Posted by Social media marketing is one of the most efficient and affordable ways to grow your small business. It allows you to connect with a larger audience, build relationships with customers, and create brand awareness.
With more and more people using social media, it’s essential to use the right strategies to make the most of this powerful marketing tool. In fact, surveys conclude that almost 70% of marketers that spend 6 hours or more on social media effectively get more leads through this channel.
With that in mind, this article will discuss some of the most effective social media marketing strategies that you can use to grow your small business, allowing you to connect with more people, increase sales, and build a strong brand.
Let’s get right into it.
Social Media Strategies To Consider
The following are the top social media marketing strategies to implement and optimize in your business right now.
1. Establish A Social Media Presence
For most businesses, a social media presence means having a Facebook page, Twitter account, and LinkedIn profile. However, depending on your industry, you may have so much more that you can do.
The first step is to determine which social media platforms best fit your business and then create profiles on those sites. When you create your profiles, make sure to fill out all the information, including a profile picture, header image, and bio.
Next, create a customer persona that you can target with your social media marketing. This fictional representation of your ideal customer includes demographics (age, gender, location), interests, and needs.
With this persona in mind, creating your content to establish a social media presence becomes easier.
All the material you create will focus on one (fictional) person, allowing you to tailor your material based on what this person needs and wants in their life.
This singularity of focus gets you on the right track to establishing your presence.
2. Use social media to drive website traffic
Sending people who know, like, and trust your brand to your website increases conversion rates.
The best way to do this is by using social media to drive traffic to your website. You can do this by sharing blog posts, images, and videos on your social media platforms, as well as by including links in your social media bios and profile descriptions.
All of these should have calls to action that encourage people to visit your site in order to get some kind of value.
You can also use social media advertising to specifically target people who have visited your website recently or who might be interested in what you offer.
3. Use social media to stay up-to-date on trends
One of the great things about social media is that it’s constantly changing. This means that you need to continually evolve and adapt your marketing strategies to stay ahead of the curve.
Monitor what’s happening on your chosen social media platforms, as well as what’s happening in your industry. Identify any trends and figure out how to use them to your advantage.
For example, if you see that many people are using Tiktok to share videos, consider using this platform for your business — taking what’s working and adding your twist to it. Likewise, if there’s a new type of content that’s gaining popularity, create some content of your own.
4. Use social media to create valuable content
One of the best ways to connect with your audience and increase sales is by creating valuable content. This content can be in the form of blog posts, images, infographics, or videos.
It’s essential to ensure that your content is relevant to your audience and provides value. This could include tips, advice, how-to’s, or just general information about your industry.
Using features that help with the content creation process is a must-have in your social media marketing arsenal. For example, such a tool can help you easily create attractive and engaging visuals that resonate with your target audience.
5. Sell your stuff with social commerce
Did you know that you can sell your products and services directly on social media? This is known as social commerce, and it’s a great way to reach more people and increase sales.
In addition, various platforms allow you to do this, with some even allowing you to create a shop (such as the Instagram shop) on these platforms and add your products.
Once your products are added, you can promote them on your social media platforms. You can also use social media advertising to specifically target people interested in what you offer. Once you build enough of a brand following, you can leverage referral marketing to help you sell on social much faster through your own customers.
6. Build Your Email List Through Social Media
Social media is not only a great way to connect with your audience and sell your products and services, but it’s also a great way to build your email marketing list.
One of the best ways to do this is by creating valuable content that people will want to sign up for. In other words, you need to create content that has a high perceived value in your target audience’s mind.
Once you have created such valuable content, you can add a sign-up form to your social media platforms/direct people to a landing page on your website. This depends on the social media platform and its capabilities.
For example, Facebook allows you to create ads specifically made to capture leads. Instagram doesn’t allow such an option, and therefore, you’d need to direct people to a page on your site.
The right web hosting plan will make creating such a page on your website as simple as pressing a few buttons and dragging a few things around, so choosing the right web host is critical.
Either way, this form can ask for people’s email addresses in exchange for access to the content.
There are also various ways to improve your email marketing effectiveness. For example, using personalized subject lines to get a higher email opening rate will help you achieve your marketing goals.
Email marketing and social media marketing go hand in hand, so make sure to use both to reach your target audience.
7. Focus On Quality Over Quantity
Social media allows you to perform market validation and customer discovery on a local (or even a global) scale.
When starting a small business, it’s essential to focus on quality over quantity. This means that you should take the time to create valuable content and connect with your audience through quality output.
Always focus on reaching the right people.
This will help you increase sales and connect with more people interested in what you have to offer.
Having real-time input on what works (and what does not) is an invaluable asset for the growth of any small business.
8. Use The Right Analytics
Constantly going over one’s data and analytics is a must for any social media marketer. This will help the business owner determine what content is working and what isn’t as part of a comprehensive social media strategy.
With various available tools, you can get a lot of information about your audience. This information can include where your audience is located, what type of content they are engaging with, and how often they are interacting with your content.
Using this information, you can tailor your content to appeal to your audience. You can also use it to determine which social media platforms work best for you.
Some of the best analytics tools can make such a massive difference in the growth of your small business, allowing you to dial in on specific metrics that pull the biggest ‘business levers’.
For example, when measuring how long people stay on your website, consider your bounce rate.
This is defined as the percentage of people who visit your website and then leave without viewing any other pages. This usually means that these people didn’t find the solution they were looking for on your website.
It could also mean they had the wrong expectation through the referring source (i.e., your social media channels). If your bounce rate is high, it could mean that you need to work on making your website more engaging or provide better solutions to people’s problems.
Various factors can decrease bounce rate, and implementing such elements can lead to a higher conversion rate.
9. Use Social Media To Monitor Your Competition
Another great thing about social media is that you can monitor your competition. This will assist you when it comes to staying ahead of the curve and developing new strategies that will help you stand out from the competition.
There are various ways to do this, including using social media monitoring tools, following your competitors on social media, and analyzing their content.
When you monitor your competition, you can understand what type of content is working for them and what isn’t. You can also see what types of strategies they are using and how successful they are.
Understanding what gaps your competitors are currently not addressing in the market is the key to success in any industry. Social media can help you do just that.
10. Use Scheduling And Automation To Free Up More Time For engagement
Most people do not go all-in on social media because they just don’t have the time to do so — and feel that social media will take up even more of their time. Fortunately, there are various ways to use scheduling and automation to give you back more time — while improving your online presence.
For example, you can schedule your content to be published automatically or use social media management tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social that will help you automate some part of your social media tasks.
This will allow you to spend more time interacting with your audience and building relationships. It will also give you back more time that you can use to focus on other aspects of your business.
Scheduling and automation tools that help you publish content and engage with your audience can make a big difference in the growth of your small business. Make sure to use them to get the most out of your social media marketing efforts.
11. Get Feedback From Social Media
Getting feedback, and more importantly, responding to it, is important for any business. However, it is vital for small businesses that are looking to grow.
When you get feedback from the right people on social media (i.e., your leads and customers), you can determine what people think about your brand and what they would like to see more of. You can also use it to determine which content resonates with your audience and which doesn’t.
Additionally, when you respond to feedback, you show that you care about your customers and their opinions. This can help build trust and loyalty with your audience.
Tools that help you ‘listen’ and know when your business is mentioned are invaluable. Such tools help you prioritize your focus and perform sentiment analysis around your brand.
12. Mix Up Your Formats And See What Works Best
Many scores can give you an idea of how well you’re doing on social media, and one of these is the CSAT.
This stands for “customer satisfaction score” and measures how happy your customers are with your product or service. You can use this information to determine which formats work best for you.
Improving your CSAT score can help you grow your business, so it’s essential to track it and see what changes you need to make.
This can be achieved by testing different content formats, posting at different times, and using different channels.
Conclusion
To wrap up, social media marketing can be a great way to grow your small business. However, it’s essential to use the right tools and strategies to make the most of it.
Make sure to monitor your competition, use scheduling and automation tools, and get feedback from social media. Having a long-term social media marketing strategy can help your small business grow and succeed.
With so many tools available for small businesses to improve their social media marketing strategies, the sky’s the limit.