Social media is a powerful tool in the world we live in. It has been around for a while and has impacted whole industries. Businesses that harness the power of social media enjoy longevity. Optimizing your business’s social media profile can lead to exponential growth. With a strong social media presence, you will be able to grow your customer base, provide stellar customer service, and engage with millions of people. It all depends on how you steer traffic to your social media posts, increase your conversion rates, and put out original and innovative content. Let’s take a look at some useful tips on using social media to grow your business.

1. Understand Social Media

Social media is an umbrella term for numerous applications and services that allow individuals and businesses to connect. Ever since the establishment of Facebook, there have been new players in the market. Some have blossomed to become multi-billion dollar companies, while others have fizzled out in their popularity.

Let’s start with Facebook. Facebook is the largest platform and has fantastic tools for promotions. It can be an ideal platform to grow your business. Having a business Facebook page is absolutely mandatory.

Twitter is a close second to Facebook. Its unique lower character limit per post allows you to post focused marketing pitches and attracts a much attentive audience. With twitter, frequency, and immediacy is the key.

YouTube and Instagram are two platforms, among others, that encourage and reward creative content. You can connect with content creators to promote your business, offer sponsorships, and even have a booming business account. The possibilities are endless.

2. Aim for Bullseye

Now that you have multiple social media accounts set up, you need to set your marketing strategy goals.

You need to set specific targets related to your customer service, customer engagement, impressions, web-traffic, product sales, and outreach. With these different fields in your mind, you need to churn out content to help you achieve your targets. Additionally, your posts have to be specifically tailored for each platform that you are using.

Every technique is unique to every goal and platform. The ‘one size fits all’ mentality does not apply here.

3. Establish a Plan

Planning your approach is crucial for a successful social media marketing strategy. If you have a social media marketing team, it is best to delegate tasks according to their strengths. Lay out a social media calendar for your team. This can help manage the frequency and distribute the workload of posting on social media and help maintain your posts’ quality.

Next, you need to brainstorm with your team about the demographics of your audience. What kind of posts will attract what type of audience on your social media accounts?

Furthermore, you need to develop creative content for your social media posts and narrow down on your audience’s subjects. Decide on a modern and sleek color scheme for your social media posts, and stick with it. This will help you craft a more professional and planned outlook for your social media accounts. Come up with a striking and recognizable logo for your business as well. After finalizing your content, you need to tailor content according to the social media platform you are making posts. Technical details vary. For example, Instagram posts have a different aspect ratio as compared to Facebook posts.

There are various tools and utilities for each platform, as well as other options for customizability. Make sure you use each platform’s strengths to your advantage.

4. Keep an eye on your competitors.

If you are business, chances are that you are facing an uphill battle with a lot of established companies and enterprises. You need to observe what your competitors are doing. Usually, they have multiple marketing departments for social media platforms.

They invest millions of dollars for their extensive and flamboyant marketing campaigns. Their strategies are already well-planned and elaborate. Understand and reverse engineer their marketing strategies. You don’t have to outright copy what they are doing, but you can emulate their strengths and mold them into your own marketing model. Perhaps, you can end up incorporating their strategies in a more cost-effective and impactful way.

5. Engage with your Audience

At this point, you have your strategy planned out and are regularly posting on your social media posts. Now, you have to frequently post content and also engage with your audience in a meaningful way. This step is crucial to foster a lasting relationship with your audience. For starters, make sure that you reply to comments, answer any queries, repost, and share user-generated content and show that you care about your audience’s opinion.

It’s all about solidifying your relationship and gaining the respect of your audience.

6. Organize Online Events

Contests, giveaways, and discounts are attention-grabbing events that guarantee a considerable impression and conversion rate. Try to set out some days for these events in your social media calendar. Not only will you gain more followers, but your audience will also have an incentive to keep following you.

They will be watching out for similar events and looking forward to your social media posts. Hosting giveaways is the right way of giving back to the community and having a loyal consumer base.

7. Analyze Everything

This is the part where you look at the statistics and see your performance. You need to look out for any trends in your data. Organize, and create charts to visualize how your posts are performing and what kind of attention they are attracting. Once you understand what kind of posts enjoy popularity over your other content, you can make similar content.

This will allow you to post content that your audience enjoys and ensure that you stay relevant to your followers. Consult data analysts and tailor your content according to their insight. Each platform provides you with tools to analyze trends, impressions and traffic. Make sure you are utilizing them in the best possible way.

Hopefully, these tips will help you craft an effective and influential social media marketing campaign for your business.