How To Efficiently Use Social Media To Promote Your Business

While most people use social media for communication, staying up to date with news and sharing moments with friends and family, social media can also be an efficient outlet for small businesses marketing.

Business owners who are interested in marketing their business via social media, need to be aware of the difference in using them for business opposed to personal use. In order to make the best use out of social media for business and reach your marketing goals, you must think differently.

What Are the Major Differences Between Personal and Business Social Media ?

You probably use your personal accounts based on what you like and how you operate with your surroundings. Businesses have to take a different approach. Here are some best practice and tips to consider:

• Pick your social media platform based on your customer, not what you personally like.
  Have a plan and goals.
• Stay engaged with your customers.
• Interact with your audience: Reply to comments, tag customers, and chat with people. Thank your customers for reviews and act on negative reviews. You cannot simply post and forget.
• Do not post just to make sales. Show your value in your industry.
• Post in the right time frame to reach your audience when they are online.
• Analyze your posts to see which ones are doing well based on your strategy. Use analytics to be more effective.

Which Social Media Platforms Does Your Business Need?

It’s better for a business to have an effective presence on one or two platforms than to be on all and miss the effect of the platforms for your business. Choosing the right platforms depends on your product or service and your customer. Here is some general information about the current platforms to help you decide where to focus.

• Facebook – The most popular social media network. Business pages are finding it more difficult to get organic advertising, but Facebook can be a good resource. You’d need consistency with posting interesting content relevant to your trade and current events.
• Instagram – A popular visual network that is extremely popular. For your business, you will want high-quality videos and photos that stand out.
• Twitter – A highly interactive platform that can quickly spread the word. It’s not right for every business. Twitter can take a lot of energy and input, but it can also keep you in touch with users.
• Pinterest – This platform is great for niche businesses that use pictures. Food, exercise, beauty, and fashion businesses have the best success.
• Snapchat – This platform is known for its visual content that disappears after 24 hours. It’s geared more toward younger users, but the platform has expanded into chat, events, and media content that can be saved and uploaded elsewhere.
• YouTube – This video-sharing platform is highly creative. Businesses often partner with YouTube influencers who already have a large audience to promote products and services.
• LinkedIn – This professional platform is a good place for businesses to become industry experts and build company culture. It’s not for every business, but it can promote your company to other professionals.

How Can You Use Social Media Effectively?

Social media can be a great tool for your business but do not just jump in without having a plan and set goals. That might work for you personally, but successful businesses use their time and resources sensibly to work smarter, not harder.

Take your time to determine your business goals, amount of sales you want to reach within a determined period of time.

Identify your target’s demographics: ages, gender, interests and likes … create & share content that would be interesting to them.

Identify geolocation targets: Determine which areas are more lucratif for your service and or products and make sure to focus your marketing efforts on those particular locations, it’ll make your time, efforts and budget more worthy.

Finally if you do not have the required knowledge to use social media efficiently for your business marketing, neither have the time to learn the proper ways of using it, seeck the help and advice of a local marketing agency or social media experts.

Get in touch with us today and let us walk you through the fundamentals of social media for successful business marketing.