Learn How To Effectively Use Social Media For Your Business
by Josh Biggs in Digital Marketing on 18th April 2021Nowadays, almost everyone has a social media account. Even though almost every marketer is also on social media, there are still a lot of untapped features and markets left to explore for lead generation and market cultivation.
With that, we discussed several ways to utilize social media for your brand and business.
Set achievable goals
One of the most common mistakes new businesses tend to make whenever they market on social media is they immediately jump to bigger goals.
While this may seem productive, it can be counterintuitive because you are still at the onset of your business and you still have not established a strong social media presence yet.
The best thing to do in this situation is to start laying out your goals and start breaking them down into small, achievable ones. This way, you would have steadier and more organic growth.
Keep in mind that building a strong social media presence can be tricky at first and it is not always swift and immediate.
We highly advise you to familiarize yourself with the platform or channel first before you start posting on your account. You have to remember that not all social media platforms are created equal. One strategy might work for some and not for the others.
With that, you have to do a lot of research about the platform in order to make your content stand out.
We suggest you keep track and provide a metric for each goal. This way, you would be able to know your strategy’s strengths and weaknesses.
Identify your target market
Identifying your target audience should be your priority. Because even though you have a lot of engagement or views, it still would not matter if you are playing for the wrong crowd.
Target market is important because they are potential leads and they can easily turn into buying customers.
You have to remember that your main goal is to not just to gain engagement, but it is also to convert leads into buying customers.
Knowing your target can save you a lot of money because you would only be focusing on your niche and you would be able to budget more effectively.
On top of that, you would be able to easily know and adjust to your market’s needs.
If you know your target market, you would be able to create more tailored and specific content that is relevant to your potential leads and consumers.
Besides, once you funnel your market, you would be able to identify other under-served markets as well as your competitors in the field.
So rather than playing for the wrong crowd, try to find an audience that would listen and benefit from you.
With that, we highly suggest you to identify your target market so that you would be able to clearly define your brand and your marketing strategy.
Consider Sponsored Posting
One of the things that are often overlooked in these different social media platforms are the sponsored posting options.
Even though some big and already successful businesses do not usually avail this option, it is still a great way to boost your audience.
For some (especially small local businesses), a sponsored post is one of the best ways to introduce your business around or near your area.
It is worth noting that sponsored posts can come in many forms. You can have your business directly promoted by the social media platform or you can simply hire influencers from different brand ambassador agency.
Below is an example of how sponsored content from social media platform looks like:
And below is a sponsored content from social media influencers
Sponsored and paid content is important because it allows you to reach and explore a new market you have not reached before.
Aside from that, it is also a great way to raise brand awareness and establish credibility for your brand.
Once people see your products being used by influential people, they would be more trusting of your brand and they would be more inclined to try your products.
Link All Your Social Media Accounts
If you are familiar with Search Engine Optimization or SEO, then chances are you probably already heard that social media can also boost your website’s organic traffic. With that, linking your social media accounts is helpful especially if you have an e-commerce site.
Since social media allows you to update and provide news to your customer’s in real-time, they would instantly know if you have new products or services on your website.
Aside from that, linking your social media accounts can also improve your customer service.
Not many people know this but other social media platforms allow you to talk to your customers directly. You can even chat or personally reply to your customers without having to spend thousands of dollars on customer service improvement.
Below is an example of how small businesses utilize their social media accounts to improve their customer’s service.
In the picture above, you can see that customers can easily chat or ask any questions to the owner or staff.
With that, you should check out all these options and always link your social media account to your website so that you can utilize all these features and options as well.
Post Engaging contents
Last but not the least is to effectively post engaging content on your social media accounts.
This advice or strategy might already sound too obvious but a lot of small and new businesses still make these mistakes because they do not have any idea what engaging contents are.
Since not all businesses and target audience are similar, what is interesting and engaging for some might not work for the other.
With that, you should consider a lot of things before you post anything on your account.
For example, you should know what content or post is relevant to your consumer. This way, customers would always look forward to news and updates from you.
Aside from that, relevant and interesting content can also help you foster a healthy relationship with your customers. They would be more trusting of you and they would be more inclined to avail products or services from you.
Choose and utilize a platform
Social media marketing is not just about posting content consistently. It is about understanding your audience and getting them engaged with your content.
If you have accounts on different social media platforms, then you must already know that audiences vary from platform to platform. For example, LinkedIn’s main demographic is mainly business professionals. This means that you have to tailor your content specifically for business professionals. You cannot just post on LinkedIn what you share on TikTok and Instagram. All of these platforms have their own demographic and way of posting.
That being said, you should also take these into account when you are creating your business account on social media. There are no rules in social media marketing that you have to have an account for all social media platforms. Sometimes, having an account on one or two social media platforms is already enough.
For instance, your target market is mainly people aged 40 to 50. This means that you should not go and create a TikTok account. In this case, the social media platforms that you should utilize are LinkedIn and Facebook. You should go where your audience is.
The rule of thumb is to pick two platforms and do well on them. This way, your marketing efforts would be much more concentrated on your target market.
Track your progress
As you embark on your social media marketing journey, it is important to keep track of your progress and list down what works and what doesn’t. This way, you would be saving yourself the hassle of making the same mistakes.
Tracking your progress can save you a lot of time and money, and you can easily fine-tune your strategy if you see that it does not really work. Once you have an idea of how your social media strategy works as well as how it blends with your other marketing strategy, then you can easily look for an alternative way to improve.
One of the best ways to track your progress is through data analytics. Nowadays, almost all marketers who are in the field of digital and social media marketing are aware of and know how to utilize data analytics.
With the help of analytics, you can track which marketing strategy works best and which didn’t. It would also give you a better idea of your target market and how they behave online. Since data analytics tools are now more advanced, you would be able to monitor your audience activity as well as what they usually do whenever they go online.
Social Media for Businesses
We hope we managed to provide you with some valuable insights about social media marketing.
All you need to do now is to further explore and look for other ways to make use of your social media accounts.