Avionics News January 2016 - 52

BUSINESS BASICS

Continued from page 51

Joining in
With a strategy in place, you can
dive into your platform. In the business-to-consumer world, Facebook,
Twitter and Instagram are the top
three places you're mostly likely to
find customers.

q Facebook

As the No. 1 social
media platform used
by businesses, according to eMarketer - as
well as the most popular platform
in the U.S. - Facebook is nearly
unavoidable. Facebook marketing
starts with letting people know you're
there. This ranges from having a van-

52

avionics news

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january

2016

ity address with your business name,
to using your "about" to include
your website and relevant keywords
customers might use in searches, to
adding your address to your email
signature line, newsletters, home page
and other collateral material.
Your wall's job is to get visitors
to "like" you, so post pretty profile
images and pin one post at the top of
your page (such as a link to a white
paper on your website), according
to DeMers. Of course, ask your best
customers, colleagues, vendors and
employees to like your page, too.
This helps your posts appear in their
news feeds, which starts the progression of "likes" that spread your story.
Best practices suggest you'll want
to post around five times a week.
Link to original content on your

blog or website, and post photos,
outside links, reposts and other useful information. If nothing else, start
conversations by asking questions.
Facebook Page Insights will help
sort who's responding to your posts,
and the demographic information is
useful if you buy sponsored posts
or ads; these relatively affordable
"opportunities" help you buy your
way through the clutter of prospects'
feeds in a variety of ways.
In the meantime, like or comment
on other posts read by your customers, such as vendors or Facebook
groups. Just remember you're trying
to make new "friends," in the oldfashioned sense of the word.

q Twitter

Most of the
advice for Twitter
is similar to
Facebook, including optimizing your bio, tweeting
regularly, answering questions,
retweeting and monitoring conversations about the industry. You can
even monitor Twitter analytics and
buy promoted tweets.
But in the case of following trending topics, Twitter makes it easy with
hashtags, which help you find conversations, as well as content ideas for
blog posts. You can watch competitors, too, with a private list (so you
don't have to actually follow them);
you'll not only see what others are
saying about them, but you might also
find a way to solve one of their customers' problems before they do.
As for tweets, stick to 100 characters or less, and learn how to use the
@ mention when you refer to another
user, publication and influencer,
which often gets you mentioned to
their followers. Use the 80/20 rule;
only about 20 percent of your tweets
should be self-serving, while the rest
serve your audience.
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News January 2016
