No Inbound Marketing strategy can be good if it does not take into account the potential of social networks. The key to this type of Marketing is to attract consumers through the content of their interest, in a non-intrusive way, without trying to sell them anything. And what better way to spread this content and achieve more visibility than thanks to social networks?
In addition, social networks in Inbound Marketing provide more than visibility, diffusion, and virality: they create community and conversation around our products and services. And that always gives rise to new ideas and facilitates the generation of empathy with our target audience.
Unlimited benefits
Another strong point of social networks in Inbound Marketing is that they serve as a new channel of communication and customer service. We are talking about a two-way channel, with feedback. Through its different social profiles, the company will receive not only positive or negative comments and ratings but also questions from potential customers and complaints from dissatisfied customers.
In this way, they allow us to quickly and easily detect the needs and concerns of our user or customer community and take into account their contributions to improve our products and services.
The challenge of doing a good job in Social Media is enormous because it implies having the ability to respond quickly to any eventuality that arises.
Many of the actions that a company executes in automation marketing and SEO have to do with the reputation it enjoys among its community, and the most faithful reflection that we find of this reputation is precisely on social platforms.
Through them you can monitor the market in your sector, even your competition; They can serve as a testing ground to launch new products or services with less risk than doing it on the web or the corporate blog, and you can detect an image and reputation crisis and manage it earlier.
Types of social networks
There are many types of social networks , each with different characteristics and advantages. We do not have to be in all of them, but in those that are most interesting to achieve the objectives set or those most used by our buyer persona profile.
There are both B2C (company-consumer), which are the majority, and B2B (company-company), which are professional or private, internal or restricted access.
They can also be differentiated by the content that is shared with them. There are social platforms specialized in photos (Instagram, Pinterest or Flickr), in the video (Youtube, Vimeo, Periscope and Snapchat), in news and microblogging (Twitter), in personal contacts (Facebook), in professional contacts (LinkedIn), in geolocation business (Foursquare), travel (Minube) or presentations (SlideShare).
Planning and optimization in Social Media
It is essential to implement Inbound Marketing in your Social Media strategy, and vice versa. Both disciplines must provide feedback and work in coordination with others such as SEO.
It is convenient, on the other hand, to bet on good optimization practices in social networks. And it is that not everything is SEO and SEM, Social Media has its own optimization and positioning rules: welcome to the art of Social Media Optimization (SMO).
Do not forget to plan the use of social networks in each of the four stages of Inbound Marketing: attract, convert, sell and fall in love.
Finally, always keep in mind that each social network has its own strategies and is subject to permanent changes. If you adapt to each platform and use it properly, they will become a master key in your toolbox, which is your automated Marketing strategy.
But if you manage social media in any way, it can become a problem that makes your job in Inbound Marketing more difficult.