Social media has changed in recent years from being a new idea to an absolute must for businesses. Social media has turned traditional marketing on its head. Customers and businesses can directly interact – both parties can ask each other questions, repost each other’s content and form relationships.
Although social media marketing involves experimentation, there are a number of creative strategies you can employ to get started. Here are seven tips for marketing your business effectively on social media.
- Choose the right platforms
Rather than spreading your efforts out on all of the common platforms, utilise the ones that are relevant to your business. Use the platforms that your target audience uses, so they can easily connect with you. Also consider which best fit your products. For a video production company for example, YouTube is an obvious choice.
- Use social media paid advertising tools
One of the easiest ways to promote your business on social media is through advertising. You’ll need to have a budget in place before developing and running ads. But with social media advertising, especially Facebook, you can target specific audiences by location, interests, and much more.
It can take some trial and error to figure out the right way to advertise through social media, but it can take your business past the reach of organic social media alone.
- Encourage engagement
Social media should of course be social. Businesses need to be interactive. Post content that people will be interested in reading, ask questions and respond on other users’ posts. Doing research on your audience can help you work out what they might like.
- Build a community
Instead of trying to get as many followers as possible, focus on finding customers who are interested, engaged and loyal. These people are more likely to repost your content, like your posts and become customers.
When you build a community around your brand, the people within it will engage with each other, helping to promote your content.
- Run discounts or giveaways
Take a promotional strategy and apply it to your social media channels. You’ll not only be encouraging potential customers to purchase from you, but if they do, you’ll easily be able to identify how they found you.
You can also run giveaways and encourage participation and interaction amongst users to gather more buzz on your social media account.
- Embrace user-generated content
One of the great things about social media is that it gives everyone a voice. If you have customers who love your brand, you’re likely to hear about it or see it on social media. Once users are posting about your business, you have access to more content for your own platforms. This is called user-generated content.
Millennial consumers today want to see input from other customers before they buy. According to Mintel, 72% of opinion-seekers aged 25-34 look to social media contacts for recommendations when purchasing goods and services. Consumers trust people over brands.
- Piggyback on trends, especially those relating to your audience
A great way to promote your business is to piggyback on social media trends, popular hashtags, and social media “holidays”. If you have a restaurant for example, you might use trends like “National Pizza Day”, #ThirstyThursday or #Instafood. These trends will not only help you connect to your existing followers, but place your business in larger communities that participate in those holidays or hashtags.
This tactic is worked most effectively on Instagram and Twitter. Different industries have different hashtags to participate in: a simple Google search or search on the social media platform will help you identify trends and popular posts that might work well for your business.
