Social Media Marketing 101
Find Your Place in Social Media Marketing
As a business owner, it’s important to remember that your target market is most likely on at least one social media network. Therefore, it’s a good idea to put your business on some of these social network sites, as well. Find out what social media network(s) your demographic uses, and use them to promote your business; otherwise, you are not finding all the customers you can! In this blog, we will give you some helpful social media tips for business.
General Social Media Marketing Tips
- Always include media in your posts. Media can be images, GIFs, or videos. Quality content should be accompanied by quality media. On every platform, posts with media receive more engagement than those without. Be sure to use the right dimensions for your graphics!
- Utilize the free business tools associated with each platform to review your posts’ performances. This will help you to learn what does and doesn’t work for your social media marketing, helping you to release relatable content to your audience. The social platforms often have a way to create ads or to boost posts, in order to target specific audiences. Don’t be afraid to try these features out.
- Find the right time to post. It doesn’t matter how great your content is if no one ever sees it. Every social media network has different peak times for posting and every demographic has a different time for accessing these networks as well. Be sure to do your research to reach your audience effectively.
Social Media Tips for Different Industries
While it is important for businesses to follow general social media guidelines, everyone’s experience can be different. How an e-commerce business uses social media is vastly different from how lawyers use social media and it’s a good idea to know how to form your strategy around your industry. Here are a few examples:
B2B Industries
Due to the longer sales cycles of B2B companies, focusing on selling isn’t the best strategy for social media. Instead, use these channels to show off your company culture. Show your customers and partners who they are doing business with. Highlight employee anniversaries and accomplishments as well as company accomplishments and updates.
Law Firms
For lawyers, it’s easy to find yourself posting more commercial/cheesy things in the hopes of capturing more business. However, that’s not why people follow lawyers on social media. They are already inundated with commercials; what they need are resources. Be a resource for your audience by answering their questions and educating them. Show the lawyer or team of lawyers they would be working with and create a more personal experience.
Healthcare Industry
Companies or organizations in the healthcare industry typically use social media to inform the general public and to attract new patients. For example, a dentist would include posts about flossing tips or their new technology that makes cavities less painful. In some instances, it’s a good idea to create posts about special discounts on services or products. As we’ve seen with the COVID-19 pandemic, social media is a powerful channel for healthcare professionals to communicate with the people and remind them how to take care of themselves and stop the spread. Don’t forget, people want to see the heroes behind the scenes so don’t shy away from that camera!
Government Agencies
For government agencies, you have to communicate with and appeal to a larger audience. You need to educate your audience about the services you offer or any other pertinent information. For example, if you are a DMV office you can share checklist infographics to remind followers on what they need to bring on their next visit. Additionally, you can add a more “human” element and showcase the awesome workers and employees behind the scenes!
Non-Profits
The theme here is to educate and inspire action. Let your audience know what their contribution goes to and exactly who it benefits. Share personal stories or testimonials of those you’ve helped. Spread awareness of the problem through colorful and attention grabbing infographics. Be sure to make your main link on your profile a link to your donation page!
E-Commerce
Utilize social media sales channels. Facebook and Instagram now have ways to directly integrate your online store with your profiles. These platforms allow your customers to shop directly from your profile, creating less steps for the consumer and higher conversion rates for you! Content-wise, show off your products through informative videos and stories. Share reviews and special discounts for your followers to keep them coming back for more.
Social Media Platforms
X (Formerly Twitter)
- Done correctly, the use of X for business promotion can be highly effective. If you invest some hours into learning how Twitter operates, you can make your business visible to hundreds, and even thousands, of new prospective clientele. Remember to continuously check trending hashtags and effective keywords for use in your Twitter posts to generate traffic.
- Tweet regularly to retain your Twitter followers. Twitter moves quickly; you still want to make quality posts, but you need to also post often – some experts even recommend up to 15 times per day due to the fast nature of the platform. When your posts are short, you can make multiple updates from a single event. Find the balance that’s right for you.
- If you’re using Twitter as a social media marketing strategy, use tweets that have rich content, and are varied. You can also create tweets that include ‘how-to’ information about your products and reviews of similar products. You can keep people interested in your posts, by combining different types of tweets.
- Use curated lists. Curated lists can be a great way to collect similar tweets and display them on your website, in-store, and more. You can collect some of your best tweets to showcase your marketing, or perhaps a hashtag you create for a campaign to show user-added photos. The possibilities are endless.
- Engage with your followers, i.e. potential customers, as much as possible. If a customer posts about one of your products, your services, or your business, don’t be afraid to respond. This is essential to keeping the conversation going between you and your audience.
- Always respond to questions and comments posted on Facebook. Access each social platform at least twice every day, and review your inbox for new messages and notifications. If you want an email notification each time a post is left, there are options within the settings to organize this. Keep in mind that when responding to comments on public posts, your response will be visible to everyone, so avoid making silly gaffes.
- Your Facebook fans can get deals others cannot by following the information you post on your page. The key is to offer something exclusive that they won’t find on your main webpage such as coupons, but they can locate on your social feed. Other options are to host a contest on your Facebook page or make important announcements about your business. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the rules of Facebook, so that your promotions can run smoothly.
- Inform your customers that you are utilizing Facebook. If you want your social media marketing to be effective, you need followers. When someone joins your page, it will inform all of the connections that they are following your page. Don’t underestimate the power of this type of free advertising. Also, it provides a credible and reliable source, which is better than a simple promotion.
- The recommended posts on average for Facebook is no more than 1 post a day. Don’t stress over the quantity of content instead focus on the quality of what you’re putting out, and always remember to stay consistent. Posting too much or acting/speaking in a way that is not consistent with your brand can cause you to lose followers instead of gain them.
- Later posts tend to do better. Experts point to times between 3-4 P.M. as being the best for posting to Facebook. However, it’s important to weigh the type of content, your audience, your business, and even the day on which you are posting to find the best times for your business. Don’t be afraid to try different times for your posts. See what works best for your engagement levels and stick to it.
YouTube
- Your YouTube videos should be strongly linked to all your other online presences, not only your website. Make sure your channel and your individual videos link to Twitter and Facebook, too. Luring YouTubers to subscribe to your Twitter and Facebook accounts proves effective since they’re probably going to share your videos.
- Because YouTube and Google are so closely linked, posting videos on YouTube can help you get discovered on Google more often. This is particularly true for how-tos and DIY videos. Consider if this is something that would benefit your company.
- Instagram is a great way to show off your products and services. The platform is moving closer to ‘click to buy’ every day. You don’t even need a professional camera, just a smartphone, and nice lighting. Take photos in natural light or get some extra lamps with white bulbs to set up your photo shoot. Take cues from some of the more popular accounts on how to arrange your products or find the perfect composition.
- Always hashtag your images to help potential followers find you more easily. Instagram strongly relies on hashtags in their searches to help users find the content they wish to see. Do some research on popular hashtags online to help you get a little more exposure, but always make sure to keep it relevant to your brand and your products. *Instagram recently announced the ability to search the platform via keywords in addition to hashtags and accounts. Be mindful of your captions in order to boost your visibility!
- Don’t have a physical product? Instagram can also be a great way to show off your work environment. Take snapshots of the unique signs you have hanging up outside, your employees, or your latest get together. You can create a personality for your business through photos and tell a unique story that will show customers who you are.
- Post often to increase engagement. Instagram users are not phased by more content. Some studies show that overall engagement does not begin to drop until you get into upwards of 4-5 posts per day. Your engagement per post might drop, but overall your brand will be getting more engagement from your followers. A good stream of posts would be about 1-2 posts per day.
- Do update your story regularly. Instagram stories can be a great way to give people a behind the scenes look at what’s happening in your company. These should be updated 1- 2 times a day similar to your regular content. You can also use polls in your stories to engage your customers more actively. You can even share these on other social media platforms such as Facebook – work smarter!
- Many people make buying decisions directly on Pinterest. This is a great place to promote your products or services, especially with their new promoted pins! You can include a price, description, and link on your pins, giving your customers all the information they need to know to make their purchasing decision.
- Curate your boards to showcase your brand. Create boards and design covers with imagery that reflects your brand tone and is consistent across each board. This includes making your titles consistent as well. Get creative with this. Try to find the best content that’s relevant to your audience and your business.
- Drive more traffic to your site through blog pins. Create a board named with relevant keywords and pin your blogs to it, to help users find them more easily. This could also work for other sections of a site such as a recipe book or ‘how to’ section.
- Pinterest can help you keep up with trends in your business’ industry. Just as you’re pinning your new products and helpful information for you customers, so are other businesses. This will help you keep up with trends and see what your competitors are doing.
- Pinterest pins last longer than other social media posts. Pinterest finds the most relevant information for its users, so if you set up your pins correctly they will last much longer than a Twitter or Facebook post – which might only last a few hours or a couple of days.
- Share your content and others often. It is recommended you pin up to 11 pins per day and 80% of this should be shared from sources than your own blog. It’s also important to engage with the community and re-pin up to 5 pins a day that matches your brand tone.
Snapchat & TikTok
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Snapchat & TikTok allow you to capture your customer’s full attention in ways that few other platforms do. It covers your viewer’s entire screen, shutting out all other distractions for the viewer. If you can create great content that keeps viewers coming back, then you will have focused consumers ready to listen to all you have to say.
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Snapchat is a great tool for promoting events. Have a new product launching? Film the reveal. Planned a company event? Show people a real-time video of it unfolding. This gives your viewers a new way to see behind the scenes to who you are as a company.
- TikTok is a great tool for promoting products. After that launch event, post videos on TikTok of employees, customers, or even influencers using and enjoying your product.
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Geo-filters are a great way to get people posting about your events and products. You can create your own custom geo-filter for an event so that anyone who attends can take a fun Snapchat and do your social media marketing for you and giving you some free advertising.
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Share your account easily through all your other platforms. It can be a little hard initially to get found on Snapchat. Luckily, Snapchat has a great way of promoting your account through one easy QR code or snap code. You can post this to your other social media accounts or on your website so that people can simply scan your code and have you immediately added to their friends. In contrast, it is easy to be found on TikTok with hashtags. Simply, hop on a trend to promote your brand!
- Target a younger audience. Snapchat and TikTok are both great places to connect with Gen Zers if your product or service calls for this type of audience. Many younger people do not use other social media platforms regularly so this can be a useful tool for reaching them.
Social media marketing can be an excellent method of advertising your business. You can talk with your customers and find new ones, as well as show everybody what your business is about. The world is becoming increasingly more connected to each other through social media networks. Don’t miss this great opportunity to strengthen your relationship with current customers and grow your customer base.
By following some of these social media marketing ideas, you should be able to develop and deploy a marketing campaign that will help you to stay ahead of your competitors. Remember, however, that you must constantly update your marketing techniques to stay current. If you want some help handling your social media marketing check our social media management services page to find out more information or contact us today to get started!
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Check out our 2024 Social Media Content Calendar Template as featured on HubSpot! It’s free to download and is filled with important and fun holidays like International Coffee Day and more!
References:
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/when-how-often-you-should-post-on-each-social-network-infographic/524832/
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/does-posting-more-often-on-instagram-reduce-reach-report/525082/
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/snapchat-publishes-new-insights-into-generation-z-infographic/524940/
https://influencermarketinghub.com/tiktok-marketing-strategy-tips/