One of the most effective ways to reach new customers and drive sales is by using social media. In fact, more than 70% of consumers turn to these platforms as a source for business and product reviews. In addition, 42% of consumers discover products on social media and 29% purchase those products online directly from the brand’s site after seeing them on social media.
If your business isn’t already using social media, you’re leaving money on the table. It all comes down to strategy, purpose, and process. With the right approach, you can turn social media into your secret weapon for success. Here are 7 social media tips that will help you make social media one of the best lead generating parts of your marketing operations.
Know Your Target Audience
Social media marketing is about engaging and building relationships with potential and existing customers, not selling to them straight out. You can’t engage with your audience if you don’t know who they are, and you can’t sell to a customer if you don’t know what they want.
Start by looking at the data that is available about your audience through market research. There are many tools out there to help you do that. In the end, it comes down to asking yourself the following questions:
- Who is your target customer?
- What do they like to do in their spare time?
- Where do they go online?
- What are their interests and passions?
- Where do they congregate?
Once you can answer these questions, developing a marketing strategy becomes much easier. Then, you just have to turn your attention on making that marketing strategy work on social media. Even this is easier since you have a better idea of what type of marketing gets your target audiences’ attention.
Create the Right Content
To get the best returns on using social media for business, you have to create the right type of content with the right themes to get your audience’s attention. You want to create content that is relevant, valuable, and engaging to your target customer.
To do this, focus on the pain points that your customers are experiencing. Your content should introduce the problem, then show customers your solution. When they see that the solution can work for them, that is when they decide to make a purchase.
Monitor and Measure Results
One of the biggest mistakes that companies make is to launch marketing campaigns without a way of tracking performance. If you cannot measure how your work is doing, then you will never know if it is working or how you can fix it.
The more data you have, the more granular the look into performance can be. You can develop an analytics process for your work. There are many analytics platforms that you can use, and nearly every social media platform has a built in analytics tool.
Leverage the Power of Video
Social media is all about visuals. In fact, statistics show that videos on social media get 94% more engagement than posts that are purely written. When it comes to social media marketing, video is one of the most effective ways of engaging with your customers and driving sales.
Videos are easy to produce as well. Social media platforms have systems built in for you to take or upload videos. Your audience does not expect extremely high production value either. Simple videos that look professional and are engaging are enough to reap the benefits.
Don’t Neglect Paid Advertising on Social Platforms
One of the most effective ways for marketers to drive sales through social media is through advertisements. While organic posts are important, they may not always have the desired effect.
Paid advertisements can help you to reach the right audience at the right time and in the right place. When it comes to social advertising, you have a few different options.
You can run ads on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other social platform. You can also run ads on the websites and apps where your customers and leads spend their time. By running ads, you can place your products in front of your ideal customers more often, which will help to drive sales.
Establish Partnerships
Social media is a two-way street. You want to create content and share it, but you also want to interact and engage with other influencers and brands. This can be done through hashtags.
By using hashtags, you can reach a wider audience and engage with people who are interested in the same things you are. By engaging and responding to people who are interested in the same topics as you, you can not only build your brand, but you can also establish partnerships.
Partnerships can lead to mutually beneficial relationships that help your brand grow. By using hashtags, you can also discover potential brand ambassadors and sponsors for your products.
Run A/B tests
A/B testing is a common practice among social media business ideas. Essentially, it means that you create two different versions of a single piece of content and you let the audience decide which one is better. The best way to run an A/B test is to create two different posts with two different headlines and publish them at the same time.
Then, you can use an analytics tool to track which post is getting more engagement. You can use that data to help you decide which posts work best and which ones you should cut out altogether.
Get Help Developing Your Social Media
Creating a social media marketing strategy is important. It will help you to create a plan and an outline of what you want to achieve. You can use these social media tips for business to create a social media plan that will help you achieve success with your social media marketing campaigns. Also, you can get help from KitelyTech by calling us at (800) 274-2908 for help developing social media strategies.
