Social Media has firmly established itself as one of the key marketing channels due to its ability to reach huge, targeted audiences whilst often offering a healthy return on investment.
Social media marketing is therefore one of the best ways to promote virtually any type of business. One thing to remember, especially for small business owners, is the importance of choosing the right social media platform. In this post, we’ve got some great tips to get you off the ground.
Choose the right channel
The key to finding the right channel for your social media strategy is to perform some research and find out which social media platforms are popular among your audience. For example, an independent cupcake business may find Instagram more suitable than Google+ due to the former’s focus on imagery. An accountant, on the other hand, may discover that LinkedIn is more popular among her target audience than Vine or Snapchat.
It is also worth remembering that younger people will usually have allegiances to social media platforms that differ from older generations. Your choice of platform will also depend on the type of content you want to share; if your budget doesn’t stretch to video production then YouTube is probably not the best option. At the same time, if you’re a wedding photographer, an image sharing network like Instagram could be the perfect choice.
Learn
It’s easy to make mistakes when using social media as a marketing platform and such mistakes can hit both your reputation and your pocket. This is why you should familiarise yourself with the platforms you are going to be using. Happily, there are plenty of great resources available online, such as onlinesocialmedia.net or https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-social-media
If devising and implementing a social media marketing strategy yourself is simply too big a task, we recommend employing the services of a dedicated social media company or an experienced freelancer to manage your social media campaigns.
Get the right tools
As you learn more about social media, you’ll quickly discover that there are many tools out there which can help you get the job done quickly and effectively. Some of the tools can be costly, but many offer free trials, so give them a go before you decide to part with your money.
Prepare your strategy
Remember - prior planning prevents poor performance. You’ll need to set goals and KPIs for your social media campaigns so that you have something to work towards. It’s important to bear in mind that, on this occasion, you’re using Facebook and Twitter in order to grow your business and not as a hobby, therefore a different mindset is required to make it an effective endeavour.
Your strategy should include smart goals, how will you measure them and a preset budget. Consider what do you want to gain, the exact audience you want to target and how you will engage with them. For example, will you actively engage with conversations relating to your chosen field? How about prompting customers to leave reviews on your Facebook page following a successful purchase?
Many social media platforms will also need accompanying content, so put in place an editorial calendar and start blogging. The posts you write will provide great sources of inspiration for social shares by both you and your followers.
Work to numbers. Set a defined number of social media posts to achieve each week and stick to it. Better still, beat it.
Get to work
Once you have defined your goals, done your research (and therefore know which audience you will be targeting) you can get to work.
If you’re running a new business, the addition of a social media marketing strategy, as crucial as it may be, can unfortunately present more opportunities for you to overwork yourself. Thankfully, there are plenty of tips out there for avoiding burnout if you’re an enterprising entrepreneur.
Similarly, notifications can be overwhelming - especially if you are using a number of social media platforms and manage it all by yourself. Delegate or share the responsibility with the members of your team to make sure you stay on top of your social media campaigns.
