Social media defines the activities that integrate technology, social interaction and the sharing of words, images, video and audio. This much-talked about form of marketing, often called social media marketing, is part of an overall marketing and branding strategy. It is a technique (comprising infrastructure and content) used to market your brand online. Cathy Mellett, director of Auckland social media company, Net Branding believes that today’s marketing has followed the rest of the world and has shifted from a one-way broadcast to a multi-point conversation. The team at Net Branding is dedicated to helping businesses use powerful new online and marketing platforms such as social media, QR codes, keyword research, engaging content generating tools and blogs to get visibility, traffic, leads, customers and raving fans. “We pride ourselves on delivering affordable social media infrastructures to businesses in a form that they can manage on an ongoing basis. Our clients capitalise on social media yet reduce their ongoing marketing spend,” says Cathy.
“Depending on your business and how you intend to engage with your potential audience online there are numerous social media networks available for inclusion into a social media strategy. These social media platforms have a different purpose and focus – from blogging, networking, bookmarking, and publishing to collaborative environments.
“At any of the Net Branding regular training workshops, we discuss what we consider to be the current primary elements of a social media infrastructure and we are able to support our clients through their initial social mediaplanning phase.
“In particular and by far the most talkedabout social media tool is Facebook. A third generation product of Total Social Media™(TSM) provides the foundation when creating results for our customers within Facebook.”

Originally developed for large-scale commercial advertising applications on Facebook, TSM acquired a worldwide license and created a system to market and sell the TSM technology to small business affordably. The potential of over 900 million users on Facebook alone with hundreds of thousands more using other social media sites creates a vast marketplace of opportunity and success for virtually any company utilising TSM.

“Prior to the release of 2.5 – unless someone was a highly capable web designer or programmer, creating a unique look and feel to their business Facebook profile page was challenging, time-consuming and quite expensive,” says Cathy. “There are also necessary skill sets in getting results within social media, you just can’t put up a custom tab and expect results Professionals like Cathy Mellett and her team know how to utilise TSM to increase a customer base without compromising their unprecedented service” says Chris McMahon VP of Marketing for TSM. The important ingredient on Facebook “engagement” – going broadcasting to actually interact with your fans. Facebook uses its “Edgerank” algorithm to measure fan engagement and to determine which of your business updates appears in the news feeds of your fans. Your Edgerank score goes up when fans “Like” and comment more on your updates which, in turn, means your posts will be seen by more people. While there’s no tried-and-true formula for everyone to maximise engagement all the time, outreach on Facebook doesn’t have to be like blindly throwing darts at a board.

Here are two questions to ask yourself to make sure your Facebook posts are prompting maximum engagement:
1. Will this add value to the people I’m trying to connect with?
As social media is a soft-sell medium, this means you should be providing your fans with value instead of hammering on their door with a hardsell sales pitch.
2. Will this update seem fresh to my fans?
If all your social media updates sound the same, your outreach can grow stale and your audience might stop engaging. Think of interesting articles, posts and promotions. This variety is what will keep your fans returning to your page as they do not know what to expect. Imagine a Facebook Business Page that acts as its own mini-website. Customised tabs set your business page apart from others. When a potential consumer lands on your Facebook page you only have between 3-30 seconds to give them the WOW factor. Tabs show professionalism on a Facebook business page and allow your business to showcase its products and / or services. “Solutions that deliver this level of functionality need not cost the earth”, says Cathy.