If your customers are on social media, you should be too! It is a free tool for your business to reach potential customers every single day. Without a website and some sort of social media presence, customers would not have an easy way to search for your products or services online!
Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are great tools to connect with others, within our own town and from across the globe. A few posts every few weeks is not going to get your brand noticed on social media.
Develop a real, consistent online marketing strategy to use social media for brand awareness, reach new and existing customers, and ultimately grow your brand’s social media and stand out from the competition!
Here are a few tips to help your business’s social media stand out from your competitors’:
- Spend the Money on Ads: A $5-$10 boost once a week on Facebook is not going to get your post in front of too many people. Instead, boost posts (around $50+) once a week and utilize paid ads ($500+) on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter. Ads are very customizable ads that reach more people than boosting a post and allow you to be more specific about who you want to reach.
When it comes to social media, after developing a great marketing strategy, social media ads are where you want to be spending your money!
- Frequent Postings: 3-5 times a week is the sweet spot you want to be in when it comes to posting on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms. You do not want to post TOO often to annoy your followers and crowd their news feed. You want to consistently provide relevant, quality content to grow your brand’s awareness. Quality over quantity!
- Be Entertaining: People come to social media to either look up information or to be entertained. You want to be able to provide both so that customers enjoy looking through your social media page(s) and see you as a valuable resource.
- Use Strong Visuals: When posting a video or picture, it should be clear, colorful, and right to the point. It should be eye-catching, even if it is a preview of an article or video, so that makes the viewer want to click on it. This will bring up your overall engagement!
- Be an Industry Leader: It is very important that your followers see you as a leader in the industry of your business. Repost informative articles that provide great information about your industry. You want to be a resource for people, that will keep you relevant and keep them coming back to your page!
- Focus on Now: Your following will not increase by 100 people in a single day. Rome was not built in a day. Your followers will grow at a steady rate, be patient.
- Set Goals: It is important to set goals. But also, important to know that goals take time to accomplish. Working through these third-party social media platforms, they are in control of who sees your content, when, and how often. Set realistic expectations for your social media page because there is only so much in your control.
The worst thing you can say about your own brand’s social media content is “we want it to look just like *insert competitor’s name here*”. Inspiration is always great, but celebrating what makes you different will ensure you stand out from your competition instead of blending in.
Social media is the perfect platform to quickly get your message out. Sales, promotions, and giveaways are great things to endorse on your social media accounts. Connect with your fans and followers through your social media posts, shares, and messages. In today’s generation, having a successful social media marketing strategy is a key step to branding your business overall, not just online!
Author Bio:
Jamie Walloch was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and graduated from the University of West Georgia with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Mass Communications, with a concentration in Convergence Journalism, and a minor in Marketing. Through college, Jamie interned with the sales and marketing team of the national magazine publication ‘Modern Luxury’, while also managing social media for a large fashion designer. After college, Jamie moved to Madison, Wisconsin to be closer to family. She has been working at Mid-West Family Madison for almost 3 years total, with the past year and a half as the Digital Content Specialist, creating digital marketing content for social media, websites, etc. She enjoys fitness training and spending time with her two dogs, a white Shepard and a rescue Labrador-mix.
