Small Business Saturday Success Through Social Media Marketing

Here at Little Egg Solutions, we have made it our mission to help small and medium businesses compete against big names in their niches through social media and content marketing. When it comes to going head-to-head with household brands, there’s no better day than Small Business Saturday, the mom-and-pop shop follow-up to Black Friday. Social media marketing is the key to success on the biggest small business shopping day of the year, and these are our top tips for spreading the word, making more sales, and how to maximize your social media impact.

Via Mike Licht | Flickr

Spreading Awareness

One key obstacle to Small Business Saturday success is simply making people aware (or reminding them) that it exists. Traditional media channels and print advertising are saturated with “Black Friday” ads for big business, making it harder for small and medium businesses to reach audiences through them. That’s where social media comes in. From Facebook scrolling to perusing Twitter, your audience is already on social platforms multiple times per day; why not market to them where their attention already is instead of trying to redirect their attention on another platform? Small businesses can use informative, personal posts to remind buyers to patronize SMBs on Saturday and boost their personal branding connection with their clients.

Boost Your Sales

Many of the everyday social media marketing tactics you use to boost your reach and your engagement can be repurposed to boost your sales on Small Business Saturday. Soft-selling tactics and personal branding are the key to reaching potential customers on social channels and making a personal connection with them. More and more, people want to buy from people, so show them your behind-the-scenes as you prepare, share deals and info, tag your posts with unifying hashtags like #shopsmall or #smallbusinesssaturday2017, and speak directly to your followers with direct messaging, reposts or replies. Engage with them on a personal level, and your audience will be flocking to your doors to help their friends, neighbors, and community leaders to succeed.

Maximum Impact

To get the most out of your social media marketing strategy, it’s important to maximize your reach. This calls for a cross-platform approach that makes use of each platform’s unique features and audience demographics. Customize your copy with best-practices that utilize the strengths of each channel in your marketing arsenal. By making platform-specific posts, you’ll maximize your reach and your marketing impact (and you’ll see more sales on the big day – and every other day).

Via Automotive Social | Flickr

In a market saturated with big-name brands, it’s crucial for small and medium businesses to find whatever edge they can to thrive. Social media marketing, in its nearly-infinite and cost-effective capacity to reach the masses in the Digital Age, can be precisely that edge – especially on the biggest small-business shopping day of the year. If you’re not sure how to channel the power of social media marketing into Small Business Saturday success, the SMM experts at Little Egg Solutions can help! Contact us today to find out how!  

Benefits for Benefits Brokers: Social Media for Open Enrollment

In the first installment of our Benefits for Benefits Brokers blog series, we talked about the importance of integrating social media into your healthcare marketing strategy. This time, the social media experts here at Little Egg are tackling one of the most underrated – and important – benefits of social media for brokers and your clients: open enrollment. Social media can be used to distribute information to employees and other potential clients about benefits and enrollment, communicate deadlines and eligibility requirements, resolve questions and concerns, and even start the enrollment process. Many healthcare brokers and their clients overlook this cost-effective and easy-to-implement strategy, and they’re missing out.

Via Blogtrepreneur | Flickr

Communication

Do you still use paper pamphlets and printed flyers to disseminate information about open enrollment? What if there was a way to keep your marketing materials in a place that your entire target audience could see it, save it for when they have more time, come back to it when they can, and never lose it or toss it away? A blog, Twitter, and Facebook are all fantastic ways to get your content in front of the eyes of people who need to see it. You can engage with your target audience directly and communicate important dates, eligibility information, benefits and plan options, and the enrollment process in a manner that they already use.

Customer Service

Social media is also an excellent customer service solution. You can host Q&A sessions, provide an FAQ and give  personal service through email and instant messaging. Most social platforms allow commentary on content, and potential clients can provide feedback as well as ask questions. Engagement broadens your reach to their network as well, allowing you to attract more clients beyond your original target audience.

Digital Enrollment

For digital enrollment, social media is an excellent tool, both for initiating the process and for marketing links. Your reach is expanded, and you can quickly and easily distribute materials to both your target and their network. With social media use becoming more universal and integrated into society every day, they’ll be exposed to your content more often, reminding them and providing a convenient solution for employees and entities alike.

Instead of relying on wasteful paper communications, go digital with your open-enrollment strategy in 2018. The people you’re trying to reach are online already; why not reach them where they are with a post, a blog, or a Q&A session that won’t get lost or accidentally thrown away? Little Egg Solutions is staffed by experts in digital communications and engaging your audience; we can help you get started with a winning strategy and quality content. Contact us today to learn more!

Event Marketing on Social Media 101

Events, workshops, conventions, and webinars: what do they all have in common? They’re social gatherings of like-minded leads. What better way to promote a social gathering than by harnessing the power of social media marketing in your approach – from hashtags to event pages to sneak peeks and exclusive content? At Little Egg Solutions, we understand how integral social media marketing is to a successful event marketing campaign in the modern world. Here are our top three tips for leveraging your social presence to bring more people to your event door.

Via Techndu | Flickr

Twitter

Hashtags are the most direct benefit of promoting an event on Twitter. The hashtag allows for instant unification of your event-related posts, and it gives you a way to track the success of your marketing strategy so far – you can tell who is talking about your event and what they’re saying with a simple search. Start here, and start early; you want to have an idea for your hashtag before your promotion kicks off.

Short, simple tags are best. The fewer characters you need for the tag, the more you can use to promote your event with superb content. If your event is annual, like a convention, include the year in your tag to avoid confusion. Check to make sure the tag is unique (it should produce no results in search) and use it in everything related to your event – even your mailing list content and printed promotion materials. This hashtag can be used on other social media sites to tie the campaign together, and – unless you’re running a contest or promotion for extra engagement – there should only be one tag for your event to avoid confusion.

Facebook

Promoting an event on Facebook is even easier with the native Event feature. Create an event, complete with helpful information, guides for registration (lead-capture, anyone?), and stunning photos. Then invite everyone and their brother to attend. As your followers’ friends notice they’re attending, they’ll be more inclined to take a look for themselves, and your list will grow organically.

Alternately, you can create a separate page dedicated to your event. This approach is more in-depth – with more detailed information and the opportunity to use the built-in lead-capture tab, but the expanded capabilities will allow for more discussion, engagement, and promotion than simply creating an event on your main page. Regular posting to the event page with relevant, engaging content will help build anticipation and get people talking about your workshop, seminar, or convention. Be sure to use your Twitter hashtags on posts to tie everything together, and don’t forget to link back to your business page from the event page.

Instagram

People love sneak peeks and behind-the-scenes exclusives, so use your Instagram to give those attending your event – or even those who are just interested – a look behind the curtain. Use your already-established hashtags to tie all of your photos and videos together, and invite people to share their own. Engage your followers (and call for more) by prompting them to respond, or to follow for more exclusive content.

You can also create a separate hashtag just for follower engagement. For example, encourage followers who are interested in your event to participate with a photo contest or collection. Having a workshop on marketing success? Ask for photos that represent success for your followers and unite them with a hashtag (#mysuccessstory, for example).

Via Flickr

As important as each individual strategy is, they work best when integrated into a comprehensive social media marketing campaign that goes beyond the event and connects with your target audience. If you already have hundreds of followers, word-of-mouth spreads that much faster when an event rolls around that people can get excited about. That’s where content marketing and a strong social media presence becomes your biggest online asset – but it’s tough. Little Egg Solutions is here to help, and our team of expert content creators, marketing specialists, and consultants can put together the right plan for growing and promoting your small or medium business. Contact us today to find out how!

Lead Generation-XYZ: Top 3 Tips for Generating Leads on Facebook

Little Egg Solutions is, at its core, a marketing agency. One of the fundamentals of effective marketing is lead generation – after all, it’s much easier to market to people you know are interested. But how does this principle extend to social media and content marketing strategies? There are many social-media-specific lead generation techniques, and we want to share some of our top picks with you to help you grow your small or medium business and to ease your marketing worries. So let’s kick off this series with the most recognizable name in social media: Facebook.

Via Alan O’Rourke | Flickr

Technique #1: Build-In Lead-Generating Tabs

You can actually create a dedicated tab on your Facebook page that deals only with email and contact information capture. Make the offer to receive your newsletter enticing by offering incentives upon signup – even exclusives for signing up via Facebook. Everyone loves a good deal, and offering special, “available nowhere else” coupons and discounts for receiving emails is a great way to attract leads. You can even set your “like” button redirect for your page to your email-capture tab.

Technique #2: Contests Make People Want to Win

People like to feel special, and they like to win stuff that they want. Take advantage of this by running contests on your page and making the requirements to win liking the page (to boost your reach), commenting on the contest post (to boost engagement), and signing up for your awesome, super-helpful newsletter (which has incentives for joining anyway, if you’ve implemented Technique #1 already). Who could pass up an offer to get extras just for pressing a few buttons and a chance to win extra extras?

Technique #3: Post a Link to Your Landing Page

You’ve probably already got a killer landing page for an equally enticing lead generation offer on the web. Why not make a post with the link instead of creating a whole new offer on Facebook? Make sure the feature image is high-quality, relevant, and is optimized for Facebook so you get the most power from your post. Long-form copy is a great way to get followers invested in learning more. You can also run the link in an ad, though short-form copy is your friend for that approach.

There are dozens of ways to generate leads on Facebook, but these three techniques (used together or separately) are our favorites. Lead generation is important – and these techniques will help you draw them in – but, overall, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. If you’re having trouble working out a comprehensive social media marketing strategy, we can help you. Our experts at Little Egg Solutions know the ins and outs of social media and content marketing, and we can help you implement a winning combination of posts, blogs, copy, and design tailor-made to take your business to new heights. Contact us today to find out more about what we can do for you!

Social Agency: Why and How to Use Facebook for Real Estate

Via Sole Treadmill

Social media and online content marketing can be a challenge for professionals who are accustomed to doing their recruiting face-to-face, and real estate is no exception. But never fear, the social media marketing experts at Little Egg Solutions are here to help you understand why social media is so important to success and how to get the most out of your online marketing efforts! In the previous installment of our Social Agency series, we covered the key benefits of Twitter marketing for real estate professionals and tips to optimize your marketing strategy. This time, we’re tackling the biggest of the “Big Four” social media platforms: Facebook.

Reach, Glorious Reach: Everyone (and Their Mother) is on Facebook

Facebook is huge. Not just in terms of brand recognition, but also in terms of userbase. A whopping 1.94 billion people use Facebook at least once a month, and almost 1/3 of the people who use it are between 25 and 34 (the elusive Millennial buyer so coveted by many industries, real estate included). But the demographics don’t stop there. Facebook appeals to the young and the old, male and female, of all races, income tiers, and education levels. No matter who you’re trying to sell that listing to, or who you want to represent, chances are, they’re on Facebook right now (or they will be shortly).

Pro-Tip: For the highest engagement levels, including click-through rates, likes, comments and shares, post listings in the evening hours and on weekends. High-traffic hours (weekdays from 1-3 PM) are best reserved for your other posts, although those should be sprinkled into the high-engagement times, as well.

Video Killed the Radio Ad: Virtual Open House

Video is quickly becoming the gold standard of content marketing, and Facebook (as the only platform with more unique monthly visitors than video-giant YouTube) is an ideal place to utilize it. But video has a benefit unique to real estate: simulating the open house experience with virtual video tours. There are a lot of people who prefer to do both their research and their buying online for one reason or another, but not having to interact with other people face-to-face is one of them. Real estate is usually a mostly face-to-face industry, and video can help you bridge that gap.

Pro-Tip: Use the appeal of video to help draw potential clients to open houses by featuring a slideshow of still images. Or, to fully leverage the video tour for people who would rather not deal with crowds, advertise private showings along with a brief tour of the property highlights!

Post, Post, Post: A Treasure Trove of Information

As we mentioned in our Twitter article, social media marketing should follow the 80/20 rule: 80% of your posts should be helpful, informative, and general, and only 20% should be directly related to sales. The fast-paced newsfeed of Facebook makes it easy to maintain this balance while also getting all your listings on your business page (and you need a Page, not just a personal profile). Local groups are an excellent resource for information to share, as well as the numerous generic real estate groups on the site. A bite-sized bit of copy and a click of the share button, and you’re one step closer to making that magic ratio a reality.

Pro-Tip: Use your business Page’s messaging feature to interact directly with leads or to keep up with existing clients. Contests and comments are also important tools for making potential clients feel special and for increasing your engagement levels by creating a rock-solid personable reputation.

Via Mark Moz | Flickr

Facebook is probably the most important social media platform for content marketing success, but you may find it confusing or frustrating to navigate the business features and to keep up with the fast pace of the news feed. Professional support is critical to fostering and maintaining sales success. That’s where we come in! At Little Egg Solutions, our social media and content marketing professionals are experts at putting platforms like Facebook to work for you and your business. Add us to your winning team today!