Are you using social media to promote your business? If not you’re losing out on your brand reaching millions of potential customers. Most of your customers are using social media platforms on a daily basis. If you get your brand “seen” on social media you’re likely to become recognised within the marketplace. Of course, as with all forms of marketing there are advantages and disadvantages. By maintaining a professional approach when communicating on social media the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.
Most businesses carry out much of the day to day running and marketing tasks online. If marketing is a new concept to you there are experts on hand to give support and advice. You could use an online marketing Agency to take care of your marketing tasks, including social marketing and SEO.
The remainder of this article aims to highlight ways of making social media work for your business.
What is social media marketing?
Marketing tasks on social media involve creating and sharing information about your brand across social media platforms. You will be involved in creating text, images and videos to promote a positive view of your brand. Although effective, social media marketing is time consuming – if you haven’t got the time or the inclination it may be worth hiring the expertise of a social media marketing expert. You need t respond to requests, queries and issues quickly on social media whilst maintaining a professional approach, otherwise a negative view of your brand could be created.
Create a plan
Even if you are familiar with social media, it’s still important to create a plan. Highlight your goals and identify what you’re hoping to achieve. You need to consider which social media platforms your target market is likely to be found. Does your brand have a particular niche? – for example if you sell gardening equipment you could consider joining facebook pages or instagram pods related to gardening. With Instagram and Twitter discover which #tags you should be including in your post.
Each social media platform suits different types of businesses. The following tips will help you work out the best way to utilise the platforms.
Facebook is a relaxed platform, where the tone is light and chatty. Start by creating a business page on facebook and start to communicate with followers. Encouraging your followers to share your brand posts will enable more people to be reached. You could consider investing in boosting posts in order to become visual.
Instagram is an excellent platform for promoting your business, especially if you produce something that is visually appealing. Invest in some great photography training or hire a photographer and don’t forget to #tag!
Twitter is an excellent tool for nurturing dialogue with potential customers. You will increase your followers relatively quickly, but it is important to stay active on Twitter. Be polite, follow up queries and thank people for retweeting and commenting on your tweets.
There are many more social platforms to take advantage of; pinterest is one of the fastest growing platforms. Other platforms include youtube, google+, linkedin and reddit. Whichever you choose, do it now otherwise you are missing out on many potential sales!
