Just about every online business utilizes social media as a part of their digital marketing strategy. Some strategies work, but a lot either use outdated methods, or have no actual strategy at all. Creating a strong social media presence that’s actually beneficial to your business does take a lot of work, but if it’s done effectively it’s time well spent.
Below we highlight five ways you can successfully use social media as an aspect of a successful digital marketing strategy.
1. Use Social Media To Network
Social media is a great way to reach customers, but it can also be used to build valuable business relationships. Networks like LinkedIn are easily geared towards letting you connect with other professionals in your niche. Social media can help to even the playing field between you and larger brands.
However, when reaching out to other businesses make sure you’re always doing your best to add value. You can do this on LinkedIn by creating a group that shares relevant content and creates discussions around needs your business can fill. Or, by simply creating and sharing content via their built-in content platform.
2. Reach New Segments Of Your Audience
As you know, to have a great brand you need to be polarizing to some people. Marketing to everyone in the world just doesn’t work anymore. Even though, social media allows you to reach very large audiences, it’s crucial that you go the opposite route and try to niche down as much as possible.
Social media allows you to more easily target very specific groups that your business is better oriented towards serving. When choosing the best social media network to spend time on try to focus on the network whose users most closely resemble your ideal customer.
3. Reply To Customer Service Requests
A lot of companies use social media to respond to customer service requests in a timely manner. Social media allows you to make your customer feel like they’re taken care of. Instead of waiting days for a response to a customer service request, you can respond in real-time and iron out any issues very quickly.
You can either use your businesses current social media account, or create a separate account to handle and process requests.
4. Expand The Voice Of Your Business
A bland presence and boring voice does nothing to support your business. Since social media is a little less informal, you should use this to your advantage by showcasing your personality. However, be careful not to construct a false image that doesn’t align with the overall goals of your business.
Be more informal and conversational, but not to the point of your customers not taking you seriously.
5. Use Promotions To Generate Buzz
Social media can be a powerful driver of traffic to your website by running promotions, deals, and sales that are only accessible via social media. For instance, if you run a two-day sale and only announce it to your social media followers they’ll not only feel valued, but it’ll encourage them to pay attention to you more often.
When you’re running a promotion or contest you should encourage your followers to share, or give them incentive to share, so you can expand your reach during the promotion period.
Growing your business through social media takes work, but that doesn’t mean it has to be difficult. If you’re interested in a custom social media strategy that works for your business, then get in touch with our team of experts today.
