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Do you leverage social media to promote your business?
If not, you’ll miss countless opportunities to gain more leads, boost your engagement, and increase conversions and sales.
A survey shows that 54% of people use social media to research products.
The data highlights the effectiveness of using social media channels to promote your products and brand.
With the right strategies, social media marketing can support your efforts to market and promote your business—whether you sell retail items or run a successful side gig as an artist.
While social media marketing can involve a lot of factors and calls for many methods, start simply with these four tactics to leverage social media for your business.
1. Develop a plan
Every good business strategy starts with one thing: A solid plan.
A plan gives you a clear picture of what you want your social media marketing efforts to achieve.
Your plan also serves as a blueprint that shapes and informs your strategy. It tells you if you’re getting your expected Return on Investment (ROI).
Develop a social media plan to ensure your marketing initiatives on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc., support your specific business goals.
Follow these tips to create your social media marketing plan.
• Identify your goals. Set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely (SMART).
Consider setting goals based on metrics that are likely to have a real impact on your business.
For instance, you could aim to raise your conversion rate or get more customers instead of simply gaining more likes.
• Learn from your competitors. Understand how similar brands in your niche or industry leverage social media to know what works (or doesn’t work) for a business like yours.
For example, find out your competitors’ popular and brand-related Instagram Reels hashtags that get them more views and engagement.
The goal isn’t to copy your competitors but to learn from them to help shorten your learning curve.
• Create a social media calendar. A social media calendar allows you to plan your content, helping you post the right content to the appropriate social channels at optimal times.
Use Vista Social, a reliable social media management platform with an intuitive content calendar and robust post scheduling and auto-publishing features (among others).
Image source: vistasocial.com
Start with using 80% of your social media content to educate or inform your audience and the other 20% to promote your brand and sell your products.
Also, develop a comprehensive content writing playbook with your social media marketing planning.
This way, you’ll have a ready-to-use reference to guide your social media content creation, streamlining your production process.
2. Know your target audience
Social media platforms allow you to micro-target your audience, making them some of the best channels for business promotions and marketing.
However, you need to know who your audience is before you can do this.
Start by gathering data on your existing customers. Use reliable social media analytics tools to dig deeper.
A social media analytics tool can help you drill down on who’s interacting with and buying from your business online.
After identifying your target audience, create buyer personas—semi-fictional, detailed representations and descriptions of your ideal customers based on research and data.
Use free buyer persona generators such as MakeMyPersona from HubSpot. It allows you to create customizable templates that personify your ideal buyers easily.
Image source: hubspot.com
Developing buyer personas can tell you which social media users are likely to want, need, and buy your products and services.
You’ll know who you should target with your social media advertising and marketing efforts. A buyer persona can also give focus to your social media marketing campaigns.
After all, you’re not likely to sell if you market your robust workflow diagram software to audiences interested in baby clothes.
Buyer personas can also help you understand the best ways to talk to and reach your audience.
You can leverage a buyer persona to help learn the best content types and messaging to capture your potential customer’s attention on social media.
For instance, if your ideal buyers are marketers and content writers, you could create an Instagram carousel post with images and tips on how to buy SEO articles.
3. Leverage social shopping features
Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram include social commerce and shopping features. These allow you to sell your products directly from your social media channels.
For example, you can promote your products on Facebook by tagging them in your posts. It’s a simple, no-nonsense tactic to showcase your retail and other physical products on your audience’s feed.
Men’s clothing retailer David Outwear nails this by tagging individual products in their in-feed posts.
Image source: facebook.com.
The shoppable post shows potential customers the main product details and price, so shoppers won’t need to leave Facebook to get more information.
Social media users can also click the shoppable post icon to learn more details from your Facebook page shop or videos and photos catalog.
Image source: facebook.com.
Sharing shoppable social media posts facilitates a better user experience while directing your prospects through the customer journey’s essential elements.
Make the most of social media by using each platform’s shopping tools.
The social commerce features allow you to promote and sell your services and products without a website.
Develop a solid content tracking strategy that includes monitoring and assessing your shoppable posts on social media.
Doing so can help you determine which posts are performing well (or not).
4. Share interactive posts
Interactive posts are some of the best content to engage and, in turn, convert your passive audiences into paying and loyal customers.
Create interactive social media posts, such as:
• Live Q&A Sessions
• Instagram polls
• Interactive calculators
• Challenges
• Quizzes
• Giveaways and contests
• Games
• Fill-in-the-blanks posts
For example, you can share Instagram Story polls, encouraging your audiences to participate while promoting your products.
The IG Story poll from clothing retailer Aerie below is a classic example.
Image source: instagram.com.
Interactive posts can capture your audience’s attention and encourage engagement. These can also help your brand stand out from competitors while drawing more eyeballs to your posts.
Start with small steps to get big wins
Social media marketing can be complex and require a lot of time and work.
However, success isn’t far off when you start right, beginning with this guide’s time and tested tips.
Leverage simple yet high-impact ways to jumpstart your social media marketing efforts.
Please contact me at me@michaelpace.com for a consultation on your social media marketing aspirations!
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