Social media is a collective term for websites and applications that focus on communication, community-based interaction and content-sharing. Social media is used to stay in touch and interact with friends and family, as well as community groups. Most people remember when social media was just a tool that kept the younger members of society busy while the rest of the world focused on building businesses through traditional marketing. But fast forwarding to the present day, we can see the massive changes in the digital world and the inevitable adoption of social media as a means of networking, communication and effective marketing by adults and businesses across various industries.
We have listed a few tips below to assist you in meeting your social media marketing goals. Many large businesses pour thousands and even millions into social media advertising. But for a small, budding business, these tips can help steer your business towards achieving a notable social media presence without the necessity of spending significant sums.
1. Talk to your audience
A very simple definition for the word ‘social’ could be the word ‘interaction’. Social interaction plays an important role in the building of communities. Being social connects your business to different people across various demographics and can be very useful when it comes to marketing your business to them. Social media is not just about posting quotes, memes and videos while hoping to go viral. It’s more about engaging with your audience, listening to their demands, and addressing their pain points. Your audience/customers like to be heard; and they will remain loyal when their grievances are addressed.
2. Check what’s trending
With the right amount of creativity, even you can set trends on social media! The trick is to understand what your audience responds to. People like to feel included and as such, the social media community thrives on online trends. Setting trends or taking part in trends may put your business in the public eye much quicker than it would take you to post regular, unique posts. Trends provide variety and online audiences are constantly looking for the uniqueness in everyone else’s participation. You can also gain new audiences while taking part in trends.
3. Be consistent
Consistency is key to achieving any form of success in anything applied in our daily lives. Social media is governed by algorithms** that determine the popularity of your social media content. As such, consistent posting is one of the few things that social media algorithms favour. Posting consistently will improve how often your content appears on people’s timelines or newsfeeds, potentially growing your audience.
The best of both worlds
Running a business on social media by way of marketing or even buying and selling has proved to be one of the easiest and most cost effective ways, having a wide audience reach. Social media helps brands to connect with their customers and share expertise. Social media gives you an opportunity to talk about what you know and what you want to be known for. It is however important to incorporate traditional media in your marketing campaigns as well as creating a company website where you can conduct your business in the event that a social media blackout were to happen again.
4. Find your tools
There are many free social media tools that you can use to communicate with your audience. Fortunately, in our present day, technology has made it possible for so many online and offline tools to be created. These tools are made to help you create, schedule and post on multiple platforms, gauging performance effectively through reports and analytics.
5. Identify which platforms your audience uses more
Unless your business is popular across all platforms, it is not mandatory that you operate or run a profile on every social media platform. The best thing to do is identify which platform(s) your audience is most active on, and drive your marketing resources into that one. You are then guaranteed tangible results as well as a loyal customer base.
6. Collaborate with businesses in your niche
Working with others in your niche helps you explore new perspectives and insights into your industry, to better serve your customers. Social media is a never-ending class with no graduation! As a result, businesses are constantly trying and testing different platforms to see which features, trends and tricks work best to market their products and services to their audience. Collaborating allows you to pour into a new audience and attract prospects, for mutual benefit with your fellow collaborator.
7. Audit regularly
The trends, events, settings and features on social media morph regularly, and the only way to survive is to stay abreast with its changes. Monitoring the performance of your online activity helps you gauge, recreate and reposition your social media strategy. That way, your resources will not be applied in vain. When carried out properly and patiently, social media can be the right place to grow your business. Audits and analytics will also help you understand your audience in a better way and respond to them more efficiently.