Social media is important for any business and small ones or start up is by no means excluded. Social media can be the difference that makes a small online business successful, or unfortunately, fail very quickly. As social media marketing is so influential, there are a few tips that small businesses should be aware of.
Pick Your Platform Carefully
There are many different avenues for social media now and picking the correct one(s) can be critical. If the audience you are aiming for focus on one website, you need to focus on this too. There is no point spending precious money on marketing in a place where few people who might buy your product will go.
For example, fashion ecommerce finds great success on Pinterest, while Twitter is often touted as a top platform for finding business niche followers. This is not to say that Pinterest does not work for business, but since 85% of all Pinterest users are women who often buy as a result of Pins; this makes Pinterest a viable resource where women shoppers are the target audience.
It will take some in-depth research and testing to find those platforms for your target audience and niche, but it is well worth your while.
Be Available
Businesses with a physical presence are available on the phone and in person for their customers; online businesses are no different. If you don’t have a store or phone number for customers to contact you on, you must be available on social media. This means answering tweets, and comments that you receive.
Track Your Social Media Sites
Ensure you have some kind of way to track the number of visitors, comments, retweets etc. on your sites. This is the only way you will know which aspects of your marketing strategy are working. If no one is commenting on certain types of posts, it may be time to rethink these, as they are clearly not as effective as others are. If there are few visitors being sent from Twitter updates, you may want to re-think Twitter or even the followers that you are attracting to your profile.
Start Small
Do not try to master all the different social networks in one go; you will end up with half decent profiles, which is an ineffective strategy. Instead, focus on the one or two key sites that your intended audience will use most. Spend time building these up gradually, and only move over to another one when you are sure you can manage the increased workload, and that it will be worth it with the increased audience. Master one or two, and then move onto another.
Learn Automation
Certain sites have features that can be automated, such as following people when they start to follow you. Invest time in understanding these features, as they can be crucial to saving you time later. However, technology is no replacement for a human so make sure you check that it is working correctly from time to time.
Be Interactive
There is enough content on the internet that requires people to simply read. You need to make your website stand out from the others and interactive features are one way to do this. This could be simply having a weekly or monthly poll, small competitions or asking people to send reviews of your products. As people engage with your site, it will spread across social media sites thereby increasing exposure to your business.
Make Call To Actions Easy
A call to action is whatever you want your audience to do. For example, buy your eBook, buy products from your ecommerce site, signup to your email-marketing list, or buy an affiliate promotion.
Whatever your call to action, the whole point in any marketing strategy is to increase their conversions, so make this as easy as possible. Have links in your posts to your site and minimize the amount of steps people have to take to complete the Call To Action. Be clear in what you want them to do, have large buy buttons on your sales page and prominent opt-in forms that are not buried among other content.
You could also offer discounts and vouchers that are only available on your social media sites to encourage interaction, such as ‘10% off for those who share the post’. Not only does this give you an extra sale, but also it ensures the customer is also promoting your business to all their social media contacts.
Hire A Specialist
If you are new to online business or new to social media marketing it may be well worth your while to hire a marketing specialist who is an expert in social media. You really only get one chance to make a first impression with the social audience, and since social media marketing is an intricate balance of building relationships and promotion, an expert can be your best asset in creating and managing an effective social media campaign that will take your business to new heights of success.
