As social media marketing becomes more prolific, the tools offered by different platforms are improving too. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn all include a range of features that can aid your marketing strategy.
Whether you already have a fairly established social media presence or are yet to make the leap from more traditional marketing methods, here are some things to remember that will level up your social media.
Streamline your socials
When you’re beginning to market your company, visibility across the industry and different demographics is vital to increase brand awareness. What you don’t want, though, is a scattered, unmonitored approach that might appear unprofessional.
With this in mind, it is important to make sure every page, post and connection you are making serves a specific purpose in your strategy.
Linking your partners’ own professional social media accounts with the main firm shows uniformity, but make sure none of these accounts are inactive or duplicates. LinkedIn has a feature which allows you to merge old accounts and transfer connections across so you don’t lose them.
Staying on top of your social media is also part of offering great customer service. On Facebook, for example, you can view communication from Instagram direct messages, Facebook Messenger and comments from both sites all in one place, saving you time and effort.
Promote your content
Depending on what you want to achieve through your social media, you may want to invest in paid adverts. The main social media platforms all offer some form of paid ad or sponsored post, and if you are looking to target a specific demographic or increase visibility these can be ideal.
LinkedIn also offers a feature called showcase pages, your first ten of which are free to create. Here you can add individual pages based on specific products or services you offer.
This means that within your main company page you can draw attention to your most profitable content, or highlight a service people may be unaware of.
Of course, too many of these pages can appear messy and confusing, but a small number can be highly useful in widening your reach. Users can follow individual showcase pages without having to follow your firm’s main page, which increases your chances of gaining connections.
Looking for content that
gets results?
Our results-focused content marketing is designed to cut through noise, nurture sales prospects and build your firm’s reputation.
Measure results
Whether you are using paid ads or not, being able to see where you are generating the most traffic is essential.
All the main platforms now offer analytics to accompany your business account. These give you basic but invaluable insights into how your content is being received.
LinkedIn Analytics allows you to see which of your posts generated the most interest and which pages are most popular with users. The demographics section shows you which groups are interacting with your pages, and even allows you to compare your follower count and engagement rate directly with those of competitors.
Depending on how complex your marketing strategy already is, you may have access to more in-depth analytics through your CRM. These basic tools are brilliant, however, if you are just starting to get familiar with social media marketing.
Don’t just post, engage
Social media is about networking and making connections that benefit you and your clients. Users may have slightly different needs on each platform, but they all want to engage in some way, so give them reasons to connect with your brand and partners.
Hosting online events has become a great way not only to share knowledge, but also make clients feel they have positive connections to real humans at your firm. If you are new to hosting live chats, you can test the water by using polls or posting questions for your followers to discuss.
When you feel more confident these can progress into live webinars. Responding to follower questions within these is a brilliant way to engage your audience.
Online events make great interactive content, but if you aren’t covering the basics, your communication can still appear poor. Make sure you always respond promptly to comments, messages and questions via your social media.
Play to the right crowd
The best way to use social media effectively is to put your target audience at the heart of your strategy. This should already inform your brand and the content you produce, and it is vital for you to understand your audience’s social media habits.
How do they use it, when are they most active, what do they look for and connect with? Once you have answered these questions, you can focus on promoting your brand in a way that your potential clients will notice and find engaging.
Be precise with your social media activity, monitor your successes and failures and learn from them. And, most importantly, show potential clients that you are not just a featureless company, but real people who want to help grow their business as a partnership.
Talk to us about creating content to fuel your social media channels.
