By Kimberley State, PR & Social Media Executive
Social media isn’t just a trend, it’s a necessity for businesses aiming to thrive in the digital landscape.
Ever wondered where people look for product or business information? More often than not, it’s social media that shapes their perceptions and influences their decisions. In this online era, your digital footprint matters, and social media will boost your SEO and Google rankings too.
Let’s explore how to strategically navigate social platforms to boost visibility and propel business growth.
Here are some tips for social media marketing to help you establish your online presence, increase awareness and ultimately grow your business.
Plan: When you create your social media profile, think about which platforms are best for your audience, brand or industry. How many you can realistically maintain and where is your audience? We always say it’s better to stick with one or two if that’s all you can manage then to attempt them all.
Believe it or not, Facebook is still the number one social media platform with a larger demographic range and userbase.
But there is of course an abundance of other platforms. If your business can produce plenty of imagery and video content, then an Instagram profile could work wonders.
LinkedIn is another – a professional, business and employment-focused space much like in-person networking, but online and 24/7! Whilst LinkedIn business pages work well, it’s always the personal profiles that get the most engagement.
People buy from people after all, so encourage your colleagues to share insights and tips on their profiles about their work, career etc. This can have way more power than traditional marketing-type posts.
Promote: Shout about your services, products, your team, your achievements, mark milestones and celebrate your company values – this will all contribute to your online reputation, building awareness and giving your potential clients a feel for what you can offer them.
Promote your business and attract the right audience, encouraging them to follow your social media, to engage with your brand and become a part of the community you are building.
Engage: Welcome your followers and interact with them, a social media profile is exactly that, ‘social’.
The best profiles engage with their followers and have a personality. Interacting with your page will encourage engagement from your customers, industry experts, affiliates, local businesses or even friends and family. Building relationships within your professional and business social media profiles will create a community and grow your audience.
Use your platforms to leverage partnerships and reach your ideal clients. You never know who is lurking on your profile so let’s make sure they like what they see.
Visual: There is content everywhere, but it can be hard to capture it when you have your head down in the day-to-day business operations.
Get in the habit and set reminders to take pictures, videos and share behind the scenes snapshots of what goes on.
If you are creating the content yourself there are plenty of stock images online, image editor and simple design tools that can help you achieve the content you desire. Some notable ones are Canva, PicMonkey, Pexels, Pixabay – these all offer free or paid for service levels.
Reporting: There are analytics readily available on all the social media platforms which will give you an idea of what’s working and what isn’t, so you know what to do more of.
If you are struggling to stay on top of your content, consider using a social media management tool e.g. Meta Business Suite, LinkedIn’s own scheduler or a third party provider e.g. Buffer or Hootsuite to help you get the number of posts up and increase engagement.
A bit of analysis on keywords, hashtags or timing of posts can help with getting your content in front of the right audience at the right time. Social Media Management incorporates a variety of skills including copywriting, design, customer service, project management etc, and it can be overwhelming.
We would always advise doing something to the best of your ability with what you have available to you, and if you need any help, then consider some social media training or outsourcing this task to a trusted PR or Marketing Consultancy, Virtual Assistant or freelancer.
For more information or training on social media or how our range of services can help you showcase what you do best, get in touch – we’d love to help.
