In today’s highly digital world, more and more people are discovering brands and making purchases online. Mind you, nine out of ten consumers buy from brands they follow on social media.
Thus, your job as a business owner is to establish a social media presence for your brand.
Luckily, there are a handful of social media marketing tactics that you can do. This includes building brand awareness, producing relevant content, and engaging with your network.
Moreover, starting an SMM campaign does not have to cost a hefty sum. That’s because signing for a social media profile for your business is free.
In this post, we will walk you through the ways how you can use social media for small businesses:
Increase leads
The most significant advantage of using social media is to generate leads for your business. It is generating high-quality leads through advanced targeting.
But how do you improve on the quality of leads for your small business?
Well, you can start by promoting gated content on social media. Make sure that your content is compatible with the interest of your followers.
Here are some helpful tips:
- Design graphics that are “on brand” and visually appealing.
- Write for the reader or your audience on social media.
- Write a CTA that generates a strong sense of urgency from your audience.
Work With Influencers
There is definitely a social media influencer you can work with, regardless of your industry. These are people who resonate well with your target audience and help you get your marketing message across.
The biggest challenge here is finding who these influencers are and establishing a relationship with them. You can begin by engaging with their content. This includes liking their posts and leaving a comment before sending them a DM for a brand collaboration.
Engagement builds these relationships gradually. Therefore, working with influencers is vital in creating your brand and accounts on social media.
Publish Video Content
If you open your favorite platform on social media, chances are, your feed is filled with video content instead of texts and images.
In fact, the algorithms have switched, favoring videos over any content format. In fact, according to Vineyard statistics, a whopping 86% of businesses are using video, with 77% using them on social media.
Fortunately, you can use video content in different ways to engage with your audience and grow your following. You might want to include a behind-the-scenes peek of your life.
You might want to document the next product launch of your company. Similarly, you might want to share what it is like to work for your company or something.
The bottom line: Video content can keep your audience engaged with your business.
Build A Community
Instead of focusing on increasing your follower count, what you need to do is to look for people who are interested, loyal, and engaged to your brand.
Once you build a community around your brand, people in that community will engage with one another or even help you promote your content.
You may also want to reach out to influencers and ask them to review a product or mention your brand across various social media platforms.
Balance Your Sales Pitches
The very nature of social media is to win over sales. That’s why there is no wonder that social media networks have turned into full-blown marketing channels.
Those that use the sales approach have no hesitations about the fact that they wanted to pitch you their products and services. It is direct and straightforward, in a way that they are letting people know what they are getting when they buy from you or hire your services.
Highlight Brand Personality
Another great social media tip is to be authentically you on social media.
Try to think about the brands that follow you on social. What is so special about them? What is it in them that people wanted to follow them?
Chances are, there is something special about the content they post or how they are posting it. They have a brand personality, which means they are not just robots that constantly push out content.
A solid social media presence is not just about showcasing a product or service’s value to an audience.
It is all about making connections and experiences. The best brands often share a common point of view with fans.
Organizing Contests
Running contests is probably one of the first things that come into mind when we talk about social media marketing.
These are great tools that one can add to their marketing arsenal. Many brands are running contests to boost awareness and engagement from their followers.
For instance, you can run a weekly contest that will get your followers involved. Another is to let them do fun activities from various social media platforms.
This can include you sharing photos of them using a product or service somehow, using a trending hashtag, or seeing who gets the most likes on their pictures.
The winners of these contests may win gift cards, product discounts, free items, and so much more.
Although running these contests might not bring in sales, this helps make a name for your business. At the same time, build trust with your target audience.
Establish Online Presence
Establishing a solid online presence is not something that will happen overnight. Getting your desired results takes a lot of time and patience. It is also essential that you are consistent with your campaign.
That’s why you should maintain a consistent online presence across relevant social media platforms.
Moreover, your posting frequency also depends on the platform you are using and the kind of audience you are targeting.
For instance:
- LinkedIn and Facebook: Post at least once a day, but never go beyond five posts per week.
- Pinterest: Pin around 11 pins per day
- Twitter: There is no limit. Tweet as much as you like
Use The Right Tools
Manually posting on social media takes a lot of time and dedication on your part. Fortunately, there is a lot of tools that you can use at your disposal to help automate the process.
You can Buffer, Hootsuite, and Buzzsumo. Using these tools, you are saving valuable time and effort on your part by scheduling your posts in advance.
It is also a lot easier on your part, monitoring posts and responding to comments and messages.
Choose Quality Over Quantity
What are the best social media platforms that you can use? You must create quality content on relevant social media platforms instead of having an account on every social network.
It would be best to create content that offers value and not flood your page with ads. After all, social media marketing is all about building lasting and meaningful relationships.
You can start by focusing on at least one or two social media platforms before expanding your efforts. So, pick a social media platform where most of your target market hangs out, create your business profile, and start engaging.
Hopefully, this post has provided you a better understanding of how social media can benefit your small business. However, you do not have to do everything for your business to grow. Instead, pick a tip or two, implement it, and see how it can help your small business thrive.
