5 Top Social Media Marketing Tips for Businesses
Social Media Marketing is not something that should be done on the side with little thought; The community on these networks have high standards. If you don’t get it right, the contributions from your business’s social media channels will quickly be punished with an eerie silence; without interactions and followers, Social Media Marketing is just talking to yourself, which isn’t good for anyone. So to help you get the best out of Social Media Marketing, here are 5 Social Media Marketing tips for small businesses:
1. Tailor Your Content to Each Network
At first glance and from the outside, social networks may seem very similar: people interacting with one another and sharing what they like, but on closer inspection, there are considerable differences for each in terms of target group, the type of content they like, the style of language, and each network's function.
A common mistake is to publish exactly the same content in several networks at the same time. Nobody wants to receive the same content through multiple channels. Most people today use more than one social network, so it’s important to offer something a little different on each channel. In addition, every time a post fails to appropriately target the desires of an audience on a particular channel and flops, it gives away reach. This means that future posts will also be shown in fewer people's feeds. That’s why you need to develop an appropriate strategy for each channel. For example, you can reach more people on Twitter if you set hashtags, whereas on Instagram it’s all about images, meaning a channel on Instagram won’t get anywhere without appealing images. In general posts with pictures or videos get more attention and reach than posts without. But context is key and content should be created to meet the demands of an audience not vice versa.
2. Don’t Create More Profiles Than You Can Manage
Since a company profile on social networks does not cost money, many entrepreneurs create as many social media profiles as possible. But this is not the best way to create a professional social media presence. Before you create any social media profile ask yourself
Do I have the right resources and tools to serve all these channels?
A company profile that is not sufficiently supported can even drive customers away. Social media is supposed to make a business feel more human and current, but the audience won’t get this impression if the profile they are viewing was last updated 2 years ago. It is also important to remember that Social Media Marketing is a two-way interaction, potential customers use these channels to ask important questions about a brand and even to engage with customer service and make complaints. If a channel is not regularly managed then these queries can go unanswered and this can lead to a whole host of bigger problems developing: from bad first impressions to growing complaints and ultimately lost customers. If your own resources are not sufficient to support several company profiles at the same time, it is better to concentrate on fewer networks or to use the Social Media Marketing applications features of rankingCoach to help you set up and manage multiple profiles quickly and efficiently.
3. Blindly trust in "best time to post" advice
If you want to optimize your social media presence, you will inevitably come across articles and studies that tell you when the best time to post is. Perhaps a business friend of yours has already given you tips on when it is best to publish your articles. In principle, there is nothing wrong with this advice, but one question you should ask yourself is whether this also applies to your customers? Because when followers online depend on the industry and respective network. But the nice thing is that you don't have to rely blindly on tips from others. Social networks like Facebook, for example, provide you with a lot of data, including when your followers are online. To access this on Facebook all you need to do is click on your business's Facebook page and then on the ‘Insights’ tab at the top of the page. Our advice is always to secure the best and most accurate data possible. This means making use of all of the available data resources that Social Networks offer, and combining these with Google Analytics and insights from rankingCoach.
4. Stay Away from The Hard Sell
A key reason why social media is such an important marketing tool is because of the network effect. The concept describes the way in which networks become more attractive to followers the bigger they become. More followers create more interactions which turn creates even more followers.
To make the most of this effect you need to promote the shareability within your interactions. Customers who follow you through your social media channels give you a direct channel of communication with them, which you can use to inform them about special offers, new products, announce changes or report news. The big advantage here is that people who follow you voluntarily are definitely interested in your company and its products, but this trust shouldn’t be misused. Customers will definitely appreciate special offers, especially freebies, and some nice photos of your latest products, but lay-off the hard sell no one wants to subscribe to one long pushy advert. Think about what you can offer these potential and repeat customers that will help them have a better experience with your products, and that makes them want to connect and share, rather than pushing for the quick sale. Otherwise, those followers will soon find someone else to follow.
5. Don’t Blindly Link & Comment Posts
A favored tactic of the past was to link and/or comment on as many other contributions as possible. The calculation behind this was that doing so generated attention from other businesses and followers. Admittedly, the trick worked well for a while, especially with Instagram, but it went out of fashion a few years ago and should definitely not be used today if you want to have sustainable success through your social media channels, interacting with your audience and others on social media is important but this interaction needs to be meaningful and feel personal. Creating templates for your most common responses can help save time but make sure that these responses are adapted to each user, they should never feel mechanical. and be sure to take a step back from time to time to get feedback on your social media profile from customers, colleagues, and friends.
It is also a good idea to monitor the social media strategy of your competitors to get ideas and make comparisons.If you need help doing this quickly and easily rankingCoach’s Social Media Monitoring features allows you to track the social media presence of your site and its biggest competitors 24/7 with real time updates showing you all the important developments business’s social media including customer interactions, reviews and mentions of your brand and your competitors activities on social media.
We hope this article has given you some useful tips for your Social Media Marketing strategy. The rankingCoach blog will always keep you up to date with all the most important Digital Marketing news and tips.
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