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1.) Social Media Management Software
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Most Popular Software
18 Social Media Marketing Tips To Grow Your Business
Read this article to learn the best strategies and techniques to help grow your sales.
How To Find Good Content To Share On Social Media
Success on social media is all about sharing amazing content relevant to your audience.
How To Use Social Media Monitoring Tools To Lift Sales
Using the right software is a must now days in order to grow sales via social media.
Why Using Social Media Management Software Is Smart
The old days of manually posting content to social media are long gone, discover the best tools here.
How To Use Social Media To
Grow Your Business
Social Media is one of most common phrase that is used by people and businesses alike. It refers to a platform that hosts a wealth of tools that allow individuals and businesses to create, edit, share information, ideas, career interests, pictures and videos. This website you're on now reviews the best social media software to help digital marketers manage their presence across many different channels.
Social media also refers to a virtual community that is dedicated to content sharing, interaction with people across the world as well as collaboration. There are different types of social media platforms and they include forums, micro blogging sites, social networking sites, social curation, wikis and social bookmarking sites.
As Web 2.0 internet based platforms, they allow people to post a wide variety of content from articles, news, videos and photos. Today, they have allowed business to tap the billions of users they currently have. Businesses have been able to show case their products as well as attracting and retain new and old customers.
Since their inception, social media platforms have been operating on a dialogic transmission system. This means that content is generated by the community and can be seen by many users around the world.
Why it’s vital for a business to use social media
to increase their online presence
1. Create relationships with customers
Traditionally, businesses had to rely on marketing methods that have proven to be expensive and unnecessary in order to keep in touch with their customers. It was not uncommon to visit a bank or any other organization offering customers products/services and not find a digital pad that requires you to provide feedback regarding the service offered.
Today, social media offers businesses an easy way of reading what their customers want from their posts and tweets. A business can learn what products they are buying, why they are buying them and if they have been useful or not? By commenting positively on a customer’s post or tweet, a business is able to start a relationship.
2. Respond to problems immediately
Unlike in the past when online users made calls to the manufacturer in order to complain and have a certain problem addressed, today many people rely on social media. Businesses have created their own social profiles and thanks to messaging and live chat, a business representative can respond immediately to problems. The rise of social media as a support service is attributed to the availability of smartphones and tablets. Fast and relevant assistance equals better relations.
3. Build brand loyalty
Brands that have social media pages have more loyal customers than those with no social media pages. Social platforms have congregated people from all walks of life and this is how businesses can reach the right customer easily. Unlike in the past where a blogpost posted online would only reach a few people; social media has expanded the reach for businesses today. This has helped in building brand loyalty.
Social Media Marketing Strategies and Tips
1. Develop a plan
Benjamin Franklin once said “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” This is true especially when it comes to social media marketing. As a business, you need to come up with a road map that outlines your objectives and goals. This is what will dictate whether you are successful or not. It can also help you to avoid costly mistakes that could set you back. Below is a YouTube video that will help you to craft a solid social media marketing plan that will work wonders for you.
2. Perform an audit
As a business, you may have had social media presence on other platforms like micro blogging sites, social bookmarking sites, forums and wikis. Before jumping onto a new band wagon and engaging users, you need to carry out an audit.
An audit helps to reveal your existing users, the number of social profiles you have, where they are hosted, the number of strategies implemented so far and passwords used. It is common to find people using a single password across their many social profiles. When you carry out an audit, you are able to know which social platform has more active users.
3. Post content consistently
Online users are attracted to a social page due to the information on products, services, discounts and offers provided. This is in concurrent with 73% of content creators who believe in creating engaging content. When you spend your marketing dollars to buy likes, you need to convert this likes into buying customers.
One way you can achieve this is by delivering content consistently. This does not mean that you have to post 5 to 10 posts each day. Marketing experts advice one to deliver a single post which should meet the following criteria. It should be engaging, relevant, informative, original and should not be automated. Learn more tips to help you create engaging content.
4. Be a genuine helper
Social media pages have been converted into support platforms thanks to their live chat and messaging tools.
According to Nielsen, 33% of users prefer to contact a brand via its social page. As a business, this is a crucial moment that can break or make a relationship with a customer. If a customer complains about being short changed by a product or service, you need to handle it professionally.
Do not start a social media war where your representatives use abusive language and in the end they do not address the problem. Remember, what you post online can go viral in seconds and you don’t want people boycotting your products and services. Always be genuine to concerns your customers have.
5. Improve posts by analyzing past content
Analysis is an important aspect when it comes to social media marketing. It helps to inform the business if the strategies developed are working or not. When a business posts content on their social media pages, they only end up analyzing data after they publish.
Thanks to online tools, you can now curate your online content according to the social network. This is an effective way of publishing content which improves the success of engagement on a specific network. This contributes to increased customers and sales.
6. Use images in your Twitter posts
Since the inception of Twitter, it has become more synonymous with text than videos and pictures. Like they say, pictures speak a thousand words. Twitter saw the importance of this and for long they have allowed the posting of photos alongside the content.
As a business, you need to harness this potential. Tweets are great as they are brief and to the point. With an added image, it increases engagement which in turn leads your visitors to look at your website where they can buy your products or service.
7. Utilise hash tags well
When Twitter started the use of hash tag in 2007, it introduced a revolutionary way for people to create content that is sharable and connects. A hash tag is generally a topic of interest that people can discuss around by leaving their comments and opinions.
Other social networks like Facebook saw how a hashtag had become a powerful tool and since then, it has become widely used on the platform. It is a common practice among content creators to just drop hashtags here and there. This is not good. It is important to find one that is easy to remember, easy to spell and has not been used before.
8. Don’t ignore other social platforms
It is common among businesses to rush and create social profiles on well known platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. While this is good and will definitely allow you to reach more users, you may be missing others who would love to buy your products but only if you were able to connect with them.
Social platforms like Google Plus, Pinterest, Stumbleupon, LinkedIn and others are great platforms where you can connect with customers who are interested in your products and services too. This is why it is important to conduct an audit which will help you to know where customers who are more willing to buy your products and services are located. Using a good social media management software like SproutSocial will allow you to easily publish to all social media channels in 1 click.
9. Structure your social campaigns
When it comes to creating a social campaign, majority of businesses fail to come up with a good structure. Lack of a good structure has been found to contribute to a messy and disorganized account. This is not attractive to your customers who are looking for something that is user friendly.
To prevent this, it is important to structure all social campaigns for your business around your goals and objectives. This will allow you to reach your targeted audience which should improve your online traffic, increase sales and allow you to maintain current and new customers. Take a look at Brett’s comprehensive guide on lead generation. Ensure that you're using a good social media scheduling tool to have a consistent content posting strategy.
10. Avoid fishing for shares and likes
Every business wants to have more likes and shares than their competitors. Instead of following best practices, they end up fishing for likes and shares. This will definitely lead to attracting the wrong audience who are not interested in the products or services being sold.
This means that the business will have failed in its social media engagement goal. To improve on social media engagement, a business should encourage conversations and interactions creatively. This can be done by using easy to spell and easy to remember hashtags. In the end, your online users will definitely share your content easily.
11. Learn what your competitors are posting
As a business, one of your goals is to stay ahead of your competitors. This is what leads you to success finally making more sales and earning higher profits. It is important to know what your competitors are posting. What is the theme of their content? How many likes or shares has it received?
Thanks to innovation, there are social media marketing tools like Hootsuite, AgoraPulse, SocialDraft and Sendible that can help you to know what your competitors are posting. It is important to look for patterns in your competitor’s content as this provides a useful insight on their strategies. You can even try some yourself for your content.
Learn useful tips on how to know what your competitors are posting on social media.
12. Host giveaways and contests
People love free stuff and this will surely get people talking on social media. You can also come up with friendly contests where winners get to go away with a free hamper full of gifts from your line of products. This will surely pique the interest of your current customers who in turn will start talking about it and share with family and friends.
When this is done, it will pique the interest of other social media users and in order to participate, they will have to like your page. The buzz around your contests and giveaways will attract social media users who can be easily converted into buying customers.
13. Monitor your social pages
People on social media can post both positive and negative comments. This can be about your brand, your products or services. As a business, it is important to know what online users are saying about your products and services.
One way of doing so is by monitoring social activity on your pages. This provides an insight into what online users are saying about your company. This information is useful as it can help you to modify your current marketing strategies or come up with new ones that are targeted to a specific group of users. Investing in a quality social media analytics tool is a must for any serious digital marketer.
14. Invest in photos that identify with your brand
Stock photos have made it easy for website owners to use images with their online content especially on blogs. This is great as it helps online users understand what you are discussing about. When it comes to a business, stock photos won’t do. The reason stock photos can spell disaster to a business is that they may have been used on other platforms so it will make your content not to be unique.
In order for your customers to identify your brand easily, you need to use unique graphics which include photos and videos. This means hiring a graphic designer or visual content creator for this. You will surely experience a huge difference when you do this.
Conclusion
As a business, your brand cannot be easily represented unless it is available on social media channels. Furthermore, to improve on social media engagement, a business needs to interact with its followers, would be buyers and current customers.
There are several ways that a business can improve its social media presence and be able to stay ahead of its competitors. They include planning your social media campaigns, using visual content, posting consistently, posting unique and original content, not discounting the small social platforms and being helpful to customers.
Other ways include monitoring your social profiles, keeping track of what your customers are saying, hosting contests, using hashtags well, investing in custom graphics, using a effective social media management businesss tool and finally knowing what the competitors are posting.
By doing all the above, your business will be renowned on social media platforms which will ultimately contribute to more paying customers, increased sales and positive feedback.