You have a great product or service to sell, and you’ve been working hard on your brand image. That’s great! Now it’s time to put your brand to work on social media and start building your brand awareness.
If you’re not sure how to take advantage of social media marketing for business yet, that’s okay!
Establishing and running a social media marketing campaign can be intimidating if you don’t have any experience. However, social media marketing is one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal in today’s market! It’s also easy to learn!
What is social media marketing?
At the most basic level, social media marketing is simply the practice of using social networks and platforms to promote the products or services you offer. It’s about more than just advertising that you have the best product, however. Social media marketing allows your business to engage with existing customers and potential new customers more personally than any other form of marketing.
Unlike other forms of marketing, SMM allows you and your customer to really get to know each other. This is where your brand comes in. Your brand tells people who you are, what your company stands for, and what your mission is as a business.
The main goal of establishing these relationships with customers is to improve your brand’s engagement. The more engagement your brand has, the easier it will be for you to analyze your data and assess what’s working for your company and what’s not.
What are the benefits of social media marketing?
There are numerous benefits to using social media marketing tactics for your business. The most obvious, of course, being visibility. If a potential customer can find you, they can hire you.
Other key benefits of this marketing strategy include:
Establishing customer brand loyalty to your business
New customer acquisition
An increase in web traffic
More opportunities for revenue generation
An increase in conversion rates (a fancy way of saying how many viewers purchase)
Improvement in SEO rankings (search engine optimization)
Increased engagement and recognition of your brand
One of the key benefits of using these marketing techniques is often overlooked by business owners. Practicing social media marketing provides you with valuable analytic data that you can use to improve all areas of your business. You can use the data you gather to better understand when to post, who your demographics truly are, and which types of posts are the most effective in generating leads.
5 practical tips to improve your brand on social media platforms
Now that you know a bit more about what social media marketing can do for your business, let’s talk tips. We’ll start with some simple and effective tips to improve your brand on social media platforms and networks.
Your brand is more than just the aesthetic you’ve worked to create; it’s an extension of your business persona. Your brand tells people who you are, what you represent, and how your business provides a unique solution. Here are five tips to start improving your brand on social media platforms immediately.
Be Authentic: There is nothing worse than a person or business that is obviously faking it. Don’t try to be a crowd-pleaser in the sense that you try to convert every single person into a paying customer by pandering to their beliefs or preferences. Your product or service is unique, and your customer base should be too. You want to find an audience that genuinely appreciates what you do and identifies with your brand. This leads to deeper brand loyalty and positive word-of-mouth advertisement.
Use Quality Images: While your visual aesthetic isn’t the only facet of your brand that is important, it is frequently the first thing that customers see and respond to when viewing your business. Stock photos are fine for some purposes, but today’s customer responds more to high-quality personal images that reflect your personality and style. If you aren’t comfortable in front of the camera, you can still get behind the scenes and take great photos of your product/service in use. You can also encourage customers to share their own social media that relate to your service/product.
Define & Engage Your Niche: This goes along with being authentic. You can’t impress everyone all of the time; it just isn’t feasible. Rather than trying to impress everyone, focus your pitch on a specific demographic. It might seem counterintuitive; however, narrowing your marketing focus will actually drive more sales. For instance, if you sell natural wood products, you’re more likely to draw customers by advertising your products as natural, toxin-free decor for the modern woman. Or raw, leech-free wood products for toddlers.
Don’t Wait For An Audience To Come To You: Once you’ve identified your target market for your business, you’ll need to identify the places that your audience spends time. If your audience is predominantly young people who live active lifestyles, meet them on TikTok and use targeted Facebook ads. Suppose your audience is mainly middle-aged women with backgrounds of higher education and sound financial standing. In that case, you might look into microblogging and Instagram instead.
Provide Value, Not Just A Product: Rather than taking a product-centric approach with your customers, try prioritizing the quality of the engagement you receive. Businesses that focus on providing their audience with what is known as authority content draw a much larger following than those who simply focus on the dollar signs. Authority content is thoroughly researched material that answers questions that your audience may have concerning your niche. It might be about your product or service specifically, or it might be about the industry you work in.
Growing your brand on social media is a lot of work but well worth it for your business in the long run! Your efforts to grow your brand will be most effective if you plan ahead. So don’t delay; plan your social media marketing campaign and start growing your brand today!
Still not quite sure where to start? No problem, we’re here to help! If you have any questions about growing your brand or other social media marketing tactics, fill out the contact form below!