Social media marketing can help your business find and engage with potential customers, but it’s going to require time, investment, and strategy.
Given the tremendous reach of platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, it’s no surprise that 90% of brands report using social media to improve their brand awareness1. For small business owners, the challenge lies in figuring out how to use social channels efficiently so the effort doesn’t outweigh the investment.
When used strategically, social outreach can be a cost-effective way to transmit your brand message. Plus, it offers considerable value in both word-of-mouth marketing and customer service opportunities — two big benefits for small businesses looking to stand out from the competition.
To make social media outreach work for you, you’ll need a plan — and a bit of patience. These tips will help you develop a digital presence that creates value for your business and generates quality leads.
1. Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy
A barely-there presence on every social platform is practically the same as no presence at all. A good social strategy takes time to manage, so it’s better to focus on the one or two sites that best align with your business goals. To narrow it down, determine where your target customers are most active. Pay attention to how they engage with the platform and the kinds of posts that perform best.
With those insights in mind, you’re ready to set a strategy. Begin with a mobile marketing plan that includes your objectives, a content calendar, clear processes, and the key metrics you’ll use to measure success. As you develop content, be sure it aligns with your strategy and keeps your audience’s needs and interests in mind.
One common mistake is setting up social media accounts on one or two popular platforms and expecting followers and potential customers to flow in without any follow up. That’s not likely to happen. To take full advantage of social media, you need a proactive and thorough strategy for individual platforms that ties back to your marketing and sales plans.
2. Allocate Resources
There’s a misconception that social media is free. For marketers, that’s not the case. Using social media effectively requires investment in appropriate employee training, quality content to promote, paid media to drive engagement, and potentially in data and analytics tools to further integrate social media.
Focus on consistent, quality content that creates engagement with your followers over time. Once you have an engaged audience, you can try out more calls to action. Analyze the results and readjust your content and posts accordingly. When you have your social presence up and running, consider putting dollars behind your posts to boost their reach.
That last point is important. Over the last several years, Facebook’s organic reach (the percentage of followers who see your posts in their News Feed) has declined for many. This is in part because you’re competing with an ever-growing volume of content and also because Facebook made changes to its algorithm. Once you have an idea of the type of content that performs well with your followers, consider investing in the promotion of key posts to reach more of your audience.
3. Measure Activity
Measuring the effectiveness of social media can be challenging. Start by observing engagement stats such as comments, likes, shares, and click-through rates. Note how social media affects traffic to your website and what percentage of traffic ultimately leads to conversion, for example, a visitor clicking a link to request more information about your company. In time, you’ll understand how many leads are generated via social media, the quality of those leads, and how these stats compare with other tactics used to generate business.
Learn how a good marketing plan and strategy can contribute to your overall business growth.
1.“130+ Social Media Statistics That Matter to Marketers in 2019.” Hootsuite. March 2019.
