Every company can benefit from social media, but that doesn’t mean every company should adopt it in the same way. When it comes to marketing on social media, it means different things to different people. The right path depends on the need and opportunities of the business asking.

With 3.2 billion (Emarsys, 2019) worldwide users, the world is your customer base. According to a research by the University of California Berkely, some 80% of respondents use the Internet to research information on a product or service they want to buy, and increasingly, that’s on social media networks, not Google search. That makes social media no longer an “if” but a “must-have” marketing strategy to reach your customers. Done right, it can make sales skyrocket. Some entrepreneurs have even built a business empire on the social media platform, like Kylie Jenner, now the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, as the result of turning her start-up cosmetics company – Kylie Cosmetics into a company worth over $ 1 billion in a remarkably short period of time. With a huge massive fan base, she’s leveraged her followers to create engaging content and distribute it effectively across the social media channels. But if you’re not careful, it can be detrimental for your small business such, or even backfire by alienating customers and prospects.

While you may not think of the absence of a well-maintained social media presence can harm your small business today, it will eventually catch up with you down the road. So don’t wait until it’s too late to get started.

You’ve to stay relevant with the latest social media trends and apply them to your small business. If you are figuring where and how do you start, you’ll benefit tremendously from reading this guide.

Social media is a powerful medium to grow your audience and build a real business – only if you use it the right way. It doesn’t have to be scary if you follow these 4 simple social marketing tips I’ve outlined in this guide, and you’ll set yourself up for sustainable growth today and in the future.

1.Define your marketing goals

If you don’t know where to go, how are you supposed to get there?

It applies the same when setting a marketing goal. How do you measure the effectiveness of your marketing strategies if you have no idea what to accomplish?

In a world filled with on-demand everything – an instant-gratification society that’s used to having whatever we want in anytime – how are we supposed to see things overall? Your marketing goals are nothing more than just setting clearly defined goals and wanting them badly but also need to make it S.M.A.R.T.E.R– specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely, evaluated and re-adjusted. If the marketing goal isn’t fit and support your small business goals in general, then no matter what you want or how badly you think you want it, you won’t see things through.

Marketing goals are like the building blocks for your marketing plan, the first step of drafting a plan. Jotting down your goals to the very last details and to make sure it’s measurable and achievable to get a S.M.A.R.T.E.R goal. Once you decide the purpose of any of your campaign, it will be much easier for you to come up with a strategic plan.

2.Optimize your search engine ranking

When it comes to the relationship between Search-engine optimization (SEO) and social media, there are a lot of arguments about this topic. Social media may not be the main factor that directly boosts SEO but based on the transition we have seen in the past several years; social media accounts can increase the number of brand search results.

How? The higher your social media share rate is, the greater the domain authority of your website will increase. Which means, it is indirectly improving the search engine ranking of your pages.

But it’s more than just that. 96% of the people that have discussion on brands online do not follow those brands’ outside of social networks based on a survey by Brandwatch 2019.

As more people heading to your social media profiles, soon it will boost your social media page ranking and increase the possibility of chances on appearing among the top-ranked pages.

3.Create a profile that’s worth following

Social media is much more than just selling and promoting your brand but it’s all about building rapport and creating trusts within the customers.

Let’s face it we all wanting to be viewing content that’s intriguing when scrolling through Instagram while waiting in line. When the social media user is growing faster than ever, getting stand out from the in the sea of people might look daunting but it’s not impossible.

Content is still the king of the game. Creating quality content that stay true to your brand is much more important than just spamming your followers by creating multiple and poor contents.

Even if you’re an e-commerce seller, it’s crucial to push deals/limited offers along with relevant content so that your approach doesn’t look salesy. Furthermore, you should constantly keep an eye on your competitors or market leader’s content to determine what type of approach able to drive the best engagement and follower growth.

By being authentic and unique, you can build an account with a massive following no matter what you post about. Create a profile that someone out there who wants you to share your products, your ideas, your quirkiness, and that one thing about you they can relate to.

4. Visual content is the secret weapon

Over the past several years, we have seen the continued impact of visual content brings to every major social network. Content with good quality visuals tends to engage with target audience as 85% people more likely to buy a product after viewing a video based on an infographic by WebDAM.

Visuals make a big difference in an overcrowded social media feed. The content attached with relevant images gains 94% more views than content without relevant images as it helps to:

• Tell you brand
• Bring out an emotion
• Highlight important information
• Differentiate your business
• Showcase your products and offers
• Drive traffic to your site

There is no doubt that our minds prefer visual than just solely words content because they communicate more information in an effective way. In fact, 90% of the information sent to the brain is visual, and images are processed 600,000 times faster than only text. Our brains are far more engaged by visual than language and it has proven effective for a long time.

I believe you now have a better understanding on how social media going to benefit for your small business. Living in this ever-evolving world, staying in just one single channel isn’t going to maximize your social media marketing proficiency. No matter how small your business, social tools will help you better engage with your audience, reach new potential customers, and increase awareness of your brand. Take a leap into social media – start small with two or three key networks and build your social media marketing efforts over time.

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