The internet has become an essential part of people’s everyday lives. It’s a space for learning, shopping, entertainment, and, perhaps most importantly, connecting with other human beings. One person from one country can connect with another from the other side of the world, all thanks to the internet and social media.
It’s highly likely that this move to a more digital lifestyle has not gone unnoticed by businesses. Companies everywhere recognize the business opportunities that the internet, more specifically, social media, offers.
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Why Harness the Power of Social Media?
As individuals connect with each other online, they also see the possibility of their brand making the same relevant and meaningful connections to their target audience. And if you want to make a similar type of connection with your consumers, then social media is the key.
Make the Most Out of Your Marketing Budget
Setting up and managing profiles on social media platforms is essentially free. So if you’re tight on a marketing budget, you must get on social media as soon as possible. At first, all you need to invest in is time, research skills, and your creative juices.
One thing that’s great about social media marketing is that it’s highly scalable. You can work around your marketing budget and be as targeted with your campaigns as possible. Additionally, you can use analytics from past campaigns to see which efforts bring in the most visitors, clicks, or revenues and which ones do not. This information can help you further fine-tune your subsequent campaigns and stretch your digital marketing budget.
Stay Relevant While Widening Your Reach
If you want your business to stay relevant with your customers, then you need to be active where they are: online. More and more consumers are going digital. On average, they use an estimated 147 minutes of their time on the internet on social media platforms. If you want to continue engaging with your customers, having a solid social media strategy is best to keep that relationship.
Being active on social media is not only for engaging with current customers. The right social media strategies can also help you get on potential customers’ radars. According to Statista, there are more than 4.5 million social media users across the world. And that number is only estimated to grow in the coming years.
Generate Revenues
Every for-profit business owner is interested in getting more cash to flow in. When executed well, social media strategies can help you achieve business goals, including generating more revenue. Engaging content can increase brand awareness, improve brand loyalty, and drive your target consumers to purchase your product or service.
Top Social Media Tips for Small Businesses
Social media is a great platform for small businesses that want to boost their online marketing presence. Here are a few proven tips to get you started:
Clearly Define Your Goals
With any business strategy, it’s best to have goals in mind before diving headfirst. Your social media KPIs should be specific, measurable, feasible, relevant to your broader vision, and time-bound. These goals must be reviewed regularly because as your business evolves and grows, so will your KPIs. Examples of such metrics include:
- Impressions
- Click-Through Rates (CTR)
- Cost-per-Click
- Conversion Rate
- Social Share of Voice
- And more.
Get to Know Your Target Audience
There are many resources where you can get information regarding your target audience. You can get data from third-party websites or even solicit feedback from your current customers through surveys and email marketing.
You can analyze the different data points you can access to develop actionable insights. These insights can help you fine-tune your social media marketing approach, from where you post to the caption you use.
Choose the Right Channels
Just because setting up and managing an account is free doesn’t mean you should make one on every platform you see. It can be challenging to manage multiple accounts, especially if your marketing department is already spread pretty thin.
You must align your chosen platforms, content, brand identity, and marketing goals. Your market data can help you choose the most apt platforms you want to be on. By doing so, you can focus on posting quality content on select channels that reach your target audience.
Evaluate Campaigns
Each social media campaign must go through post-promotion evaluations. This critical step will measure whether or not you’ve achieved the KPIs you’ve set at the planning stage. You’ll also see which campaigns went well, which could be improved, and which projects should be parked.
Proper evaluation of campaigns will also help you better understand how to allocate your resources in the next cycle. For example, you may be spending a small percentage on your Instagram targeted ads, but upon review, you see that this campaign is the one that’s performing well. In the next cycle, you may want to reallocate more resources to this campaign instead of other efforts that don’t deliver as well.
Keep Communications Consistent
Your communications should be consistent regardless of the platform. This can help customers better understand your brand identity and solidify brand awareness. Your customer should know it’s your brand they’re interacting with, whether on your website, listening to your brand’s podcast, or scrolling through your social media posts.
Use a Social Media Management Tool
The digital world means you can automate almost everything. The same goes for social media management. When staying on top of campaigns on different portals becomes more challenging, try using a social media management tool like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, etc. These tools have free versions that you can try out. And if you like what you’ve tried and want access to more features, you can always upgrade to a paid plan.
There are many ways to achieve business success, from designing e-commerce landing pages with great customer experience to paying for traditional above-the-line marketing tools. However, if you’re looking for a solution that’s accessible, measurable, and effective, then maximizing social media should be part of your marketing strategy.
