Social Media Marketing For Small Businesses

If your business is not yet on social media, then the train might already be leaving you behind. Today, social media is a key part of business growth irrespective of the size of the business. Thanks to social media, there are several platforms that businesses can use to advertise and reach a wider potential customer number, and at the same time, build a relationship with their audience.

By following the right guide and with the right social media management packages, one can become highly successful in the online market in a short while.  This is why we have created this super-competitive guide, containing dos and don’ts, and numerous effective strategies.

Social Media Marketing

This is the process of creating business/products-promoting content, and displaying them on a social media platform with the sole aim of making targeted sales. As time goes on, social media is becoming more popular for business promotion. A lot of businesses have taken advantage of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and even the recent TikTok to display their products, reach potential customers and interact with their new and existing customers.

Social Media Marketing Terms

Social media platform: It is like a site. It is the medium through which the buyer can meet the seller. Sites like Facebook and Instagram are social media platforms.

Engagement: A large followership is nothing without a reasonable amount of engagement on your business page. This is a measure of the interaction with your content and the people who can view it. Pages that have a lot of real and active engagement are usually prone to make more sales.

Content: This is the post you are putting out on the platform. This could be visual or non-visual, it could be original or copied, as long as you can communicate your point with this post, it is the content.

Followership: This is the number of people that follow a social media page.

Click through rate: This measures the number of people that have seen, and clicked a link that directs them to your content. Usually, after a call to action is displayed on content, it is expected to cause a particular action which could be clicking a link, making contact, or whatever the page owner has in mind The CTR is determined by the number of times the content is seen divided by the number of times an action is taken.

Traffic: This is the amount of people queuing up on your site daily.

Shares: The amount of shares your post gets is also recorded. This action is made easy by an attached share button. When people share your posts, it has a better chance of reaching more people.

Importance of Social Media Marketing

According to a reliable source, over 70% of consumers have admitted they trust businesses with an online presence more, as they can easily go online for credibility and validity sake. Social media marketing is an essential strategy, and if you aren’t already into this, then you are leaving money on the table.     

Benefits of Social Media Marketing;

• Wider brand awareness

No matter how much publicity your business is getting offline, it can get better than that online. In 2020, there are about 3.8 billion people who use social media. A percentage of your customers are certainly included in this huge number.

• Customer credibility

People tend to trust known brands better than unknown brands. If you have a blooming relationship with your online customers, you can get them to trust you, and this will certainly lead to a boost in your sales.

• It gets even more competitive

You are certainly not the only one in your line of business. Your competitors are also online, trying to gain customers just like you. You can learn from their mistakes, follow their strategies and improvise, and be the best man in the business.

About Sponsored and Paid Contents

Sponsored ads are very popular across most social media platforms. A page can be prevented from reaching its target clients simply because of unawareness. A sponsored content involves a sponsor paying to make a content reach a larger number of people. Now, you can choose to use influencers, bigger brands or a publisher to sponsor your post. This is usually a very effective strategy as it makes your post visible to a larger number of people. Remember that this is your business, so do not be hesitant in investing financially into it. An experienced agency can offer you affordable social media management pricing to ensure that you get a maximum effort at minimal costs.

Creating an Effective Social Media Marketing Strategy

Without effectiveness, your strategy will bring no sales, no lead generations, and no results. You need to do it effectively. Here are some outlined steps;

1. Have a business goal: First, you must evaluate your business and determine the sole aim. What do you hope to achieve with this business? What do you hope to achieve with social media marketing for your business? Get an outlined goal for the next 5-10 years.
2. Research your audience: Understanding the needs of your customers will help you serve them better. Carry out a survey on your existing customers and find out what they enjoy most, and use it. Also, research about the potential customers you hope to poach.
3. Find the best platforms for your business: Some businesses just would not work in a certain platform. This might be due to age, gender and other demographics. Your targeted clients might be absent on a particular platform. Only good research will help you.
4. Create an irresistible content: You need to give people a reason to choose you. After determining your audience preference, create contents tailored to suit it. Also, make sure you come up with your style and uniqueness.
5. Inspire engagement: In your posts, ask your followers to engage. From their comments, shares and tags, you can reach more interested people.
6. Schedule your posts: there are a lot of social media tools nowadays that make posting very easy. When you get tied down with work, a scheduled tool can easily help do the posting for you at a set time. Remember, consistency is very important in social media marketing.
7. Analyse your results: From time to time, check your results and make the necessary amendment. It is expected of you to improve and become better. Check your insights regularly to tell what does and does not work for you.

Choosing the Best Platform for Your Business

As stated earlier, not every social media platform will work well for every business. If you do not research properly before jumping in, you will end up wasting a lot of valuable money and time all to no avail. Here is how to find out what works for you;

• What do you enjoy more? You will have a certain level of experience on the platform where you spend a lot of time. This experience can come in handy as you already have some followership, some knowledge of usage and probably know one or two tricks. This will be a good platform for you to introduce your business.
• Where are your target clients found? The people you want to patronise your business, what is their favourite social media platform?

Tips for an Effective Social Media Marketing Campaign

After the completion of your research, and finding your target audience, it is now time to win them over. Here are some tips that can help you do this;

• Quality content: Do not produce gibberish or pirated content. Give 100% original, value-adding content, and you will not be ignored.
• For engagement, engage: If you want people to engage in your page, find time to also like, comment, share and support other similar pages.
• Do not get lost in the whirlwind: If you are not careful, one can easily lose caution and get caught up in the circle, forgetting the goal. Do not be this one.

Don’ts of Social Media Marketing

1. Post too much: Too much content can become a nuisance. Allow your followers look forward to your content.
2. Get fake followers: Followers without engagement is useless, and this is exactly what you get when you buy followers. Allow people to follow you willingly, no matter how slow it seems.
3. Be Inconsistent: Yes, take breaks when necessary, but never stay away for too long.
4. Mislead people: Do not put up fake content or product to get attention. Act within your capacity.

Social Media Management tools

Some really useful tools can assist you in the management of your social media page. Tools like WebiMax, Sysomos, Hootsuite, and Buffer are highly effective. You can check them out to know how they work and start using them.