Simple Tips on How to Use Social Media for Small Businesses.
Recent times have seen social media become one of the easiest and most convenient ways for people to connect. Billions of people use social media. This makes it a critical inclusion of your business strategy by offering a platform for you to connect with customers, who already like your brand and reach those who don’t know about it yet. Here are some of the social media marketing tips that can help small businesses make the most out of it.
- Formulate a plan
Starting on social media marketing doesn’t have to be too scary or expensive. You can start with free organic posts. However, your marketing campaign’s success will rely on your plan, which has to be outstanding. It will also ensure that all the social efforts you put in support specific goals.
You can start by setting some social media goals. These, however, should be attainable, timely, relevant, and measurable. For example, you can aim to raise your conversion rate with customers to a certain level. You can also create a content calendar (content mix plan). For example, you can choose to be posting something educational to followers on Monday, ask a question on Tuesday, post informative content on Wednesday, and so on. Try the 80-20 rule; 80% of the content to be educative and entertaining and 20% promoting the brand.
- Understand your audience
One of the best things about social media is that it is possible to micro-target your audience. For this reason, you should first identify and understand your business’ buyer personas.
Compile data from your current customers. This will give you a picture of who your customers are, what they are also interested in, and how well you can interact with them online. You should come up with answers to the questions “what content will they relate to?” and “which tone should I use?”
- Choose the best platform.
Running a business is no easy task. Therefore, you are not afforded all the time in the world to be active on all social media platforms. However, since you have already know who your typical customer is, it will be easy to narrow down to a few outlets to use as your chosen media. To make it easier, you can even consider their age and education level. Here are some of the platforms where you can base your marketing on.
Most people use Facebook to keep contact with friends as well as build new relationships. This makes it a good option for businesses aiming to build loyalty with an already existing customer base. This also means that it doesn’t favor businesses that are trying to reach a new audience.
Female users mostly dominate Pinterest. Since it is a visual-based platform, its proper use can see a huge rise in retail sales.
- YouTube
YouTube has more than one billion users, with its reach extending even further. It is one of the biggest search engine platforms with many “How to…” videos. Therefore, service industry businesses can benefit from it.
You can excellently use Twitter to build your brand’s awareness. The hashtag here organizes conversations around a phrase or word. Therefore, you can come up with tweets that revolve around/take part in trending conversations.
- Engage with your audience
It is time now to communicate with existing and potential customers online. Formulate a way through which you will actively interact and engage. You can write posts that are short and straight to the point. Make the posts entertaining and engaging as possible; you only have several seconds before the customers continue scrolling. For example, Facebook posts should not exceed 80 characters. Posts with characters between 40 and 80 have recorded a staggering 87% engagement rate. The more the words, the lower the engagement rate.
While crafting your posts, be creative. Ensure that once the customer reads your post, they will want to share it and return in the future. Offers, tips, ideas, and interesting facts can be useful and easy to engage with.
- If possible, include compelling visual content.
Over 1000 million videos are watched on social media daily. They offer an easier and more interesting option to engage the audience. It will also attract more customers to your page. Recent statistics have stated that tweets that include images have a 150% more user interaction rate than those without.
Great imagery is essential. If your content or product doesn’t look good, no one will even stop to look at your post. However, be careful while using random images from the internet since they can get you in trouble over license and copyright issues.
- Incorporate social listening
People mention and talk about your brand good or bad when you are not around. It is not possible to improve without honest and reliable feedback. Social listening is popular and effective since you get a real-time view of what customers and clients say about your brand. It aims at turning insights into actions.
You should always be aware of all the conversations about your business that are happening elsewhere and respond where necessary or appropriate.
- Keep track of your performance.
The world of social media metrics can be a little confusing but still very doable. Once you pick out what worked and what didn’t, you can fine-tune your efforts and improve on the weak areas. Analyze your posts, likes, impressions, and clicks on your page to help you know where your business is and attract a better following. The posts that do wellSimpl will show you the content that the audience resonates most with.
The size of your business does not dictate the success of social media marketing. When you put such tips into practice, the growth will be visible within no time. You do not have to bite more than you can chew; use a focused approach and gradually build your efforts.
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