5 Social Media Marketing Tips

In this digital age, companies must utilize social media to remain relevant and competitive. However, running effective corporate social media pages can be tricky, considering how many factors contribute to success. The tips below delve into using your brand to draw in an audience and engage consumers.

1.   Set clear goals.

Do you want more visits to your website? Do you want to network with other businesses? Do you want to simply increase sales? Whatever your goal is, make it precise and at the forefront of all your social media decisions. It is ineffectual for both you and your audience for your social media to be generic and vague. Thus, your content must be both engaging and linked to your business goals. Forbes warns that when companies fail to do this, their social media becomes “a form of brand waving with no real connection to the company as a whole”.

2.   Be judicious about what social media platforms you use.

While it is proactive to utilize many social media platforms to increase your brand’s reach, it can result in spreading yourself out too thin and not having a clear, concise presence on your accounts. Not every social media platform works for every business; click here to learn more about what website works for your company. Take time to create varied content for your social media accounts. Your cross-platform content should be related but not identical.

3.   Personalize your brand.

The success of social media lies in the humanity of it; people use social media to interact with friends and family and with the world in general. Companies that do well on social media have created a brand identity that people can connect with. According to Entrepreneur, “businesses that learn to foster their human element will have a real advantage over those who hide behind a logo”. An easy and effective way to add this element in your social media marketing is to highlight the business owner or other higher-up. This allows consumers to form a relationship with your company.

4.   Engage – don’t just sell.

People are already overloaded with advertisements on social media, so it is imperative for your business’ content to not be purely commercialized. To avoid sounding too “sales-y”, create content that doesn’t directly advertise your business – photos, quotes, or videos that evoke emotion in your audience perform much better on social media than advertisements. Remember to interact with your audience by asking questions and inviting people to directly communicate with your company.

5.   Utilize the data provided by social media websites.

When you run business accounts on social media, the platforms themselves provide analytics that allow you to monitor your audience engagement and track your growth. For instance, Facebook has Insights, which has stats that include how many people your posts have reached and how much your following has increased. Make sure to constantly check this data to see how effective your social media pages are. The websites also often have recommendations on how to improve your reach.

Originally posted on LinkedIn