Most business owners and marketers recognize the important role of social media marketing as a part of growing their online presence. Yet, many business owners do not feel that they get an adequate amount of return on their investment to continue prioritizing social media as a major part of their digital marketing strategy. After a few months of lackluster results, it can seem as if there is no reason to continue trying.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are ways to improve the performance of your company’s social media channels and see greater ROI. Here are five social media marketing tips for business owners that can help steer things in the right direction.
Define Clear and Specific Goals
To succeed on social media, you will need to define clear and specific goals for your platform. While these goals can change over time, it isn’t likely that you’ll be able to grow brand awareness, generate sales, grow your email subscription list, and increase engagement all at the same time. These goals require different strategies, so it’s best to clearly articulate your goals so you can create a strong social media strategy that reflects that.
If growing the number of likes on your page is the goal, you can offer some incentive to followers on your page, such as a discount code that’s exclusive to your page’s followers. This wouldn’t do anything to grow your email list, however. Advertising a lead magnet to entice followers to give you their email could be a better strategy to reach these goals.
As your brand’s social media presence grows, you might have new goals or shift between different goals. As long as you know what your specific goals are, you will have a better idea of how to measure and monitor the account’s performance to see if your strategies are working.
Appear Active and Omnipresent
Customers expect your company to be active and omnipresent. It’s a brand and they want to be able to shop when they want to in a world where eCommerce means that it’s possible to order products or make important buying decisions in the middle of the night. When social media accounts are inactive, it can make it difficult to know if the company is still operational.
Maintaining an active presence on social media is easy, even when your office is closed. You can schedule posts for many weeks in advance and set up autoresponders through chatbots and native social media apps to be of service to customers even when there’s no one around to answer them. If a question needs support, there are ways to use social media to forward the customer’s request to the appropriate party.
Cultivate a Brand Voice
Your company’s social media channels are an extension of your company’s website. You want it to match the brand voice that you worked so hard to cultivate. This means that each post should maintain that voice and that the types of articles, memes, or content that you share should reflect that broader strategy. Try not to post things that go against your brand’s voice or values.
See What Competitors Post
It is always a good idea to see what your competitors are doing to know how you can differentiate your company in the market. You can look at all of your competitors’ social media channels to see the kinds of posts that they make and to see if you can figure out ways to post better content. Could you create higher quality videos? Could you post more frequently? Do competitors respond to comments? What do their reviews look like? These are all questions that you can ask while you review the types of content available through these channels.
Be Responsive
There are two important ways to be responsive on social media. First, you want to respond to any messages, comments, or reviews that customers might leave quickly. You don’t want to leave a negative review unresponded to, as your response to the negative comment shows a lot about your company and its customer service policies. You may not be able to salvage the relationship with that customer but you could help future relationships with others. Second, you want to be open and responsive to changes in the environment. If one strategy doesn’t work, it’s critical to discontinue it and try something else.
It is free to have a basic social media account on all of the major platforms. Whether you choose to rely only on organic growth or infuse money into paid social campaigns is up to you. At KitelyTech, we can work with your team to ensure that your entire online presence performs well, driving valuable traffic to your site and generating leads. Call our team at (800) 274 2908 to get started.
