Anyone can use social media, however to harness its power for your small business you need to have the right know how and tools. Taking the time to set up an effective social media strategy now will help you gain more from this powerful online marketing tool in the long run. Read my top 5 tips to help you understand the relationship between social media and effective business sales and marketing.
1. Join Twitter to improve customer relationships and increase your reach.
72% of people are more likely to make a future purchase from a Small Business after they follow or interact with them on Twitter. This means it is perfect for reaching out to customers, both new and existing, and openly showing good customer service. You can increase your reach by finding and following relevant thought leaders in your industry, and then their followers who could be potential customers for your products or services. Then it is important to engage with your audience by tweeting relevant and shareable content regularly, and answering followers questions or commenting on their posts. If a thought leader shares a post then all the better! Finally do make sure you integrate Twitter into your existing website and other social media channels for maximum exposure.
2. Optimise Tweet volumes and times to fit your needs and maximise impact.
Customers often ask us how often they should be tweeting, well the simplest answer is to try it and see! Create a test content strategy over a week or two, publishing varying number of tweets at different times of day. Then use a Twitter analytics tool like Hootsuite (or Twitter’s own analytics) to view your results. Look for the most engagement, shares and views, then depending on the results adjust your strategy accordingly. A guideline to start with is roughly one tweet per hour, every day, including weekends!
3. Setup a LinkedIn Company page to enhance your company’s presence.
Any LinkedIn member can follow a company page which makes it a great opportunity to showcase your business to other professionals. You can share information about your business, brand, products and services, plus job opportunities. It is also searchable by Google which means more content to be found. Why not tell your story, and interact with followers to see where it takes you?
4. Optimise your Facebook page to improve engagement.
Facebook is a highly visual online medium, so you need to create content that encourages engagement and sharing. Every post should include a relevant photo, or even a video – and faces perform well too. A post with a personal voice will add to your brand’s personality, especially on topics your audience cares about. Again you can use Facebook’s page insights to see how effective your posts are, but try not to overdo it on Facebook. About 1 – 3 Facebook posts per day is sufficient. Weekends are a good time for Facebook engagement too, depending on your industry. Remember you can also schedule posts in advance using Facebook’s page manager or a tool like Hootsuite.
5. Remember to build relationships first – and with relevant contacts.
It is tempting to go straight in and sell your product to anyone and everyone, via all social media channels possible. However this is likely to hinder your social media strategy from the start. Tread carefully and take the objective of building a relationship first, with quality followers. This means you need to choose carefully who you follow, and only follow those back who are potential customers or relevant to your business. Show you are a great person / business to know by investing time with these relationships, engaging with them by being helpful and friendly. In this way potential customers are likely to buy from you as they get to know you first, and then recommend you to their friends.
This post is written by Rachel Toy, a freelance content writing specialist based near Aylesbury, Bucks, UK. If you would like to learn more about how effective Content Writing can help your business email me on rachel@racheltoywrites.co.uk