By Bunyemiya Sambo
We all know social media is a platform created for sharing ideas, thoughts, and also communication.
It's no surprise things are evolving, social media isn't just used for catching up with friends anymore or making new friends and all of that but it has gone beyond that.
Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms to connect with your audience to build your brand, increase sales, and drive website traffic. It involves publishing great content on your social media profiles, listening to and engaging with your followers, analysing your results, and running social media advertisements.
The major social media platforms (at the moment) are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Reddit.
Social Media is an excellent tool for Small Businesses to attract potential customers for free!
But you won't get results if you don't know how to use it properly.
Oftentimes you may think you have no place on social media because of the recognised brands out there and you are no match to fix into.
Right?
“I don’t think people will patronise and trust my/our brand’
Does this sound familiar to you?
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that you have established a steady customer base, or maybe not. But using social media to market your small business will help you grow your business on an entirely different level.
Failure to have an effective social media strategy can be a bad thing for your startup business.
Social media marketing first started with publishing. Businesses were sharing their content on social media to generate traffic to their websites and, hopefully, sales. But social media has matured far beyond being just a place to broadcast content.
Nowadays, businesses use social media in different ways. For example, a business that is concerned about what people are saying about its brand would monitor social media conversations and respond to relevant mentions (social media listening and engagement).
A business that wants to understand how it’s performing on social media would analyse its reach, engagement, and sales on social media with an analytics tool (social media analysis).
A business that wants to reach a specific set of audiences at scale would run highly-targeted social media ads (social media advertising).
As a whole, these are often also known as social media management.
In this article, I’ll be revealing how to make use of social media effectively to boost your business as a startup company.
Before that, be sure to hit me up if you need a content writer for your digital business. You can contact me here and I’ll get back to you as possible...
Having a documented strategy will help you get more results from your Social Media efforts.
Social media marketing requires both strategy and creativity. While it may seem overwhelming, its importance cannot be taken for granted. Plus, its benefits extend far beyond increasing sales.
However, not all businesses are aware of the benefits of social media marketing. About 50% of small businesses are not using social media to promote their business. That’s an alarming number. Even more concerning is that an additional 25% don’t plan to use social media in the future either.
There is a huge disconnect between those who are seeing the benefits of social media and those struggling to get started or not even enjoying the benefits of using social media.
If this sounds like your situation, keep reading.
You’re about to learn how social media marketing can help build your business. Some of the benefits you’ll learn about include:
Brand recognition: Social media marketing will make it easy to spread the word about your products and mission.
Increase in traffic: Using social media and linking it to your website will increase your traffic tremendously.
Promotion of products and services: This is ultimately why you invest in marketing, right?
Brand recognition
Gaining brand recognition is the ultimate goal of any business. This is because everyone wants to purchase a product or service from a brand that is well recognised. Thankfully, social media allows for easy and effective brand building.
Social media has a benefit over any tool out there because it can get your brand in front of people much more quickly and easily. Furthermore, it gets your audience looking at your brand even when they aren’t thinking about your brand or product.
How do I make that possible?
You should have a well-displayed logo. This is a great way to get your business recognised but you should take note of how you place it, you want to make sure that it's not overwhelming or distracting.
Take a look at the Uniclix Twitter page. UniClix keeps its Twitter profile neat and clean. They place their recognisable logo on their profile image and the cover photo is simple with no overwhelming design and without being overbearing.
1. Have a capturing Bio & Story behind your brand
One thing that people tend to forget when trying to use social media to boost their business is to have a capturing bio!
The fact is that people check your bio before following you on any social media platform. I tend to be among those people.
Checking accounts with a very nice bio is capturing that will eventually lead to scrolling through the profile which will lead to potential clients and customers and that’s the goal!
Tip: Make your bio fun, relatable, and straight to the point, you don’t have to complicate things because the things happening in the world are already complicated.
For example, you are a blogger, content writer, or even a clothing brand. As a content writer or blogger your bio should look like;
“Hello! My name is xxx, I am a content writer/blogger. I create exceptional blogs for b2b startup companies that would take them to the next level.”
You could add your emoji(s) if needed but don’t make it too cliche or even hashtags.
As a clothing brand on Instagram or Twitter, your bio should like;
“Classy Wears, we sell affordable outfits for classic men/women, we do not discriminate body size but we embrace them…”
Just make it creative because creativity is essential when it comes to growing on social media.
2. Tell the story behind your brand
Using social media is a great way to share your brand’s mission, motives, and share stories. A true and effective story can have a great impact on your brand’s image. They can be simple or extensive depending on what you think will be most effective. Do not come up with fake stories for sympathy.
Why you came up with your brand, how you can help should never be neglected in your story.
Tip: Share stories and feedback of people who use your product or service. It’ll spread the message that your product is effective enough for someone to give you positive feedback.
3. Create a conversation around your brand
A strong social media marketing strategy will generate conversations about your brand, products, and services.
You should always engage with your audience when they comment on your social media messages. Make sure they feel that there is a person behind the brand, by liking their comments, replying to their comments, and if a possible reply to their dm’s. Ensuring that they don’t feel important.
Focus on sharing content that naturally creates conversation. Some of those ways are to:
Give shout-outs to other companies your network and work with.
Post feedback about your products.
Ask open-ended questions, then let the audience reply to get them actively involved.
4. Connect with your audience
Showcase who your customers are.
“Your customer is the hero” of your story.
How is that possible? I should be the star, my product should be the hero!
Sorry to say but if that’s what you think, then you are not going anywhere.
Try to repost some of your customers’ content. Not only is it a good strategy for reaching a percentage of your content creation, but it also gives potential customers someone to identify with.
This simply means before you purchase a product you’d always check the feedback post from the brand you’re about to purchase from. So as a brand you should not sleep on showcasing your customers. It's as important as other strategies.
5. Build trust & loyalty
What could be better than building brand loyalty?
It's obvious If customers follow you, they are more likely to choose you versus your competition. Furthermore, if they’re loyal customers, they’ll increase your traffic.
Tip: Be sure to keep your loyal audience engaged and happy. Here are a few ideas:
Offer promo codes for discounts through social media to your followers.
Ask open-ended questions that allow your audience to reply.
Give away inexpensive things such as stickers, patches, shirts, sunglasses, lanyards, hats, and whatever that will make a long-lasting impression
Every customer expects companies to handle their request, inquiries, and all information through social media. As a social media marketer or brand, you should invest in customer service. A good investment can build meaningful relationships between you and your customers.
Dealing with social media, the challenge of customer service remains as demanding as it had before.
Social media allows for immediate interaction and customer feedback. Businesses can also respond to their customers right away, having a social media customer service strategy is extremely important.
Increase in Traffic
One major desire of every business be it a huge brand or a startup- is traffic. The use of social media, to showcase your products or services it's a good way of driving traffic to your product or blog.
Using social media marketing skills can assist in sending customers directly to your site.
It’s unlikely that all of your traffic will come through search engines. Social media channels allow for more diverse inbound traffic streams.
Though social networks are great for getting traffic to your site, you need to consider not only what you post but how to post it. It’s good to follow a set schedule for posting your content.
This is where your content strategy kicks in, you don't have to be the overbearing marker posting without a strategy. Well, that is why I am here to assist you with a few tips on how to go about it.
1. Content strategy
B2B marketers often have big goals and most often go about things the wrong way or the not most effective way. Feeding the content marketing machine is one of the most time-consuming parts of the work you do. So when you finally produce that shiny new asset, why publish it once and call it done? Use your resources wisely by turning one larger piece of content into lots of little content posts. Here’s how it works:
Step 1: Start with a single valuable piece of content, like an informative blog post, a detailed infographic, or a YouTube video packed with great tips.
Step 2: Break that single piece of content down into multiples. For example, if your piece of pillar content is a 3000 words blog post containing valuable tips, repurpose the blog content to multiple carousels or paragraphs or full-length video, pull several value-rich clips (30 – 45 seconds long) to post across social channels.
Step 3: Post the little content on social media and drive traffic to the pillar content. These snippets should be informative and useful enough to stand alone but can also redirect traffic to the main post, video, etc.
Not everything needs to spring from your pillar content, of course. But having solid pillar content helps the rest of your content feel cohesive.
2. Ads
Social media platforms are mostly free to create social media profiles and post organic content. For some, that may be enough, and the quality of the content may promote the content on its own. Although, if you’d prefer to go the extra mile and promote it further, paying for promotion will help increase traffic.
You can promote your business on Facebook for any budget. Facebook also automatically directs your ad toward users that are interested in what you’re advertising. Twitter works the same way, likewise Instagram.
You have to set up a campaign, and they’ll work with your budget (amazing, right!). That means you’ll have a huge ROI (return of investment) and you’ll effectively use your marketing budge.
B2B buyers take their time researching and consulting before making any decision. As a result, it is unlikely that any of them will see an ad and make an impulse purchase.
Instead of using social networks to stimulate direct sales, B2Bs should take advantage of them to share valuable content and position themselves as experts in the field.
Of course, I’m not suggesting you should drop all advertising activities. But if you carry them, make sure all your ads are well-optimized and addressed to the right target audience. Social media ads are always tricky, but targeting them on B2B leads is even more challenging.
Tip: Don’t write organic content that sounds like an ad. It’ll make your posts look like spam. If it sounds like an ad or includes a transactional call to action (ex: Buy Now, 30% Off, Use This Coupon Code), you should pay for it.
A lot of marketers look at social media as a way to post free advertising, and social media platforms have caught on to that idea and are restricting the reach for unpaid-for ads. By all means, if you want to advertise on social media, you should. But make sure you pay for it so it looks professional and you get a good reach.
3. Engagements
What you really should care about is how much you connect to your audience and also how much your traffic drives conversions.
Here are four great ways to drive conversions with social media:
Add calls to action (CTA): A call to action is helpful because it motivates your customer to do something. They feel empowered to purchase your product or services. You can also design your social media messages to appeal to the customer so they’ll want to take a specific action, such as purchasing your product/services.
Put in mind that throughout the entire process from call to action to the final sale must be engaging enough so that the customer doesn’t back out.
Contests: Contests, giveaways, free stuff!!. They’re all things that most businesses really want to do, but they’re extremely helpful in engaging with your audience and also building your force. Anyone would be more compelled to purchase a product from a company from which they’ve already received some free stuff and also a company that engages with their audience, not only is it a win for them but also a huge win for your brand.
A lot of businesses will post images encouraging people to spread their content to get the word out.
For instance, to be eligible for the bonus, you have to follow these three steps which include reposting the image, tagging friends, and following the original poster. All these steps will get the people who are following and even not following your page initially your business to visit your site.
Ads: Let’s be honest, things have changed and with the pandemic, social media marketing has taken things to the next level. So you need to optimize and utilize any tool to bring your product/services right in front of your targeted audience. Yes! Social media is mostly used to make connections, communicate with friends, or follow their interests, and organic content that leads to ads is distasteful.
So the challenge is to grab people’s attention and make them want to purchase your product or service without leaving a bad impression on them.
These ads can be purchased easily and where and many reaches are placed anywhere on social media and can direct the customer or viewer to your site. Now the tricky thing is to make sure that your site keeps the customer engaged enough to want to continue to purchase the product or services you provide.
The beauty of social media is that it lets you directly place ads, so the audience doesn’t feel tricked. Facebook and Twitter allow your business to post ads directly on your target market’s timeline. Those ads will lead them directly to your page and drive those conversions right up!
Tip: Create a mix of the examples above, and don’t rely on just one. A good mix will drive conversions, and your customers won’t get overwhelmed. But don’t post one of each a day. Space them out. Schedule them out ahead of time.
Building landing pages: creating landing pages to which you direct that traffic will also help you increase conversions from social media engagements.
The landing page is a standalone web page, created specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign. It’s where a visitor “lands” after they click on a link in an email, or ads from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or similar places on the web.
Landing pages are similar to blog posts except they have a call to action in them.
Promotion of Product and Services
Being creative is an effective tool to promote your product/services without it having to seem like an advert. Telling a story through the promotional image or video will allow the audience to build their perception of the product.
Learn to challenge yourself to master the art of telling stories that relate to the product or service. These stories will help your customer relate to you. You want to put yourself in the perspective of your audience. You may want to get your ideas out from (both content and promotion) and then touch them up later.
1. Feature your team in your video content
Speaking of videos, put your team in front of the camera. Whether it’s for information, entertainment, or infotainment (a fun combo), people trust people. So, don’t be a faceless brand. Draw back the curtain a little bit and show the people that make up your business.
By doing so, you can personalise your brand and create some valuable content at the same time. It also lends staff a sense of ownership and authority to be the face and voice of the brand.
2. Humanise your brand
One easy way to humanise your brand is to share real stories about the history of your company, which can include all of the hardships, failures, and lessons you’ve learned over the years. Post a #throwbackthursday pic of your humble beginnings. Share a behind-the-scenes video.
3. Easy A/B Testing To Get The Biggest Results
A/B testing is when you present a different version of the same website, products, or samples to different people.
But how can you use this concept on social media?
Instead of trying different websites, try similar posts, and track the reach and conversion results of each post. This will help you narrow down your most effective social media posts.
Did you like this post? Share and comment below in the comment section on your thoughts on social media marketing.
Can’t wait to learn from your thoughts...