You’ve probably heard a lot about how social media eats away at our precious time, how it’s a productivity killer, how it becomes addictive, even manipulative at times. All of these statements are, to some extent, true.
Inflated, but true.
How can social media help your business? With the rise of social media, more and more people are finding themselves bombarded with content, whether it be detailed articles, links to videos, hilarious memes, semi-controversial posts, and tweets – people’s hunger does not inch back on these platforms.
We all love to communicate, even gossip a bit, find a few laughs, and get involved in debates about topics we don’t even understand completely.
But there’s another way to look at all of this: people hang out a lot on social media, and your business can use this to its advantage by pursuing social marketing efforts.
In this article, we will explain how this can happen.
The most precious resource for any professional is time – even more than money. Thus it is important to come up with marketing strategies that not only target a huge audience but require minimal time and effort from your side.
Social media happens to be a perfect vector for such marketing efforts!
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn host millions of connected users at any given instance. These are people from all walks of life: students, professionals, entrepreneurs, young people, middle-aged, old ones – you name it, they’ve got it.
Thus finding your target audience online just became easier.
Since these platforms are frequented by so many people, if you create posts and stories that attract attention, you have a real chance at winning clients for your business. And since people on social media sites are almost always in a rush or very impulsive, things work out pretty well for you in terms of return on investment.
The point is that you have a ton of people, accessible without any trouble, and who might actually be interested in what you have to say. No need to exhaust your efforts, chasing after the crowd, let the clients come in by themselves.
A nice change of pace, isn’t it?
And the best part is that the process is not very demanding either.
All you need is a social media presence, some compelling content, and a bulletproof content marketing strategy, and that’s it. Digital marketing, as it is called, has yielded very promising results for businesses across the globe, both local and international.
The vast majority of marketers and social media experts consider social media management to be a potent tool for spreading brand awareness and creating a following for your company/business. The reason that most industry influencers believe so is because of the diversity of people present online.
It is impossible to not find the kind of people you need for growing your business simply because of the sheer number of social media users from all over the world.
Moreover, you will find diversity among platforms as well, for instance, Twitter is meant for short posts or tweets, while Instagram is primarily powered by image or video-based stories, Facebook is versatile, and YouTube is more of a video library.
In short, you can find a platform for your kind of social media content.
While none of these have a set tone, you can find both casual and professional-minded users on all of these platforms. However, in contrast, LinkedIn has a fixed type of audience: professionals. Thus spreading your marketing efforts across all of these platforms will allow you to get the best of what the internet has to offer.
Here are a couple of highlights that will help set your mind straight in this matter:
These facts may be enough to convince you that there is a pool of potential customers out there somewhere, waiting to be invited to your following. However, there’s another side of the story too – with such a wide audience out there, there are also lots of social media channels, many of which may be competing yours, using social media to boost their businesses.
This, coupled with the absence of a proper social media strategy, inability of dedicating resources and efforts to expanding social networks, and hardships in building an online influence, has led many to skip the social media marketing thing altogether.
However, if you do it right and just stick in there for some time, you will see visible change!
Let’s dissect the perfect recipe for social media marketing for businesses that can drive in more customers with minimal effort.
Here we go:
Step number one for any successful marketing strategy is to create content, of any form, that grabs attention. For instance, meme marketing is gaining popularity as people appreciate some laughter, and businesses can find ways to sell their services through viral content like this.
Of course, there are multiple ways to approach this, and being funny won’t be appropriate in all contexts. The underlying idea is to seek the attention of people who might be interested, however possible, and it should be accompanied by a slight reference to your business.
Remember, no one likes people who ‘hard-sell,’ social media users only yearn for good content.
Once you’ve captivated their minds, then you can expect some results.
Images, videos, infographics, survey findings (simple illustrations), and GIFs have shown great potential in this regard.
For instance, a customer may not know how hungry they are until they see an appetizing picture of your exclusive late-night snack deals, and guess who’ll they be calling for the same!
Just be relevant and memorable, this way you will direct organic traffic to your social media profiles and website – you will need advice from expert content creators to excel here.
Relevant content can help you find tons of loyal customers via social media networks as there are thousands of people in search of something at any given time, perhaps even more, but your focus should not expand beyond your niche audience.
The industry is teeming with business owners (or their representatives) like you, some good, others not so much. How will your customers know that you have what it takes? You’ll have to show domain authority here, prove that you know how your business niche works and that you’ve introduced ways to make things better.
Creating strong business profiles and an endless seam of content that presents the problems that clients usually have and your solutions to those problems will help potential customers decide in your favor. Also, having a company blog (and sharing it) will make all the difference.
While people may not always go for it, but if they see that you have one, they will automatically assume that you have something to offer, because detailed content usually reflects topical authority.
No one likes the cold, bone-dry tone of a business setup trying to make a profit – yes, profitability is your goal but why should your clients care about it? Instead, you’ll have to find your “voice.” Be unique, memorable, and relatable – this way, your social media activity will attract customers who admire your style.
Based on your business type and target audience, you’d be better off picking a recurrent pattern such as comedy, satire, a formal tone, a friendly one, sympathetic, and so on.
Be sure to imagine yourself in the shoes of your customers and see how they would feel about something before posting something related to it.
It may take a while, but it will be worth it.
Communication is the backbone of social platforms and your number one strategy at boosting conversion rates in all marketing campaigns.
Engaging content encourages likes, comments, and social shares. Avoid controversies unless your audience likes a comic laugh once in a while – but even then, be sure not to hurt someone’s sentiment because that can backfire very badly.
But you can use a viral theme, anything that will boost audience engagement and get some responses from your followers. Or you could simply finish the post with an engaging question. The idea here is to get as many responses as possible for your posts, and then you also have to be sure to respond to those comments.
Engagement is a two-way commitment, be sure to uphold your end of it.
Lastly, use the social networking platforms and social media campaigns to present yourself as a brand that cares:
There are a couple of more things you can do to maximize the results.
For instance, search engine optimization can help you boost your content's search engine ranking and thus become easier to search for.
Then there are tons of other tools and tricks that experts can help you with such as analytics, advertising, and so on.
With scores of people accessible at the touch of a button, who needs to spend hours and hours of cold-calling and throwing brochures all over town? Social media is the present and future of business marketing – it is convenient, simple, less demanding, and highly effective.
You are not constrained by geographical limits or language barriers.
The prospects of using social media platforms for boosting your outreach in the online realm are too promising to be overlooked.
More and more people have redirected their business marketing strategies to include social media in the mix and while this may make things a bit competitive, you can always excel through the quality of your services/products and a superior marketing strategy.
It is best to have expert service providers and social media examiners on board for maximum success, especially if you plan on using additional tools to boost your outreach, but most of all, it is important to just dive in and start!
