2.5 Billion. That is the number of monthly users on Facebook. Crazy, isn’t it?
Social media has become an enormous part of our daily lives. Kids walking down the street are constantly checking their profiles, sharing the latest trends with their friends, and generally ignoring the world above their tiny screen. Engrossing our lives in social media has become the norm.
While this metaphorical zombie apocalypse sounds like a disaster – and rightfully so – this epidemic spells dollar signs for the world of businesses. Big or small.
So how do you capitalize on this growing trend? Social media marketing.
If you aren’t sure where to start with this cost-effective endeavor, that’s okay! There are many small business owners in the world who haven’t the slightest clue of how to make social media work for them.
Let’s have a look at some quick, easy to implement tips for social media marketing success.
Choose Your Platforms Wisely
You’re ready to dive into the world of social media.
You think, “I’ll make my profiles on every platform and go from there!” Wrong.
This might seem like a winning strategy – getting your name out as quickly as possible and making sure you’re available everywhere. You’re stretching yourself out too thin. It’s important to figure out which platforms to put yourself on.
Not every platform will be useful for every business idea. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, to name a few, all have a target demographic using their service. The trick is to figure out which of these target demographics matches your ideal customer.
It’s also important to outline your goals for social media marketing.
For example, maybe you’d like to use Twitter to quickly respond to customer comments or complaints. However, a YouTube channel won’t do you much good if you don’t plan to use video content to your advantage. If you have a lot of photo-worthy content, maybe Instagram would be good to use.
Make sure you flesh out these thoughts before diving headfirst into the world of social media. Doing so will help ensure a successful social media marketing campaign.
Social Media Is a Commitment
Your target demographic is identified; You’ve chosen a few relevant platforms; Now it’s time to reach out and connect with your customers. Get your name out there!
Except you have no followers, shares, or likes. What now?
Coming to this realization can be demoralizing. However, don’t give up. Building a large following takes time, effort, and most of all: commitment. Tons of businesses launch social media marketing campaigns and give up in the first few months. Be better than that – once you start, don’t stop.
Keep your content relevant and make it interesting and engaging. These two concepts – along with a time commitment, will help you develop the following you envisioned.
It’s also important to post often, but not too often. Make your presence known to your audience, but don’t go overboard – nobody wants to have their feed spammed by the same person!
Don’t give up. Persistence is key.
Sometimes, Listening Is Better Than Talking
Most people constantly want to be heard on social media. Posting about their bad day, what they had for dinner, or generally annoying their followers with posts every 1o minutes. As a business, that shouldn’t be your aim.
Look at it this way: social media gives your customers a way to talk about you, offer feedback, or contact you directly, right? So why not use this to your advantage. Customer feedback on social media is important. What people say about a business on social media can make or break them.
The easiest way to gather this info would be to just flat out ask your audience. While some may not respond, others will be more than happy to offer their opinions. Ask your consumers what they think of your latest product or service. If you’d like feedback on a new feature on your website, post about it.
Customers also have no issue complaining on social media either.
Addressing reasonable complaints in a timely manner is key to a winning social media marketing strategy. Offer them a resolution to their problem. Be respectful and empathetic to their situation. This will show the customer, and other potentials out there, that you go the extra mile with customer service even after sales have been made.
Make Use of Paid Advertisement
Wait… Pay for more ads? Yes.
The paid advertisement options on social media platforms can be incredibly powerful. Why is this? For starters, they’re incredibly easy to start using.
If we use Facebook, for example, there is a step-by-step process to getting your ad out there. You simply choose a marketing objective, fill in some simple audience demographic information, define a budget, and choose your format (video, image, slideshow, etc.). From there, Facebook gets your ad out to the people you need to see it.
After your ads are out there, it gets even better.
Facebook offers built-in analytics to ensure your ads are achieving what you want them to. No guesswork needed. Everything from gender and age to location and even the devices they’re viewed on is measurable with these analytics, all from one page.
From there, you can tweak your ads if they aren’t reaching the right people, or work on some similar ones if your current strategy is yielding results. It’s important to act on the info you uncover from analytics.
This level of simplicity makes paid advertising a must with your social media campaign. Don’t miss out on it.
Connect With Your Audience
Now while this ties in with customer service and feedback, it’s also important to connect with your audience in other ways. Your audience should see that you are reasonably quick to respond to comments. Whether they’re praise or complaints.
Personalization is key here. Try to personalize the interactions between you and your followers. This could be something simple like addressing them by their name. It’s important for customers to feel like they’re speaking to a real person. Show that you have a voice beyond your business persona. Social media is the right spot to be more friendly and casual.
Make sure you have fun with it as well! Look at fast-food chain Wendy’s Twitter account.
In the past few years, they’ve built a reputation for being, we’ll say, “overly casual” on their Twitter. Going as far as calling out their competitors for being inferior to Wendy’s.
While you might not want to go that far overboard, this is a prime example of what can be achieved on social media by simply having fun with it. Wendy’s grew their Twitter following immensely with this casual and personal tone on social media.
Optimizing Your Social Media Strategy Is Vital to Success
To ignore the influence of social media would be unwise. Capitalizing on a platform used by billions of people sounds like smart business sense, doesn’t it?
Simply diving into all of these platforms with no plan can produce negative results. Especially for those who have nothing but a personal Facebook account they haven’t updated in over a year.
Social media marketing can yield great results for those willing to learn the ins and outs of optimizing their strategy. With these tips, it isn’t hard to start developing your plan, growing a following, and achieving the goals you set out with social media in the first place.
Which of these tips can you implement today? Are there any other quick tips you’d like to share? Let us know!
social media marketing – DepositPhotos
