Social Media Strategy Tips for Business
Social media is everywhere, and is one of the most useful advertising tools available to small businesses. Not only is it free to use the most popular social media sites on the web, they give you a unique opportunity to reach your customers or audience in a way that’s familiar and comfortable to them. By watching the trending topics and knowing what your audience is excited about, you can draw them in based on interest and need without overwhelming or boring them with sales ads. But how do you utilize social media for business? Discover social media strategy tips for any business with tips from the team at Signal, and take advantage of what these platforms have to offer.
Create a Social Media Marketing Plan
Like any other aspect of the business world, it’s important to create a foolproof plan of action for your social media marketing program. You need to ask yourself how much time and money you want to dedicate to your social media marketing, what kind of audience are you trying to reach, and how you’ll execute your plan to its fullest potential. This includes planning out your content, considering the timing of your posts, and assembling a list of topics you want to cover. By having a plan of action ahead of time you’ll know exactly the type of message you want to share with your customers and the path to getting that message published.
Research
Is there any type of business move where research isn’t vital? Social media marketing is no different! It’s important to constantly research your audience, stay up-to-date on current trends, and know what your competition is doing to draw customers to their accounts.
Action Items
- Follow notable Industry Accounts, especially those with a large following
- Pay attention to the types of content those accounts are sharing
- Note who is responding to and commenting on these posts — this is your audience!
- Make a list of popular hashtags being used by competitors and customers, and follow them to be a part of the conversation!
- Write down anything you don’t understand so you can Google it later for more insight!
By following trends in the marketing world, you can secure yourself a place in the social media buzz of your industry.
Content
The content of your social media posts, ads, or tweets are what will make or break your social media presence. You want to be pleasant without being boring, modern without being too technical, and you must be able to get your message across without needing a full page to do so. Readers want to be interested within the first few words, and in today’s busy world people have no time or patience for long-winded speeches.
This goes for any URLs you post as well. By shortening any URLs within your content, you are not only showing your customers that you respect their precious time, but you also demonstrate that you do in fact know how to fully utilize social media.
Your posts and/or ads need to be interesting, to the point, and eye-catching. By using search engine operation, trending topics, and your unique business voice you can reach literally millions with a simple tweet or post. The longer you can hold your audience’s attention, the more likely they are to not only engage with your marketing, but to share it and make it even more popular.
Create Content Ahead of Time
A useful tool for ruling the social media marketing world is to create content ahead of time and schedule posts out across a pre-planned timeline. By doing so you ensure that your social media accounts always have new content, and any important announcements you need to make are scheduled and won’t be missed. Keeping your accounts fresh and updated with new content is vital to the success of your social media marketing. Letting an account go stale can cause the loss of followers, clients, and customers.
Know When to Use Videos
Statistics show that videos and pictures are popular among followers and clients, and engages people in a way that mere words can’t. Visual imagery is a great way to reach your audience, and can allow you to reach them on a more personal level. It’s only been a few years that our mobile devices could stream video at lightning fast speeds, so audiences are eager to absorb this new, readily-available medium. Use video to communicate more in-depth messages and show some behind-the-scenes glimpses into your business process.
Engagement
Engaging your audience is perhaps the most important step of marketing within social media. It’s not enough to simply post to your social media account and hope it gets attention. You need to follow up and reply to any comments left on the post. Make sure to reach out and comment on the posts of your peers in the industry too. This shows the audience that you’re present and engaged, just like they are. Social media is supposed to be social — so engage people in comments and conversation along the way.
Stay in the Game
With these steps in mind, it’s important to remember one last thing about your social media marketing: keep it passionate and never lose sight of your goal! Whether you’re trying to increase your customer base or reach more people with your message, it’s extremely important that you stay true to your original message.
Signal Interactive boasts a team of talented Social Media Specialists that understand the ins and outs of research, engagement, and appealing content. We are recognized as a top Digital Marketing Company on DesignRush.
Let us help you dominate the top spots in your industry!
Call us today at 614.360.3938.
