is worth investing time and money in.
Source: www.sba.gov
