Social Media

Social media is the fastest growing form of human communication. It is quickly becoming the most cost effective means of creating brand awareness and word of mouth interest in the products and services of a business, or organization. Less than 2 years ago, very few businesses and organizations used social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter for marketing, branding and awareness. Now, with social media usage growing across all age demographics, and with the cost of entry so low, many businesses are scrambling to carve out their niche on social websites.

Social Media Demographic Statistics

Facebook and Twitter have seen significant growth over the last 18-24 months. Here are the *Facebook growth statistics for the 35 – 54 and 55 + age categories, two of the largest consumer demographics.

*Twitter does not require age data, so therefore cannot provide age based demographic statistics.

Social Media Step 1: Creating Professional, Well-Branded Social Media Accounts

The first step to effective social media marketing is creating professional, well-branded accounts on Facebook and Twitter. For Facebook this includes filling out profile information, uploading photos, adding links, joining appropriate groups, and becoming a fan of appropriate fan pages. NOTE: The Food and Dining accounts for Grove Park Inn are beyond this stage of development.

Social Media Step 2: Growing Your Social Networks

Before the content starts flowing, it is important to grow your social media networks, so that when you post content, influential, well-connected people will see it and share it with others. This sharing will eventually generate brand awareness and help your network grow on its own; but some serious groundwork must be done in the first 60-90 days to make sure there is sustainable growth and momentum.

Social Media Step 3: Engage Your Social Networks

In the beginning, it is very important to not be overly self-promotional. Start by posting fairly mundane status updates with occasional links on your social media accounts. Also, post about general industry topics and don’t focus entirely on what your business is doing. Become a source of useful information about your industry or topic. This is especially important on Twitter. If you post interesting topics and links about issues that are relevant to your industry, your followers and friends are much more likely to be interested when you start posting more content about your business.

Social Media Step 4: Promoting Your Content

There are plenty of good reasons to send marketing specific updates to your social media networks. Here are a few key areas to focus on:

• News: Update Facebook (profile and fan page) and Twitter with any significant news about your business.
• New Content: I would also recommend creating website/blog content geared toward educating your social media audience and posting links on social media every time new content is published. Content creation and promotion should also coincide with a well researched search engine optimization (SEO) campaign so that your posts have the added benefit of driving search engine traffic to your blog or website.
• Special Offers: Don’t inundate your social media with deals, sales or offers, but when posted appropriately these types of updates can drive a lot of traffic.