If you are still using social networks for private purposes only, you are making a big mistake. Nearly half of the world’s population – 3.8 billion people, to be exact – now uses social media, which makes the likes of Facebook and Instagram a perfect marketing tool for modern businesses.
Social platforms can help you to raise brand awareness, build relationships with the target audience, generate leads, improve customer service, and drive more conversions eventually. But to make the most of social media marketing, you need to take advantage of the best tactics. In this post, we will analyze the top 10 tips to use social media for businesses.
- Choose the most appropriate networks
The fact that you can use dozens of social networks simultaneously doesn’t mean you should waste your energy on each one of them. On the contrary, choose the most appropriate platforms only and make them work to your advantage.
After all, do you really want to spend hours creating Twitter content if your audience is spending the majority of its time on Facebook and Instagram? Think about it before going live – it will help you save a lot of time and energy.
- Keep it consistent
Some entrepreneurs believe that social media marketing is not one of their most important priorities, so they tend to neglect it and post content inconsistently. Such behavior can only hurt your reputation and fend off the brand followers.
For this reason, it is necessary to keep your efforts consistent and publish fresh posts regularly. This basically means you should create new social media posts every day to help prospects remember you and gradually turn them into loyal fans.
- Design a versatile content strategy
Social media users hate monotony, which is why you should design a versatile content strategy. It should rely on many different elements because it’s the only way to keep your followers entertained and interested long-term.
What can you post on social platforms? There are all sorts of content to consider here – simple textual posts, images, videos, memes, infographics, animations, GIFs, tables, charts, audio podcasts, templates, quotes, and many more.
- Go live
Live videos are yet another element you should add to the content creation strategy, but we decided to spend an entire paragraph discussing it. Live streaming has become a quintessential social media marketing tool. According to the report, more than 80% of users would rather watch live video from a brand than read a blog post.
In such circumstances, the only logical conclusion is that you should go live every once in a while to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. It’s a great tactic to raise awareness and make the fans engaged by inviting them to post questions in the comments while the video is still on.
- Partner with influencers
Influencers have turned into a powerful social media weapon in the last few years, so there is no reason to neglect them while promoting your business. Finding an ideal influencer is not easy because you need to identify a person who suits your branding strategy, but the general rule of thumb is to choose between two types:
- Micro-influencers: They usually have no more than 30 thousand social media followers, but they can almost guarantee a lot of engagement.
- Macro-influencers: They don’t drive engagement as successfully as their micro peers, but they can definitely give you exposure to millions of users.
- Engage and interact with the followers
Tip number six may as well be the essence of social media marketing. Built primarily as communication tools, social networks must be used as a means of engagement and interaction.
The same logic applies to individual users and business pages, so make sure to initiate conversations with your fans as frequently as possible. Do it by asking questions, replying to comments, publishing intriguing posts, organizing contests, and so on.
- Join relevant communities
Another thing you should remember is that social platforms are packed with interesting online communities. You can find a lot of likeminded people in these groups, so do your best to research and join relevant communities.
Such groups can help you strengthen the professional authority and make you a key opinion leader in your niche. Besides that, this is where you can meet popular industry figures, discover superb learning sources, and build a network of professional connections.
- Follow trends
Although you want to build a unique brand, sometimes it is necessary to follow the latest trends as well. For example, a simple tool such as Google Trends can help you to stay up to date with the hottest topics in your field of work. You can take advantage of it by creating content that you know will provoke the audience and inspire a lot of engagement.
- Exploit social advertising
The majority of your social media efforts should be focused on organic brand building, but sometimes you can promote important posts through social advertising. This is a very useful feature because it enables you to target users extremely accurately. For instance, Facebook Ads allow you to target three groups of audiences:
- Core audiences based on demographic features
- Custom audiences based on previous interactions with your business
- Lookalike audiences based on similarities with the existing customers
- Measure and analyze your results
The last tip on our list is very important, but somehow it gets neglected by way too many social media marketers. Namely, the only way to improve your strategy is through measurement and analysis.
It’s a simple process, but it can do miracles for your business because you can identify shortcomings and eliminate features that proved to underperform. On the other side, you can give an additional boost to the content that generates high-quality responses and attract even more social media fans in the long run.
Up to You!
Now that you know how social media marketing should be done, it is up to you to make the most of it and give your business a brand new boost. Keep our tips in mind, but feel free to share other suggestions in the comments – our readers would love to see it!
About the author: Leon Collier is a digital marketer and a blogger at the essay writing service. Leon is an expert in social media marketing, but he is also a passionate explorer of emailing platforms and display advertising strategies. When not writing, you can find him behind a pile of books, he loves to delve in.
