A Guide To Using Social Media To Grow Your Business

If you are trying to revamp your marketing strategy to incorporate social media marketing strategies, now is the time to learn how to use this powerful platform to your advantage. Social media was created to be a vehicle where individuals could connect and keep in touch, but this digital tool has become a vehicle where small and large businesses alike can connect with prospects and keep in touch with loyal customers. Growing a business is not an easy feat. You will need to focus on customer retention, marketing value, building trust, improving brand recognition and expanding your advertising reach, if you truly want to grow your customer base. Here is your basic guide on how social media can help you do all of this.

Choose a Platform that Your Target Demographic Uses

You probably are familiar with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn social media platforms, but which platform should you use to market to a target audience? You should not spread yourself when it comes to building a presence on social media, but you also need to take your time to choose the right marketing vehicle. Each platform has its advantages and disadvantages. Large successful organizations tend to gravitate towards Twitter, but smaller and medium-sized businesses find that Facebook gives them greater exposure.

If your target market is consumers between the ages of 18 and 24, you may want to consider focusing on branding through platforms like StmbleUpon and Google+. If your goal is more focused on driving traffic to your website to improve your search engine rankings, Facebook, Pinterest, StumbleUpon or Twitter will be the ideal choice because you can post video, image, and written content. If you want to engage an audience with video content for brand recognition and traffic, YouTube is the platform of choice. Define your goals first, and choose which platform is appropriate next.

Do Not Just Market Your Brand, Share Value

Social media platforms are powerful vehicles to grow a business because you can engage a target audience and encourage them to share your marketing messages. As you are deciding what you will share, you must use the 80/20 rule of social media marketing. Rather than focusing everything that you share on brand and product promotion, you should only be marketing 20% of the time. Customers and prospects will only follow you, recommend you, or keep your brand in mind when you are sharing value.

How do you share value and not marketing messages? You will need to identify sources that are trustworthy, and find content that your target audience will find interesting or useful. News stories, articles, how-to videos and even pop culture news can keep your customers engaged. Make sure that you find content that caters to your customers’ needs and interests, and encourage these customers to share or contribute to a conversation.

You must learn how to be an influencer on social media before you can focus on expanding your business. By choosing the right platform, and sharing the right content, you can attract the customers who will then become influencers and recommend your brand to their friends and associates.

About Author: Sally is a technology guru having set and run her own office supplies company. She is the source of contact for lots of tech companies looking for advice in new pieces of technology for business. Sally loves to be able to offer her expertise to companies such as Principal Corp.