Social media is a strange phenomenon in today’s world. On the one hand, it can appear as a morass of photos of cats, posts about what your friends ate for lunch today, and celebrity gossip. But on the other hand, lots of businesses are, in fact, achieving success through social media marketing. But if you have found it frustrating to try to establish a business presence in the networks, let alone try to actually generate business that way, here are a few strategies it would be worth your while to experiment with.
Post Relevant, Engaging Content
Your social media marketing plan needs to be all about engaging users, and the best way to do that is through providing engaging content. Create posts that are not only relevant to your business, but that focus on topics that your target audience finds interesting. Some examples would be “how-to” videos or guides, tweets about newsworthy events that relate to your industry, and infographics. The latter are great items to post, because they can provide compelling information that explains the need for and the value in your services, and also because they tend to get shared a lot.
Post Frequently
You know that you need to have a presence on the social networks. But you also need to keep active in those channels, to keep your name and branding freshly in people’s feeds. How frequent is frequent enough? Ideally you should post daily to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+. On Twitter and Instagram, which have fast moving feeds, you’ll want to post multiple times a day, so that everyone will actually see you in their feeds. Fortunately, since most people aren’t going to see all your tweets and Instagram posts, and you’ll have a different audience at different times in the day, it’s okay to post the same updates more than once.
Take Advantage of Trending Topics
Those “trending” hashtags on Twitter and other networks indicate topics that people are talking about most frequently at this particular moment. If there are topics that are trending which relate to your subject matter, jump on the opportunity, and work yourself into the stream. Then, when someone clicks on one of those trending topics, or searches for the hashtag, you’ll turn up in their feed.
Provide Customer Service
This is becoming more and more common, and people are reaching out to companies for support through social networks more frequently. This is in part because many people live on those networks already, and it feels natural. It also gives them the opportunity to ask a question, or even make a complaint, publicly. If you do receive complaints through the socials, seize the opportunity! It’s a great chance to show your audience that you care about what your customers say and think, and that you respond to their concerns.
Keep it Social
Don’t forget that people use the social networks for, well, social interaction. It’s a form of entertainment and diversion, and your success in a social marketing strategy is related to engaging your audience in that way. No one wants to log on to their favorite network and be bombarded with advertising or sales pitches in their newsfeed. In addition to your informative posts, be sure to post some “human interest” type updates as well. This will help put a face on your company, and allow your audience to feel that they’re relating to you on a personal level.
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