Advertising a business has completely changed in the last decade. As more and more internet entrepreneurs and retail store owners join the growing ranks of online business ownership, how do you make your offering stand out?
Your customers expect a buoyant social media presence but simply being at the party isn’t enough. Knowing how to use social media is crucial to your success, but how do you use this pivotal advertising tool? When creating social media strategies, create valuable content with your customers at the heart. Optimise your site for mobile for the best ROI. Contribute to the community and develop deep connections with meaningful content. Don’t overshare or misunderstand the platform. Be consistent and realistic.With that in mind, let’s delve straight in with possibly the most important consideration when planning your social media campaigns.
Create Valuable Content
It may shock some internet entrepreneurs that your potential customers aren’t interested in you. In many cases, they won’t have heard of your brand or at the point of first social media capture and won’t particularly care.When surfing through social media channels, their main concern is their own goals, lives, and problems.
By creating meaningful content, you put your potential customers at the forefront. This is crucial to maximising engagement. Stories in which your audience is firmly at the heart of the content add value. This will lead to better conversions and higher ROI, whether that is your precious time or money.
According to experts, over half the world's population currently uses some form of social media. For anyone with an online presence, it’s worth knowing that figure will shoot up to a staggering 4.41 billion by 2025. So, how important are the devices used by your audience?
Make Sure You Are Mobile-Friendly
Anyone with a business in Brisbane or anywhere else on the continent might be surprised to hear that Australia is second only to the USA in terms of its mobile phone usage.This means that nearly 80% of the population are logged on to social media via their smartphone. So for anyone designing stellar TikTok or Instagram campaigns to fully maximise the benefits and get crucial conversions, your website must be optimised for mobile users.
Develop Relationships
When it comes to staying ahead of the pack, your social media strategy is crucial.Contemporary consumers can connect with their favourite brands and influencers on their terms. Any business owner who takes the ‘talking at’ their customers approach will see little engagement and, crucially, fewer conversions. The most valuable kind of messaging is that which locks in the target customer, overcomes their pain points and resonates.A social media campaign is crucial rather than simply odd ads here and there. Your customers need to become familiar with your brand and offering before pressing the buy button.
Contribute to The Community
Social media and its audience are part of an online community. As with any community, it works best when social constraints are followed. Contribution by its members is crucial. Most networks and communities prosper when there is give and take by everyone concerned. So entrepreneurs who lean heavily on the ‘take’ side could soon find themselves out of the race. Shared passions, goals and contributions bring authenticity and transparency to your brand, creating genuine engagements and building the necessary relationships to convert audiences to customers.
Create The Right Content for The Right Platform
When you understand that over half an hour of anyone’s day is spent on social media platforms, according to statisticians, your business must be in the race. However, that doesn’t mean blindly copying and pasting the same message across many platforms. All social media platforms are designed to be implemented according to their key features and purposes. Any online business owner needs to understand how each platform works and ensure the content and tone are relevant. For example, Facebook has a more casual, friendly approach and focuses on groups. In contrast, LinkedIn is for business professionals, so possibly won’t appreciate a post of your cat wearing a bow tie! On the other hand, Twitter is for well thought out, quick-fire responses for both businesses and individuals, and Instagram is more image-focused.
Don’t Share The Same Message
It goes without saying that blindly re-hashing the same message repeatedly will eventually halt your social media engagement. Of course, it’s fine to use the content you know works. But mix it up for your readers. Simply throwing out the same post time after time will be seen as lazy by your audience, and worse, it could negatively impact your conversions.
Don’t Overshare
How much sharing is the right amount of sharing? How long is a piece of string? Unfortunately, there is no right answer to this question. However, if you attack social media consistently day in and day out, you might find your followers unsubscribing in their hoards. Of course, it’s important to be where the action is along with potential customers, but spamming their newsfeeds is a sure-fire way to a mass unfollowing. A good rule of thumb is one to two posts a day on Facebook and Instagram, with Twitter working on a higher tweet rate of around five to six tweets a day.
Don’t be Unrealistic
As with any other part of your business, setting attainable and realistic goals is part of a stellar strategy. Make sure you follow the same plan for your social media campaigns as it can be soul-destroying, especially when starting out, to set the bar too high. Running an internet business like any entrepreneur, big or small, can seriously test your metal, so setting yourself up for a fall should be kept off the menu. Set realistic goals with social media platforms, such as looking to increase 50 followers to 100 in a month. Baby steps can help keep you motivated and see growth from your efforts. Predicting your first month's posts to become viral is demoralising when it doesn’t happen and might be unrealistic.
Don’t Misunderstand The Platform
Just as no two audiences are the same; no two social media platforms are the same either.Each social channel has its own style and rhythm, so you must use data to analyse what your audiences want to see more of. Is it quick-hitting captions that are punny or on-trend? Or is it a few paragraphs that really brings the follower into the story, tugging at emotion and how they can relateUnderstanding the ideal post length and matching it with the goals of your post will help grow your channel and keep your audience coming back for more.
To Sum It Up
Our expert designers and marketers at Anchor Digital fully understand the importance of getting your social media strategy right. Get in touch to discover more about how we can audit and guide your social media performance. Our experienced team will actively work alongside you with your vision to help find the most meaningful ways to connect your brand through social media. Drop us a line to find out more.
