In this digitally advanced world, every business should maintain a strong social media presence to achieve success. Success is not measured in how many likes or shares, success is measured in how many leads or customers you gain from social media. If you are looking to create an impact on your target audience’s mind, and then convert them to leads and customers, then you have to have a strong marketing strategy in place. You need to post regular, interesting content. Let’s take a look at some of the ways that can help you get more business through social media.
Be Active on Different Platforms
Many businesses make the mistake of creating their presence on a single platform. However, in order to achieve maximum results, businesses need to be available on different social media networks. The platforms that are most used include Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google+, and Instagram. By being available on a few, if not most or all of these networks, you get a chance to interact with a dynamic target audience. Be aware that each platform has a unique demographic that uses it, and depending who your target audience is, you should choose the appropriate one.
Offer Value to the Users
When you are posting on social media, make sure that you are offering value to the audience. If majority of your posts are about your business, your services, your products, and just general self-promotion, then no one is going to like you (both figuratively and metaphorically). A greater part of your content should be about your customers. Instead of focusing on promoting your brand, try to focus on helping solve your customers’ problems (see how this article isn’t about testing or calibration services?). This is a great way to grab your target audience’s attention and keeping them hooked to your brand. Let’s say you run an electrical business, then you might want to create video tutorials on YouTube to help your customers fix small problems on their own (only ones that are legal of course), or maybe a ‘5 ways to save energy around your home’ article or white paper that you can share on Facebook.
Focus on Helping your Customers
Social media platforms are highly interactive. Therefore, customers want to be treated well and they want to be connected to the brands that they follow. So, when you have a presence on social media, it is important that you look out for your customers by answering to their queries and ensuring that they have a great experience with your business. This needs to be done promptly, politely and professionally. This is ultra super important. A slow, rude and misspelt reply will do your brand far more harm than good (tip: this doesn’t just apply to social media). Be interactive and stay connected to your customers to expand your business. Just by doing the basics, you’ll be head and shoulders above 98% of other companies.
Set up Contests and Promotions
The most attractive thing about social media is that it can help you gain lots of attention when executed well. The ability for things to be shared, liked and then seen by others is powerful. The right post, promotion, video or image can spread like wildfire. You can help this along, and bring more leads and customers in by setting up promotions and contests. For example, set up a contest to ask your followers to share a piece of content to ten people and get a chance to win a prize (must be something captivating). Because posts on social media can easily be shared, you get a chance to increase the visibility of your business.
Offer Free Giveaways to Customers
Who doesn’t like free stuff? A great way to gain attention from your target audience is to offer free things to them. Freebies will definitely prove to be popular not only amongst your current audience but also potential customers. It doesn’t have to cost a fortune to administer something like this – just some ingenuity and good social media strategy.
Social media should be a part of every business’s marketing strategy, but not just to ‘build the brand’. This means nothing and benefits you in no measurable way. What you really want is to gain leads and customers. In order to earn more business out of it, you need to make use of the best strategies to grab your audiences’ attention. Happy marketing!
