Many people primarily use social media platforms to network and keep in touch with family and friends. Studies show that approximately 3.2 billion people worldwide are social media users with one in every three people actively present on Facebook, which accounts for over 2.32 billion users. Marketers, producers and business owners see the gold mine in using social media platforms as a tool to reach out to the target audience worldwide.
As a business owner, it is imperative to have a presence on all popular social media platforms as a means of promoting your business. According to Oberlo.com, 73% of marketers believe in the effectiveness of using social media to promote their businesses. Similarly, studies conducted by Global Web Index in 2018 revealed that 54% of social media users check out a product or services on social media before patronizing such goods or services.
Using social media tools to promote your business goes beyond having a large following on popular social media platforms or making a few random posts once in a while. Specifically, it involves these steps (and more):
Commiting more time social media usage
Working on a target audience
Using relevant hashtags where necessary
Posting engaging comments
Here's how you can develop a strong social media presence to promote your business on all social media platforms.
1. Set specific goals you want to achieve.
Before committing to a social media platform to grow your business, have a clearly defined goal of what you want to achieve. Ask yourself the following questions:
What is my goal for creating social media pages?
Who is my target audience?
How do I reach out to these target audiences?
Your responses to these questions will depend on how well you’re familiar with major social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and others. You should be 'SMART' about your goals, which means your goals should include these measures:
Focus on creating leads that will target a specific audience.
Have a yardstick for measuring the level of achievement attained. For example, you should give yourself a target of the number of new followers you want to achieve.
Delegate. If you run an organization, you should be able to assign specific tasks to your team members. Or you might have to hire a social media specialist to help you in achieving your goals.
Be realistic. Before setting your goals, you should focus on what is achievable given the resources at hand. For example, you can set a realistic goal of gaining 100 new followers
Be time-conscious. You should set a specific time frame within which you want to achieve your goal. For example, you can give yourself a timeframe of a month to get your hundred followers.
2. Interact with your audience and understand their needs.
Interact with your audience regularly and let them see the human side of you. Be more concerned about their posts and comments, and react accordingly. Respond to an audience who shows interest in your post, and they'll be willing to follow and read your posts.
When interacting with your audience understand their needs and be more intimate with them. You should be able to figure out what they want to read about, and not just promoting your brand.
Also, creating engaging posts and comments about other aspects of your business will portray you as an expert and an interesting person to follow on social media platforms.
3. Link your social media accounts with your websites.
Link your social media accounts to your websites. When making a post on any or all of the social media platforms, add a link to your website to generate more leads. Also, have social media icons for visitors to your website to follow your social media pages.
4. Share your social media accounts.
Let the people around you be aware of your business presence on social media networks. However, do not share your social media account in a 'spamming' or annoying style.
Make your presence known on popular social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Snapchat and your audience will be willing to share your content with others.
5. Use keywords and hashtags on your social media accounts.
When using keywords for social media, focus on using keywords related to your business. Use words that are commonly searched for on Google.
Also, using trending hashtags related to your business on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn will attract more users to your social media platforms. However, do not overuse hashtags.
6. Include your social media links in your email.
When sending out emails, add your social media links to your email account. This will likely make people curious and more likely to check out your social media pages and website.
7. Entice your audience with games and gifts.
When developing quality content for your social media platforms, include questions and games to make your posts engaging and draw more attention, likes and followers. You can also use the reward system like giving away free e-books, discounts for products and free trials to entice your audience to earn more followership.
8. Maintain a regular pace of posting.
Your audience will look forward to your posts if they are captivating and engaging. Posting regularly at consistent intervals will give your audience content to look forward to. You can publish your posts at regular intervals, such as twice daily, five times weekly and so on. You can schedule your posts using automation tools to save more time and make your postings appear regularly. Therefore, a regular pace of posting will give your audience and customers reason to connect with you on your social media handles.
9. Make findings of what social media is suitable for growing your business.
Find out what it takes to get more likes and followership on your social media platform. Here are some interesting facts and figures about the type of audience you can find on popular social media networks:
According to Zephoria digital marketing, Facebook has a record of 2.3 billion active users spread across the world. Hence, Facebook can be a valuable tool for giving your business a far-reaching presence.
According to statistics gathered on Instagram, there are more than 1 billion active users with more than 500 million stories posted daily on Instagram with more than 88% of users outside of the U.S. Like Facebook, Instagram is a valuable tool you can use to make your business go international.
Hootsuite's statistics claim that 326 million people use Twitter every month, with about 500 million tweets daily. Twitter can be an ideal platform for engaging your followers on the go.
10. Use "frequently asked questions" on your social media platforms.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs) can help your audience, clients or customers resolve issues or complaints. You can use FAQs relating to complaints you have solved in the past or use questions likely to be asked by your audience. Your audience will always spend more time on your social media page when you use FAQs to help them answer questions about your business.
11. Optimize contents for each social media platform.
Social media platforms are quite different, which is why you need to optimize your posts to meet each social media requirements. Use different posts on each social media platform to share the same message. Use pictures and videos for Instagram, brief texts of no more than 150 characters for Twitter, and videos for Snapchat, and find out what works best with each social media platform.
12. Have a plan.
If you already have an idea that works well in getting you more followers and generating new leads, stick with it. Strategizing, planning and keeping in tune with the evolving social media trends will help you gather and retain more followers on the social media network.
Every thriving business has a strong presence on all major social platforms. Following the tips we’ve shared here will also help you to create a robust social presence for your business.