Combining Your Website with Social Media to Create Online Synergy

Synergy occurs when each piece works together to create a sum that is bigger than its individual parts. I have seen this work with traditional media (e.g. print and broadcast) where combining radio or TV with print advertising can produce results greater than using each medium independent of one another. And, I have seen this work using purely online channels such as a blog and website where each generates incremental traffic for the other beyond what could be achieved if they were independent entities.

So, how do you put together a combination that generates synergy for your online marketing? We start with three initial steps.

Listing your specific objectives
Identifying the audience(s) you trying are to reach and developing profiles based on their demographic attributes along with their interests, connections, activities and the language they use.
Segmenting these audiences into homogeneous groupings you can target

For Step 1, let’s look at a list of typical objectives which you can choose from or add to in preparing a list specific to your business:

Generating new leads
Making new business connections
Getting customer/client feedback
Deepening existing business relationships
Making online sales – conversions
Improving website search engine results
Increasing marketplace visibility
Establishing authority in your area of expertise

In Step 2 we want to clearly identify the audiences we are trying to reach. For example, let’s say that we are looking to reach affluent, well educated professionals who either own or work within a small business environment and live in a specific SMSA (standard metropolitan statistical area).

If we already serve this group, we can start by examining existing or recent customer profiles. We may already have a good demographic profile, know how they make decisions about purchasing, and perhaps even something about their personal interests. To develop an even greater understanding of this group (local professionals), we can avail ourselves of some powerful online research tools – local area groups on Linkedin, professional groups on facebook, and other local professionally oriented social media. By joining and participating, you will have access to detailed professional background information, connections, and interests. You can listen to and follow their conversations to better understand their online behavior. Further, if you actively participate, you can ask specific questions that relate to the type of services you offer.

Lastly, in Step 3, if you are trying to reach more than one audience you can separate them into homogenous categories based on their specific interests. The information gathered from your research in Step 2 will allow you to set up and test ways to address each group using pictures and language they relate to.

These steps should help get you started. In upcoming postings I will discuss the next steps for creating online synergy….stay tuned.

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