This short guide outlines five social media marketing tips that business starters can use to kick off their social media strategy with impact.
Using social media to promote business seems to have gone beyond a matter of choice to become an absolute must for entrepreneurs. While experts use well-trodden strategies, beginner entrepreneurs are just opening up an unexplored terrain, rediscovering social media as a business tool.
5 social media marketing tips for business starters
If you are a beginner entrepreneur, your assumptions and expectations about using social media might slow you down on your way to first tangible results. The following five tips will get you a sense of direction and support to make the most of this tool and stay on track even if something goes not as planned.
Tip 1. Do not sell anything on social media.
It may sound paradoxicalas the first of the social media marketing tips, but everything public on social media involves even stricter rules of respecting boundaries.
People need to get to know you first. Attempts to sell something to them before making social connections can ruin this zen of reinvented social media privacy, intruding into the users’ personal space. People will not tolerate this imposed role of “being sold to” in places where they just want to see their friends and from someone they do not know.
You need to bring out your personality on social media in a way congruent with your brand or product philosophy and use it to engage with the followers. Try to connect with people who share similar values and to create a community, not a marketplace.
Tip 2. Create shareable content.
What makes content shareable is the emotional experience that it provides. Emotions, unlike logic, have more power in forcing people to stop scrolling and read. Emotional content hooks the reader and evokes the desirable emotionally-driven reaction — pressing the “share” button (as emotions are something you always want to share).
Also, remember to take advantage of the “you-are-what-you-share” principle, and give people something that will add to their social media image among their friends and followers.
Appealing to emotions by no means implies cheap manipulations or sentiments overload. Just adding some subtle but sincere emotional element to useful content will be enough to make the reader resonate with it and feel like reading your post enriches their experience.
Tip.3 People like reality TV. Give it to them.
Your social media should be a digital extension of your experience of being fully involved in life. This third of the social media marketing tips means that you should show what you do during the day, share some significant events or stages in your life, or raise the curtain on your business’s backstage.
Real life (with its both positive and negative aspects) through the lens of a particular aesthetics is always a winning formula of engagement. The more your human nature is revealed, the more it will be easier for people to relate to you, with all your seemingly “boring” daily routine, drama, obstacles, challenges, and achievements.
Tip. 4 Cold-messaging can (and should) be personal.
Like unsolicited selling on social media, sending cold messages without proper personalization can be a rather irritating thing for your recipients. So is phony small talk before such messages. Your personalization should start with making a thorough list of people who would constitute a proper audience for your offer and browsing through their profiles to find some hook for conversation.
Listening to the answers and replying accordingly (not just following the template regardless of what a person says) will be definitely a good start, and you will avoid awkward situations. Cold-messaging is quite a tricky task, but it can be really effective with an “especially-for-you” approach and avoiding overfamiliarity.
Tip 5. It is going to be a long-play, so be patient.
Patient is a key one of the social media marketing tips. Promoting on social media takes time and patience. And the reason is not in you or your content. Like in real relationships, time is critical in establishing trust. Just keep on posting and engaging with your audience, not expecting fast results.
However, if you feel that with the greater presence of your daily life in social media you are losing a sense of ownership of your personal space, or if you hate publicity, choose an alternative tool for promoting your business. By doing what is uncomfortable, you will just end up being frustrated. But suppose you are okay with creating your personal social media narrative, sharing your story will not only serve as a rewarding investment in promoting your business but also as a great source of energy and self-expression.
Summary
For beginner entrepreneurs, the first-time experience in using social media is a period of challenges and discoveries. Patience, perseverance, and doing what really fills you up with energy and inspiration is key on your way to doing social media content like a pro. With the right approach and positive attitude, the results of using these social media marketing tips will exceed your expectations.
