The introduction of Social Media is often seen as a watershed moment in the realm of marketing. It’s enabled anyone with a strong message, cause or a compelling product to voice his/her opinions on the global stage. For businesses handicapped by a lack of capital and insufficient marketing budget, Social Media looks like a Godsend tool to realize their goals. Sounds like an overstatement? Well, stats wouldn’t say so. A research from LinkedIn revealed that nearly 81% of the SMBs use Social Media and 94% of them do so for marketing purposes.
But Social Media hasn’t just proved beneficial to the SMEs. Large businesses have also had their share of success. As per a survey of a group of hyper-growth companies, 91% found Social media helpful in increasing their brand awareness, and 82% said it has helped them generate new leads.
The proponents of social media are plenty yet one criticism that it often cops is that of its failure to render a personal experience to the client/customer. The argument does carry some weight. Yet it must be noted that the effectiveness of Social Media relies a great deal on the person managing it. If you follow the right approach, meaningful connections can be made through Social media. Read on to learn more about some of the ways you can do that.
1. Create Communities
Facebook being the most popular and successful Social Media platform offers a plethora of options for businesses to connect with their customers. At the very least you should have a Facebook page of your business where interested people may get in touch with you. But to really build your online presence, you need to consider building a Facebook community for your social media followers. It’s free for everybody and the visibility of the group could be set to public, private or secret. Finally, try to stay ultra-active on your channel. Regularly posting updates, news and inviting new members to open up is the key to foster healthy relationships.
2. Engage With Your Followers
Whenever you post something on your social media channels you open yourself to a response from your followers. This is a great practice to learn about the views and opinions held by both your customers and potential clients. But to really get the buzz going, you need to look to engage with users in a dialogue. If you have a very healthy social media following responding to each and every comment may not be the right thing, yet you can make an attempt to reply to the most standout comments. This sends a message to your followers that you’re listening to them. A reply on one comment can induce other follows to get in on the act and offer their views. All in all, it’s a powerful tactic to build connections and imbue a sense of belongingness among your followers.
3. Utilize Video Content
Constantly feeding updates about your products/services isn’t the ideal content marketing strategy as it can easily bring down your followers’ interest level. Instead look to offer video content that highlights the achievements of your business and the impact your products/services are making in the real world. It has been found that Social Media users find video content to be more engaging than textual material. So look to utilize video content to its advantage and offer valuable and high-quality content to your followers.
4. Support Some Cause
When you’re on Social Media people like to see more than your business. Values your hold, beliefs you stand for and activities you engage in. You can show that humanitarian side of your business by lending a helping hand to a charitable organization. Even something as little as being supportive to local sports team sends a strong message to your audience. Take photos or videos from the events and post them on your Social Media channels to be vocal about what you’re involved in. You never know from where such actions would bring you a new string of followers.
Read More – How To Build A Social Media App That Goes Viral
5. Keep Tabs On Multiple Communication Channels
Social Media’s emergence has really changed the way business deals are carried out in the present day. The reliance on emails and phone calls has drastically gone down. People now rush to Social Media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram to get answers to their queries from a business. Yet communication is still of utmost importance. That’s why an effective management of various social media channels becomes crucial. Ensure that customers’ queries are attended and responded to in a super quick time. That’s the only way you’ll be able to make the most of Social Media platforms.
Final Thoughts
Social Media really is a powerful marketing tool in modern times. It’s cheap yet mighty effective in creating a buzz about your business. All it calls for is a little subtlety, striking a near perfect balance between business and personal messages to get the audience interested and engaged with your business. Indeed, not using Social Media today to popularise your business would be the silliest mistake. Hope you enjoyed reading this blog. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.
