Contents
Chapter
5
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Strengthening connections – using social media to speak to your audience
Strengthening connections – using social media to speak to your audience
So you’ve got your visual identity perfected, your website is working wonders, but you’re still looking to reach more people.
Enter the power of social media.
With roughly 5.17 billion social media users worldwide, there ARE huge audiences you can market your business to – it’s little wonder 77% of businesses use social media to reach their customers.
Because of this huge potential, and competition from others in your industry, incorporating social media into your strategy is now essential.
The beauty of social media is that any business in any industry can use this method of marketing, regardless of the size of the organisation. And to top it all off – most, if not all, social media platforms are completely free to join.
The reason for social media’s success ultimately comes down to three things: connection, interaction, and customer data.
By harnessing these elements, your social media strategy will be at its most effective, and you’ll start seeing real results for your business.
The benefits of using social media for small businesses
Using social media as a marketing tool isn’t especially new, but there are still plenty of businesses out there who aren’t exploiting it.
If you’re one of those businesses and you need some convincing, look no further.
Reaching a wider audience
One of the main selling points of social media is that it’s a worldwide phenomenon. People across the planet are using it, so you now have access to a global stage.
This means you don’t have to be constrained to only having customers in your local area or relying on word of mouth.
However, it’s still important to be targeting relevant audiences for your business to ensure your marketing’s effectiveness. Trying to talk to anyone and everyone will drain time and resources.
When you do tap into the relevant audiences, your brand awareness will increase because you’re getting your business in front of so many more people. This then opens the door to more potential leads and new business.
Connecting with other professionals
Gone are the days of only meeting other professionals via in-person networking events. Social media now allows you to connect with these people in a matter of seconds.
Social media is also a great way to discover other professionals. This means you can learn more about different aspects of your industry from different perspectives.
For example, is your industry performing differently in different countries? Are there different trends in different areas?
Connecting with others in your sector also opens the door to collaboration and sharing thoughts and ideas.
Market research
Another great benefit of using social media, especially as an SME, is the market research capabilities it provides.
It’s no secret that plenty of competitor and market analysis tools out there can cost a small fortune, but using social media is another effective way to do this.
One obvious way of telling what kind of content your audience enjoys is by looking at your own content. By finding out which posts performed the best, you know that’s the kind of topics or content your audience likes engaging with.
In addition, certain platforms like LinkedIn allow you to compare your page’s performance with your competitors. This shows you not only how well you perform against them, but which businesses are doing well.
Or, if you wanted to get straight to the point, most social media platforms allow you to create polls or questionnaires, so you can ask your audience questions directly.
Humanising your brand
In the business landscape, companies can often present themselves as corporate and faceless.
Social media provides businesses with the platform to show people who they really are.
This creates a much more personal connection with users and humanises your brand.
By showing things like the people who work at your business, your values, or your company culture, you are showing people the personality of your business.
This can also be done through your use of tone of voice. Social media is a great place to be a bit more playful or chatty (if appropriate for your brand, of course).
This causes people to engage more with the content you share and relate more with who you are.
The challenges of social media
Even though social media is a great tool for small businesses, it’s not always sunshine and rainbows.
Time
One of the major factors that businesses of all sizes struggle with is the time that social media can take up. There’s so much that goes into building a healthy online presence and using it to the best of its abilities, fitting it into someone’s already full workload can be tough.
This is why upcycling content can be a great way to overcome this. By repurposing content you have already made, you can massively reduce the time it takes to create consistent content. (read our blog about it here: [LINK])
Content
To make social media work in your favour, you have to post a variety of content types, and you need to do it consistently. The key to doing this well is by planning your content in advance.
It makes a world of difference.
By planning your content in advance, you can ensure it will have enough variety to keep people engaged. A few content ideas to get started could be:
- Behind the scenes photos or videos
- Blogs about industry trends
- Reposts of interesting content on social media
- Infographics illustrating your business
- Meet the team posts
If you’re still struggling, you can access a free downloadable content plan here: [LINK]
Algorithms
Social media algorithms are notorious for changing and evolving. This usually means different types of content tend to perform better than others, or certain methods for writing captions etc..
But how do you stay on top of these constant changes?
The first option (and arguably the most obvious) is to get your information from the source. Official statements, posts and content from different platforms’ profiles themselves will not only be up to date, but they’ll be the most reliable.
However, these official statements can often be full of jargon and complicated phrases.
This is why reading blogs from others in your industry or people using the same platforms as you can be helpful. This way you can understand what algorithm changes might mean for your strategy.
Top 3 best practices for social media marketing
There’s plenty of things to do to get the most out of social media, but going into each method will keep you here all day. Instead, we’ll look at the top 3 things to consider which will improve your reach and engagement.
Vary your content
As mentioned previously, ensuring the content you post has enough variety is a crucial factor in engaging your audience on social media.
Different formats of content also serve different purposes, so depending on what your goals are for your content, this may dictate what kind of content you decide to post.
The kinds of content you post could be:
- Text posts
- Short videos
- Long-form videos
- Blogs
- Polls
And much more.
Continuously optimise
Another aspect of social media that shouldn’t be underestimated is optimisation.
By using data from blogs, other people in your industry, and especially your own content, you should be looking at what kind of content resonates the most with your audience.
For example, if you notice that your audience engages more with video content than text-based content, it would be a good idea to focus your efforts in this area.
The key thing to remember here is that this will change over time.
It isn’t static information, so ensuring you are checking this often is crucial.
Remain consistent
Finally, ensuring you’re posting content regularly is a must. Each platform has different specifications for how often you should post, but generally, every platform encourages frequent content.
Take Facebook. According to Hootsuite, ‘Daily posting will grow followers 4x faster than posting less than once a week’. This staggering figure just goes to illustrate the importance of posting often.
Every platform has a common theme in that there’s no such thing as posting too much. But posting too little can stunt your profile’s growth.
Summary
Social media is the perfect tool for SMEs and start-ups because it’s free to join, and the amount you then choose to spend is completely up to you.
Putting your business on social media increases your brand awareness and reach exponentially. It allows you to discover audiences you never knew you may have had and connect with people in the blink of an eye.
It’s not always easy, and there’s certainly a lot to consider, but when you get into your stride with it, you won’t want to go back.
Key takeaways
- Social media can give your business more reach, engagement and information on your sector’s landscape
- Planning your social media content in advance is a great way to get around multiple common social media challenges
- Posting frequently and varied content will help your social media presence reach the next level
So you’ve got your visual identity perfected, your website is working wonders, but you’re still looking to reach more people.
Enter the power of social media.
With roughly 5.17 billion social media users worldwide, there ARE huge audiences you can market your business to – it’s little wonder 77% of businesses use social media to reach their customers.
Because of this huge potential, and competition from others in your industry, incorporating social media into your strategy is now essential.
The beauty of social media is that any business in any industry can use this method of marketing, regardless of the size of the organisation. And to top it all off – most, if not all, social media platforms are completely free to join.
The reason for social media’s success ultimately comes down to three things: connection, interaction, and customer data.
By harnessing these elements, your social media strategy will be at its most effective, and you’ll start seeing real results for your business.
The benefits of using social media for small businesses
Using social media as a marketing tool isn’t especially new, but there are still plenty of businesses out there who aren’t exploiting it.
If you’re one of those businesses and you need some convincing, look no further.
Reaching a wider audience
One of the main selling points of social media is that it’s a worldwide phenomenon. People across the planet are using it, so you now have access to a global stage.
This means you don’t have to be constrained to only having customers in your local area or relying on word of mouth.
However, it’s still important to be targeting relevant audiences for your business to ensure your marketing’s effectiveness. Trying to talk to anyone and everyone will drain time and resources.
When you do tap into the relevant audiences, your brand awareness will increase because you’re getting your business in front of so many more people. This then opens the door to more potential leads and new business.
Connecting with other professionals
Gone are the days of only meeting other professionals via in-person networking events. Social media now allows you to connect with these people in a matter of seconds.
Social media is also a great way to discover other professionals. This means you can learn more about different aspects of your industry from different perspectives.
For example, is your industry performing differently in different countries? Are there different trends in different areas?
Connecting with others in your sector also opens the door to collaboration and sharing thoughts and ideas.
Market research
Another great benefit of using social media, especially as an SME, is the market research capabilities it provides.
It’s no secret that plenty of competitor and market analysis tools out there can cost a small fortune, but using social media is another effective way to do this.
One obvious way of telling what kind of content your audience enjoys is by looking at your own content. By finding out which posts performed the best, you know that’s the kind of topics or content your audience likes engaging with.
In addition, certain platforms like LinkedIn allow you to compare your page’s performance with your competitors. This shows you not only how well you perform against them, but which businesses are doing well.
Or, if you wanted to get straight to the point, most social media platforms allow you to create polls or questionnaires, so you can ask your audience questions directly.
Humanising your brand
In the business landscape, companies can often present themselves as corporate and faceless.
Social media provides businesses with the platform to show people who they really are.
This creates a much more personal connection with users and humanises your brand.
By showing things like the people who work at your business, your values, or your company culture, you are showing people the personality of your business.
This can also be done through your use of tone of voice. Social media is a great place to be a bit more playful or chatty (if appropriate for your brand, of course).
This causes people to engage more with the content you share and relate more with who you are.
The challenges of social media
Even though social media is a great tool for small businesses, it’s not always sunshine and rainbows.
Time
One of the major factors that businesses of all sizes struggle with is the time that social media can take up. There’s so much that goes into building a healthy online presence and using it to the best of its abilities, fitting it into someone’s already full workload can be tough.
This is why upcycling content can be a great way to overcome this. By repurposing content you have already made, you can massively reduce the time it takes to create consistent content. (read our blog about it here: [LINK])
Content
To make social media work in your favour, you have to post a variety of content types, and you need to do it consistently. The key to doing this well is by planning your content in advance.
It makes a world of difference.
By planning your content in advance, you can ensure it will have enough variety to keep people engaged. A few content ideas to get started could be:
- Behind the scenes photos or videos
- Blogs about industry trends
- Reposts of interesting content on social media
- Infographics illustrating your business
- Meet the team posts
If you’re still struggling, you can access a free downloadable content plan here: [LINK]
Algorithms
Social media algorithms are notorious for changing and evolving. This usually means different types of content tend to perform better than others, or certain methods for writing captions etc..
But how do you stay on top of these constant changes?
The first option (and arguably the most obvious) is to get your information from the source. Official statements, posts and content from different platforms’ profiles themselves will not only be up to date, but they’ll be the most reliable.
However, these official statements can often be full of jargon and complicated phrases.
This is why reading blogs from others in your industry or people using the same platforms as you can be helpful. This way you can understand what algorithm changes might mean for your strategy.