eSpire Marketing

Today I got the opportunity to attend the Columbus Chamber Event “Getting Results with Social Media” and I must say it was truly a priviledge. The event consisted of a series of case studies that various businesses had used and seen success with. This was my first Columbus Chamber event and I must say it was quite an experience.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I got to the conference but I was definitely looking forward to learning something new. I think more important to me was to get a chance to really see where Columbus stands in terms of the Internet Marketing Industry. I must say that I was extremely impressed and inspired. We have a lot of great minds in this city and that is something that I am extremely proud of and all of you should be as well. Check out what everyone was saying about it on twitter #cmhsome.

I am not going to go over each case study piece by piece but I would like to take my top social media best practices that I pulled from the conference.

Social Media Best Practices

1. Research Your Target Audience – The best way to reach your target audience is to meet them where they are. That may be Facebook or Twitter or a forum of some sort. Engage your target audience where they are and find a way to connect with them.
2. Create an Event – The case study about Capital University is what inspired this one. They used social Media to re-brand themselves. They also went to their target audience. Enrollment counselors friend requested students who had applied and been accepted, continued to create fun events around their major dates, and enrollment exceeded expectations.
3. BE REAL – This is an important one. In order to truly engage with the social media communities you have to be engaged with them. If someone tries to ask you a question about your business or service answer them in a timely manner. It makes the conversation seem more real and gives the user more incentive to continue to interact with you.
4. Be consistent – This sort of goes along with the last best practice. Consistency does help you seem more real and give the user more incentive to interact. But more than that posting on the same days can give your following a schedule of sorts. Just like TV, if they know when you’re on (posting), you will get a much more consistent following encouraging them even more to interact with you.
5. Creativity is King – Look, Social Media isn’t a science, it’s a lot of trial and error, but as Paul would say, it’s all about swinging the bat. So think outside of the box, try some fun and crazy ideas, think creatively and you will come up with some great ideas that people will love.
6. Keep Learning – We all know that the internet changes pretty regularly. What did work, doesn’t anymore so you need to continue to read, learn, and try new things. Knowledge is the key to everything in life and Internet Marketing and Social Media are no different.

I’ll keep an eye out for some of the video footage from this conference and make sure to post it for everyone. I’d advise you to just take a look at these case studies and hopefully you can come out with some cool ideas for how to implement social media into your business.