This week, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley realized that mistakes can be made when people automatically cross-post messages from one social media account to the next without checking to see what it looks like. She tweeted an image with the caption, “South Carolina made history this year by passing education reform. We will no longer educate children…” which made their decision seem, well, questionable. The image link, though, led to a longer message that followed that with, “…Where they were born.”

Luckily, this mistake is fairly easy to bounce back from, and South Carolina received some unexpected extra exposure for their decision. However, if you’re trying to adapt your business to social media, you want to ideally avoid making mistakes of this sort — and other common mistakes, as well. The thing about the internet is that you can delete something, but it’s never truly gone — and bad press can follow your company for longer than you can imagine.

For this reason, small companies looking to expand into online marketing and social media should enlist the help of a digital marketing firm. How can an internet marketing firm help you? Here are three social media facts you might not have known — that could make a difference in whether you do the right or wrong thing with your online campaign.

1. How Email Matters

You might think of email as a sort of clingy ex many people are trying to get away from. And for several years, this is what online ad agencies thought. However, the truth is that email is a powerful advertising agent, and it’s only becoming more and more useful with the rise of smartphones. Users aren’t just checking their email once a day; they’re checking it continuously, like text messages. Along with search, email is one of the number one activities people partake in.

2. Search is Integral to Visibility

Not surprisingly, you need to be present in search results in order to gain the type of visibility you need. Billions of searches are conducted online every week, and a large percentage of these searches have a local intent. People are searching for information on products and services. If you don’t hire a digital marketing firm, you’re not going to be on the ball when it comes to making you’re you’re doing what it takes to get near the top of search results. And being top-ranked for important keywords matters; almost 80% of users never scroll past the first page.

3. Building a Name for Yourself on Social Media

Building an online brand is about more than just constantly re-tweeting information about your latest sales — this alone is not going to keep people interested and invested in what you’re doing. You need to provide unique and valuable content on a consistent basis. Many businesses end up working with a social marketing firm because they don’t have the time or energy to continually interact with consumers at this level.

Have you talked to internet advertising agencies or a digital marketing firm about your website? Let us know in the comments. Learn more about this topic here: www.quezmedia.com