2013: Are You Ready? More Importantly: Are Your Social Media Accounts Ready?

Kim

Dec 06 2012

Today is December 6th. You probably just read that and began counting how may days you have left to get your shopping, wrapping, and holiday-card-writing completely finished. But there is something crucial you are forgetting about: your social media and Internet marketing strategy for 2013!

Many people haven’t started thinking about this yet, so you’ve already got a leg up!

Here are some things to think about that happened in the social media world in 2012:

• 250 million Facebook photos were uploaded to the social network every day
• 1 million accounts were added to Twitter every day
• American Pinterest users spent an average of an hour and 17 minutes on the network each time they signed on

If you still need convincing that social media is not just a fad that you can ignore or just pay minimal attention to, then think again:

–> 70% of adult social networkers shop online

–> There are over 2.27 billion people online

–> 53% of active adult social networkers actively follow a brand

If you think social media is having a big impact now, experts in the field are predicting even bigger changes for 2013… According to Nathan Brown, “TV channels will provide a social networking facility for people to share their comments” and according to TwinEngine, “Social commerce will be driven by recommendations on social media networks.”

Still not convinced that you need to adapt your business’s marketing plan? You could always just hang around until 2013 and watch your business go under. But if you’re looking to get ahead of the curve and start getting the results that your business wants and needs, your task is simple: create a strategy ahead of time.

When it comes to creating your social media marketing strategy for 2013, just keep three things in mind.

1. The demographics of your customers. For example, do they range from teens to late 40’s and 50’s? You’ll probably want to focus your marketing on Facebook, the site that appeals to the widest range of people. Or are they primarily women? In that case, try Pinterest – the majority of users on that site are female and would probably react positively to your marketing. Look at who you are marketing too and you’ll know which networks to concentrate on.
2. Appealing to people visually in social media. If Instagram and Pinterest tell us anything, it’s that people like images and visual media now more than ever. There’s so much text noise going on in the social media world, so the quickest way to grab someone’s attention is by sharing interesting, colorful, and vivid content. What does your business or brand sell? Show it visually!
3. Show, don’t tell. In the social media world, you have to earn your customers’ attention, it’s not like traditional advertising. Instead of yelling at people to buy your product on Twitter or Facebook, give them useful information that will make them more likely to trust and pay attention to your brand. For example, if you own a clothing boutique, write a blog post or share a picture of the hottest holiday items to give people ideas for holiday shopping… chances are, if you sell these items, they’ll just come right to you to make things easier!

Obviously one blog post isn’t going to help you get all the way through 2013, but be sure to keep these statistics and ideas in mind when you are laying out your strategy and how you are going to handle each network in 2013. If you need more in-depth training, you can check out our Social Media for 2013 Training class! You can also take a look at our latest social media for 2013 infographic – Being Social Savvy in 2013!

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