Still not using Facebook as customer care tool? & Don’t believe in Social Media Marketing for Small Business?
Okay then keep reading …. i will try to make you believe in power of social media by teaching you how to start your small business promotion on social networks.
Marketing is the major factor when starting a business because there is no worth of the business if people don’t know it and its offerings. So a major factor that you must think of while setting up a business is about how to market your business.
Social media marketing nowadays is at its peak because social media is a place where millions of people are engaged at the same moment. It is one of the best places where you can kick start advertising your business.
You must be reachable to your audience on the social media because while marketing you must hear from them, no matter good or bad. The very first step on social media is to reach the people whom you are targeting to promote or showcase your business.
So here’s is your guide to How to get started with social media marketing for business:
Create and Evaluate your Social Media Marketing goals:
Thinking about what will be the results of your social media participation? The reason why are you doing it? What should be the outcomes- Do you want to sell your products online or creating customer relationships online? Do you want to step up a brand online?
These must be you priority questions and you might add some questions yourself. To make goals decisions you should follow S.M.R.T. framework : Goal should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, & time-bound.
Example: Small Business Social Media Marketing Goals Ideas:
- Increase Brand Awareness
- Traffic to business site
- Lead generation
- Revenue generation
- Community development for business
- Engagement
- Press Mentions
- Research about targeted customers
- Finding prospects
- Growing business network
- Finding future business partners
- Fund raising
- Social Media Listening
Discovering resources for social media management:
Do you have a team which can help you build your social media content? If not, how can you find one? Should you appoint someone or you have time to learn and implement? Who will play role of Social Media Manager for your business? How to create fancy and catchy stuff that will provide you audience? How to build a strategy?
You have to be sure in terms of managing people or a team of people which will be engaged in social media marketing for your business.
Resources recommendation for social media marketing:
- Learning Resource: Social Media Marketing Courses at Udemy
- Social Media management tool – HootSuite , Publbox
- Social Media Graphics maker tool – Canva
- Social Media Automation – IFTTT
If you have planned to do it yourself then i would recommend you should follow our social media marketing blog for actionable social media guides .
Study about your social media audience:
Study about your audience and get to know them as much as possible like you must know their likes/dislikes. Their engagements on the social media. What they are talking about and what they would like to hear from you? Interacting with the target audience must be your priority and you must be presentable to them so they can gain trust and interest in your offerings.
Suggested Read: Social Media Platforms
Free tools to know your customers:
- Facebook Search
- Twitter Search
- LinkedIn Search
- Pinterest Search
- Google Search
- Instagram Search
- Hashtagify
Interactive social media postings:
Suppose you’re reading something on the internet, you won’t read the article till the end until it keeps you engaged into it. So, think of the interests of the audience and create a content that will be interesting to read and will keep your audience engaged into it. You can do it in many ways as, creating the convos they might like and create images for their engagements in it.
Suggested Read: Social Media Management
Boost engagement using following content type on social networks
- GIF content
- Question & Answers
- Polls
- Memes
- Videos
- Insider Team videos
- Customers photos
- Contests etc..
Integrate your promotional techniques:
Not only on social media, you must also opt for offline marketing and then integrate them to your social media as an add-on which would help you in creating high numbers of outreaches.
For example, By providing an amazing offer at your business and then adding it as an exclusive offer on the social media would help you attract more customers.
Have a regular schedule:
Having a regular schedule would help you much in this field, no matter if you have a bunch of people working beneath you with your social media marketing. You must engage on social media about what’s cooking! You must check your social media accounts and what people are saying about your brand.
For example, you must go for checking up your social media in the free times like in your lunch time every day.
Gif Source & Recommendation : Publbox is a simple but effective Social Media Management tool. I personally recommend this tool because of its simplicity and usability. Publbox has free plan for up to 8 social media channels so you can manage almost every social media account without investing single penny.
Don’t have spare time ? You concentrate on your business let us handle your social media content creation, posting & management : Hire Social Media manager
Quality matters:
Most of the businesses fail with social media marketing because they focus on the numbers, but as a word of advice, you must focus on having 10 loyal customers on the social media than having 100 fake customers/followers only.
Be frank and truthful with your audience:
Your audience is the one which describes your business at its best, so you must sit back relaxed and do not ever try to control their conversations and reviews on the social media. However, you can learn from their reviews and conversations.
Follow the 80-20 rule of social media marketing & management:
A rule which is followed by most of the entrepreneurs follow.
You must spend your 80% of the time on the social media doing nothing, i.e. studying about your audience and what they are talking about. The remaining 20% of the time must be utilized creating social media marketing strategies.
So this was all about how to get started with social media marketing for small business and boost your business reach without hiring social media marketing agency.
Last but not least DIY Social Media Marketing for Small Business suggestion :Follow our social media blog to get latest updates,tips & suggestion for grow business with social media.