Are you a small business owner? Did you know that social media marketing can help grow your business? Social media as a marketing tool has the potential to build awareness, drive sales and grow your customer base and if you aren’t using this tool, here are some helpful tips to maximize on that potential.
Planning is Important
Just as you would lay out a plan for your business, lay out a plan for your social media in order strategize and measure the success of your social media marketing efforts. Part of that planning should include goal setting; identifying targets that specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely. Your goals should also go beyond merely looking at the number of likes on your page; they should focus on things like generating leads and referrals and conversion rates.
If your business is already using social media, then part of your strategy should include a social media audit to determine how your target audience is connecting with you and which platforms are performing best for you in this regard. Focus on what is performing best for your company or brand and continuously update and improve on it.
Don’t be afraid to look at what your competition is doing and draw inspiration from it. Look at what is working for them and consider how might be able to implement already successful tactics into your own social media marketing strategy.
Part of your planning should also include creating a social media calendar to keep your social media sharing up-to-date and relevant. Create a schedule of dates and times to publish your content on your social media accounts.
Keep fine tuning the plan for improvement. This will be an evolving tool that will change based on performance. Analyze and evaluate the metrics that you’ve put in place and adjust your plan accordingly.
Decide What’s Best for your Business
While the use of social media for marketing is important, it is also important to make use of the best social media for your business. Different social media platforms offer different benefits, some of which may not be suited to your specific business needs. It’s important to understand the function of each platform and determine what makes the most business sense.
It is important to understand the reach and demographic of a platform along with its engagement to determine its usefulness; for example, Instagram has a highly aesthetic appeal and therefore requires content that is visually appealing, whereas Twitter requires engaging headline type copy because of its brevity.
Know Your Audience
As with traditional marketing, its important even with social media marketing to know your audience. Conduct your research to obtain demographic data such as age, location, average income etc. Having this statistical information will then allow you to identify patterns and behaviours that will assist with targeting your audience.
Setting up surveys or polls through social media can assist with the collection of this data.
Use Social Media as a Selling Tool
Social media can be an effective sales tool if utilized correctly. As with any marketing or sales tool it is important to strategize around its use in order to optimize results. Once again, it is important to understand the strengths of each platform in order to best utilize them, for example, apparel or jewelry would be best marketed on Instagram or Pinterest because of their image-centric nature.
When utilizing social media, it is also key to adhere to the 80/20 which means that the content being shared is no more than 20 percent promotional. The focus of the remaining 80 percent should be on the customers; sharing relevant content and engaging with them.
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
No matter the platform or network you are using, make use of visual elements. Visual content is engaging and what draws people’s attention.
Visual content can include still images, GIFs, videos, even graphs and charts but it must be relevant to your audience.
While the use of social media to market your small business is key, you also don’t want it to take away from the day-to-day responsibilities of running that business. Enlisting the help of a social media marketing manager can help to streamline processes by introducing social media management tools, setting up a content scheduling calendar and monitoring social media platforms. If you are looking for assistance with your social media marketing, the experts at Social Know How are here to help.
