7 Ways to Successfully Utilize Social Media

 

Today, many of us spend more time on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram than any other sites—and do so several times a day, even while we’re working. And that’s OK! Given social media’s incredibly wide appeal and pervasiveness, most businesses are several years into their “social media” strategies.

 

Whether you’re just starting out or have been in the social game for a while, here are seven ways to leverage social for your brand:

 

 

One of the main advantages of social media is (in most instances) it’s FREE—at least to get started. Enter your e-mail address, a few contact details and brief information about your business, and you’re off and running (and posting, commenting, and tagging).

 

As a business using social media, you control the content and frequency of posts pushed by your brand. Many businesses promote new products they’re offering or promote events to drive traffic and awareness for their company or Web page. Others provide informational articles or tips related to their products or services. For instance, if you’re a health club, you may post healthy eating tips to appeal to your target audience. If you sell building supplies, you might post about do-it-yourself projects.

 

As a business, social media gives you the opportunity to tap into new markets and establish relationships with new audiences.

 

 

Like with any strategic plan, you first must define what you’re trying to gain by launching a social media campaign. Make your goals concrete, measurable, and realistic. For instance, if your businesses has a Facebook page, you might want to establish goals around fan growth, clicks on a link or engagement with your content (likes, comments, and shares). These metrics or KPIs should be tracked ongoing in a dashboard, allowing you to see how you’re performing and the impact of certain tactics on your overall performance. There are many free or low-cost tools that allow you to gauge performance, including the built-in insights on several platforms.

 

Common business objectives include:

 

• Branding—how your company is perceived by users and the level of knowledge they have of your products and services. If you’re wanting to change the way a certain audience thinks about your brand, this can be determined anecdotally by tracking the conversation around it.
• Acquiring new customers—social media pages link to your corporate Web site. After getting a brief introduction to your business through the social media page, the user might go to your Web site to find more about or purchase your product/service. The major social platforms also allow paid advertising opportunities that allow you to expose content to broader audiences or increase your number of “followers.”
• Engaging your current customers—social media allows brands to connect with existing customers in deeper and more meaningful ways. It allows customers to force and cultivate relationships with a personal touch. To help with authenticity, it’s important that social media managers and/or authors have a strong grasp of the brand, its products and services and the unique qualities (differentiators) that set it apart from competitors.

 

 

Social media sites target diverse populations, such as aficionados, other companies in your area, and audiences of different age ranges. In looking at current and potential customers, ask yourself:

 

1. What is their point of view and the types of activities they engage in?
2. Who are some of the influencers they follow when making purchase decisions? This can range from a celebrity (your favorite musician) to a journalist (your favorite music critic).
3. Can you provide incentives that match the interests of your audience? Perhaps your next sale campaign will look entirely different as you better know your audience.

 

 

Once you better understand your target audience (or audiences), create and publish content that is relevant to them. Content is critical, but if it’s not relevant and credible, the payoff won’t be there.

 

• Create pieces that inherently elicit feedback/response from the audience
• Attract attention with powerful images and videos (visuals are important)
• Position yourself as a subject matter expert through by being prolific (write a lot of GOOD stuff)

 

 

Establish a presence for your business through a variety of social media outlets. This will increase brand exposure and give you additional opportunities to engage. In some cases, different social media sites are more (or less) relevant to different audiences. 

 

For instance, LinkedIn is used mostly by business professionals and is a great source of job listings and a strong aggregator of industry-related content (links to articles, etc.). Twitter, on the other hand, skews slightly younger and is focused on short-form, rapidly consumed content. Instagram is a powerful visual tool, highly applicable for brands with great imagery.

 

Get to know the platform and best practices and let that knowledge shape your strategy. Remain active across as many platforms as are relevant to your brand/business, but understand the golden rules around frequency, so you don’t scare people away by flooding their news feeds.

 

 

Because of its constant interactivity, maintaining a social media site can become a full-time job. In order to better manage your campaign:

 

• Decide who will be responsible for maintaining your presence and the number of hours per week they can “budget” to do so. This will help you plan your resources wisely.
• Set guidelines for the type of material you want posted and how involved you’ll be in responding to comments, feedback and questions.
• Link social media to your company’s objectives. While social media can be entertaining, your goals should always tie back to business and driving KPIs (including sales!). 

 

 

Above all, social media is a tool to reinforce your brand and message and achieve your business objectives. 

 

1. Determine if the time spent on your social media site has a significant ROI (return on investment). 
2. Develop specific tracking systems based on what you want users on your social media site to do (“friend” you, post, go to your corporate Website).
3. Tweak your activity (frequency of posts, types of content, amount of engagement) based on the results to constantly improve and optimize performance.