How can social media marketing help your business?
Social media marketing is essentially shop-talk for using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to promote products and services to prospective clients. The benefits of effective digital marketing across social media are numerous, including cost-effectiveness and the ability to reach a broad audience who can engage directly through content or sponsored posts. As each platform evolves, we are finding new and exciting ways to utilise the power of social media marketing to connect with customers and clients and interact with the target audience in a more personal, targeted way. Businesses also have the opportunity to showcase their portfolio, share testimonials and stay front-of-mind for a diverse reach of consumers, making tasks such as information provision, bookings, FAQs and collaboration easier than ever.
To help you make the most of your time and resources spent on your content strategy, paid ads on social media and social media promotion, here are our top four tips.
Tip #1: Create engaging content that resonates with your audience
The best way to create engaging content that resonates with your audience is by connecting with them on a personal level. Write as though you are speaking directly with them. For example, in a post discussing outdoor furniture or equipment (with a link to buy), you might ask, “what is your favourite season, and why?” You could even answer the question yourself in the post to get the ball rolling and encourage others to share their views.
A business in the fashion or hairdressing industry, for example, may write about the latest trends and ask what people think, or their prediction for the next trend. Content ideas are limitless here, and many consumers love the opportunity to offer their opinion or share something about themselves.
Tip #2: Leverage the power of visuals to increase engagement
Cleverly utilising visuals for social media is one of the most powerful tools for engaging with your target audience. Eye-catching images boost visibility and scroll-stopping across all of your content, including targeted ads on social media and sponsored posts.
Visuals not only make your content stand out in the overwhelming sea of posts, but they are a great way to make your content more appealing and memorable to consumers. With the right visuals, you can efficiently draw people’s attention and keep them engaged with your content, as they will likely stop to look closer at the image and are, therefore, more likely to see subsequent posts too.
Visuals for marketing your company’s products and services can also be very effective at conveying a lot of information in a clear and easy-to-understand manner.
Take your time when selecting visuals for promotion and working through your content creation – don’t just select any picture, make sure it fits the message and is worthy of your consumer’s attention.
Tip #3: Utilise paid ads to reach a wider audience
With paid ads, you can easily reach more people than ever before and make sure your message is seen by those who matter most. Paid ads on social media are a great way to reach a wider audience and promote your message, while still staying within the confines of your target audience. Setting up a targeted ad campaign ensures your business is seen by the right people at the right time by utilising complex algorithms to select consumers with relevant demographics, needs, interests and even shopping habits!
Sponsored posts are another way to take advantage of the power social media marketing can have. This is a great way to expand your post’s reach and boost brand awareness among a new selection of potential customers.
Tip #4: Monitor & analyse performance to optimise results
We highly recommend monitoring and analysing the performance of your social media marketing efforts. With the right analytics tools for social media, you can track how your content is performing and make adjustments to better reach the right people – and get more engagement for your time and dollars spent!
Performance tracking tools for social media allow you to measure engagement, reach, clicks, impressions and more. This will help you identify what works and what doesn’t so that you can focus on improving your content strategy. By monitoring and analysing performance regularly, you can maximise the impact of your social media campaigns and ensure they reach their full potential.
If this is something you are unsure about or would like further help promoting your business on social media, contact CLP to discuss how we can work with you.