With millions of people using social media sites, companies have turned towards social media as a virtually unlimited resource for attracting new customers and making new sales. There are several ways large companies can use social media to promote their brands and take advantage of these opportunities.

Offer Exclusive Coupons

Many large companies offer exclusive coupons only to customers who join their Facebook and Twitter pages. This strategy is particularly effective when using Facebook because of the way the pages are set up. Facebook business pages allow you to customize their layout somewhat. You can set up your page so that prospective customers see a coupon and a message stating that they need to join the page in order to access the coupon.

Post exclusive deals on your pages on a regular basis so that customers have to keep coming back to the page to get special discounts. This is the bait that hooks your customers to your page and encourages repeat visits. It also helps your promotional efforts because customers enjoy feeling that they are part of an exclusive club. You can post sales and special events on your pages well ahead of time too so that customers who join your pages find out about them before the general public.

Sweepstakes

Some companies run sweepstakes on their social media pages. This is an effective way to promote your business because your customers spread the word for you.

Twitter is a great platform for these kinds of sweepstakes. Twitter allows users to tag their posts using hashtags, and then other users looking for particular keywords can find the posts. If enough users use a particular hashtag, it becomes a “trending topic” and is listed on Twitter’s homepage.

Thus, the best way to go with these kinds of sweepstakes is to offer customers an incentive for posting something that uses a particular hashtag. For example, customers could be entered into a sweepstakes if they use the hashtag #ABCCompany. Each customer who does this will receive a chance to get a free item or other prize of interest.

Similarly, you can run a sweepstakes for customers who repost or retweet a status update of yours. Both Facebook and Twitter give you the ability to see who has reposted your information, so you should easily be able to determine who has entered your sweepstakes. These kinds of promotions help your brand go viral so that many customers become aware of it.

Information Sharing

The third and most important way that large companies use social media is to share information of interest to customers. Many companies provide short facts about their industry on Twitter on a daily basis. They may also post links to articles of interest to customers or offer customers the ability to attend a question and answer session over Facebook or Twitter. Although these types of promotions might seem counter-productive because they don’t involve money, they are very effective. Customers feel you care about them when they see you give away information for free. They also begin to trust that you are an expert in your field when you regularly post relevant information.
Information sharing and sweepstakes are just a few of the ways you can use social media to promote your business. Choose one social media site to sign up with and run your first promotion. It’s free, easy and will attract a lot of customers.

For more information about strategic campaigns that yield the best results, contact the team of professionals at Marden-Kane today.