People have been marketing on social media for as long as it’s been around.
In fact, social media marketing is a digital marketing strategy many companies use to promote sales. Every business should be using social media these days for their marketing strategy. Almost every popular social media platform has a business function, with tools and tips to help your business reach a wider audience.
As a business owner, it’s important to have a strong social media presence and to know which platform(s) will work the best for your type of business, as social media will be a very important part of launching your business.
Social media strategy is different for every business. However, there are a few things that are common for every business.
Know what platforms your audience uses, when they are most active, and what kind of content they prefer to see.
Have a clear idea about what message you want to give your audience. Think of what you want to make them feel while viewing your content.
Social media is spontaneous, and you will need to have a well-structured content strategy to give a consistent voice to your content and maintain the quality of the content as well.
Quantifiable insights provide your strategy with the necessary information. It tells you about who you are reaching out to, the right kind of content you need to share, when your users are most active, and a lot more.
Social media is an active platform. If you want to take your business to social media, you must post regularly. You must be aware of the latest trends and maintain a healthy profile. Be on top of your game and engage with your audience.
Social media is not for pitching your business. Add value with the help of interesting and useful content and build up with those around you. This will promote the business organically with the help of your content.
Using social media to market your business needs a good strategy. Well, here are a few steps that you can use to make a solid social media marketing plan for your business.
Think about what you want to achieve from your social media marketing strategy. Your main motive could be building brand awareness, or it could be generating more leads. Once you figure out the goals, set your metrics for every channel you wish to use.
You can choose various matrics for the channels you will use. You can choose metrics like audience growth rate, reach, video completion rate, and impression.
For small businesses, spending time and money on social media is not always possible. However, social media management needs skills like branding expertise, strategic thinking, and organizational skills.
If you can manage to hire a social media expert, it can pay off. However, you can advertise on social media platforms if you do not have the budget to hire a social media manager or an entire social media team. This can boost your reach and brand awareness.
To create content that would attract and inspire your audience, you must know who you want to target and what kind of content they like. You can try doing polls or conducting focus group interviews to see their likes and dislikes.
You can also try social listening, to analyze trends and conversations that align with your brand and your competitors.
Well, whatever your goals are, you want your audience to choose you, no matter what, over your competitors. This is why knowing your competitors is important.
You will get to know what your competitors are doing over social media and get an idea of their social media strategy, as well as what you need to implement for yourself.
This may empower you to come up with unique ideas that can help your brand to stand out among others. When you are studying your competitors, look at the content they are producing, and which are generating the most engagement and interactions. Also, influencers can be of great help these days.
There are various social media platforms, and not every one of those works the same. The correct platform for you depends on your goals, your industry, and, of course, your target audience.
If you are a B2B business trying to connect with other businesses, then LinkedIn is the right choice for you. If you are a boutique targeting young girls, then TikTok is your platform.
However, you can choose various social media platforms as long as you are posting relevant and unique content on them.
Once you know your audience and which social media platform you will use, it is time to create a content strategy. Every content you create needs to match the brand voice or the persona that you would like to present to your audience.
Also, focus on quality over quantity. Instead of posting numerous times on different platforms, focus on generating quality content. If you post too many low-quality posts, social media will consider your site spam and penalize it.
Social media users like interacting with brands and benefit brands by extending their market reach, boosting brand awareness, and social proof of the business. The chance of high ROI is huge.
More than 80% of customers value customer experience, and that includes social media interactions as well. You have to make the audience feel understood, seen and heard. Answer their queries promptly and interact with them.
Social media strategies are not constant. They keep changing. When you use the analytics to figure out what is working for you and what is not, you have to change things to align with those. After implementing the initial strategy, keep revisiting it regularly.
Ensure that the content you are creating and how you are engaging helps you meet the goals. If it does not meet your goals, change your original strategy.
Remember that whatever you post on your social media represents your brand image. Sometimes, posts get out of context, and it upsets followers and creates a conflict.
If you have a separate social media team entirely, then try making a policy that can help them through their conversations and posts.
The social media policy should include:
This way, you will be able to prepare for any scenario. With the help of your social media policy, you are also implementing your customer service philosophy as well.
Brand identity helps people connect with your brand and sets you apart from your competitors. This means that all marketing, including social media, digital media, and print, can be consistent.
Keeping a consistent brand image is challenging. More so if you are just starting your business. You have to think about how you will communicate with your customers, what kind of visuals you are going to use, and what your unique selling proposition is going to be.
Having a consistent brand image will make it easy to know what you will post next, and it also helps with brand loyalty.
Various social media platforms will help you while you are making a social media strategy for your business. When you explore these options, you will see some platforms fit your brand and your target audience than others.
Here is a list of those social media platforms that can help you with social media marketing.
Not only is Facebook the most popular social media platform today, but it’s also the best platform for you to promote your business. With over 2 billion active users every month, marketing on Facebook is beneficial for just about every kind of business.
Some of the business functions that Facebook offers include:
You can also post status updates, pictures, and videos just like you would on your personal account.
Instagram is another social media giant, with over 1 billion active users every month. This platform is most popular among the Millennial generation (those born between 1981 and 1996), and it’s fairly popular with their micro-generation counterparts: the “Xennials” (those born in the late 1970s and early 1980s) and the “Zennials” (those born in the late 1990s).
Brand identity and recognition are important aspects of any business— especially those whose target audience falls in this generational category— and Instagram’s format is perfect for doing this.
Your entire Instagram page reflects both your products and your identity, and you can use hashtags to help more people discover your brand.
Twitter differs in many ways from Facebook and Instagram, but it’s still a good platform for marketing— having over 100 million users daily! If you’re in the blogging business or some other type of freelance work where you create original content, then this is the perfect platform for you.
Twitter lets you easily share links to your work, taking your followers directly to your website. Twitter also utilizes (and even creates) hashtags to help new people find your work.
If the original content you create is a video, then YouTube is the best social media platform for your business. With over 2 billion users, YouTube can also benefit all types of businesses that can promote their product and/or company in video form, such as a product demonstration for customers or as a way to show your company culture to job seekers.
Instead of friends or followers, you have YouTube subscribers that can be notified every time you post a new video.
It is best suited for e-commerce businesses. It has over 400 million active users each month, with 87% of these users having bought an item from Pinterest.
Some of the business features:
Creating a business page on Pinterest also gives you access to advertising options and other business tools to help promote your products.
LinkedIn is a unique platform, doubling as a job search site and a social networking platform. This platform has over 700 million registered users and is best suited for B2B (business-to-business) companies.
However, this is a great platform for businesses of any type looking for new people to hire. LinkedIn helps you grow your professional network, whether you’re a B2B or B2C (business to consumer) company, looking for qualified candidates, or even a freelancer.
Consistently posting to your social media account(s) is the key. The reason why it is so popular is that people always use social media, meaning that they’re constantly active.
Social media marketing does not give results overnight. Along with being consistent, you have to be patient. Just target the right kind of audience, post interesting, unique, and relevant content, communicate with your audience regularly, and cater to their needs.
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Mashum Mollah is a digital marketing expert and contributor with over 10 years of experience in the industry. He is skilled in search engine optimization, social media marketing, and content marketing. Mashum is passionate about helping businesses achieve their online goals and is committed to staying up-to-date with the latest digital marketing trends and strategies.
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