Social media is a pretty powerful attraction tool. Business owners and marketers alike know that social media has become one of the most important marketing channels, allowing businesses, social influencers, celebrities and old Mrs Joans down the road the ability to communicate to the masses (which you can target) with just a click of a button. You simply just can’t deny the power that social media offers.
Social media marketing can only benefit your business if you understand the nuances and audience of each platform and then develop and implement an effective social media strategy.
Here are our tips on how you as a business owner can make social media work for you:
1.
Understand who your audience is and determine where they are
Social media marketing gives you the chance to ‘humanize’ your brand. Social media is powerful, because it gives you the chance to connect with people, in a personal way. Decide who you want to connect with on social and choose the best platforms. Not all audiences are the same, so remember to tailor your content to the specific platform and audience.
Once you have gained an understanding of who your audience is the next step is to determine where they are (which social platform do they use). Whether Facebook, Instagram or twitter there is a lot of information out there dissecting what types of demographics are on which social platforms. There are also a number of tools that can assist you to reach your desired audience without costing an arm and a leg. Facebook advertising can narrow down who you want to target as well as what type of targeting or results you would like to achieve through awareness, consideration and conversion campaigns. These campaigns will assist you in targeting more of your followers through reach or brand awareness ads, or get your followers to engage with your content or view more of your video content as well as get you sales or lead generation.
2.
Make sure you have a good strategy
So you on social and you know who you want to target, now what? The next step would be to create a content strategy. If you don’t have a plan for what you’re going to be sharing your efforts may not drive the behaviour and response you looking for. You can only get out what you put in when it comes to social media so if you’re unsure where to start you might want help from the experts.
3.
Engagement and content is key
With Facebook and Instagram’s changing algorithms, which now favour content sent from person to person rather than business page to person, you will find it has become increasingly difficult for your brand content to reach your followers organically (more about this in our blog about Facebook’s changes in 2018). So how can you make this work for your brand? Create engaging content that your followers would want to interact with. If you don’t engage your followers and fail to create two-way communication – what’s the point of being on social anyway. You simply using social as an advertising channel, not a relationship-builder. You also want to set aside a monthly social budget to ensure that you still reach your fans through paid advertising.
4.
There is a right way to promote your content
Follow the 80/20 rule when promoting your content on social. Post 80% relevant, engaging well crafted creative info and post 20% direct sales content. Any more than 20% will just seem to sales like and put your followers off engaging with your brand on social.
By implementing these few tips you can make social work for you and your business. Don’t be scared to explore or take risks with social – it’s the only way you are going to learn what works and what doesn’t for your brand. If you would like more advice on all things social media then we’d like to offer you a free consultation at our offices in Kloof. Let’s see how we can take your brand to the next level on social.
Send us an email and we’ll call you back.
