words Al Woods
In business today, entrepreneurs have an almost unlimited arsenal of tools at their disposal, from search engine optimization to influencer marketing and even social media; until you have educated yourself about these tools and their benefits you will not be able to make use of them.
Learning about how to use them is not as difficult as you might think, however. Out of all of them, social media marketing is by far the best, as on social media you have access to millions of potential customers. This post will offer some tips for using it effectively:
Buying Followers
When people find business pages on social media, their first instinct is to check how much the page’s existing audience has been engaging with it. High engagement levels are a sign a business offers useful products or services. As a new business, however, attracting new high-quality followers can be very difficult. No followers mean no page engagement. A good way of encouraging people to follow you is to buy fake likes and follows; doing this will give your page an instant boost, making it look like it’s a lot more popular than it really is. Social media users will then follow you, thinking you already have a large audience.
Using Influencers
Influencers are online personalities, known for their ability to ‘influence’ audiences into making purchases from their sponsors. Working with these individuals can be a highly effective way of getting your brand’s name out there. You need to find an influencer in your niche. Working with one outside of it does not make much sense and will not be beneficial. Ensure you hire influencers with big followings.
Building Relationships
One of social media’s main advantages is that it gives you the chance to build individual relationships with your customers. Many of the people who reach out to you via direct message will be doing so just to let you know they enjoy your brand. Others will reach out with actual questions. You should direct the latter category to your business’s customer support team. The former, you can engage with yourself. Building individual relationships is one of the best ways to ensure customer loyalty; when people feel connected with your brand they will be more likely to buy your products.
Opening Store
In recent years, social media platforms have started giving business owners the opportunity to open their own stores. Before, purchases could only be made through social media via direct messaging and personal arrangements. Now consumers can buy products directly from their favorite pages’ social media stores. Holding regular sales can devalue your business. A good way of holding promotional sales without devaluing your brand is to post them discreetly on social media; that way, individuals lucky enough to open your social media store will find out about them, without them being openly publicized. Do not hold too many sales as this can ruin your reputation.
Using Hashtags
On social media, hashtags are a very effective way of bringing attention to a post. If you are able to find out which hashtags are most popular among your target audience, you can then begin posting with them. You need to stay on top of hashtags, as they change often. It’s not as simple as finding a hashtag and then running with it for the rest of your business’s time on social media. Hashtags change on an almost weekly basis. You can hire researchers to find out about the latest and most popular hashtags so you can focus on other things.
Location Tags
Using location tags can be a good way of bringing attention to posts, too. Specific audiences are interested in exact locations. For example, people interested in men’s fashion are likely to follow the ‘Pitti Uomo’ location tags. Likewise, those interested in women’s fashion are likely to follow ‘Paris Fashion Week.’ Making posts with these tags attached can be a great way of building up your brand’s reputation and gaining exposure. The pursuit of exposure should be one of the main focuses in your business’s early days. Unless you are constantly working on building exposure, it will fade into nothingness.
Online Collaborations
Collaborating with other businesses can be a good way of gaining exposure on social media. However, it is very important to make sure that you do not collaborate with any brands directly in your niche. Instead, you should work with niche adjacent brands. Working with ones in your niche basically just means that you are endorsing your competition. If their product offerings are better than yours, then doing this is a pretty effective way of pushing your followers away and getting them to follow somebody else’s business. Online collaborations usually have to be paid for, so bear in mind you could have to spend a fortune on them.
Consistent Branding
Across all of your digital pages and platforms have consistent branding. At this moment in time, online scams have never been more common. Customers will therefore not do business with companies that have inconsistent branding. Inconsistent branding is one of the giveaways that you are dealing with a scam company. Ensure your pages all have the same logos, colour schemes, and branding on them. Consistent branding will build trust and make consumers feel more confident about you. If you are interested in having a logo made, then work with a professional graphic designer – do not attempt to make your own.
Live Stories
On Instagram and many other social media platforms, you can post live stories. Live stories are your opportunity to engage with your audience directly. Followers will be able to chat with you, while you are streaming. You can then save your stories, so people can revisit them. Be sure to post normal stories too. When you post a story you are able to see the names of all of the people who have viewed them, which gives you a good idea of how many people are engaging with your brand. Learning about how much consumers are engaging with your brand can be a highly effective way of determining how successful your business is.
Building a presence for your business on the internet should be one of your main priorities. Until you have done this achieving success will not be possible. Consumers do not turn to magazines for advice on businesses anymore, they use search engines and social media platforms. You need a presence in these places if you are to succeed.
