How Small Businesses Use Social Media For Advertising and Promotion?
More than 4.2 billion social media users spend a maximum of 150 minutes daily interacting on social channels. The 2 ½ hour is a great window of opportunity for businesses to make sales directly, build brand awareness, and develop customer relationships.
How to use social media for business promotion?
Define your social media plan
Opening an account on social media is easy even for business purposes. You can start posting images on Instagram, Create a Facebook business page or create a Twitter profile for free. Even social tools can be used for free. However, the effort and time involved will represent your business investment.
With no clear goal and planning of what you desire to achieve your social media activities will be useless. You will not know if you are obtaining sufficient ROI or not. Therefore create a social media plan that aligns with your specific business goal.
- Create social media goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely [SMART framework].
- Research competition to understand what and what doesn’t.
- Perform social media audit.
- Get inspired from success stories [read useful case studies].
- Create social media calendar for posting the right content on the right channels and at right time.
Determine the right platform
Never assume your target audience’s online hangouts. If you assume that your target Gen Z is on TikTok and Instagram and you must avoid Facebook then online data reports that 75% of Facebook users are between 18 – 24 years.
A regular internet user is active on 8.4 social media platforms, so connecting with them on different channels for different purposes is possible. E.g. Twitter can be used for customer service, while Facebook to generate leads and build a customer base.
Identify your audience
Social media allows to micro-target customers, so first determine your audience. Compile data of your current customers and then perform deep social media analytics. You will soon learn the buying behavior of your customers. After getting clarity of, who your audience is start creating buyer personas. It will help to communicate with them easily.
Build relationships
Social media marketing allows talking directly with followers and customers. Build relationships by engaging with people via survey, ads, or organic content rather than making sales pitch. It will help to build trust and credibility. Fans like and share your content thus increasing your social exposure.
Nurture relationships to build a loyal community that will soon generate leads. Acquisitions of new customers are great for a business but never downplay customer retention value. For building relationships –
- Create a Facebook Group.
- Connect with influencers and entrepreneurs in your niche.
- Share followers’ content.
- Use social platforms in-built interactive tools.
Concentrate on quality
Create quality content for a few major social channels rather than having a presence on each network. Your social content must offer value and encourage people to follow. Social marketing means building relationships and if your content shouts sales pitch then people will get frustrated.
Monitor and tweak
Keep track of your social media strategy and fine-tune efforts wherever needed to enhance the results. Use analytical tools to gain a vast picture of the effectiveness of your social efforts. Use A/B testing to make tiny changes to enhance your success a little more.