Social media for small business
‘’Social media’’ is a term that has entered the rare stratosphere of recognition and fame, usually reserved for Presidents and rock stars. Now, Presidents and rock stars bow to social media’s power. In the current market, harnessing its power is necessary if you’re to grow your brand and business. From Twitter announcements to Instagram and Facebook posts, there’s no limit to what an effective social media campaign can help your business achieve.
While that might be the case, it’s important to note that to enjoy the fruits of social media marketing, it takes dedication. Having a considerable number of ‘likes’ and ‘followers’, posting random status updates or a few blog posts isn’t going to grow your business. Dedication and planning are mandatory.
Any serious online marketer knows that you must incorporate the following to reap the reward of social media marketing:
- Enable others to share your important message
- Listen to your audience
Having said that, let us now look at some social media tips that can help your business grow:
#1: Utilize all social networks
Granted, you might prefer one social network to others. Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean your followers feel the same way too. For you to be successful with social media, you must post across all networks. You must have and maintain accounts with big social media sites, that is, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
#2: Establish a balance between business and popularity
The social media handles for your business must be strictly professional. They must be about your business. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do things that help you to be popular on social media. While at it, you need to establish a balance between your business and popularity. The prudent thing to do is have a mix of both. Mix the fun side of popularity with the informative and serious side that boosts your business’ reputation.
#3: Use social media for analytics
As you know, Google Analytics is important for any startup or business. Nonetheless, social media can help you tap into the personal aspect of your company’s analytics. Google Analytics is effective at giving you breakdowns of your visitor’s general interest groupings, gender, and brackets. Facebook Audience Insights on the other gives more statistics, based on fan base. With Facebook Insights for your business page, you’ll be able to observe how many folks have loved, liked or been wowed all thanks to the brand new Facebook reactions. When it comes to a platform such as Twitter, use Twitter Cards to ensure your tweets look more fabulous. Twitter Analytics to learn about the kind of impressions your tweets are leaving across the Twittersphere.
#4: Use social media to build a community
Regardless of the kind of community you intend to build for your business, social media is the best tool to help you realize your goal. LinkedIn groups and Facebook groups are the ideal options when it comes to communities. Facebook groups give you the advantage of one billion active users daily. That means that a good number of your members are most likely to be logging in daily hence giving them the opportunity to view and participate with group posts. LinkedIn groups give you the upper hand when it comes to emailing group members. What does that mean? It simply means that you’ll be able to reach thousands of members. Compared to Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups aren’t as active.
#5: Use social media for competitor research
Did you know that you can use social media to conduct competitor research? In fact, this is exactly where the public side of the different platforms works in your favor. In a very short time, you can be able to learn countless things about your competitors by using both paid and free tools. For instance with Facebook Reactions, you’ll discover the opinions of your target audience regarding your competitor’s content or even their published advertisements.
Final Thoughts …
Whether you’re a lone entrepreneur or medium business, there’s no doubt that social media marketing is a powerful and inexpensive tool to help your business grow. Use this arsenal today to not only build authority but also trust. The above are some of the ways you can use social media for small business.