It’s social media! We’re all social and we want to know what everyone is doing. This blog post will discuss some of the most important social media tips for business owners. It will talk about how you can make your social media presence more effective by following a few simple steps. I’ll also focus on the importance of authenticity, connection, and engagement to help maximize your social media presence.
“The way people share, connect and consume information has changed dramatically over the last decade, with social media at the center of it all.”
Jenn Guidry, Director of Marketing at eclincher
Social media presence is one of the most essential elements of an online marketing strategy. Social media in today’s climate is where businesses find success. It is the best way to promote your brand, connect with your audience, and take hold of new opportunities.
Over 3.96 billion people use social media worldwide and most of them are scrolling through their accounts every single day. By getting active on social media, your business will have a significant opportunity to connect instantly with people around the world.
However, creating an excellent social media presence that will promote your brand to the right people and help grow your business requires a well-executed approach.
Let’s dive right in below.
1. Work with Micro-influencers
We are social creatures, we want to connect with people who have similar interests and lifestyles as us. The best way for your business to achieve this is by looking for micro-influencers on social media. They can provide a personalized approach that many consumers crave more than brands or celebrities endorsing products.
However, today’s consumers are more informed than ever before. They know what they want, and they know who to trust. Sadly, celebrity-endorsed social media posts are receiving a lot of bad press, with many fans claiming celebrities are endorsing products they don’t use and brands they’re not passionate about.
Moreover, it’s important you find the right influencer to represent your brand.
“We, at eclincher, recommend viewing the influencer you’re interested in as the consumer first. Collaborations should be natural, not forced. Crawl their social media channels, subscribe to their channels for a set amount of time before you decide to approach them and make sure they share the same values as your company and align with your brand beliefs. The last thing you need is something the influencer does to backfire on all the hard work you’ve put in.”
Jenn Guidry, director of Marketing, eclincher.com
51% of people will unfollow a brand that posts something they disagree with. This kind of negative press can be hugely damaging for your brand. So, instead of celebrity marketing, consider working with micro-influencers.
Micro-influencers are increasingly popular on social media. Not only are they cheaper on your budget, but they have more highly engaged audiences than their celebrity counterparts. If you want to build a brand that people can get to know and come to trust, collaborating with micro-influencers is the key.
2. Offer Social Shopping
People no longer scroll social media for entertainment alone. Social accounts have become a one-stop shop for pretty much everything. Users can interact socially with friends and family, engage with photos and videos, and now enjoy shoppable content.
If you want a future-proof social media account that offers everything your audience is looking for, social shopping is a great feature to include. Social shopping allows your audience to make purchases straight from their social account. You can invest in social adverts and promote your products with ‘buy now’ tags that, when clicked on, take the user straight to a payment screen. Social shopping is more popular than ever and is one of the best ways to maximize your business success on social media.
For social media managers, this is the best news ever. It means that social content can be used for growing the brand online. It is more than just an extension of a company’s website or Instagram feed – it can now contain links to eCommerce sites where users can purchase products in real-time!
Here are some strategies to maximize your retail social media presence:
- Offer social shopping through your eCommerce strategies even if you offer a service vs a product.
- Promote social video content through your social scheduler as a way to capture the attention of shoppers and encourage them to click on, interact with, and share links that lead back to product pages in an online store.
- Consider implementing chatbots, real human chat support, or other automated customer service tools into social channels so users can grab those impulse buys in the middle of the night when they can’t sleep.
- Create social content that is interactive and gamified to encourage more social engagement.
A company’s online store can be a powerful marketing tool for generating traffic and sales leads – but how does one attract followers? The answer lies in the power of social media of course.
Keep reading.
3. Invest in Tools for Social Media Management
Improving your social media presence isn’t as simple as posting regularly but also requires posting at optimal times. Unless you have a dedicated social media manager, it’s unlikely you have the time to log into your social accounts throughout the day to post your latest updates. So, it’s time to invest in tools for social media management.
Social media management tools offer substantial support to help you maximize your social presence without maxing out your time. Management tools coordinate your accounts, schedule posts weeks in advance, post at preferred times of day, and analyse how well your posts are performing.
A social media management tool can help you post to social and schedule posts in advance. This will save time, which is crucial when running a business, allowing you more freedom to focus on other aspects of your company.
But, that isn’t all a social media management tool can do for your business social media presence. Some companies offer an immense value allowing for reputation management, curated posts, suggested content, team collaboration inside the tool, external visual calendars for your clients, auto-posting, automation, and customization features to save hours, increase productivity, and ultimately create more opportunities to do more with less.
Businesses are finding it more challenging to compete in the marketplace without a social media management tool. The social media space is highly competitive and a social management tool can help you stay on top of the latest trends to provide your audience with an authentic experience.
Your social media strategy can be smart by using a few simple tools:
- social listening to understand what people are talking about in your industry and who is influential on social media. This information will help you identify potential partnerships, opportunities for content creation, etc.
- scheduling posts ahead of time so that you don’t need to work all hours of the night, the weekend, and the holiday.
- social media management with an inbox to help you stay on top of social activity from all channels and respond quickly to reviews, comments, and other types of engagements such as mentions.
Check out the 10 social media management tools we recommend!
4. Brands – Broaden the Conversation
Too often, brands talk solely about themselves, their products, their services, their staff, their culture, and on and on. However, customers don’t just want to hear about you. They want to know what you can do for them. This is why it’s essential to broaden the conversation on social media.
Creating content pillars is a great way to achieve this. These pillars represent some of the main things about your brand while allowing you to stretch into other credible aspects of your customers’ lives.
A few great examples of this include campaigns such as Method’s #DirtyLittleSecrets campaign or General Electric’s #6SecondScience campaign. While neither of these topics are directly about their main products, they created engagement from audiences with the brands’ core values.
Key social media platforms for businesses include: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin
Businesses can maximize their social media presence by focusing on these three aspects of social media. You don’t have to be everywhere at once. But, make sure you aren’t trying to be something you’re brand is not.
Authenticity is key for building a relationship with your customers and potential clients. It’s important to make sure that you post content that your viewers will care about or will gain value from.
5. Create an Editorial Calendar
We will let you in on a little secret; the most successful brands on social media create editorial calendars and stick to them. Editorial schedules aren’t an optional extra when it comes to successful social strategies – they are a necessity.
If you are juggling multiple social channels, having a posting schedule you can follow with pre-organised content is one of the best ways to stay consistent over the long term. Try scheduling your content using a social media management tool like eclincher.
After all, there’s nothing worse than starting off well with great posts and a growing following only to run out of time and inspiration a few weeks later. Creating an editorial calendar will ensure your social strategy stays on track.
Steps to Maximizing Your Social Media Presence
Create editorial calendars and stick to them. Editorial schedules aren’t an optional extra when it comes to successful social strategies – they are a necessity.
Schedule your own content and consider using a visual calendar using social media management tools like eclincher. If you are juggling multiple social channels, social media overwhelm can set in quick!
Engage with your followers, don’t just broadcast.
Be social and have fun with your audience! Check social media at least once a day for the best results. You can even schedule some of this time so you are never without social engagement – an absolute must for any successful strategy.
Read social media articles to stay ahead of the game.
Use social media alerts so you know when someone mentions your business or posts about a topic related to yours.
Review social analytics and look for trends in what’s working, then amplify those strategies on all channels! If it isn’t working, then pivot.
A social media strategy can be a tedious task, but by using the right tools and following these steps you will find social engagement less daunting!
6. Be Human
Although this is our final point, it is arguably the most important one. Be human. One of the worst mistakes you can make on social media is coming across fake or with zero personality. Your social account should reflect everything about your brand – the good as well as the wacky/unique. It’s what makes you human.
Transparency has never been more important for cultivating trust between brands and their customers. Your customers want to get to know your company on a more personal level.
They want to see behind the scenes and get a glimpse into what makes your company tick. So, don’t be afraid to crack a few jokes, share fun stories, and promote unpolished content. Showing off the human side of your company is one of the best ways to cultivate deeper connections.
Social media presence for your business should reflect everything about your brand – the good as well as the wacky/unique; it’s what makes you human.
Transparency has never been more important for cultivating trust between brands and their customers, so don’t be afraid to crack a few jokes, share fun stories, use GIFs, and have some fun with your audience where it makes sense.
The company also needs to have a strong understanding of where they are in the marketplace and what their competitors are doing on social platforms. This will help determine how you can differentiate and stand out!
Final Words
There is no “secret sauce” to social media management. Instead, it requires a lot of hard work, experimentation, and plenty of carefully thought-out strategies. Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to be you. By following our tips, you will get closer to maximizing your social media marketing for long-term business success and more importantly adding value to your clients, your audience, your followers!
Our final thought here is that social media marketing should be done by the entire team, not just one person. A variety of people will have different views and perspectives on what works best for your business social media presence. This will help to generate a diverse range of content which can then reach more people!
What works for one company might not work for you and that is ok! Stand out.
