As a social marketing company in India, we have experienced the many requirements of a diverse set of clients that have come across. We have helped many small businesses achieve their development requirements. However, what comes next is the promotion of the fact that they have this amazing software to provide their services to you. This is where social media marketing comes in.
We have seen many small, as well as big businesses, struggle with how to get into social media marketing in a way that proves to be successful for their business.
A survey shows that currently there are 4.2 billion active social media users which are almost double as many as there were five years ago today. (Source)
The said users spend an average of two hours and 30 minutes on social media platforms every single day. This fact makes businesses excited and lets them see this as an opportunity to present their business to such users. Businesses use social media marketing to build awareness for their brand, for the development of customer relationships, and even make direct sales within social platforms.
However, if not done in the right way social media marketing can be a big waste of your time and effort. On the other hand, just following some basic tips, can be a big turning point for the success of your business.
Read on: 7 Social Media Tactics to Drive Traffic to Your Website
So, if you have now become curious as to what steps can help you to enter the world of social media marketing in the best way possible then keep reading.
Apart from being an digital marketing company in India, we have also helped many businesses like yours to use social media marketing, in order to build their business success. Following is the list of 8 tips that you need to get started:
#Keep a plan in your hand: since we all use social media every day, we are all very comfortable with the tools. Since it does not cost a penny to create a Facebook page for your business or post about your business on Instagram or even make a presence for your business on Twitter we take the steps very quickly and effortlessly. This is exactly where you will make the mistake of heading into these steps without having a proper strategy in place. Therefore, take out the time to create a proper social media plan that ensures that all your social efforts are supporting specific business goals or multiple of those.
#Conduct research on your competition: figure out how your competitors are using social media marketing to build their brand awareness. The goal here is not to copy them but learn from their ways and figure out what was successful and what wasn’t. This becomes an amazing way to reduce your learning curve. A comparative analysis like this helps you learn from their mistakes and make sure to not repeat the same.
Conducting a social media audit: if you are already a user of social media, make sure that you take a step back and give time for the evaluation of your existing efforts. There are many easy-to-use social media audit templates that can help you in executing this part of the process.
#Creating a calendar for social media: a calendar for social media is something that helps you in posting the right content on the right social channel at the perfect time. This social media calendar should include a plan for your content mix. You can try executing the 80-20 rule. This requires you to use 80% of your content into educating, entertaining, or informing your audience. As for the other 20%, it can go into promoting your brand or even selling your products and services.
#Select the best social media platforms for your business: a very common mistake is when businesses assume the social media platform that is used by their audience the most. Let the data show facts like what age group is filled with users on Facebook or Twitter etc. Some facts that may help are- a) The Adults with age over 65 years are Facebook’s fastest-growing segment.b) TikTok witnessed about 56 million new app downloads in the month of December 2020. c) An average user on the internet owns about 8.4 social media accounts. A rigorous demographic analysis can tell you much more about your audience than your instincts would.
#Building relationships: as you use social media marketing for the success of your business you will enjoy one great benefit. This advantage includes and allows you to talk directly to your customers as well as followers. This means it presents an opportunity for you to build a relationship with them over time rather than asking them to purchase your product or service. Of course, when the time comes this relationship often leads to sales.
#Connecting with influencers and entrepreneurs of your niche: no matter what the size of your business is, when it comes to nano influencers as well as micro-influencers with less than a thousand followers, they can prove to be really helpful. The best part is that they will be well within the range of your budget. So, even if you are running a very small business it is very easy these days to connect with influencers as well as entrepreneurs that belong to your niche and can help support your brand.
Just like these, there are many more tips that you can follow before you enter the world of social media marketing. However, one thing that you can be absolutely sure of is that you will need a great social media marketing strategy before you get into it. Make sure all your efforts are worth the results.