Social Media is a critical component for any business. When you effectively and consistently use social media to promote your product(s) and/or service(s), you are creating a powerful window into your world for viewers, as well as both new and existing customers, to see how on-the-ball you are. It's your chance to impress anyone looking for what you offer at any time. Yet many businesses fail to seize this powerful opportunity to shine by not taking their company/brand's social media seriously enough. Follow these social media tips and you'll be on the road to success in no time!
Content is, and will always be King
You have to be in it to win it! Great content has always been the key to social media success, it allows you to build brand awareness, promote your services, and find your audience. By posting diverse, high-quality content you will be sure to capture the correct audience while increasing your company/brand's visibility. Make sure your content benefits your customers. What’s in it for them? Understand what they care about and deliver content that is relevant and useful.
Check out Facebook Ads, they are HIGHLY targeted
Facebook’s Ad Manager enables you to target your audiences based on specific criteria, including Life Events. When people let their friends know about a new change in their life by adding it to their timeline, it allows you to display your ads to these people directly based on that Life Event. For example, if someone posts on their profile that they have purchased a “New Vehicle,” you can serve up ads for automobile insurance. You can also target people based on interests, recent behaviors (such as entering retirement or recently engaged), income, relationship status, education, and so on. Otherwise known in the trade as demographics and psychographics, these aspects and characteristics help you to better reach consumers who are most inclined to buy, need or want your product(s) and/or service(s).
Maintain proper channel management
Once or twice a day is a good rule of thumb for posting on the "Trinity" - Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Less than that, two to five times a week might be good – once a week if your audience is strictly B2B. Instagram works best when are consistent with your frequency – the number of posts per day is less important.
Be human
Related to the previous tip on engaging in conversations, consider posting real time photos of your team. It shows your brand as human and approachable. This can include images of your team while working or during “bring your pet to work day,” birthday celebrations, and so on.
Be conversational
Again, related to the previous post, you should adopt a “voice” that is friendly, authentic and conversational. Don’t “hard-sell” or strong-arm your audience. Use the power of the visual to your advantage and be genuine; tell viewers what the facts are without being aggressive.
Use hashtags
Target your audience with creative use of hashtags – whether B2C or B2B. It also helps you start a conversation, and allows you to track a promotion’s success across multiple platforms.
Create infographics
Infographics are visual representations of complex information, data or knowledge presented in a clear and quickly-grasped way. Infographics are shared far more often than other content.
Be consistent
Ensure you have brand consistency across all platforms. This seems like a no-brainer, but many marketers are using different header images, logos and colors for each social media network. This has always been a big no-no, be consistent.
Stay abreast of Facebook changes
Just when you think you have your business’ Facebook Page running like a well-oiled machine, Facebook will change the rules. So stay on top of those changes by regularly.
Plan ahead
Take time to understand where your audience spends their time – for example, Snapchat is now a leading platform among teens. Create your voice or "persona" and begin building out your content calendar and gallery – including images, videos and infographics. Decide who creates content, who posts it, who engages with the audience and so on. Don’t "assume" someone on your team will take care of things, you have to delegate and designate!
Effective marketing requires a consistent awareness of upcoming trends and emerging channels. Even if you feel confident in your business's current techniques and strategies, you should keep an eye on what’s coming next so you can stay competitive and ahead of the rest. To keep your small business successful, here are five marketing tips to help you.
1. Blog With Expertise
If you’ve been in the marketing industry the past few years, you know that blogging is a trend that virtually every business has adopted. Blogging is a great way to utilize search engine optimization practices and get your small business noticed. Unfortunately, many businesses focus on frequency and forget the importance of quality.
By optimizing your website for search engines with quality blog posts, your business will appear at the top of search results for topics related to the product(s) and/or service(s) you offer. This will lead to more visitors to your website, increase your leads, and help your organization grow.
You can post a blog with keywords every week, but unless the content is valuable, you will lose the interest of your readers. The effectiveness of your blogging is going to be based on exciting and informative content. Accomplishing this might mean hiring an expert in your industry or scheduling your own time to draft a quality post each month.
2. Mobile Takeover
Everyone has already witnessed the impact of mobile technology on marketing strategies. The last few years have been focused on mobile browsing and utilizing social media platforms that are only available on mobile devices. In 2017, think about marketing options like text message marketing; 95% of Americans now own a mobile device and 98% of text messages are opened.
If you have not yet developed a mobile marketing strategy, you'll want to invest the time to do so in 2017. There are a number of SMS marketing services online that provide software that will allow you to create lists, draft messages and send them to your customers.
3. Personalized Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing has become a crucial aspect of marketing effectiveness in the past few years. Small businesses can’t afford to become complacent with their social media. Pay attention to personalized marketing techniques; tracking consumer behaviors and targeting them based on their interests is becoming an essential tool of marketing.
Personalized marketing techniques can be as simple as using your customer's name in the bulk email messages you send out or as complex as targeting individuals that work at a specific company you'd like to sell your services to with Facebook or LinkedIn ads. Social media sites like Facebook have improved their advertising platforms to let you be very specific to the audiences ads are shown to. With this information, you can create specific ads that target groups that can provide a strong ROI for your effort.
4. Visual Strategies
Live-streaming has taken the social media world by storm. Live feeds and videos have become the new normal for communicating your message. Facebook reported last year that 100 million hours per day of video are watched on their site. Engage your audience with live-streaming at events or conferences that highlight you and your product offering. It's a quick and effective way to connect with customers and build your brand.
Visual marketing effectiveness will also rely on engaging graphics. While graphic design has always been important, it will need more attention this year. Viewer engagement durations are shorter and social feeds are getting more crowded. Stand out with powerful graphic content.
5. Email Marketing
Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of email marketing. Too many businesses see it as an irrelevant aspect of marketing as social media has expanded. The truth is, email marketing is still beneficial to the growth of a small business. In fact, 91% of U.S. adults reportedly like to receive promotional emails from companies they've done business with in the past. Your email marketing strategy in 2017 should be focused on helpful content including industry news, guides and links to your expert blog content. Don’t run customers off with an email about sales every few days. Make your email content engaging, informative and interesting by containing insights that you personally would like to know and receive about your product offering. If you wouldn't want to read the email you're sending to your customers, don't send it.
Marketing is constantly evolving. This year we can expect marketing strategies to be detail-oriented and mobile-focused. Consumers are not paying attention to fluffy content or staying engaged through traditional avenues alone.
