What do you think is the best way to advertise your small business? Well, it’s not through a billboard or TV commercial. Instead, the answer is Social Media marketing!
Social Media Marketing (SMM) can be a tricky and confusing process for small business owners. But, the benefits of Social Media Marketing are plentiful, such as increased customer loyalty, enhanced visibility, improved search engine rankings, and more!
The days of relying on word-of-mouth and print advertising to get your small business noticed are over. With social media marketing, you can reach an infinite number of potential customers at no cost by creating a professional website and posting regular updates about your products or services.
Here’s how to take advantage of this incredibly inexpensive way to market your company.
What is social media marketing, and how does it work?
SMM simply refers to the process of gaining exposure for a company or organization through social media sites.
It is the process of utilizing web-based services, blogs, social networks, or communicating across various channels to exchange information about products or services with relevant followers.
Social media has radically changed the way that modern businesses interact with customers and communicate their messages.
Businesses have recognized this shift in communications and are now rapidly scaling back traditional one-way advertising methods to include real-time engagement with social data at its core.
It includes a strategy for blogs, polls, chatbots, content creation for Facebook ads et al.
Related: How Can Facebook Ads Help To Promote Your Business Locally?
These strategies aim to reach potential clients quickly where they are active every day—online—to generate brand awareness and traffic through preferred sites via organic sharing rather than through expensive ad buys on third-party websites.
If you’re not that confident with your SMM skills, better hire a professional to look into your brand’s digital presence. We have SMM service packages for any digital marketing goals you want to achieve!
Build a professional, easy-to-navigate website.
Remember, social media is only a marketing tool. Your goal is to drive traffic to your business’s website—this will serve as the hub for all future social media activity.
A professional, easy-to-navigate website is crucial because it can make your company look serious and professional. It also helps attract customers because visitors feel more confident they won’t pay for anything if they don’t understand the site’s layout.
In short, it is most people’s go-to place when looking for a business online.
And if someone can’t find what they’re looking for after a few minutes of browsing your site, then chances are that person will abandon their efforts and move on. It means you’ve lost a customer right there—never even had the opportunity to address their particular questions or needs.
You deserve the best website possible, which is why we only use the latest technologies and techniques to ensure your sites look great across any device. In addition, all of the sites we created are built with SEO in mind, so they’re easy for search engines like Google to find!
Create an account and profile on social networking sites.
It’s essential to create a business account in every social media network because the internet is impossible to compete with only one social media network.
For example, when you post a status or tweet with your Twitter username, it’s linked with your Facebook page and applicable website information, which gives the account a ton of clout.
Re-posting from your network can be tricky at times, but sharing becomes so much easier when an established Business Account link is attached to the profile that reaches out across various channels!
But not all social media platforms are created equal.
For personal brands, entrepreneurs, and any small business owner: YouTube. They currently have over a billion unique monthly viewers, and the site has been ranked as one of the top ten most valuable brands in the world.
There’s also Facebook and Instagram if you’re looking to reach a wider audience than just those who use YouTube regularly.
You could also try LinkedIn for individual business outreach or create videos about your product that will go into niche channels where people with that specific interest can more easily access them.
Follow them on Twitter or create an account for your company page to stay up-to-date with their latest announcements or customer feedback requests.
But before you start publishing any content in your social media accounts, make sure that your profile has a solid brand identity. It can help you stand out from the crowd.
We are branding experts that can help you with all your branding needs?
We know that your business is unique. That’s why we take the time to get to know you, your industry, and your target audience before we start any work on your project.
It ensures that our designs are tailored specifically for you—not just another generic design template. Our team of experts will work with you every step of the way to ensure your success online.
Related: 9 Mistakes To Avoid When Hiring A Digital Marketing Agency
Post regularly with helpful content related to what you do best.
For one, it boosts social media engagement, which is a key metric that marketers looking for more followers use to gauge their success. A higher level of follower base may also result in increased opportunities like higher rates on ads or sponsorship deals.
Posting timely content can also reinforce your brand awareness and differentiate between lightning-fast sale conversions and something left behind with time slipping through your fingers.
You see, social media posts are seen by human eyes (i.e., not an algorithm) where they either get deleted or held onto by an actual person who “might know someone” who might be interested in what you’re doing!
How to create content that will be engaging for customers
Create content that connects to the emotional triggers of your audience. The best way to communicate with someone is through an emotional trigger.
Customers are most interested in what’s important to them—they’re looking for happiness, security, experiences that will improve their day, etc. People like easy solutions for bettering themselves and their loved ones.
So your strategy should be centered around providing help for these people. Knowing your audience’s interests can help us understand where we should focus your attention—find their happiest pastime and put out content on Facebook related to it.
Here are 4 foolproof ways to create engaging content:
1. Ask a question that is piquing their interest but not so common as to be generic. For example, “what’s your favorite fall activity?” or “What was the best article you read this week?”.
2. Link to articles from prestigious sources to show the credibility of your business and expertise in the industry.
3. Include occasional timely topics that customers want to update information about—think Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals or a live event happening right now.
4. Make sure to include a call-to-action at the end of your post for customers to take action on something you offer—go here for more info, click here to download our ebook, apply now for a funding program, etc.
Follow other users who might be interested in following back.
If you want to receive social media posts from other people, it’s essential to follow them first.
It doesn’t matter what the method is for following someone, but the principle is that if you’re not following someone on Twitter or Facebook, they won’t know who you are, and thus they won’t post their updates.
The power of social media lies mainly in its viral nature—if your contact list is everyone we know, and your “following” list is all the people we’re interested in hearing from. Naturally, therefore, the following list’s size will only be as big as or smaller than your contact list.
So, realistically speaking, it’s crucial for someone who wants to grow their following to follow others so that theirs can grow too.
In building a healthy community on any social network, it’s imperative to reciprocate when someone follows you by also following them back and vice versa.
It applies even more so when you might not share interests with the person doing the following. Every new follower is an opportunity for outreach, and saying hello can do wonders for your business.
Be SMART and measure your success.
The second letter for SMART mnemonic stands for measurable. It is vital in every aspect of any business, extending to your social media marketing efforts.
Measuring success can be as simple as how many followers, reviews, or comments a user gains from their posts. Success with social media is not necessarily defined by the number of fans/followers someone has but how those followers engage with a post via liking and regularly commenting on an individual’s work.
If these numbers aren’t low enough for everyone in your company (usually the C-level execs), something wrong cannot be solved simply by social media.
Another metric that can tell the story is the percentage of paid advertising (Facebook ads) interactions vs. organic outreach (visits via links through the website).
Designing a social media marketing plan for your small business
There are many ways to design a social media marketing plan. The most targeted approach is to identify a narrow niche audience and “create content” specifically for them with the objective of promotion.
1. Define who your audience is. Next, you must ask yourself if you want to target younger audiences (i.e., teenagers), older audiences (i.e., 60+ clients), or both generations?
2. Analyze what type of social media marketing each customer prefers. For example, businesses that create physical products will better suit video platforms like YouTube to show people how to use their products.
3. Create a plan to promote your business on social media by choosing where you should be posting, what you will post, and when you should post it.
4. Track your posts to see if they are working for people or not. If they are not being read, then move on to other topics that might be more interesting.
If activity picks up, then keep going with the topic at hand until it stalls again. That is the time when you would want to move onto another topic altogether or create a new one full throttle so as not to lose all momentum gained from previous posts before trying another idea.
Whatever your SMM goals are, we’ve got you covered!
Social media marketing has become essential because, frankly, people are using it these days to interact with one another.
Suppose you aren’t content marketing on social media channels. In that case, your competitors might be eclipsing you in the race because social-media-based tracks are generally where socialization and interaction happen.
People tend to trust reviews from friends more than reviews from specialists every day of the week, so those reviews must come from friends who use them and follow their product on Facebook, Instagram, or whatever other platform they’re using.
Whether you want to promote your brand or generate leads on Facebook or Twitter, we can help you achieve your goals using our unique content creation and distribution approach.
We help businesses of all sizes grow their online presence and increase revenue through our custom, results-driven small business strategy.
Let us show you how we can make your business shine online today!
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