The reach of internet is incomparable with any other communication media used today. Hence, it becomes imperative that you strategize your business marketing around it. Here in this article we will be providing tips for effective social media marketing for successful business marketing.
According to a recent survey done by Pew Research, it was found that nearly 9 in every 10 Americans are using the internet. And of these nine people, 7 use social media actively to connect with others. With such a high percent of usage, social media has now become more representative of the whole population.
Of the 205 social media sites listed by Wikipedia, some social media accounts that are used more often than others are:
- YouTube
The users of various social media are potential customers for businesses. In order to tap this huge customer base, businesses will have to come up with successful social media campaigns that would turn these potential customers to loyal consumers.
Each social media has a different type of content (images, videos, short tweets) and demographics, which might make it necessary to device different marketing strategies for each one of them. So, how to market your business on social media that is so diverse?
Given below is some social media marketing advice which has been advocated by various social media and marketing experts that would help to answer your question.
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Learning Points:
- Social media tips for business
- How to use Social media for business
- Social media marketing for small business
- Different marketing strategies for different social media
#1. Different Content for Different Media
Facebook is used to upload photos and posts. Twitter is ideally suitable for short posts which can fit the 280-character limit. YouTube is all about videos. LinkedIn is more of a professional’s platform.
Apart from different content, social media also caters to a different type of audience. Some social media have more women users than men. Some have more teenagers than adults.
You will have to come up with marketing techniques accordingly. For example, one of the Facebook marketing tips would be to engage customers in conversations. Reply to their complaints, ask their feedback and so forth.
LinkedIn marketing tip would be quite different from Facebook. Since it caters to more professionals, you will have to be more careful about business etiquette’s and how to take part in conversations.
But the demographics keep changing. According to the Brian Solis, developer of the well-known Conversation Prism, “The social landscape is evolving with increasing acceleration”.
#2. Timing the Content Right
You will need to post the content at a time when your target audience is online. According to various studies done, posting content during lunch times would see more views than at any other time.
Content sharing percent increases during weekends. According to Neil Patel the co-founder of KISSmetrics, a jump of 39% in media traffic is observed when he times his content right.
Here are listed some ideal posting timings for different social media:
Best Days: Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays
Best Times: Between 1p.m. and 3 p.m.
Best Days: Wednesdays to Sundays
Best Times: Between 12 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Best Days: Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays
Best Times: Morning between 7 and 8
If you look closely, you will observe that here again the demographics and content rule the roost. Since LinkedIn has more professionals hence the timing of content sharing is workdays.
You can also use the free Google Analytics tool to give you a better insight about your customer’s usage pattern of your digital resources.
Make use of the social media marketing tips on timing and have a more successful engagement with your customers.
#3. Optimize Multimedia Use
A picture is worth a thousand words. The ability of multimedia in the form of images and videos to quickly get the message across is unlimited. It does not restrict you to word count or character count (as is the case of Twitter).
For any multimedia ad to be a successful social media marketing tool, it should be of high quality, relevant, different and clearly state a call to action.
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When you create videos, make sure they are not lengthy. In case the content is such that it would lose its appeal if cut short, then make use of timestamps. They will help users to jump the content they are not interested in.
You can also make audio files of your message and upload them on Twitter. This helps you to overcome the character limit imposed by Twitter.
Make use of the Facebook ad manager to create cost effective ads on Facebook and Instagram. It is an effective tool that helps you target your audience, define your budget and timing and even helps you place the ad for specific social media and device type.
#4. Attract Customers Through Contests
People like active engagement. Instead of passively viewing a video they would prefer to participate. You can create contests and questionnaires for users and award them with discount coupons or gift certificates.
Use one of the various such interactive social media marketing tools for your advertising campaign:
- Trivia Quiz
- Personality Quiz
- Polls
- Leaderboards
- Brackets
- Games
The benefits of using these tools are:
- They let you know more about your customer’s preferences.
- You can fit in your products into the quiz.
- Your customers can share results on social media resulting in more traffic.
- You get more fulfilling engagement which is two ways.
#5. Get Reviewed
Social media platforms are open and public. You will get feedbacks for your posts, products and services. All feedback need not be positive. People might use harsh words or publicly criticize your products. Handling all this requires patience, time and some diplomacy.
First things first, you need not respond to all comments. Comments that require your attention include complaints and negative feedbacks.
What you need not respond to and delete promptly are abuse, offensive language, sensitive information and ads.
Appoint one team to take care of all this. Do not leave reviews and queries unanswered. Prompt action is the key to social media marketing here.
As positive feedback on a Facebook page holds value so do recommendations on a LinkedIn do. You can solicit them from people you know or from those who know about your business.
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Wrapping up
While marketing through social media you need to be aware of the particular social media and its users. You can form a common campaign for all social media and design content differently for each one of them. This helps to create uniformity across platforms and establish credibility among cross platform users.
Social media marketing can no longer be ignored if you need your business to be successful.
Use the tips given above to come up with a successful social media marketing strategy for your business.