5 Tips on How to Use Social Media to Market Your Business
Social media marketing is not about throwing some dollars to paid promotions online. There has to be a defined a strategy that helps you achieve social media success. What is your goal? It could be to get people to subscribe to your newsletter, purchase products or services, follow your business on social platforms, or get massive traffic to your website. Below are five tips to maximize your social media marketing results.
Post around the Web
Take the chance to explore the many social media platforms available today. Using a couple of social media sites to promote your business increases your chances of achieving your end game. However, not all platforms are suitable for all businesses, so take a test drive. Sites like Instagram and Pinterest are best known for images. Therefore, if your business offers specific products, it would be wise to take as many quality photos as you can and share them on these sites.
Popular Social Media platforms include:
- Periscope
- Snapchat
The trick is to try out different platforms. Identify where your potential seems to thrive and focus on that site. At least three social platforms will be enough for the marketing campaign. Have a social media calendar that will help you plan and schedule posts. As much as one post may go viral and bring you traffic that converts, you will need to keep your clients updated as you also attempt to attract new ones.
It is advisable to have a blog page on your website. This is the section that holds all your weekly posts. When you post regularly, you increase your chances of converting a reader to a customer. Ensure every post you publish is relevant to your product or service and is linked to a contact or e-commerce page where potential customers can make purchases. Share each post on your social media pages and have your social links present on each post. This way, you give your readers the chance to like your posts and share them on their pages.
Use all Available Types of Content
Do not just write blog posts or short texts and share on your social platforms. The main idea behind using social media as a marketing tool is to reach as many people as you can using big data and convert them into buyers. As earlier mentioned, getting your followers to share your content with their followers is the best way to get traffic. However, it’s not as easy as it sounds.
People are not going to share content unless it’s interesting. Millennials are now craving for more graphics than text, and Google will rank your pages higher if you use more, but relevant images, infographics, GIFs, animations, brief videos, or memes. The good thing about today’s marketing content is that there is no limit to what you can publish out there. You just need to ensure it is something that your target audience appreciates.
Feature other Businesses
Hashtags and mentions are useful tools in modern social media marketing. The trendy tool for social media marketing success today is collaborating with other businesses. If your small business sells coffee and your neighbor sells cream, how about you collaborate with them and promote the most exceptional white coffee in town that features the two products?
The idea behind collaborating with other brands is to grab the attention of their traffic. It is usually a unique type of opportunity that can take your business to the next level. Once you agree on a collaboration strategy and prepare all required marketing materials, post the content on your social media pages and use your hashtag and mention your partner brand on the caption. Also, you will need to have one unique hashtag for the campaign that everyone can use.
Other collaborations include guest posting on reputable websites and back-linking to your business site. Social media collaborations can either build or break your business. Be careful when picking a brand for collaboration. Ensure they have a good reputation, a great fan base, and that their products are of good quality. If your partner brand is messy, their bad reputation will become yours too.
Focus on Customer Reviews
Don’t just sell products or services and assume it to be the end of the relationship. Get back to your customers, thank them for choosing your firm, and ask them if the product or service delivered was as they expected or if it fell short. Once you get a review, obtain their consent to share it online. Find out if they have social media accounts and politely request them to write reviews on your business page.
A customer review is beneficial to your business. If one person dislikes your product, the chances are that potential customers will assume your product is poor and immediately refrain from purchasing it. Therefore, brag away with your positive reviews and ratings for they will help you increase sales.
Not every client will allow you to post their reviews online. If this is the case, thank them for purchasing and request them to buy more and refer their friends and family members. Referrals are like reviews; everyone trusts them.
Interact With Your Followers
One of the best ways to keep customers returning or referring others to your business is through quality customer service. It shows you not only care about selling but also about the customers themselves. If someone says, “The products are good, but their staff members are slow and disrespectful”, Count that as a no-show referral. Both your product and customer service MUST be reputable. One will barely survive without the other.
Interacting with your followers online can be done by replying to their private messages and responding to their comments and reviews. Use big data to detect when customers post on your page. One perfect way of interacting with your followers is to engage them in discussions and social media challenges. Ask them to purchase the cream and coffee and prepare the beverage using your recipe. Then, request them to share the results online using your campaign hashtag and mention your business too. This is also an excellent way to get reviews and tap into the customer’s fan base.
As you use social media to promote your products and services, remember that it may take time and patience to reach your sales target. Have etiquette when interacting with your followers and be careful with the posts you publish to avoid offending others. Only publish posts that are relevant to your business and its services.