Social media has become a part of our daily lives. At one time if a business wanted to get noticed and attract customers they advertised in the local newspapers and publications. Everyone read the newspaper so that means the advertisements were seen by a large number of potential customers.
Then radio advertisements and television advertisements gained in popularity. More people listened to the radio or watched television so to reach the population companies developed ads using these mediums.
Social media engages over 90% of the population every day. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are viewed by millions of people each hour. A small business has to get their advertisements out to the people, and that means you have to get your brand viewed on social media. Read below to know more info about the online marketing strategy for small businesses.
1. Who do you want to follow your social media posts?
In the past, you would have created a customer profile that described the customers you were targeting with your ad. That profile defined your customer targets according to age, interests, and things of that nature. Your social media posts will not be effective if they are generalized to appeal to everyone of every age. You need to establish who you are trying to reach.
Consider the following things:
- Who uses your product most men or women?
- What age group is most likely to be interested in your product 0-17, 17-35, 35 – 50, over 50?
- Where would your followers likely live, in the southern states or the northern states?
- Does your product serve a special needs purpose?
- Does your company support certain charities or have affiliations with charitable associations?
Answer these questions as thoroughly as possible so you can get social media followers that are likely to be interested in your product, and even more likely to share their interests with friends.
2. Determine what you want your social media posts to do for you
You want your posts to help increase your product sales, but you need to be a little more specific with your strategies. Think about the following things and choose 1 item to focus on, then later you can add additional items from this list to your social media campaign.
- Increasing traffic to your website
- Creating and building brand awareness
- Create customer leads
- Improving customer relations and service
- Product sales and delivery
Focus your efforts on one selling strategy at a time. You do not want to come across as pushy, and you do not want to flood your social media with too many strategies at once.
3. Create a presence
Social media sites have people who are friends with each other or people who follow the posts of each other. Your social media campaign requires you to establish a presence. You need to create a profile that your target audience can relate to.
4. Get followers
Once you have a social media page you need people to see that page. Start with your employees, your family and your friends. Ask them to start to follow your page, and to start recommended the page to their family and friends. This will have a snowball effect. One follower can attract hundreds of other followers by sharing your page.
5. Offer Reward Incentives
To further create a large group of followers you can offer reward incentives. You can do a promotional giveaway by offering to give a free sample or a free product to one person who likes your social media page, comments on your page, and shares your page details with their friends.
This strategy gets you out of the realm of just friends and family and friends of the family. You are starting to expand.
6. Be active
Your social media presence is going to require that you check on your page often, and respond to comments made by your followers. You should also visit the pages of your followers and leave comments about something on their page.
Your social media account has to be active and you have to be fully engaged with your followers.
Developing your brand through a social media campaign is a positive way to get your name in the minds of people.