For any size business, Social Media Marketing is a powerful way to reach prospects and customers. Your customers are already interacting with other brands on social media. If you don't talk to them directly on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest, you are bound to miss opportunities!
Social networks are the main actors and vehicles allowing customers to be more engaged with brands and companies. Newly established businesses can easily develop awareness in less time on these networks. So, marketing on these platforms gives a wide reach, but you will not succeed by posting only on these platforms. You must need effective marketing tools that attract and connect long-term customers. There are many marketing tools, such as content creation tools, lead generation tools, sharing tools, analytics tools, influencer marketing tools, and design tools.
But you don't know where to start? This guide of Ghoori Learning to the best Social Media Marketing tips teaches you everything to get you started.
Social Media Marketing: Where to start?
Start by carefully defining the goal to be achieved. Then, choose the best platforms according to this objective and your personas. To do this, ask yourself these questions.
Let's take an example. Imagine that you work in a company that offers its services to other companies (B2B). You decide to drive traffic to your website which is where you present your offer. Your end goal is to generate a steady stream of leads. This gives clear objectives for designing the approach to be taken. For example, here are some actions to start.
These are just a few ideas. But it's easy to imagine that your LinkedIn contacts will get to know you, like you, and visit your website to learn more. This is the best way today to find customers, at least for a B2B activity.
10 Best Social Media Marketing Tips
All companies want to gain visibility on social networks. However, they all face very fierce competition. Internet users follow many pages and this number is still growing. This reduces the organic reach of posts and sponsored posts are not possible for many players due to lack of time and/or money. The attention span for each publication decreases: it is imperative to put in place good practices to succeed on social networks.
Now here are some general tips to consider for your Social Media: Diagnose your social presence and analyze your current efforts.
Appoint one or more managers to animate your social networks. My advice: as a business owner, you must also participate.
1. Be present on the right social networks
There is no social network better than another. They all have advantages and disadvantages depending on the sector of activity, the objectives, and the editorial charter of each company. The advantage of Facebook is its very large community, of all age groups, while Twitter and Snapchat are very popular social networks among the youngest. Instagram and Pinterest will be able to enhance your products with their sense of aesthetics.
Think about the many possibilities of each social network and create a great, cohesive communication strategy. Ideally, you should not use social networks in the same way: this can tire Internet users and cause you to lose visibility and commitment.
And plan some instructions in case of crisis. Finally, do not spam your contacts by aggressively promoting your products and/or services. No one goes to social media to make a purchase. So don't try to sell at any price. Instead, try to get in touch, to start conversations. Nevertheless, you can publish promotional content from time to time, but sparingly. The classic ratios of 8 informative messages for 2 promotional ones.
2. Understand each of the selected social platforms
You are not going to go through all the networks one by one. Indeed, the type of content present is different.
In addition, the present and active population are not the same either.
Just as Google develops an SEO algorithm to rank these search results, each platform also has its own algorithm to highlight the publications of its members.
An algorithm gives the rules of the game. You do not respect it and you go out. On the other hand, if you master it, you can work miracles.
It is therefore essential to know the general principles: Fill in all the information requested on your profile and on your company page,
Then, you have to refine it according to the platforms selected.
3. Provide customer service
For Internet users, social networks give instant and easy access to your business. No need to call, no need to write a letter, just go to the company's Facebook page to complain. And besides, it's public.
So, take all positive and negative reviews on social platforms seriously as you do on Google My Business. Of course, the complaint may be unfounded or unfair, but you should always respond to it professionally. And your answer is also public.
In this way, you increase the satisfaction of your customers while showing it to everyone.
4. Build your network
This is definitely the hardest thing to do if you are not a recognized brand. There is no one way to get there, but rather several tricks to carry out at the same time.
Take your time and do it right. Eventually, you will have a loyal network. Then to gain the necessary commitment, here are some steps.
5. Invest in advertisements
Companies spend billions worldwide to reach audiences via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.
Social ads are not really different from other types of advertising. You are targeting a certain segment of people to whom you are showing ads to them. The one difference that matters is using social data to create custom audiences to target.
In addition, today, platforms are decreasing organic reach to encourage more and more companies to use their paid ads. Take the time to study each platform in detail. They all work differently with different costs. Either way, social ads are a great way to introduce yourself to new people. Don't dismiss them.
6. Plan your posts with a calendar
Another thing to consider is the frequency of your posts. Again, it depends on the platforms. For example, one post per day on Facebook works well, while on Twitter you can reach ten.
For a company, it is not always easy to produce content on a regular basis. So don't feel like you have to post on Twitter all the time. Your followers will quickly get tired of seeing the same press release several times.
Always take a look at the news in your sector. This way, you make sure that recent events don't make your posts irrelevant or in bad taste.
Finally, also define the publication schedules for each of the platforms. It depends on the time of day your personas are connected. The best way is to experiment to understand what works best for you and your followers.
7. Monitoring and analysis of your social media marketing
There are many tools that allow you to carefully and accurately track statistics on your social media pages. You have the possibility to know the audience (age, language, interests, geographical location), user behavior, statistics of reach (organic or paid), and engagement of each publication.
As always in Digital Marketing, it is easy to measure the results of your work by analyzing the results. Each of the social platforms has its own dashboard to measure your performance, such as.
You can also rely on a social listening tool, such as mention, which gives you real-time everything that is being said about your company or your competitors.
8. Optimize posts
This is not great news but it is nevertheless the basis of analysis on Social Media Optimization. You can never say enough that publications are the nerve of a good social media strategy. The explosion in the number of formats and features on each social network including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc. makes it possible to multiply the possibilities of communicating via this channel. Points to remember:
Respect the publication dimensions of each social network
All of these techniques are often a great way to increase your engagement on social networks: more likes, reactions, comments, or shares. The key to gaining visibility and becoming the darling of algorithms like Facebook's EdgeRank.
9. Understand the expectations of your audience
The ultra-competition on social networks is pushing companies to change their strategy. The customer must be taken into account even before the objectives of the company. That means a customer-centric strategy. To stay visible, it is important to understand your audience's expectations and information needs. Content should be informative and/or entertaining.
Ask yourself a few questions:
10. Optimize your presence on search engines
A successful social media strategy gives your business a better chance of being present in the top positions of Google's SERP, for example. Each social network page can be indexed on Google and other search engines like Bing: this increases visibility and therefore traffic either to the website or to social networks. Social media traffic may be directed to the website or other social media pages.
Working on optimizing your social media pages is not a waste of time. However, this sometimes time-consuming action requires using the right social networks, the right techniques, and the best tools to have good results.
To point out your marketing actions on social networks
Here is a summary of the checklist of the steps to go through when using social media in marketing:
What is the right approach to social networks for business?
Engaging with your customers and prospects on social platforms should be the primary goal. This way, you build strong relationships with them and gain their trust. In addition, it will differentiate you from your competitors by showing how your company cares about its customers.
Successful communication on social networks requires imaginative content. The content of the two forms: written and iconographic. This plays an important role in efforts to achieve goals. Images play a big role in this strategy (social media marketing). There is no point in advertising or promoting without proper efforts on visuals because social media is all about images with short and catchy text. Market your services or products with custom images for a great price. It is worth investing your time in the ready-to-use templates.
Conclusion
You now have a good overview of Social Media Marketing. And the list above gives you all the information you need to get started properly. You can check the Facebook marketing course of Ghoori Learning for the best possible solutions and become a professional social media marketer.
Again, establish an active presence on at least a few of these platforms. Figure out where your target audience is, be active on those platforms, and keep up with current trends.
Are you going to change your approach to social networks? On which platform will you focus your energy for your Social Media actions?
Answer these 5 questions to assess yourself and get a bonus 5 points.
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