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The Internet age has brought marketing to a whole new level. The kinds of strategies that marketers used even 10 years ago are no longer relevant. Nowhere is this as true as it is in the use of social media as marketing strategy.
Every type of business is finding out that it’s important to have a good social media strategy to effectively promote goods and services in today’s marketplace.
Your presence on social media can make or break your business. Statistics show that 90% percent of buyers look at online reviews before making a purchase. Large percentages of people first hear about a service or a product through social media channels. The search engines are a great tool but you can’t wait for customers to come to you. Using these social media as marketing strategy tips will help get your business in the public eye.
Social media as marketing strategy is an incredibly powerful marketing tool. In fact, the likes of Twitter and Instagram have become popular platforms even away from the marketing sphere. People post images of their favourite breakfast, promote work from their personal blogs, and give health and fitness advice to their devoted army of followers who hang on their every word.
Even for businesses struggling in year one, it can formulate a social media plan and attract a new audience in the process. Social media offers the chance for a company to tap into a new crowd and share its message in a different way, perhaps through the likes of a promotional video or a nicely worded tweet.
There are an array of businesses promoting a variety of different things from a range of different sectors. Food lovers can access content online to help with inspiration in the kitchen, gym fanatics can find an array of businesses or individuals offering to help them get better results, and gamers and sports fans can read about this new sportsbook for the latest sports and gaming news. The options are vast. It is certainly a saturated space, therefore making it important you get it right.
Focusing on social media as marketing strategy
To help get you up and running with a social media as marketing strategy, here is a look at some of the best ways to market a business on social media right now.
Choose the right platforms
There are plenty of social media sites to choose from, but they aren’t all necessarily suited to your business. Joining the wrong platform could be the difference between success and failure, too. In order to make sure you choose the platform best suited to your business, consider your customers and which platform they are likely to use.
Assess which platform is best for the type of content you want to share also. For example, if you’re keen to share promotional videos, then YouTube alongside the likes of Instagram is probably best suited. Look into the platforms rival businesses are using, too.
Create a content calendar
Disorganisation and a lack of planning can really show on a social media profile. Last-minute posts and rushed videos always stand out from the better creations online, making it vitally important you have a plan in place to avoid any sloppy tweets or dull promotional videos.
Content calendars help create goals and enable you to come up with strategies in order to smash them. It doesn’t need to be complicated either. All you need to do is list each social media platform your business is using, then add the content for the post, hashtags, links, images and any other notes or content you think might be relevant. Then, each day, you’ll know exactly what you’re doing.
Always encourage engagement
In order to build a community of followers behind your brand, it pays to have a human feel to your profile and not appear as a big brand with no character on a social media profile. Social media is, of course, about being social.
Always try to keep your followers engaged and encourage interaction with each other. You could post a quiz, share relevant articles, repost followers’ content and much more. Be human.
Don’t spam
Far too many brands spam content online. Self-promotion is needed for social media as marketing strategy, but it shouldn’t be overdone. To avoid becoming one of those annoying spam accounts, consider adopting the one-in-seven rule. It essentially means that for one directly promotional post, the next six others should be content-based.
Other social media as marketing strategy tips include: share video content and always be ready to reply to any issues or queries.
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