Social media is ever evolving but during its evolution, it has become a fundamental part of every business marketing strategy. Whether it’s social selling, content marketing or customer service, social media gives you the opportunity to reach your target audience and build relationships.
So now you know social media is the future of your business marketing, I bet you’re now wondering where do I start? Luckily you started reading this blog! Below I have listed the top 5 points to consider before plunging feet first into the world of social media marketing.
1. Choose your platforms wisely
There are hundreds of social media platforms and more joining the mix every day, at this point, it is important to refrain from jumping on every single one. Why? Well, each social media platform has their own audience base and it’s important that you are on the platforms where your audience reside, regardless of popularity or active users.
For example, if your business is a tractor manufacturer, then Tumblr probably isn’t the best option. Tumblr’s primary audience is teens and people in their early twenties. A better choice would be LinkedIn since it’s a B2B network that attracts business owners.
2. Consistency is key
Visuals are a fundamental part of social media and more importantly branding. This is why consistency is key when managing different social platforms, time and time again I take a look at multiple social media accounts for the same company and discover that they look completely different with inconsistent logos, cover photos and bios. It is crucial that your branding is consistent across all platforms, this will help people immediately recognise your company no matter which site or app they’re using.
3. Post, Post & Post!
The biggest issue I see in social media marketing is the lack of content, content needs to be published on a perpetual cycle, it can never end or become irregular. If you Tweet once a week or publish a new image on Instagram every now and then you will be forgotten and ultimately waste your time and effort. In some cases, it can have the opposite effect and damage the company’s reputation as people believe that your approach to your audience is irrelevant.
So now you’re wondering how many posts should you publish? This will depend on your audience, and it takes some trial and error to find out what works best for your brand. The key element to this is to monitor your analytics, it is important to determine what content is working best and driving the most engagement, this is something that we take care of for all of our clients as interpreting data can be time consuming but is essential for social success.
4. Promote Your Profiles
Building up social media profiles from scratch is one of the hardest challenges within social media marketing, at the end of the day you pop up on social media but how do people know you are there? This can quickly become frustrating as gaining your first few followers can seem like a lifetime and it’s easy to wonder if it’s all worth it? But hold on!
This might seem like an obvious tip, but many businesses take a passive approach to social media branding and wait for the results to happen. It simply doesn’t work that way. Promote your social media profiles everywhere! Print it on all of your business cards, leaflets, brochures and link them on your website. Ultimately the best way to boost your social media presence is running social advertising campaigns, which we can help with!
5. Engage, Engage & Engage
So you’re all set with your social media account and you’ve shouted about your accounts to the entire world! But what do you post? Many people think of social media as a place to advertise their products/service, STOP! This simply isn’t the case, social media should be used to communicate with your target audience, and add value to their newsfeed.
You can start building awareness for your brand on social media by engaging and interacting with other users. It’s as simple as replying to Tweets and commenting on Facebook and Instagram posts.
In my experience, some companies feel weird about replying from a company account. Don’t! This is completely normal and your audience expects a company to reply to them. In fact, more and more customers are turning to social media to settle their customer service matters.
Pulling it into focus
As a social media team leader, it’s easy to focus on the content creation and growing the number of followers you have. But it’s important to take a second to think about the connection between social media and your brand first. At DP Online Marketing we prioritise social media branding before publishing content as this will help you connect with your target audience, be more strategic and get give you better results.
Give us a call today to discuss your social media marketing requirements!
