Social media is by far the most popular form of modern communication. With everyone from celebrities to cake shops, and influencers to traders present on the apps we use on a daily basis.
That’s what makes it an amazing investment for your business. Not only does it allow you to connect with your loyal and established customers, but it also exposes your brand to new followers, geographical locations, and opportunities, right from your phone.
You don’t have to be an expert when it comes to setting up shop online, but a plan always helps to gain the best results.
Below we’ve listed our top 10 tips for growing on social media to help!
1. Plan out your objectives
The first and most important step to take is planning out what you actually want to achieve on social media. Is it growing your follower count so that more people are exposed to your work? Or maybe you’re looking for 40% of your sales to come directly from your social profiles? Whatever it is, having a clear goal will help define the steps you need to take to get there.
2. Choose your platforms wisely
With social media, choice is certainly not something you are lacking. There is a huge variety of platforms to use which can be a little daunting. Some may be completely wrong for your business so don’t feel like you have to use them all. Take some time to explore each and focus on developing the ones you’ll be able to connect with your audience in the best way.
3. Understand your audience
Establishing your business you already have a target audience for your services or product however to get the best results from them online you need to tailor your profiles to suit their habits. Getting more of an insight into what kind of social presence attracts them, you’ll have a more clear understanding of the trends they follow and likes or dislikes.
4. Invest in brand awareness
Utilising soft selling and hard selling are very good ways to brand awareness. Soft selling is where the product/service is hidden. For example, your local restaurant may decide to post a picture of a recently launched meal with the caption “dinner for one or two”. Though this is an advert, it is not obvious and instead feels like a normal post. Hard selling is when the meal has the company’s logo included and the caption reads ‘grab yours now’. As you can see, this is a lot more obvious as it puts the product directly in the face of the consumer.
5. Build relationships
Invest time in building online relationships. This could be done by either recording yourself speaking to your audience or messaging them directly. The main thing is to establish that personal touch as you would in person. This will result in an increase in customer value and consumer engagement.
6. Be consistent
Of course getting all of these steps down will greatly improve your online presence, but the key with having a presence is to keep it consistent. Not maintaining or developing your content online will only stunt your growth and there is only so much it can do without work. Consistency also comes from finding a pattern in your designs to making sure you hit those 3 posts a week. Making your brand consistent gives your customers an understanding of what to expect from you.
7. Reward your customers
That feeling you get when you’re appreciated is one of the best and giving that to your customers is guaranteed to make them value you more. Maintaining the relationship you have by regularly giving incentives, giveaways and even gifts is a great way to reward your customers. They want to feel valued for the time and loyalty they give to you.
8. Be proactive
It is important to ensure that you have something posted online daily. This could be a story on Instagram, tweet or a post on Facebook. This is to prevent your brand from being forgotten. Additionally, always be hungry for results. Anytime wasted not interacting could be time given to competitors.
9. Interact with your audience
This is perhaps the most important tip small businesses fail to adopt. If you make out time to interact with your customers on a personal level they are bound to have more value in your business as they will feel appreciated. When this is done effectively, your consumers will be more loyal to your brand, which will give you that competitive edge over other brands.
10. Schedule content
When you’re posting frequently on social media it’s good to have a plan in place including what you want to be posted and when it should be. Some posts are great to be ad hoc and can fit it depending on the news, what suits your customer in the moment and exciting things to share. However, by creating a plan and using software to schedule your content with the routine things you want to post you’ll save yourself time and make the process faster and easier. That way, you can tend to your business needs and be confident all of your content is still meeting your consumer’s eyes.
By following our 10 simple tips your business will grow not only in reach but also in sales. This will in-turn improve the value your consumers have of your business, which will make it more competitive in the industry it resides in.
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Jaco Marketing | Digital Marketing Agency in King's lynn, Norfolk 