It is easy for business people to connect with their clients with the current technological advancements. In the past, business people depend on print media, TV advertisements, and radio to market their products. Today, it has become relatively easy and cheap to market because social media and SEO are among the most effective methods to use while marketing.
Nowadays, most people can access the internet using their smartphones or PCs. Therefore, if you use the available platforms correctly, you can build your customer base to grow your business. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest are the most popular social media platforms.
Although you can have an account on each platform, it is advisable to consider your options. For instance, you must understand your customer base for you to use the right platform to reach your clients. In addition, the products or services you are offering can determine the platform you will use. If your product relies on visual branding, you need an Instagram account.
Advantages of Social Media Marketing for Your Business:
• Increased brand awareness
With social media marketing, you will be able to build your reputation and market your brand. As more people like, share, or comment on the platforms you have used, more people will come to learn about the products you are selling or the services you are offering.
• Increased inbound website traffic
When you syndicate your content to numerous platforms professionally, you increase the possibilities of getting new customers. When done right, social media can help you reach many people both locally and internationally because your content is shared globally. However, you need to possess social media marketing skills to have positive results. Alternatively, you can link your website and your social media platforms to make it easy for users to connect to your business at any given time.
• Improved search engine rankings
Businesses today are thriving through SEO marketing. Potential customers are searching for specific keywords when looking for products or services they are interested in. With improved search engine rankings, your business will be recommended by search engines because it will be at the top of search results. To achieve this, your content should be unique, fresh, and consistent at all times.
• Higher conversion rates
As your business becomes popular, you gain more opportunities to earn more revenue and ROI. Increased traffic will result in higher conversion rates because potential customers buy your products, thus increasing your sales through better conversion rates.
• Better customer satisfaction
With social media, it is pretty easy to reach many people in a short period. If there are any complaints lodged, you will be able to address them within the shortest time possible. In addition, when you have discounts and offers, you will be able to inform your customers through your social media accounts and your website. This improves not only your customer experience but also your sales.
Social media can indeed help you start up or grow your business. But where do you start? This is quite hard, especially if you are a novice. Most people might be willing to use social media for marketing their products, but a limitation on their skills, experience, and knowledge might be their main challenge.
This article will help entrepreneurs build an effective social media strategy that can increase the value of their online business. As an entrepreneur, you can either do it yourself or hire Digital Hitmen to handle everything for you. From a professional point of view, hiring professionals have numerous benefits that include saving you time and money, increasing your sales in a short time, and guaranteeing positive results.
However, if you would like to do it yourself, the following tips will help you do it right:
1. Have a publishing schedule and stick to it
If you want to develop a successful social media strategy, you need to be very consistent in publishing new posts now and then. You should have a schedule to help you determine when you are supposed to upload a new post, image, or video, depending on the social media account. To be relevant, you need to constantly relate to your audience by publishing new Facebook posts, Instagram posts, or even Tweets. Entrepreneurs are usually busy, but you need to have a strictly followed schedule regardless of the circumstances. Remember, after posting. You need to follow the comments and reply when required to. This will help you develop a bond with your audience, thus promoting your business.
If your audience cannot count on your business to deliver relevant content promptly to keep them engaged, it will become tough for you to keep them. Luckily, numerous social media management apps like Hootsuite can help you maintain your publishing schedule. Hubspot and Buffer are the two most powerful and established manager apps that can help you. After signing up, the two apps will help you maintain your social media calendar at no cost.
However, if you are to use any of the apps, you need to research how they work and their pros and cons before using them. Reading reviews and comments from other users is also a good way of knowing whether the app you are about to use is reliable.
2. Maintain a consistent voice on your platforms
As you maintain a publishing schedule, remember that voice consistency is necessary; otherwise, you risk confusing and alienating your audience. The brand persona on social media and emails should be kept consistent because that’s what markets your products. It is essential to understand that your uniformity determines your brand’s health in voice and messaging throughout your channels. If you are a solopreneur or work with a small team, it is easy to maintain a consistent voice.
However, as your business grows and you need to outsource your social media and content marketing, you need to be keen to maintain a consistent voice. Therefore, you will have to work with a professional team in social media and content marketing teams. As a business owner, you need to work hand in hand with your team to ensure that they stick to the brand persona when marketing and talking to your clients. Additionally, it would help if you were on the onboarding team to help emphasize the importance of consistency to your recruits. The brand persona will determine the blog posts, Facebook posts, email marketing, and Tweets posted.
3. Show your personality on social media
If you are looking forward to having a good relationship with your customers and audience, you need to let them know who you are. You don’t have to fake or hide your personality because people feel free and like you when they can associate with you. However, even if you are consistent with your character, you should not be boring because you can end up losing potential customers. Therefore, how can you show your personality and remain relevant and exciting?
You can start by giving your audience a peek behind the scenes of your business. You can begin by introducing your team members to show your followers who and what makes your business stand out from the rest. Secondly, you can have a corporate Twitter account that’s informational. The corporate account should have the founder’s and the team members’ accounts to help your followers learn more about you and your team. Elon Musk and Tesla use this strategy, and it is pretty effective if you know how to do it.
Remember, while still being promotional, you can offer your opinions because most people and potential clients like getting ideas from others.
4. Quality Social Media Content is vital
You should not only be consistent with publishing but also focus on quality. When it comes to social media marketing, the content you share should be high quality, whether they are posts, tweets, emails, or even images/videos. This is important because it helps your followers feel that they have an authentic connection to your brand. Avoid copying or reposting other people’s posts because it will have a bad influence on your followers. Instead, you should be creative to post fresh, high-quality, and engaging content promptly.
Most entrepreneurs who cannot manage their social media marketing hire professionals. This is cost-effective and a good option if you have limited time to market the products yourself. However, even if you’ve hired a professional company to take care of your marketing needs, you should oversee the entire process, give your opinions and ensure that everything is proceeding as planned.
5. Be selective
As your business grows, you should be very selective about the social media marketing techniques you will use. Creating unique content promptly consumes a lot of time and resources. Therefore, don’t feel like you need to have an account on each platform to succeed. The more social media accounts you’ve, the more responsibilities to run and maintain them.
On the other hand, if you have a social media presence on almost every platform, you will have a broad customer base because you will reach many people. To determine the platforms you should focus on, decide who your target customers are, their platforms, and how you can contact them quickly.
You should already have Facebook and Twitter accounts for your business. But, you should consider carefully any additional channels that you might need to add. The type of business you are running can also determine the kind of platforms you should have. For instance, if you are a fashion brand, you cannot be able to have effective marketing without Instagram and Pinterest. Therefore, the two should be your primary social media platforms as you decide what else to add to further market your brand. If you don’t need a specific forum, consider focusing your efforts on the media you already have because they can be an effective tool.
It is important to remember that you cannot be a guru in everything. This means that you can be an expert in marketing products using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but you are not good with LinkedIn, email marketing, and Pinterest platforms. If, by any chance, you need to use any medium you are not familiar with, you can start by hiring an expert as you learn how the platform works and run it yourself in the future.
6. Listen to your customers
You will be working with a team. You have to be an excellent listener to benefit from their thoughts, opinions, and suggestions. When you listen to other people, you benefit by getting new ideas while still maintaining the ones you had earlier on. In addition, you can listen to suggestions and opinions from other people to determine whether what you had in mind is applicable. Therefore, when working with your team, attend because you will have the upper hand in getting ideas. Finally, listening to your workers’ thoughts and opinions makes them feel valued. The excellent relationship will translate into high work output enabling your business to flourish as time goes on.
You are also supposed to be a good listener to your followers. It will help if you interact with your followers each time you post anything. You can answer questions, thank them for their support, get suggestions on how you can make your services and products better, and get to know your weaknesses to improve. Engaging with dialogue is crucial because you interact with potential customers looking forward to learning more about you and the products you are selling.
Remember, you will have criticisms, positive comments, and neutrals from people who don’t have anything to say about your products. You are required to be professional when answering questions or replying to any of the followers because if you get emotional or rude, you might lose your audience. Most successful entrepreneurs can handle pressure and negativity because their main objective is to grow their business and profit margins. Being a good listener is as important as posting for social media marketing.
Social media marketing is essential whether you are starting your business or growing it. These tips will help you create your marketing journey by evaluating and reconsidering your strategy now and then. If you need any help, don’t hesitate to seek professional help instead of making mistakes while trying to market your brand.
