Question: If you want to grow your business, how do you get the word out about your product or service?
Answer: You need to go to where your market is, and these days, that’s online with social media leading the way.
You can use social media to your advantage by reaching your target audience on popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn.
Social media is an integral part of how the world operates these days. People check and interact on social media as part of their daily routine.
They wake up and see what’s been posted on Facebook. They tweet and retweet a few things on Twitter. They pin a few things on Pinterest.
Then lunchtime rolls around and they repeat the process all over again. If they have business-to-business goals or they’re looking into the job market, they might check in on LinkedIn.
They go through the entire process again before bed. It’s not quite accurate to call it an addiction because it’s just part of how society communicates. It has become part of normal day-to-day life.
People expect to find their friends, family, and favourite companies on social media. They find, follow, and friend those they care about.
The smartest brands out there are on social media because it’s one of the best ways to get in front of your audience. Social media is a great way to get in touch with your customers and potential customers.
You know that customers buy from those they know, like, and trust. That makes social media a huge win for you as a business owner. It used to be a lot harder to seem “real” to your customers. Now it’s easy—you can even do it on a very small or even zero budget.
You can take advantage of the wonderful tools for business on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and more.
Every day, you can work to spread word of your brand, products, and personality on social media. You can use social media to drive traffic, develop relationships with your audience, showcase your expertise as an authority, build your list, advertise your products and services, and more.
Today’s world is increasingly social… in a different way than it ever has been before. It’s not a matter of deciding if you should market your business and drive traffic using social media, it’s a matter of knowing that now’s the time to get really serious about it because it’s one of the most important things you can do for your business.
How Business Owners Successfully Use Social Media for Their Business
If your business is already on social media, then you are ready to get a lot of tips on how other businesses use social media successfully. There are definitely some things you can do right and some things you can do wrong.
If you’re not yet on social media at all for your business (or even personally), then now’s the time to start. It might seem daunting at first but it’s honestly not very intimidating at all once you get the hang if it. If you think about it, social sites are designed to be used by the masses. There’s no need to fear them.
Now let’s talk about how you, as a business owner can use social media for your business.
First, you need to understand each of the social sites and how they differ. There are certain reasons you’d want to use Facebook over Twitter, for example. You’d use LinkedIn very differently than you’d use Pinterest.
One of the first things you should do is familiarize yourself with the social networks you’ll get the most benefit from. Fashion and beauty focused companies will get more benefit out of Pinterest, in general, than B2B business owners would. That’s just an example. The most important thing is that you go where your audience is.
Those who use social media successfully pay particular attention to what their audience needs and expects to see. They focus on building the relationship first and sharing things of real value. They know what it takes to get social media users interested in what they have to say.
They know not to spam their link all over social media. They engage with their audience and get people interested first. They share things of real interest. They use social media to build their mailing list—where the real magic and business success happens.
They might sometimes use paid social ads (such as Facebook ads) to increase visibility and exposure. This combined with organic, natural social interaction can be a fast path to success.
One of the best things you can do to is to study how others in your niche or similar niches are effectively using social media. What works for one niche might not work as well for another. Study the best and then craft your plan to take advantage of all social media has to offer your business.
An Overview Of Using Facebook For Business
People use Facebook in a few different ways for business. There are Facebook pages, Facebook groups, and Facebook ads.
Notice that we are not talking about your personal profile. That’s not what you want to use for business and it’s not allowed anyway.
Facebook pages are great because they’re easy to create. When people “like” your page, they’ll see your posts in their newsfeed. It’s a good idea to create a page that offers a lot of value and that people will be excited to “like.”
Facebook groups are awesome because you can create a fantastic community feeling. People can post about things they have questions about. You can post helpful information, questions, and tips. People tend to feel ownership of the active communities they belong to, so you can really make that work as you brand your business as one of authority in your niche. Communities help build relationships, and then they’ll want to seek you out elsewhere.
Facebook ads are great because they are so targeted. Facebook has an incredible number of users. You can take advantage of that by targeting ads down to the most detailed levels. You can get great bang for your business buck when you use Facebook ads the right way.
An Overview Of Using Twitter For Business
Twitter is different in that you only get 140 characters to express yourself in each tweet. You can retweet and follow people in your niche. Your goal here is to get people to follow you who are actively interested in what you have to offer.
You do that by interacting and really becoming part of the Twitter community you’re targeting.
An Overview Of Using LinkedIn For Business
LinkedIn is great for networking in any industry. It’s especially useful for those in the business-to-business industry.
It can be really beneficial to have a LinkedIn profile. It can also be beneficial to find likeminded people in LinkedIn groups—or even create your own LinkedIn group. That’s a great way to help people, become known, and get them interested enough to check out your website and join your list.
An Overview Of Using Pinterest For Business
Pinterest is different from the other social media properties that I’ve listed to this point. It’s a very visual social platform. You can pin photos, images, and graphics with short descriptions to different category boards. Others can then repin your photos, click through your links, and like your photos.
Pinterest is perfect for fashion, health, beauty, and fitness focused businesses, among others. You can get some great traffic if your pins are virally repined.
How To Make Social Media Part Of Your Daily Routine
Hopefully, you have a clear idea now of how important social media is and which social sites might be best for you.
It’s important to use these sites in the right way—study how others in your niche are using them. Develop your own strategy.
And that’s really what it takes—a good strategy. You don’t want to just go on Facebook and waste the day away. You want to interact and share in a really strategic way.
Ideally, you’ll make social media part of your daily routine. You don’t have to spend a ton of time on it daily, by the way. In fact, it can be much more worth your time to complete all social media within 30-60 minutes a day.
Your posts and interactions will build up over time. You’ll form relationships with the people of your niche and you should get a lot of benefit from it.
Remember to provide value and build relationships above all. Social media isn’t just about advertising your wares. It’s about real people—it’s about being social. One of your goals should be to use social media to provide value and get people to join your email list. These sites might be here today and gone tomorrow, but your email list is yours to keep.
Achieving Your goals on Using Social Media
What are your goals for using social media for your business? Figure this out, embrace social media, use social media daily, and achieve your goals.
If you’re consistent and pay attention to what the people of your niche need and want, you can quickly see results in using social media in today’s very social online world.
Work With A Company That Will Help You To Achieve Your Vision
No doubt you are very excited after seeing what social media can do for your business. However, we know that a lot of small businesses find social media and online marketing very daunting, particularly when trying to run your offline business too.
If that is how you feel, why not contact us today and see how we will be able to assist you and your business to run a very profitable social media and online marketing campaign.
We specialize in helping small businesses just like yours to achieve their goals. We look forward to hearing from you.
