Why Should You Use Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is the new frontier for all retailers and marketers to win their target audiences.
Social media has become immensely important for any business be it a small business or a large enterprise. Everybody wants to acquire new customers & leads using social media platforms.
Social media plays a vital role in bringing revenue for a small business. However, due to lack of knowledge, a lot of small businesses fail to properly utilize social channels. Hence, if you are serious to promote your small business on social media.
Here are some of the Tips why you should use social media marketing for your business:
1. Start with a plan
It’s easy to get started using social media for business purposes. We all use social media in our day-to-day lives, so there’s a level of comfort with the tools.
It doesn’t cost anything to create a Facebook Page for your business, or start posting on Instagram, or create a presence on Twitter.
But before you leap in feet first, remember: every good business strategy starts with a good plan. Yes, you can use social tools for free. But the time and effort involved still represent an investment in your business.
Without a plan, you have no clear goal for what you’re trying to achieve. That means there’s no way to know if you’re getting a return on that investment.
Take the time to create a social media plan upfront. This ensures all your social efforts support specific business goals.
Here are some strategic social media tips from our guide to creating a social media marketing plan
Set social media goals and objectives
Create goals that follow the SMART framework. They should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.
Base your goals on metrics that will have a real impact on your business. For example, you could aim to acquire customers or raise your conversion rate, rather than simply racking up likes.
Research the competition
How are your competitors using social media? While you don’t want to copy them, learning from what others have done is a great way to reduce your learning curve.
Competitive analysis can help you learn what’s working and what’s not for other businesses like yours.
Conduct a social media audit
If you’re already using social media, now’s the time to take a step back and evaluate your existing efforts.
We’ve got an easy-to-use social media audit template to walk you through the process.
Get inspired
You’ve looked at what your competitors are doing online, but what about other businesses? Take inspiration from the success of businesses in all industries.
Where can you find these success stories? Head to the business section of most social networks’ websites and you’ll find useful case studies.
This blog can also be a great source of inspiration, since we always include lots of examples. And just pay attention to what your favourites brands are doing. What makes you want to click or follow or buy?
Create a social media calendar
A social media calendar helps you post the right content to the right social channels at the right time. It should include a plan for your content mix.
Try starting with the 80-20 rule. Use 80% of your content to inform, educate, or entertain your audience. Use the other 20% to promote your brand or sell your products.
2. Choose the Right Social Media Platform
Social media has exploded since Facebook went public back in 2012, and there are thousands of networks out there dedicated to anything from connecting old classmates to social activism and everything else under the sun.
So, with all these options out there, how does a business hone in on the right ones? The advice from most experts is to join four of the most popular, and choosing the right ones comes down to your audience (and where they are) and your goals. Here’s some information to help guide you:
- Facebook: the largest platform, has 2 billion-plus active monthly users, and the site is ideal for businesses that want to generate leads and build relationships
- LinkedIn: the platform for business networking can be used by both B2B and B2C businesses to create trust, build authority, and engage audiences
- Twitter: whose platform is immediacy, is perfect for businesses whose major audience is under 50 and who need to stay apprised of time-sensitive information like breaking news, announcements, and trending topics
- Pinterest: the photo sharing site, is a fantastic platform for businesses with visual appeal (think restaurants, fashion, art, travel, and weddings), and it’s great for driving sales because so many users look to the site to plan purchases
- Snapchat: the expiring content platform, is one of the fastest growing social networking sites, and businesses can leverage it by offering promotions, providing personalized content, giving exclusive access, and building relationships with influencers in order to drive brand recognition and loyalty
3. Come up with a strategy
Having a goal for improving your social media presence is great, but it’s only the beginning. Once you know what you want to achieve, you have to come up with a plan to help you get there.
Start by designating the person or people who will be part of the social media team, and break up their roles and responsibilities clearly so everybody knows what’s expected and when.
You should also decide on your posting frequency, and create a content calendar that will help you plan posts and make sure you don’t miss days. The content calendar is a big part of your strategy because it should lay out:
- Who your audience is
- What topics and subjects your audience is interested in
- The usable content you already have
- What kind of content you still need to create or curate
- When and on what platforms content will be published
4. Build relationships
Social media allows you to connect and interact with customers and followers in a way that is popular more than ever. You can foster a relationship by liking, engaging, commenting or simply responding that can lead to future sales. Building a relationship with customers can establish trust, brand loyalty and community all before customers make their first purchase.
5. Build Your Brand on Social Media
Even though your ultimate goal in using social media for business is to generate more sales, your strategy doesn’t always have to be so direct. A strong brand will create sales all on its own.
Seriously, how many people buy Nike shoes just based on their branding?
Use social media as a way to build your own. That means increasing your brand awareness, building trust, and establishing authority through your content, your presentation, and how you interact with followers.
Because the more people that know about your business and see it in a positive light, the easier it will be to entice those people to buy from you.
6. Keep Your Branding Consistent
Different social media services call for different content, meaning you’re not going to post the exact same material to your Twitter feed that you do to your Facebook page. But you still need to keep your branding consistent across platforms.
The visual features, like the design, colours, and images you use, should be the same on Instagram as they are on Facebook. You should also maintain the same messaging across your tweets, captions, and snaps.
Also read: How to Skyrocket Your Business across Social Media
Keeping your branding consistent will go a long way to building the awareness, trust, and loyalty that I talked about above.
7. Create a Schedule and Post Content Regularly
One of the most common mistakes you’ll see with social media for small business is a lack of consistency in the posting schedule. This not only affects post visibility, but it can also make it hard to gain traction with search engines.
Maybe it’s the mind-set that once you’ve posted, the content is on the wall for the duration, and there’s no hurry to follow up. But that line of thinking is flawed, as most people aren’t checking your profile page with any regularity. Instead, followers see your content as they scroll through their personal Facebook feeds.
But content moves fast, and the window of opportunity you have to make a connection is limited — and even more so if you’re not posting consistently. This is especially true on Facebook, where engagement plays a part in determining what content appears in a user’s news feed.
Must read: Social Media then and Now
Creating a social media editorial calendar not only helps you keep posts consistent and timely, but it also gives you a chance to develop an overarching and integrated content strategy. You can map out your posting schedule, fill in business-related promotions and events, and brainstorm for industry-adjacent content ideas that will provide value to your readers.
It’s a good idea to monitor your progress from idea to execution to determine how long each post will take. Remember, you’re not only coming up with topics, but you’re doing the research, writing and editing the content and finding corresponding images. Keep in mind that this entire process can take a great deal of time.
8. Set up a social media content calendar
Content calendars also help to distribute resources effectively, improve team collaboration and give a more in-depth understanding of what works and what doesn’t.
Sharing your posts randomly on social media without any proper planning can ruin your chances to grow your business. Therefore, you should create a social media calendar to plan your social media activities well in advance. Moreover, creating a content calendar helps you to set end goals for your social media efforts and help to analyse & measure your online success.
The best thing about these tools is that it enables you to put up images, set timings for your posts for multiple social media, and much more from a single dashboard.
Just create and update the publishing calendar once a week, build team sections, and distribute the file to co-workers to get their comments before posting.
9. Monitor and Improve Your Performance
As you put your social strategy into action, it’s wise to monitor what’s working and what isn’t. You can then polish your social efforts and boost results. Analytics tools like Hootsuite Insights and Brand watch can offer you a true picture of how your social strategy is performing and can help you keep an eye on any metrics you want.
10. Actively Engage Your Audience in Relevant Ways
Although content is supremely important on social media, it’s not enough to just post your content and walk away. Social media is also about connection and engagement, and that’s the only way you can foster the relationships you want to build and gain the trust of your audience.
There are many ways you can engage with your audiences, and they include:
- Commenting on posts
- Starting and participating in conversations
- Sharing relevant information
- Sharing user-generated content
- Posing and answering questions
- Addressing complaints and criticisms
- Showing appreciation for customers
Conclusion
You are doing a disservice to your business to underestimate the power of social media. It is wise for business to use a multitude of strategies to see what works for their brand. It is important to use multiple platforms to expand your reach and post regularly to create brand awareness and loyalty to accomplish marketing goals.
Make sure each post is aesthetically appealing to customers and follows along with the company’s brand and mission. Smaller businesses should take advantage of social media management tools to help organize and take their efforts to new levels.
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