What is social media and why is it important for your business?
Social media is any digital platform where people can consume and engage with content. In our digital world today, it’s more important than ever for your business to have a digital presence and reach customers where they spend a large majority of their time.
In this guide, you will find tips on how to successfully create good content and utilize different social media platforms to help grow your business.
How to Create Successful Content:
Be Authentic
Authenticity is the #1 most important thing to keep in mind when creating content for your business. Gone are the days of posting a stock photo with some generic copy to see good results. Today, people want to see authenticity, and for good reason. With so many scams present on the internet, your business needs to show people they can trust you and why they should choose you over your competitors. The best way to do this is to post real content. Show customers your employees, facility, products, other satisfied customers, and how you support your community. This should be done through photos, video, and text. If your business is invested in helping people, people will be interested in supporting you. Also remember that authentic content doesn’t need to be perfect. If something isn’t absolutely perfect, don’t let it stop you from posting it all together. Your customers aren’t perfect and will more than likely relate better to imperfect content. It also has the opportunity to garner more engagement. Strive for good, relatable content.
Engage
If there was something equally as important as authenticity, it would be engagement. Engaging with your followers/customers shows them that their questions and comments are important to you, whether good or bad. Even a minor interest in a product or service your business offers can lead to a huge sale down the road. Don’t dismiss people and make sure to be real with your responses like your content. How your business responds to comments and messages can easily mean the difference between new life-long customers and lost business. Be sure to respond in a timely manner to direct messages and always try to respond to all comments, mentions, and reviews. Turning a critic into a customer will be the best word-of-mouth promotion for your business.
Get Creative
This should go without saying, but get creative. Try different things to see what works best for your business and customers when it comes to content. Know what your customers like best and when they engage most. Crafting some of your organic content based on previous successes can help posts reach further, just don’t get too repetitive. People like new and interesting content. Aside from just posting information about your products or services, try mixing it up a little bit.
Here are some ideas:
• Do a giveaway
• Issue a challenge
• Partner with another local business
• Ask customers to post & reshare
• Write/share relevant blog content
• Community involvement/service
• Sponsorships
• Time-sensitive deals
• Participate in a viral trend
• Paid Content
While posting regularly on any platform is going to help build trust with customers, paying the platform to sponsor some of your content is going to help reach them more effectively and also introduce new customers. In today’s ad space, it’s a pay to play environment, which is why it’s crucial to understand your industry’s average ad costs and where your margins should be to compete. Different platforms offer different types of targeting, but finding your target market with creative content wherever you are spending your ad dollars is imperative to a successful campaign.
Platforms to Consider
Facebook has been the big dog in social media for quite some time now. It offers the widest range of age groups, a large variety of content types that you can utilize, and also the most robust advertising platform.
(Side tip: Ask people to like your Facebook page after they have reacted to a post by clicking on the number of reactions and then clicking the invite buttons next to their profile names.)
Facebook owns Instagram, and because of this, your business can advertise on both Facebook and Instagram at the same time. It’s a very visual platform and all posts must have a photo or video (limited up to 60 seconds long).
LinkedIn is a social media platform for professionals. While it’s advertising options aren’t as robust as Facebook’s, it can be a good starting point to reach professional customers.
TikTok
TikTok is fairly new to the game and is strictly a video platform. The TikTok algorithm makes it reasonably easy to go viral with the right video for no ad spend whatsoever. However, a large portion of its users are a younger demographic.
YouTube
YouTube is the classic video platform. It has been around since 2005 and is tied with Google. YouTube is perfectly positioned to display long-form video and also advertise your business on popular, related content.
Google My Business
Google My Business is key for your business when it comes to the Google search platform. Your business should keep on top of the information presented here, because when people search for your business, this is one of the first things they’re going to see.
Have any tips of your own? Let us know!
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