A few years back, social media was nowhere to be seen. Businesses and marketers used traditional methods to promote their brand, and websites for online awareness. The first social media platform was Orkut, but only common people were on it for making friends online and chatting with their peers and family. No business used it for promotion or marketing.
But all this changed with the inception of Facebook in the year 2016. When FB was made public, not only did consumers start flocking the app, but slowly marketers too found a new source for marketing their business. With time, more social media apps came in the market, like Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and so on.
Though all these apps are different from each other, they all have one goal- to connect people globally. That is exactly what makes it perfect for global brands and marketers. They want to connect with people around the world so that they can promote their business on a large scale, have a better relationship with their consumers, and make an identity for their brand. Even a small-scale business can make an identity for themselves using social media.
If you are still not on any social media, you need to be. Here are some facts that will tell you the importance of the same:
- As of 2019, there are 725 billion people actively using social media
- A person spends approximately 142 minutes a day on social media
- Facebook has over 2 billion monthly users, Instagram has over 1 billion users
- LinkedIn has 660 million followers, and Pinterest 265 million users.
All these numbers are huge. If you find the right platform for your business and start marketing on it, imagine how many people you can connect with.
Every business needs a strategy to make your account popular amongst the people. Here are some tips on how you can do that.
1. Commit to the cause
The cause, in this case, is social media. If you want any social media platform to work for you, you need patience, time, hard work and you must commit to the cause. It is not magic, that you will make an account, and people will start following you.
Even if you are a big brand, people might follow you instantly, but they may lack engagement with your content. Thus, there are a lot of things that you need to think about before you decide to create a social media account and before you give up.
The first thing you should do is create a plan. Have a strategy for social media marketing services in writing so that every person in your office knows what to do. Figure out your mission, and what you aim to achieve with your account, why you want to have an account (don’t create one because everyone has it), and what kind of content would you be sharing.
Figure out your goals in number like, I want our business to achieve 5000 Facebook followers in a month
Having a deadline will give you a measuring tool, and you would be able to work on your goals better.
2. Research your audience
You want to connect with your audience and engage them with your content. The only way you can do that is by knowing what your audience wants. Knowing the likes, dislikes, interest, and dis-interest of your consumers are important for creating content that would engage them. To do this, you should:
- Survey the audience to find out everything about them
- Know out about their demographics
- Have a conversation with them through discussion forums, and so on
- Get feedback
When you have enough information about your audience, it will become easy to curate content for them.
3. Have a personality
People follow a brand on social media because they are posting something unique. Their accounts offer the user with relevant, informative, and appealing content. If your account is not able to offer something unique, then no one will engage with your content.
That is why having a personality for your brand is important. Don’t keep selling your product, have a variety of content, like focusing on an important day.
The personality of your brand shows in how you post content, what it says, whether it has a human touch or not. How your post makes a person feel is what it is all about.
4. Video content can work wonder
Video content is all the rage right now. YouTube is the biggest platform where you can share video content for your brand. But other than this, short video or live video streaming on Facebook and Instagram, and so on is also a great strategy to increase your consumer base.
They are more interesting and engaging, and even users remember video content more. A survey says that by 2021, more than 82% of traffic for your business would be from video content.
After Facebook and Instagram introducing the live video feature, things are getting even more interesting. As people know that scripting a live video is not that easy, and it shows the authentic and raw side of a brand, video content appeals to them more.
5. Use high-quality images
Most social media platforms work on visual content, and the best type of content is images. The thing to remember when using images in your post is that they should be of high quality. Only share your best work, and give it a twist by making a meme of a picture and so on for better engagement.
Also, if your raw image has good lighting and a certain appeal, make sure to post organic images as people like unedited photos. But sometimes, no matter how good an image is, editing it is necessary, and for that, you can use Canva.
6. Focus
You don’t need to have five social media accounts. Two or three will do. It is because if you have an account on every platform, your focus will get divided, and you won’t be able to concentrate on every platform. The best thing to do is find out which social media platform works best for you, and then create an account on that. This way you will be able to curate the best content on platforms that your audience use. Also, cross-promote your content on all social media platforms that you use.
These effective tips can help your social media strategy take off. The rest is on you, keep working on finding new ways to engage your audience, and you will get enough love and positive feedback in return.
