Using the internet to grow your business involves ongoing and consistent effort at multiple levels. Having a good website backed by a sound SEO strategy is the first key step for your business to achieve success online. Once this is done, you want to harness the abundant power of social media to build brand loyalty among your customers.
If you’re new to social media marketing, here are ten good tips to get you going.
1. First and foremost, create a specific and detailed plan for each of your social media platforms. Break down your larger social media strategy into smaller individual plans for each channel.
The more attention you pay to each platform this year, the greater the results you’ll see month on month. Moreover, this will also give you a better picture of what’s working and what’s not.
2. Have a robust publishing plan in place. This is possible only when you understand that not every social media platform moves at the same pace. While you can manage Instagram with one picture a day, Facebook and Twitter require greater engagement.
The frequency and type of your posts, however, should be based on where your potential customers spend most of their time online.
3. Post more photos if you’re looking for greater engagement. Research shows that images are by far the most popular and most shared content on social media.
Pick high-resolution interesting photos that are relevant to your brand and learn to post at the right time to maximize engagement. Keep your audience engaged by posting new and interesting pictures regularly.
4. Create and publish quality video content, as it helps build a greater connection with your followers and drives traffic. Just like photos, videos get shared easily and quickly, and they’re increasingly considered an indispensable marketing tool by experts.
If you’re confused about what type of content is best suited for your product or service, work with a social media expert. For instance, Attadale-based Digital Hitmen’s social media marketing is well known to deliver superlative results for clients across industries.
5. Remember that you don’t need to be on every social media platform. Choose your social media channels carefully based on real-time data. Being on irrelevant channels can dilute your brand image and the focus of your social media campaign.
For instance, if your audience largely comprises of cosmopolitan men and women in their late teens and early twenties, you may not want to invest your time and resources on Facebook, as this audience is increasingly moving to other “hip” platforms.
6. Use Twitter to grow your audience. Twitter is a great place to get more followers. There are apps where you can find new Twitter followers based on their interests, demographics, industry, and subcategory.
Use Twitter search to find people looking for your products or services and those of your competitors, and build a loyal fan base by publishing informative tweets relevant to your niche.
7. Use hashtags cleverly. If you want to achieve specific results with your social media strategy, stop using random popular hashtags and switch to a more refined hashtagging culture that brings all of your posts together and doesn’t confuse your followers.
Also, pick hashtags that are easy to remember and easier to spell. When creating a new hashtag, make sure it’s not already being used for another campaign, cause or conversation.
8. Keep an eye on your competitors. Watch what they do on their social media channels, what kind of engagement they’re able to drive, what and when they post, and the accounts they follow.
This will give you an insight into their social media plan and help you tailor your own unique social media campaign.
9. Build valuable partnerships. Tie up with the better social media influencers in your industry and use those relationships to increase your fan base. Partnering with the right influencers can take your social media numbers from a few hundred to thousands within a few weeks.
For starters, invest in paid posts on prominent social media pages with a good fan following. Also, never fall into the trap of buying fake followers.
10. Optimize your social media posts with the right keywords. Ask any digital marketing specialist and they will tell you how important it is to use relevant keywords across your content, whether it’s your own blog, guest posts or social media posts.
Without keywords and phrases, social media search bots won’t be able to find your post and show it in search results.