As most of us know, social media is a tool that you can use to your advantage to help your business grow, generate leads, engage with your target audience, and see what others in your industry are doing to help better your strategies. However, if you are new to social media marketing, it can seem very overwhelming.
Being that social media is a useful tool for digital marketing, I have put together several tips to help you become a better social media marketer.
Amy Jo Martin, an American author, speaker, entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of Digital Royalty, once said “ Every time you post a photo, or update your status, you are contributing to your own digital footprint and personal brand.”
1. Brand Identity
Before you begin to develop a social media marketing strategy for your business, you will want to make sure that you understand your brand and make sure it’s in order. This means knowing who your audience is and where they are located. In this list of 30 of The Best Social Media Campaigns, Budweiser encourages responsible drinking with a cute puppy. This video became the No. 9 most watched YouTube ad of the year and Budweiser explained the message: “Next time you go out, be sure to make a plan to get home safely. Your friends are counting on you. Enjoy Budweiser responsibly.” [Video] Budweiser has a large fan base it can appeal to and can use social media channels like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to promote themselves because most of their fanbase hang out in those social channels.
More recently, Budweiser has begun a campaign labeled #MadeInAmerica that promotes their new bottle design and a concert at Crissy Field.
Now, Budweiser may not work as well in other social channels like LinkedIn, which would be more for businesses like law firms, agencies, or business professionals looking to make connections.
Bonus tip: Be consistent across your social channels. Keep the same color and company logo to not cause any confusion and link back to your websites in your ‘About’ section.
2. Be Curious
Listening to what is being said about your brand is one of the most important components of being active on social media. Monitoring and listening to what’s being said about you and your competitors gives you a better opportunity to make more informed decisions.
Bonus Tip: Being curious is more than just listening to your audience; there is some detective work that will need to happen. Exploring other social media channels and tools you may not be familiar with will help you develop a more involved marketing strategy and higher-quality content for the future.
3. Engage, Interact, and Respond
As mentioned earlier, social media is not a broadcasting tool. It’s a communication tool. You cannot just go on Facebook or Twitter and share promotional messages over and over again. Your audience needs content that they’ll find interesting, useful, or entertaining. You also should strike up a conversation with them by asking questions in your posts, and by responding to their answers it helps to build a relationship, which can lead to brand loyalty.
Here is a great blog by Social Media Examiner that discusses 6 Ways to Improve Engagement With Social Media.
4. Using the Right Tools
When you use social media tools, you have the ability to do a lot, such as discovering influencers, automating and scheduling content, managing all of your accounts from one location, and creating call-to-actions. Hootsuite, Hubspot, and SproutSocial are all great tools to start looking into to help manage your social accounts.
5. What is Your Plan?
Lastly, you want to consider your plan for social media. Even though this is last on our list, it is something that should be considered from the beginning. What do you want to get out social media? Do you want more followers on Facebook? Do you want more visitors visiting your landing pages? Do you want to increase sales? Setting up your game plan will keep your efforts focused and will help you create and share consistent content with your audience.
To learn more about how social media or digital marketing can help increase the amount of quality leads your business can get, continue reading our blogs, or call us at ( 866-998-6886 ).
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