Social media continues to increase in popularity. Currently, there are 3.8 billion social media users. So ignoring this form of media can be very detrimental to your business growth.
But knowing that you need to market your business on social media and doing it are two very different things. If you have no idea of where to start, marketing could prove to be very overwhelming. So here are a few strategies to get you started:
1. Learn who your target audience is
Who are your customers? If you can’t answer this simple question, then forget about social media marketing. You cannot market to people whose likes and dislikes you have no idea about. It might be that your business has customers belonging to different demographics. Are they millennials? Baby boomers? Generation Z? Do you attract more women or men? What beliefs do your customers hold? Where do they live? At what stage of life are they in?
The more you know about your audience, the more effective you will be when marketing to them. That’s because you can put yourself in their shoes and create marketing messages that resonate well with them.
2. Identify the most popular platforms for your customers
Once you determine who makes up your target audience, you need to identify the platforms that they like to socialize on. There are so many social media platforms today. They include LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Each platform tends to attract a different kind of audience.
So depending on the kind of content you want to generate, you need to post it on the right channel. For example, if you run a B2B company, then you would do well to target a business audience. Research shows that there are over 600 million business professionals on LinkedIn. That means that if you want to sell to that audience, then you need to market through LinkedIn. It’s all about finding the right channel to target your ideal audience.
3. Post content regularly
Some people open up accounts for their businesses on multiple social media channels and then forget to update them. That’s a mistake. If you want to increase engagement and ensure that people take you seriously, then you need to post content regularly.
When you create content, you need to vary it. Don’t bombard your audience with adverts every day. They will get tired of being sold to and abandon your business. There is so much you can do. You could share interesting quotes from well-known personalities for starters. You can also create video interviews or webinars. Also, take the time to come up with educative content like business reports, ebooks, how-to articles, research-backed content, infographics, etc. The more people learn from you, the more engaged they will be with your brand.
4. Incorporate geofencing to target customers accurately
You are in business to make money. So do come up with relevant and entertaining adverts for your social media audience. But instead of targeting every single potential customer, you can limit your ads to only those that are within your geographical area.
Studies show that 92% of smartphones in the U.S. are capable of responding to geofencing. So you can incorporate geofencing services in your marketing to only activate social media ads when your target customers are near your offline stores. That makes them more likely to show up in your business premises to buy what they are looking for.
If you want to attract buyers to your business, it pays to market it through social media. And that means putting in the work to understand your customers and where they hang out. Then you can create relevant content and invest in geofencing services to accurately target potential customers within your locale. That way, you will get a much higher ROI.