Unless you are in a business niche that has highly regulated advertising policies, your business needs a social media presence. Why? Sales have moved online, and close to 70% of small businesses use social media as a marketing channel.
Why would you want to grow your social media presence?
Any business that neglects its social media presence is comparable to that lone person that uses his flip phone for business. They are a dying breed and will soon go the way of the dinosaurs. Resistance to change is very dangerous for companies that have longevity as one of their business goals.
A social media presence can place your business at par with that of your competitors, big and small alike. These channels open up a huge market of 2.65 billion people worldwide. There are many benefits of a robust social media presence. These include;
Increased web traffic
According to data mined by Sprout Social, over 1.62 billion people worldwide visit Facebook every single day. At least 74% of Americans use this social media platform to keep in contact with friends and family. Close to 74% of Facebook’s visitors are also high-income earners, compared to LinkedIn’s 49%. YouTube, on the other hand, has access to a massive 83% of high-income users.
These statistics clearly display the high potential that social media platforms have for your business. If you create a new blog or website, you will find it easier to advertise your presence on social media platforms.
Through your social media page, you can grow your following and direct it to your website. Social media will help you to target your customers, helping your business to build beneficial online relationships.
Increase of brand awareness
Data by Hootsuite shows that a third of the most-viewed stories on Instagram are business-oriented. This social media platform has over one billion monthly visitors, and 200 million of these people, visit a business profile each day.
Social media platforms provide an effortless channel for brand discovery. Indeed at least 60% of all Instagram users say that they use the platform to discover new products.
To humanize your brand
After a rather deceitful advertising era, buyers are very skeptical of brands that do not have sufficient social proof. People need to believe that your brand delivers its promises, and they trust third parties and reviews more than they trust your word.
OptinMonster data shows that over 87% of all buying decisions are influenced by social proof. Besides, 92% of your potential customers trust non-paid reviews more than other forms of advertisements.
If you want to connect to customers and keep their loyalty, show the human side of your brand. Talk to them via social media and introduce your followers to the personas behind your business. Build a social media advocacy policy to enhance your social media equity while at it.
How do you build a social media marketing presence?
Set a goal
Identify your target audience through clearly defined social media strategy goals. While it is true that every business needs a slice of the social media pie, it can be a waste of time and resources if your company does not have goals for it.
You can, for instance, set goals to increase brand awareness or to increase readership by a certain percentage. Such an objective will help you to find target your audience.
Pick your target audience
Brands have moved away from wasteful mass marketing strategies to highly targeted methods of advertising. This implies that you do not need to launch out on every social media platform at once. You only need to figure out who your prospective clients are.
If you get this aspect right, then you will choose the right social media platform for your business. As an illustration, if your target audience has more millennials in it, then you cannot neglect Twitter, which has 330 million 18 to 49-year-olds visiting it monthly.
Craft a killer profile
Use a combination of good branding practices to create a professional account and profile. Do not use poor quality images or videos. Link your content to your brand. Add a contact button to your profiles and use these accounts to strengthen your brand.
Have a consistent content publishing schedule
The most successful social media marketing brands have a well thought out content publishing schedule. Your program should optimize your engagement rates by posting fresh and sharable content at the right time. Juggling several social media accounts can be a jarring experience, so automate these activities.
Nevertheless, keep it in mind that your followers need to talk to you, a task that robots cannot correctly handle. So give your social profiles ample personal time. Do not be a robot on social media. Find your voice and let it be as human as people to help humans build relationships.
How to grow your social media through content marketing
- Instead of engaging in hard sales, use your social media accounts to help people instead. This is the art of content marketing, which eventually bears the fruits of customer loyalty and long-term sales generation. Use your account to offer solutions to problems and become an authority in your sector.
- Post the right content on the right platform. Facebook audiences, for instance, expect curated and video content, while Instagram users love stories coupled with high-resolution images. Twitter is for news, and blog posts while YouTubers love video. Posting the right material will lead to increased engagement and more conversions.
- To enjoy all the benefits of a strong social media presence, you need to utilize the platform’s advertising. As an illustration, Facebook offers a highly targeted ads, which can reach your target audience by demographics such as behavior, age, location, or interests.
- Improve your platform’s organic reach by using its best practices. On Instagram, for instance, you need to use strategic hashtags, filters, geotags, and follow the trends.
- Use visually appealing video, infographics, and other images. Pictures do really speak louder than words.
- Integrate all your active social media profiles into your website and cross-promote them to increase their influence.
- Use influencer’s takeover of your accounts to access their vast followers and allow their vast followers to engage with your brand
- Create viral content that will have more organic views
- Piggyback your accounts on trending content such as latest memes, hashtags, or breaking news. This will create a buzz around your brand.
- Monitor your activity using analytics data to help you identify top-performing content and trends.
Building a robust social media presence requires dedication, creativity, and endurance, but the benefits your brand will reap from it are many. Use the principles above to get started and to help you to stay ahead of the game.
Written by: Walter Akolo has been a freelance writer and internet marketer since 2011. He’s currently writing for Cardinal Digital Marketing, an Atlanta based digital marketing agency that specializes in PPC.
