As we are about step into another year with lots of hopes and courage, we know that business owners are looking forward to getting more profits than ever. BUT, are you planning to modify your 2012 business strategies and use it over again for 2013? Well that’s not going to work this time as nothing remains unchanged from 2012. Social Media channels, metrics, tactics, everything has changed.

To straighten out your social media strategy and meet your financial expectations, here are few tactics that can help you.

Realize the power of Social Media Connections: Humans had always been social right from the early man days when people used to live in groups. Later we moved into mass media which stayed in place for quite long. But now people have become dependent on peers rather than mass media. Prospects or customers of your business are likely to respond and trust other customers of yours rather than your brand. So, you need to encourage your social media connections to share their experiences with your brand. This can motivate fellow prospects to buy from you. Use social media as a channel to drive traffic to your site. Pose social media advertisements to target your audience and drive more traffic to the website rather than to the social media profiles/pages.

Harness the importance of relevancy: Relevancy is the new demand in the digital age as consumers are relentlessly jumping from social channels. They need something with which they could connect themselves. So business social media pages should be able to persuade them with deep intangible knowledge about the product/service. For this, businesses check out valuable data sources which hint the nature of consumers as to what attracts and interests them.

Facebook is still a King. BUT: Our businesses and we as well have a special bonding with Facebook that we can never let go off. BUT, according to major research firms, Facebook is not as effective as other social media channels for driving sales. Adding to this, consumers are more likely to follow brands and their updates more on other social channels compared to Facebook. Use YouTube and blogs to distribute content along with Twitter and Facebook.

Watch out on all Devices: Surveys prove that consumers are moving from mass media like TV and radio to other communication devices like computers, mobiles, tablets and even gaming consoles.

According to a survey by Performics,

• 91% of consumers access social networking sites through computers
• 53% are checking out their social media updates using mobile
• 21% consumers are using tablets to access social networks
• It comes as a surprise to know that 14% consumers are landing on social media sites through Gaming consoles.

Build on customer trust rather than promotion: Consumers have become all the more intelligent and they can guess it if you are doing something promotional. More to this, they don’t trust your ads and never look at it unless and until it is too creative. They would be interested to read content in other formats like testimonials and customer reviews.

Convert social media connections to email: Do you know that social media has lower conversion rate compared to email? According to Monetate, not many social media connections prefer to go to the conversion page directly from social media platforms. Build an email list with all these social media connections and then convert them into customers with smart email nurturing plan.

If you want to increase your marketing returns, your first action in 2013 should be digging out the social media channels where your consumers are on the go. Grab them there, entice them and convert them with the help of email.

What are you up to this year with your social media strategy? Need help with social media marketing? Strategic Outsourcing Services is always here to help you.