As we enter into a new chapter on a new calendar year, it’s time to start thinking about effective social media marketing strategies for your small business. In order or you to stay ahead of the competition it’s imperative for you to adjust your marketing strategy to take advantage of prevailing trends and the ever evolving market for various business industries. The small business platform has changed a lot within the last few years and staying up to date with those changes can be a challenge.
Below are a few social media marketing tips To keep you ahead of the competition in 2018.
- Increase Your Visibility – The reason social media marketing is so huge is because so many people spend time there. You can’t increase visibility for your business and online personality with a private page. During the year 2017, I saw a lot of this and it made me scratch my head a bit. I’m not sure why but the drawbacks to this can hurt your brand. If your biggest concern is unwanted spam comments, this can be controlled and eliminated with the block button and by updating your settings. The goal is to accommodate your audience and generate leads. Make sure every piece of your social media strategy serves the goals you set and the people who will see it. Refine your social media presence. It’s vital to the survival of your brand. Increasing your visibility drives traffic and invites engagement.
- Focus on Mobile – Most searches and website visits are done via mobile. Unfortunately, most businesses are yet to truly embrace mobile within their marketing strategies. Make it a point to optimize your website content and digital assets for mobile users this year. The efforts will improve your ROI from all digital channels and will drive prospects to your website boosting traffic from search engines in the proceeds. I’m not only talking about design and loading speed, but truly optimizing the user experience for site search, commerce, form entry, navigation and general mobile usability.
- Make Engagement a Priority – You need to be social on social media. It’s not a soap box for you to stop by to stand on to make an announcement once in a while. It was built so that individuals around the world could connect with one another. The size of your “followers” on social media doesn’t matter if no one is paying attention. Large followings make you feel good but if there is no message for them to follow it’s unlikely your brand will make much impact. What really matters is engagement. Engagement is what earns you shares which generates leads that turns into sales and having loyal customers. You also should make it a point this year to frequently revisit your buyer personas to ensure your message stays fresh and relevant to your audience. This level of interaction is what solidifies your brand.
- Content – Planning your calendar and content strategy for this year should be at the top of your to-do list. If you haven’t got started yet, yesterday would be a good time. Paid ads on social media are great. They generate good leads. But, it’s equally important to learn how to create a reliable, predictable and scallable flow of traffic that converts into clients and customers so that business it stays afloat with or without it. This can only be done by producing great content. All it takes is some it takes some effort, trying out a few different tactics and consistency. If you’re willing to invest the time, you can have all the perks of a well-trafficked business and website without spending an astronomical sum on paid ads. As a business owner and content creator, it’s part of your job to deliver compelling info to your customers about your products and services. Great content, compelling headlines, back-links, optimized SEO, sales campaigns and email marketing generated excellent, reliable traffic, and sales long before the social media paid ad game was invented. It still does.
- Video Streaming – Video in real-time is becoming more and more popular with consumers. Many social media platform giants are all investing more money into improving their video streaming capabilities and with good reason. It offers new opportunities for content marketing as well as customer engagement. It is a format that has gained serious momentum in the last 12 months and is the future of branding. It’s a great idea to add it to your business marketing strategy this year.
In general, the more specific and strategic you can get with your social media marketing plan, the more effective you’ll be in its implementation. Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram, there’s so much you can do in the way of marketing and creating new opportunities for yourself while adding tremendous value to your clients, customers and readers. Don’t make your social media marketing strategy so lofty and broad that it’s unattainable. Balance is key. Always keep your customers and audience in mind. A good business objective will guide your actions, but it will also be a measure by which you determine whether you’re succeeding or failing.