Some of you may be wondering if social media is worth your time.

We are all busy, and social media can be confusing and time consuming. Yet ignoring social media isn’t an option if you want to be relevant, grow and make more money. And isn’t making money the point in running a business?

Here’s a list of stats from Social Media Today showing the power of social media. Item #3 is telling. “Social media produces nearly double the marketing leads of trade shows, telemarketing, direct mail or PPC.”

Using social media wisely can build your audience, brand and sales. You’ve probably heard of the major social channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+, but how about Pinterest, Instagram, or niche sites like Medium and Quibb?

I use the major sites EVERDAY! My coworkers know I’m an addict, which is probably why I’m the Director of Social Media! I go to bed at night and my thumbs hurt from scrolling, typing, retweeting, liking, pinning, endorsing, favoriting, commenting, etc.

How do you pick the right channel for your brand? How do you find your audience? You experiment and measure results (with analytics) or you find a guide like Blue Zoo to help!

Social media has taken the marketing world by storm and it can make or break your company. What you post, how you post, and when you post, all have the power to make you money or hurt your brand. The next wave in social may be niche sites like Quibb, Medium and Quorum, but I’ll save that topic for another post.

Here are my top tips to sell your products with social media:

• Promote your product, but, don’t over promote. According to compucast.com, 1 in 5 posts is a reasonable amount to directly promote your business or product. Any more can lead to people unliking, unfollowing, or ignoring your page.
• Engage your audience and do it quickly. The quickest way to lose trust is to post an article, picture or post and then not follow up when someone comments on it. They need to know there is a real person behind the screen.
• Post great content at the right time! What is great content and when is the right time? One successful page is a restaurant in town that posts a picture of their daily special around 11am when I’m starting to get hungry and thinking about lunch. Or again, when it’s 5:30pm and I’m picking up the kids from school with a hundred things to do and making dinner is the last thing I want to do. This restaurant gets A LOT of my money. With a few minutes and 2 good posts a day, they reap big rewards.
• Measure your results. Use Facebook ‘Insights’ and other analytics tools to track what works and what doesn’t . Adjust, measure and repeat.
• Lastly, don’t depend solely on social media. While it’s extremely important to utilize social media in today’s marketing, it needs to be combined with SEO , web design, content, and advertising, all working together to build your online presence.

Blue Zoo creative offers all of this! One company and one place with everything you need to grow your online presence.