Social media marketing can be an excellent way to attract new customers to your business and encourage repeat sales from existing customers. To see success in this area, you’ll need to have a solid strategy and know what you’re doing. The tips below will get you started on the right path toward social media marketing success!
1) Collaborate with Influencers
Leverage your industry’s social influencers. Reach out to experts in your niche and offer them a deal: They give you free publicity for one of their projects, and you’ll help them promote it—if it goes well, great! If not, no harm done. You can also reach out to industry influencers on social media sites like Twitter or Facebook. But don’t be pushy!
To make collaboration with influencers easier, you can set up a referral program. When they reach out to influencers who respond favorably, you’ll pay them a commission for each conversion that takes place. Either way, simply getting their name out there is enough reason for industry influencers to support your brand.
If you can’t afford to pay industry influencers for promotional work, there are still many ways you can collaborate with them. Often, a simple retweet or mention will go a long way toward raising your brand awareness. Of course, if it wouldn’t violate any non-disclosure agreements, we always recommend offering an influencer a sample of your product in exchange for some genuine promotion.
Engage with your followers. If you’re doing a good job with your social media marketing, you should be gaining followers every day. Don’t just ignore them! Respond quickly and make an effort to address every comment, question or complaint as it comes in.
Build a social media contest. Contests are another excellent way to boost engagement and encourage sharing. Give away a coupon or freebie in exchange for people’s contact information, photos or retweets, asking them to tag your brand in their post—not only will it drive traffic back to your site, but it’ll also help you build your following list even faster!
2) Run Contests
Invite customers to participate in your contest, but only give them a chance to win if they share their feedback or testimonials. Ask them questions and encourage them to answer by offering a discount on their next purchase. This strategy is especially useful for restaurants and fashion businesses. For example, you can ask your followers whether they’d prefer free cupcakes or a 25% discount on their next purchase.
According to industry experts, users who take part in social media contests will be 15% more likely to make a purchase. In addition, your business will be able to reach its target audience without additional cost since users do not need any special equipment or registration for such campaigns.
You can run a contest based on likes, comments, or views. For example, if you own a fashion shop and want more people to visit your online store, you can ask users to follow your Instagram account and give one of their products five stars in exchange for an opportunity to win a gift card. If they participate in your contest, there’s a good chance that they’ll buy something from your business.
Another great way to use social media marketing is to ask users for feedback on one of your products. You can send them a discount voucher or offer them a chance to participate in another contest and tell others about their experience. For example, if you own a restaurant and want more people to visit your business, you can ask users whether they liked their lunch and what they thought of your new menu. Asking them such questions will give you real insights into how much value your customers associate with using your product or service.
3) Create Exclusive Content
Marketers often talk about how content is king, and it’s true—if you want to attract people through social media marketing, you need to offer them unique content. Make sure you’re creating original posts for each of your channels. And if that sounds like a lot of work, don’t worry: tools like Buffer or Hootsuite allow you to schedule and post your content across multiple networks at once.
Once you’ve created your posts, you need to promote them. You should tailor your social media strategy to each platform, but there are a few ways that work universally well. First, start by building a following on each network before you launch your campaign; Facebook and Twitter both offer free tools that can help with that. And while it’s tempting to promote every post everywhere, focus instead on specific platforms and networks where your audience is most active.
To increase engagement, consider running a contest or sweepstakes; it’s a great way to drive traffic and increase visibility for your business. To create an effective contest, you need to do your research: offer prizes that tie into your brand, but also make sure they’re appealing enough to get people involved. And be sure you have enough prizes for everyone—it’s annoying when people don’t win!
Social media marketing is a critical component of any successful business, but there’s much more you can do with social media. Consider doing some market research, then use that data to create new campaigns and content—you might be surprised by how your business grows!
Make sure you include each element in your post: Title, Second Paragraph (OPTIONAL), Illustration/Photograph and bottom description.
4) Ask for Reviews
If you’re using social media for marketing, you should be asking your customers for reviews. According to a recent study by BrightLocal, half of all consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Yelp and Google Local are great places to start—just make sure that you’re not violating any policies when it comes to soliciting reviews. Although there aren’t any Federal laws prohibiting solicitation of reviews, some states have specific restrictions in place.
If you operate a brick-and-mortar business, ask your customers for reviews when they’re paying. Always give them an option to review online via email or social media and offer them an incentive (like a discount on their next purchase) for leaving feedback.
What are some of your favorite examples of written communication in social media?
On social media, you can incentivize customers to post reviews about your business on Google Local and Yelp. Make it easy for them by including links or QR codes in your posts, since a large percentage of consumers have smartphones—and if they don’t have a smartphone, a phone will still allow them to take advantage of discounts or coupons. Some local businesses offer buy one get one free deals when their customers leave a review.
Have you ever submitted a review on Yelp or Google Local? What would make it easier for you to share your experiences with businesses online?
Have you ever used social media in marketing? How did you leverage it? If not, what makes you hesitant to use it as a tool for communicating with customers? What kind of content would help you engage with businesses on social media, and why?
5) Offer Discounts
In order to be seen and heard in today’s online landscape, you need to connect with people on a personal level. Try offering discount codes for your products or services via your Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram accounts. You could also host giveaways via social media sites. These efforts will not only help you establish your business as an authority in its field, but they’ll also encourage existing customers to come back again and even bring their friends along with them!
Twitter gives you a variety of ways to provide these types of incentives. The Promoted Accounts option is one option for an account like yours, and it allows you to promote a specific Twitter profile for $99 per month. You could also try Promoted Tweets, which allows you to pay Twitter when someone clicks on a link in your tweet. Promoting tweets costs less than accounts—at $5 per day, or $35 per week—but they have fewer perks.
For instance, with Promoted Tweets, you won’t be able to track how many clicks your tweets have received. You’ll also only be able to promote your own profile using Promoted Tweets—you can’t target specific users or groups of people. Promoted Accounts, on the other hand, do allow you to track engagement data like favorites and retweets for each tweet, as well as follower growth for each day that a tweet is promoted.
Instagram gives you a few more options for social media marketing. You can use your account to provide promotions and contests through a sponsored post. In order to promote yourself on Instagram, you’ll need an account that has at least 1,000 followers. If your account is less than 1,000 strong, it’s time to get growing!
Sponsored posts on Instagram offer some different features than their counterparts on other social media sites. You can create your own creative, or use a pre-made image that has been provided by Instagram. In both cases, you’ll be able to link users directly back to your own website or landing page, where they can learn more about you and your business—or make a purchase! You can also pay for sponsored posts through Twitter.