Written By: Katrina Fernandez
Social media is the largest growing way for businesses to connect and communicate with their customers. Here are 8 tips from experts to help you build your brand and make the most of this marketing power tool.
These websites and applications allow us to share photos, content and search for information. They are important platforms that enable companies to connect with their customers, increase brand awareness, boost sales, and become successful entrepreneurs in the digital marketplace.
Over three billion people around the world use social media every month, which makes having a social media marketing strategy more important than ever. So how do you take advantage of these remarkable marketing tools? Here are some quick tips from experts for using social media to help build your brand.
#1 – Have a Solid Social Media Marketing Plan
Like any marketing plan, you need to know what your goals are so that you can focus on achieving them. If you are only on social media because you think you have to be – you aren’t taking advantage of the many opportunities out there and you probably aren’t making much of an impact.
Are you interested in building awareness for a new campaign? Communicating with customers? Driving people to your website landing page? Each of these goals will require slightly different strategies and tactics. Have clear goals and strategies for your social media and website marketing so that every post gets you closer to your goal.
#2 – Get Active and Stay Active
Social media is fleeting and changes very quickly. Trends that are huge one day are gone the next. If you are going to engage in social media it is important to actively engage with it, and this means almost daily. It isn’t enough to open up an account and post something every once in a while. Consider social media as an important marketing tool and stay active.
#3 – Be Consistent in Your Brand and Your Messaging
As for any marketing campaign, it is important to have a consistent brand image and message that you want to build through social media. Include your corporate logo and colors in your posts and make sure that the language you use is working towards your common marketing goals.
#4 – Change Your Message for Each Social Media Platform
Not all social media platforms are created equally. Just because you want to present the same image of your brand across platforms doesn’t mean you can copy and paste the same post across all platforms. It is important to understand what each platform can do – and the best way to engage with it.
Know your audience, and know what platforms they like to use and how they engage with them. This will help you focus your message and reach your desired audience.
Here are three of the most commonly used social media platforms.
- Facebook is the largest social media network – customers will use it to find information about your business and look for recommendations.
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- Your company’s Facebook page is a good place to share company news, new campaigns and updates. Think of it as modern-day yellow pages – customers can get information and connect, but there’s not a lot of pressure.
- Instagram – Instagram now has over 1 billion active monthly users from around the world. It uses pictures and images to get the message across and start conversations. It is youth-friendly, easy to use and allows users to post with filters, create stories and share content on the go.
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- Instagram Stories are a great way to share spontaneous videos with your customers or to try out different messaging and see what works best. These stories only last 24 hours and can offer a sneak peek into your company culture without being a permanent online post.
- Twitter – is a text-based platform where you can engage in micro conversations. It is a great place to ask customer questions, raise brand awareness in anything that is in short texts. Twitter is also a great place to respond to customers, thank them for comments and get to know them.
#5 – Show the Human side of your company
Users on social media don’t want a corporate pitch, they want to see the human side of your business. Social media is a great place to show off your employees, your business culture and make things personal for your customers.
Consider getting your whole team involved with your social media (not just your social media manager) asking your employees to take over your social media for a day and contribute blogs, photos or get them to post about what they care about.
#6 – Use Humor
Just like customers like to know there are real humans behind your brand, they also like a good laugh. Using humor and jokes in your marketing strategy can go a long way and get those likes.
#7 – Think About Transparency
Social Media is a great place to engage with customers and a great place to turn a mistake into an opportunity. Show your customers that you care about what they think and want to make it right. You can talk about what went wrong and fix the situation, online!
#8 – Interact with Your Audience
Take advantage of the personal connection with your audience and keep an eye on any posts that mention your company or product. If you can add more information that will help the conversation or try to fix a problem this will let your customers know you care.
Be sure to answer any questions that are asked on your social media pages so that customers know there is a real live person behind the posts.
Ask customers to share photos, videos or posts about your products – some companies even offer a prize for the best photo of them using a product, or discounts for future purchases. It is a great way to generate content about your company and a great way to get your customers involved.
Author Bio:
Katrina is a hardworking individual who always gives her best. As a degree holder, she aspires to establish within the media industry. Expert in building online partnership, she’s been working in digital marketing services, Local SEO Search Inc. for several years.
