The usage of social media has increased tremendously in the past decade. There are around 4.2 billion active users on social media that is about more than half of the world population. Every day, these users spend an average of 2 hours and 25 minutes on social channels which makes it a crucial element in our lives.
These two and a half hours provide incredible opportunities for businesses to connect with their customers and prospects. These channels are a great way to build brand awareness, develop customer relations, make sales and interact with your targeted market.
A recently published Clutch report shows that 71% of small businesses are using social channels for their marketing and another 16% intend to include social media networks in their marketing strategies. 79% of the consumers say that the user-generated content on social media influences their purchasing decisions significantly.
These stats clearly state how important social media marketing is for a business to promote itself, get recognition and earn revenue. The key is to allocate all your resources in such a way that they make a big impact which is what we are going to discuss in this article. Keep on reading to find out more.
1. Choose the Suitable Platform to Promote your Brand
Before starting your social media marketing campaign, remember that not all social networks are equal. Their users, age groups, and needs may differ immensely. Do your research and pick one or two networks to promote your business on basis of where your target market is more active.
As you are a new and a small business, you need to focus your energy and resources from where you’ll get the maximum benefit. After stabilizing your foot in one place, you can further explore other social channels as well.
2. Hone your Brand Voice
Interaction with the customers and target market is one of the most crucial things when it comes to social media marketing but it is not about what you say but how you say it. In a nutshell, it is called the brand tone.
To build your brand, you can attract and engage customers, and prospects by constructing the brand persona. This can be done keeping in view the traits of your target market. What they say, how they say it, at what pace and rhythm, and what words to choose. For instance, if Gen Z is your target market, you’ll have to relate with them through the phrases they use and the trends they follow. You can opt for TikTok or social media challenges.
3. Optimize the Use of Visuals & Graphics
When creating posts for your social media handles, pay close attention to the designing. Generic posts with a lot of text and dull colors do not get audiences’ attention. Pick vibrant colors, less text in the pictures, and make it appealing so the prospect is intrigued to look at it and you end up delivering the message.
If you are posting the same content on different channels, adjust the graphic dimensions so that visuals become more engaging as the audiences of each platform are diverse. In recent times, video has gained a lot of importance on social channels which gives you more time and creative space to convince your prospects. It also increases authenticity and transparency and helps connect with the audience.
4. Set SMART Goals
SMART here stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. The acronym will help you keep on track while setting a goal for your marketing campaign. Your goal should be relevant to the ongoing trends and your prospective market. Specified and achievable in the designated time frame.
Following SMART you’ll know exactly what you are doing and how you will achieve the goal. It will also help you direct your attention rather than ending up in a social media mess because trust us it’s very tricky if you don’t follow the rules.
5. Use the 20/80 Rule
Seeing this 20/80, you might be thinking that 80% would be the brand promotion posts and the rest is for customer engagement. Well, that is not the case here but rather it is the opposite. If you are a new business and building your brand, you first need to interact with customers and develop a relationship. For this, 80% of your posts should be engaging content and not directly sell your product. This can generate traffic, boost brand awareness and create leads. The point here is that by tapping into their interests, you’ll be making better connections with your audience. You can make challenges on ongoing trends, re-share interesting links, and retweets. With time you can revisit your plan and mold it whichever way you like depending on how loyal your customers are to you.
6. Decide a Posting Schedule
To build a measurable and goal-oriented campaign, you need to plan your content posting schedule duly. This way you can account for the traffic and engagement the content is creating, measure the effectiveness of each post.
If you are aware of the benefits of social media marketing and still posting sporadically when the mood hits, your campaign is never going to be successful. You can occasionally share content that you find interesting or is relevant to your niche. Being consistent will generate interest in your brand, engagement and will heighten the anticipation for your content as well. There is a scheduling tool available on social channels that can be very helpful and also saves you a lot of time.
7. Create Reward Programs for Customers
You can also engage customers by creating challenges and lucky draws to bring attention to your brand. As a reward, you can giveaways a package full of small business promotional items. Many small businesses can be seen adopting the strategy, this way they get the benefit of word of mouth as customers are telling about it to people around them and encouraging others to participate as well. Promotional items for businesses are not that costly but rather cheap so you don’t have to worry about your financial limitations.
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Nazim Khan (Author) 📞 +91 9536250020
[MBA in Finance]
Nazim Khan is an expert in Microsoft Excel. He teaches people how to use it better. He has been doing this for more than ten years. He is running this website (TechGuruPlus.com) and a YouTube channel called "Business Excel" since 2016. He shares useful tips from his own experiences to help others improve their Excel skills and careers.
