Social media has evolved over time to fill a variety of different purposes for both individuals and organizations. You can use it to stay in touch with family and friends, connect with community groups or get more information on local companies and organizations.
If you own a small business, you also know how crucial social media is to the success of your professional endeavors. Expanding your digital presence to encompass both public and private platforms enables you to reach your audience and engage with them in casual online environment. One of the primary ways in which you can leverage social media to advance your business or organization is through network marketing.
How to Do Social Network Marketing
Social network marketing is any sort of marketing strategy that transpires on a social media platform, whether it be public or private. You can use these platforms for any type of marketing, from simple customer engagement to a formal advertising campaign. For small businesses and organizations, you may also want to pursue network marketing, also known as multi-level marketing (MLM).
According The Balance Small Business, when used correctly, social networking can help you:
- Build a reputation through word-of-mouth
- Increase your referrals, leads and sales of products and/or services
- Gather meaningful feedback from your followers or clients
- Provide quality customer service
- Drive traffic to your organization’s website
- Develop new products or services
- Keep your audience informed about sales, special events and other relevant topics
- Establish your reputation as a thought-leader or expert within your industry
Pros and Cons of Social Network Marketing
As with any marketing tool, there are both pros and cons to networking over social media. In terms of benefits, social media platforms are cost-effective. It’s often free to set up an account or profile and interact with your audience. You also have paid advertising options if that seems like a good fit for your organization or small business.
Additionally, you have the ability to learn more about your customer base via analytics, polls and information they voluntarily share in comments. Speaking of which, you also can engage your followers directly, either by responding to their comments on public posts or messaging them privately.
As for drawbacks, managing a social media account—or multiple—is time-intensive. You have to dedicate several hours per week to the job, which can be a strain for small organizations or sole proprietors. If you’re not regularly posting and responding to comments and messages, it decreases the effectiveness of your marketing strategy and undermines public perception about your brand. You also put yourself at a greater risk of public criticism and even security issues, such as hacking, when using social media.
It’s important to keep in mind that not every type of social media will be a good fit for your organization. Plus, trying to be active on multiple platforms requires a lot of time and energy. The best idea is to find the social media platforms that complement your type of small business or group, as well as your particular marketing strategy.
Benefits of Go2s for Social Media Marketing
As a free, private social network, Go2s enables you to capture the numerous benefits of marketing on social media while potentially avoiding certain pitfalls. Not only is Go2s a secure platform, but it also helps you better connect to your audience through special features, such as call-outs.
Using the call-out feature, you or other group administrators can post and highlight certain content on the sidebar of your business page. That content could be anything from an advertisement or document from your Go2s Library to an internal link regarding a special offer or external link to your website. In terms of multi-level marketing, Go2s’ call-outs enable you to control your advertising strategy, whereas on Facebook or other platforms, content often gets pushed that is not relevant to your audience or your business. You can cut through the noise that distracts and even disengages your followers to reach them with curated content and important links that are tailored to your specific industry and business. This provides more value to your audience and, subsequently, improves the efficacy of your social network marketing strategy.
Using Go2s for Your Network Marketing
Go2s provides you with a reliable platform to post messages, coordinate tasks, share files in a library, post videos and pictures, and manage group events on calendars. With a variety of special features, Go2s enables you to effectively network and market your small business to your audience in a safe, secure environment that is less inundated with external advertising and more conducive to fostering meaningful professional relationships.