Online Marketing Strategies for 2012
2011 was the year of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. While all three social media giants will be big players in 2012, you’ll likely need to play several more cards in order to create the ever important ‘wow’ factor that is necessary to drive traffic to your website. Make 2012 the year that you shift your online marketing strategies into the highest gear by following some of the four online marketing strategies outlined below.
1. Pinterest. In 2011 Pinterest, an online pinboard community, took the online world by storm. The community receives millions of hits each day by active users that are scavenging for useful information. In marketing speak; Pinterest translates into a pot of traffic gold. Pinterest users are hungry, and actively searching for useful information related to thousands of topics. Chances are, there are thousands of Pinterest users in your target market that are ready and willing to click over to your website or blog and share it with their followers.
2. Video Marketing. YouTube received approximately three billion views per day in 2011; this number is only expected to rise. Jumping on the video marketing bandwagon in 2012 can generate significant traffic to your web properties. Because viewers can see you, hear your voice and observe the manner in which you present yourself, YouTube traffic tends to convert more easily than traffic derived from other avenues due to the trust that is created.
3. Hosting Webinars. Hosting a webinar allows you to provide an interactive medium for educating your fans while creating higher engagement. Webinars are unique from any other form of online media as they allow users to communicate with you in real-time. They ask questions and they can hear you answer them directly, thus creating the ‘feel’ of a more intimate one-on-one conversation. Webinars also create a higher sense of urgency to truly pay attention to the information that you’re providing as they won’t be able to come back to it later, unless you’re recording the webinar, that is. Hosting and guest-hosting webinars is a powerful strategy that can quickly assign you as an expert in your field.
“I love you @Mrs. Butter Worth,”
4. Social Media Marketing.More companies in 2011 decided to take a more personal approach when interacting with their fans on social media sites. For example, when a fan tweeted “I love you @Mrs. Butter Worth,” he, along with millions of others, were smitten when Mrs. Butter Worth replied with “I love you too!” The tweet went viral and a Twitter account that was setup for the syrup giant was bombarded with traffic. While it isn’t always appropriate to profess your undying love and appreciation to your customers, responding in a warm and human fashion, rather than the standard robotic impersonal response that is expected will set you apart from competitors and in turn create higher user engagement.
Connecting with your users and creating higher engagement is the name of the game in 2012. You may be a small business, but humanizing your business sets you apart from the competition by reminding your audience that there is a person behind the website, blog and sales page.
