If you are a small business owner and new to online marketing, it might be hard to understand the immediate benefits of social media marketing. Is it time for your business to go social? The answer is ‘Yes’.
According to recent research, it’s found that around 75% of social media users are very likely to share the content they like with their friends, family or work colleagues. And what’s more interesting is the fact that almost half of them do that weekly or more often.
However, the reach of social media marketing is not restricted to getting followers or ‘likes’. How to make social media marketing work for you? There are important do’s and don’ts of social media management and strategy for small businesses.
Max out Your Social Media Strategy and Management: Top Do’s
Social media marketing can help you to get more customers and build your brand awareness at low cost. That said, you must follow the best practices:
- Create original content. You can share useful content that has already been created, but don’t forget to create your own original content as well.
- Respond to everyone; don’t delete complaints. Many of big brands are not responding to their followers on social media networks. By responding to your customers and prospects, you could gain a competitive advantage for your products and services, in a short span of time.
- Be authentic and communicate your uniqueness. Many companies are offering too many things, which end up confusing the readers.
You can tell personal stories, which should come without veiled sales recommendations. As a rule of thumb, selling products or services via social media networks will not be as effective as telling stories related to your product or service. To that end you can use e-books, high quality articles, webinars, images and videos to tell your story.
You must also thank your followers, customers and partners regularly in your social media posts: writing a few thank you notes doesn’t take a lot of time. Buying social media ads to reach out to potential customers is a smart idea, but avoid buying fake ‘likes’ and followers for your page.
You should also monitor your results. Are your efforts bringing some results, traffic and ROI? You must almost always measure your efforts and the effectiveness of your social media campaign. Always remember, social media marketing cannot help make up for a bad service or product. It is not free and will not bring you immediate results.
However, it can be an effective marketing tool if used correctly.
Worst Things You Could Do To Your Social Media Strategy and Management: Top Don’ts
Most small business owners make a few common social media marketing mistakes. Make sure you don’t do any of these:
- Spamming your customers and prospects. Don’t overdo with your postings and status updates. Here is the example of an effective posting strategy: Twitter – not more than 14 times per day, never more than once per hour; Facebook – not more than 2 times per day, every day, in the morning and in the afternoon; Google Plus – not more than 2 times per day, morning and evening, business days only.
- Don’t make your followers feel special. Try to respect everyone’s time and think how your followers would benefit from networking with you. Don’t contact them before you have a clue.
- Being on all social media platforms. You can create and maintain accounts with a bunch of social media networks, but overall it is not a good idea. For starters, you must research and find out where your target market can be reached.
- Sharing sensitive topics. Be professional; avoid discussing and sharing topics related to religion, politics or sexual orientation. Practicing any of these can harm the reputation of your business and brand.
Avoiding these mistakes in social media management and strategy is easier than dealing with the harm done. Social media marketing can give small businesses the leverage to connect with their audiences the same way that big companies can. It is very cost effective marketing tool and can reward your business with loyal customers.