After recently completing an AMI (Australian Marketing Institute) foundation workshop on Social Media in Melbourne, I’d like to share five of my favorite tips…

As the importance of social media communications for businesses grows, below are a couple of powerful tips and strategies that will hopefully aid you in measuring conversions, receiving links, and generating traffic with your own social media strategies.

  • Almost half of the Australian population is on Facebook, so if your business is about creating relationships through listening and contributing on a point of interest, why not get involved?  However, make sure you are offering your audience something of value as there is nothing worse than a stagnant Facebook page
  • Want to get involved in social media initiatives…? Do your Research! Great places to listen in on conversations about your brand and your biggest competitors are forums, online communications, Facebook, Twitter, Google Alerts and blogs such as www.technorati.com (very helpful blog search engine)
  • The biggest problem facing businesses using Twitter is writing a persuasive message in less than 140 characters…answer? Make sure your messages offer specific value to your followers and is not just ‘ad speak’…
  • Use www.hootsuite.com for the management of multiple twitter accounts and schedule your tweets to happen at times that are relevant to your campaign without having to get up at 6am on the day of your event!
  • Have a play with TwitterHawk, this marketing tool connects you with people actively talking about your product or service within your area. For example, if you own a sandwich shop and someone in town tweets about getting a sandwich, you can automatically send them a customised response…how clever!

With Australians spending more time on social networking sites than any other comparable county, the greatest tips we can provide for successful social media ventures are the following…Make sure you engage and influence conversations and determine who you want to reach and why. Keep in mind sometimes these are the hardest questions to answer…

(2009 Nielsen Online Internet and Technology Report)

Taryn Forkosh – Marketing Coordinator at Mkt.