Do you want to improve social media productivity?

Are you interested in finding ways to energize your marketing?

Daily activities separate successful social media marketers from their peers.

In this article I’ll share six social media habits to improve your marketing.

#1: Build Meaningful Relationships

Successful marketers know that relationships are the fuel behind business success. To keep the pipeline full, you must build meaningful relationships with both consumers and other business owners.

A recent Gallup study found that most business owners inherently understand that “running a successful company is a collective effort that requires interaction with a range of people: suppliers and potential investors, employees and customers, peers, competitors, public officials, and members of the media.”

How You Can Establish This Habit

Most business professionals have built a gold mine of relationships over the years, but haven’t mastered how to turn them into mutually beneficial connections. Your goal is to compile a list of relationships that will allow you to consistently connect with people vital to your success.

Here’s how to create that list:

• Define your perfect client and referral partner. What qualities make them ideal?
• Make a list of your top 100 contacts based on the qualities you’ve definedabove. This list should include prospects and potential referral sources.
• Schedule one hour each week to connect with everyone on your list. This contact could be through social networks, social media groups or a handwritten note.

Schedule one hour each week to connect with everyone on your list. This contact could be through social networks, social media groups or a handwritten note. Image: Shutterstock.

• Be a giver as you interact with your top 100. Offer your time, resources, knowledge, encouragement or support.
• Repeat each step weekly.

#2: Merge Passion With Social Purpose

To get out of the heads and into the hearts of your target audience, you must incorporate a purpose beyond profit. When you merge the two, customers become your biggest advocates.

Take a look at Blake Mycoskie to see how this simple act has built a business. Blake, the founder of Toms Shoes, combined his passion for helping others with his social purpose—to offer shoes to those less fortunate.

Since its inception, Toms Shoes has kept their commitment to donating a pair of shoes for every pair purchased. To date they’ve given away 35M pairs of shoes.

How You Can Establish This Habit

Create a “giving calendar” that incorporates a culture of giving throughout the year. Begin by identifying how you’re already giving back to your customers and local community. Whether it’s through events, volunteer opportunities or fundraisers, brainstorm how and where you’ll spend your time giving.

Toms donates shoes around the world.

Now think about unique opportunities available to your company. How can you highlight your customers and business partners throughout the year?

Your next step is to determine how social media will support your giving campaign. Where will you share and how often?

For example, choose a “giving day” of the week. Post to your social media channels as follows:

• Facebook, Twitter, Google+: Post once per week.
• Pinterest and Instagram: Create unique graphics and share twice throughout the week.
• Blog: Write one article per week highlighting your giving campaign and the events of the week.
• YouTube: Record a quick video explaining your giving day and what it entails. Give your fans and followers a reason to care about your “why.”

#3: Understand What Customers Crave

To be a successful marketer, you need to be in the information business. You have to pay close attention to the ever-changing needs of your consumer.

Make neuromarketing part of your strategy. Image: Shutterstock.

You must be forward-thinking and stay on the cutting edge of science and technology by incorporating a field taking the marketing world by storm: neuromarketing.

This next generation of market research provides insight into why consumers choose one product over another and what impacts that decision. While this insight can prove to be invaluable, it’s not necessarily new.

Businesses have been testing and tweaking their version of neuromarketing long before studies revealed results.

For example, prior to neuromarketing Better Homes and Gardens knew that beautiful images of their recipes connected with their audience.

Better Homes and Gardens uses eye-catching images to connect with their audience.

These attractive images increase awareness, improve interaction and drive purchase decisions.

How You Can Establish This Habit

Use a tool like DataHero to regularly pull together important consumer data. From social media to Google Analytics, email marketing and customer management, DataHero can help you make sense of how, when and why customers interact with your company and your content.

Once you’ve compiled this information, take that data and analyze what’s working and what’s not, and then establish a daily protocol for delivering the exact content your customers want every time.

#4: Connect and Collaborate

Top marketers are in a perpetual state of learning. You need to be an education sponge when it comes to your niche or industry, poring through case studies, data and trends.

Work tirelessly to identify what matters most to your market and be eager to share your experiences, ideas and expertise with other like-minded business professionals.

How You Can Establish This Habit

To make better connections that generate trust and establish credibility, you need to make personalized interactions.

Use a tool like Sprout Social to actively engage in conversations with people who share your same purpose.

Here’s how to get started:

Research your keywords. What are the terms or phrases other industry professionals are using? Ian Cleary suggests using SEMrush to identify the top keywords your peers are using.

Add this information to Sprout Social. Through Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox, you canmonitor your keywords (hashtags), gaining access to valuable conversations happening around your area of expertise.

Use Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox to monitor your keywords.

Find your audience. Stephanie Shkolnik suggests using Followerwonk or Traackr tofind influencers within your field or niche.

Now add your audience to a list within Sprout Social so you can quickly and easily connect without fail.

#5: Keep Money-Making Activities in Sight

Successful marketers know that being busy doesn’t equal success. Success comes from productively working on money-making activities daily.

Focus on money making activities each day. Image: Shutterstock.

William Patterson, CEO of the Baron Solution Group, says there’s a lot you can learn from millionaires: “The wealthiest individuals have a different mindset and make different choices about their time and associations than others. Adopt these success habits to help you better plan, make wiser decisions, and to hold you accountable for taking the most important actions every day that will have the greatest impact on your financial and business success.”

How You Can Establish This Habit

The key is to set your intention every day. What actions can you take that will make the greatest impact on the health of your business?

Here are a few ideas:

• Call five prospects to set up a face-to-face meeting.
• Attend a local networking event.
• Send an email with a request to speak at an upcoming event.
• Record a video tip highlighting your expertise. For example, tech reporter Rich DeMuro posted a YouTube video on how to scan business cards with Evernote’s Android app.

Record a video tip to share your expertise on social media.

• Create a new product that solves one problem of your target market.
• Establish a mastermind group with four referral sources.

#6: Track, Measure and Adjust Your Efforts

Smart marketers know that an effective social media campaign is only as good as the people tracking and measuring its effectiveness.

You have to test what works and what doesn’t and understand what it takes to gain your audience’s attention, response and receptivity.

How You Can Establish This Habit

Paying attention to the effectiveness of your online efforts is the mainstay of yourmarketing strategy.

Whether you’re researching data from Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram or Vine, Simply Measured provides the insights you need to measure your engagement, conversions, shares, fans and followers.

Simply Measured helps you discover the effectiveness of your online performance.

Carefully reviewing your performance over time gives you a competitive edge, helping you craft content and posts specifically designed with your target market in mind.

Final Thoughts

If you want to succeed both in business and online, you have to plan for it. As Stephen Covey said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” Therefore, we know that success is not an accident. It’s a commitment to daily habits that allows for sustainable business growth.

What do you think? What habits do you incorporate to empower your business? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

By Rebekah Radice

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