It is common for marketing to be confused for selling and instead the mindset should be that marketing is the best way to get the attention of your target audience and drive them to want to make a purchase. Marketing is not a direct selling channel. By keeping in mind the most important rule of marketing which is to know your customers, we can develop strategic ways to curate conversations that are inspiring and generate value.
Since social media marketing, (SMM) is the new normal the first step in building brand awareness and establishing relationships, is to make social media a priority. This very powerful marketing channel is good for all businesses. If your business is not engaging with your audience through Instagram, Google or LinkedIn you are missing an opportunity to build your brand and improve search engine rankings.
Many brands are growing rapidly by understanding the value of social media marketing to drive sales. Some brands only use social media marketing, which we do not recommend, but understand that based. Your overall marketing strategy may involve a rigorous amount of sales and marketing possibilities that are limitless, but to exclude social media from your efforts is a big mistake. A focus on making meaningful connections and building an audience can be challenging, your first priority should be to create a cohesive social media strategy.
As with all aspects of marketing having a strategy that is aligned with your business goals is the best way to go. It may be tempting to try to reach customers across every channel, but spreading your resources too thin is a bad way to go. Instead, choose 3-5 social networks and the below questions can help you get started.
- What are your goals?
- Who is your target audience?
- What are your brands overall focus?
- What are your content creation resources?
- Which social media channels do your target audience use?
- How do you want your target audience to perceive your brand?
- What actions would you like your target audience to take?
- What message do you want to send to your audience with social media?
According to Hubspot, 92% of marketers say that social media marketing is important for their business, with 80% indicating their efforts increased traffic to their websites. This demonstrates a huge potential for social media marketing to increase sales, but a lack of understanding on how to achieve those results. Here’s are top simple ways that social media marketing can improve your business:
- Improve brand loyalty
- Increase traffic to your website
- Increase the number of leads/opportunities to convert
Regardless of the social media platform that you use, here is a list of five important factors to keep in mind.
- Include your social media links on your website.
- Invest in high quality video, photos and content.
- Operate with a plan aligned with business goals.
- Be authentic with an effort to create genuine engagements.
- Make sure your contact information is consistent across all your social media platforms.
Facebook Methods To Support Business Growth
Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms and for good reason. Being one of the very first social platforms to significantly captivate our attention by allowing us to connect with family and friends and most importantly for businesses to connect to customers. Over the years we have learned that organic reach for Facebook has little to no value since only a very small percentage of your overall audience will see your post. The best way to improve visibility is to allocate a small marketing budget to each post. By allocating as little as one dollar per day and your reach will increase substantially. It is also important to note that preparation is important and having a planned content calendar to help you decide on what to post when, and use the scheduling feature to schedule your posts in advance when possible.
Best ways to increase your reach: Add video and great content and support both by promoting with an advertising budget and a great call to action (CTA). This process will require testing to identify the best time of day to post and the most engaging content that resonates well with your target audience.
TO DO: Run ads. Take advantage of Facebook’s inexpensive and highly targeted advertising platform.
Facebook Ad Targeting Tools
By creating custom and look-a-like audiences on Facebook to properly target your audience with the right message at the right time will bring you the highest value. Setting you up to increase video views and website visits.
What To Include In Your Facebook Strategy
Keep in mind that content is king and we should continue to focus on creating meaningful social interactions with high quality content and video. In addition the below 4 highlights are recommended improve your social media success.
Facebook Messenger – The modern social media network built around messaging supported by a messaging app and platform that users can send messages, exchange photos and videos. According to Spotify, messenger allows businesses to connect their e-commerce store to reach more customers instantly by adding detailed messages about their orders.
Chatbots – Live chat support service to create better engagement and generate leads from website visitors. This centralized communication allows a brand to build trust and nurture relationship by providing instant customer support. Customers and prospects can schedule appointments, get FAQ’s, business hours etc. from a live person.
Facebook Stories – Short user generated photos and videos that are viewed in the stories section at the top of your friends or followers news feed and is consumed 15x faster in speed than standard content and disappear after 24 hours.
Facebook Groups – A private/secret or public option is available for people that share a common interest and encourages them to communicate express opinions. This is commonly used as a way to organize and discuss issues, share success stories and related content
As with all marketing efforts it is critical to focus on marketing return on investment (ROI) and using Analytics can help to improve real time metrics that help you best understand your social media efforts throughout each stage of the funnel.
If you are looking for help with your social media efforts, get in touch with us here. Remember, more engagement directly drives business growth.