Social media platforms are the greatest thing that have been introduced to generation Z, and undoubtedly they are making the most out of these social networking sites. Not only are these sites a source of entertainment and communication, but they have now also become the source of income for many individuals, and a source of marketing for many brands.
The increasing trend of social media has allowed the masses to earn money and increase their brand awareness. Many businesses have made a social media marketing strategy an integral part of their digital marketing campaign.
If you think that social media is only for communication and sharing pictures, and is of no use for business, then we take immense pleasure in saying that you are WRONG!
Yes, dear readers, social networking sites are no longer just for communication. You can take your brand to the next level by making a successful social media strategy in 2021.
Have a look at the following benefits that your business can avail by being on social media websites.
Advantages of Social Media Marketing for Business
1. Increases Brand Awareness
Did you know more than 3.96 billion people use social networking sites across the world? Making your presence known on a platform that is highly populated means giving your business more exposure to reach more potential audiences.
Just by being active on your profile and creating unique content for your audience, you will gain a lot of attention from that audience, who might even turn into your loyal customers.
Do you know of any other platform where you can reach such a huge audience? After Google.com, social media sites are the only places that can help you reach millions of people.
2. Drives Organic Traffic
It is a dream of every online seller to welcome mass traffic to their online store. A strong social media marketing strategy can help you realise your dream.
If your followers on social media like and engage with your content because it resonates with them, then they will visit your website to explore more about you and your products.
Moreover, if your content solves their problems, then they might come to your site repeatedly to read the blogs published by you.
3. Better Interaction with Customers
Physical stores used to be at an advantage when it comes to interacting with customers, but, don’t worry! Social networking sites have eradicated this problem.
Brands can now engage with their customers on their business page. They can even invite the customers to pour in their valuable feedback or suggestions for the betterment of the brand.
That’s not all!
You can even help your customer through your social media page. If they have any concerns or queries, they can ask you directly by commenting on a post or sending you a direct message. You can reply to them promptly. What a perfect opportunity to show your customers that you provide excellent customer care.
4. Increases Sales
The ultimate motive of all marketing campaigns is to boost sales and earn hefty profits, right? Social media has introduced some smart features to help entrepreneurs to sell their goods directly on their business page. Customers can easily view products without having to go to the website of the store.
The ‘Shop’ option of Facebook allows businesses to directly integrate their website to their business page. Customers can easily view all the products, and if they want to explore more, they can simply go to the website by tapping on the link.
Furthermore, Instagram has also introduced the feature of ‘Instagram-Checkout’ which allows the user to purchase products and finish the checkout process without leaving Instagram. Customers don’t have to exit the platform and visit the business’s website to shop their favourite articles.
5. It’s FREE
The best part about social media sites is they are 100% free to join – no need to pay registration fees or membership charges. Anyone can easily create a business page by answering a few questions.
Even if your business is just a startup, you can easily market it by developing a sound social media marketing strategy for your brand. You can easily connect with your customers, engage with them, solve their queries, and promote your brand.
6. Contextual and Programmatic Ads
Thanks to social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, you can target your potential customers by running contextual ads on these sites.
The smart algorithms of the websites allow you to select the characteristics of the audience that you want to target. For instance, their age, profession, country, gender, and more. These ads are shown to the potential audience to tempt them to visit the website.
Moreover, you can also run retargeting ads to convert the people who showed interest in your brand.
Eight Tips for Your Social Media Strategy in 2021
The benefits of social media for businesses are not limited to the above-listed points. There are many other benefits that a business can avail by making its presence on social networking sites.
If you are planning to build a social media strategy for 2021 then we have eight solid tips for you to help you get started.
So, without further ado let’s begin…
1. Jot Down Your Goals
The most important tip for a social media marketing strategy is to have a proper plan that describes your aims and objectives for marketing on those platforms.
If you will dive into creating social media profiles without having a proper plan then unfortunately your marketing strategy will miserably fail.
Reason?
Because the absence of proper goals, will mean you’ll never be able to direct your efforts in the correct direction.
Before you create your business profile, set precise goals and objectives. Explain in detail what you wish to achieve by creating your business’s presence on social media platforms. Proper goals work as a yardstick to measure and analyse your activities.
Keep everyone in your team on the same page by communicating the goals and objectives. You don’t have to set the goals for the entire life of the business, no.
Set yearly, monthly, or even weekly goals, and then curate your strategies to achieve them.
Some examples of social media marketing goals are:
- To gain 10,000 followers
- Engage with your customers
- Increase traffic to your website
- Post creative content
Increase conversion on your website.
2. Learn About Your Audience
Marketing has become one of the most important business activities in today’s world. Every business in the world, irrespective of its size, type, or nature has to create content to reach their potential customers and retain current ones.
If the content is accurate and designed with your audience in mind, then a marketing campaign is sure to succeed. On the other hand, failure to learn about your audience will result in a disastrous marketing campaign.
Therefore, before you get started and begin creating content for your social media, don’t forget to learn everything about your audience.
You must understand who they are, their age, profession, gender, and more. Moreover, you’ll also have to find out what their problems are, how you can solve them through your product, what they like about their favourite brands, and more.
By having a better understanding of your audience, you can tailor your content and marketing strategies that will generate a positive response from them.
If you are wondering how to learn about your audience, then have a look at the following points:
- Join different communities and groups where your potential customer is the most active.
- Engage with people on different online forums.
- Invite people to fill out surveys.
- Respond to people in the comments section of your blog.
Equip yourself with all the information you need about your customer before you formulate a social media marketing strategy.
3. Carefully Plan Your Content
Posting on social media has to be thoughtfully planned. Remember, your business profile must look creative yet professional at the same time.
Social media is nothing without good pictures. A person will never bother to read a long block of captions when he has good pictures and graphical content to view. Therefore, select high-resolution pictures with catchy descriptions to increase the engagement of your audience.
Moreover, do not limit posting on your feed. Use as many features as you can, such as live videos, stories, conducting polls, etc.
Stories are an awesome way to give a sneak peek of your products to customers and arouse their curiosity.
4. Humanise Your Brand
The goal of every business that appears on social media is to boost sales. Customers find it intimidating to place their trust in an online store that comes out of the blue. If a brand only focuses on ‘what it sells’ and misses out on sharing ‘who they are’, then a customer will take a long time to place their trust in it.
Humanising your brand simply means showing your customers more than what you sell. They’ll love to see what goes on behind the scenes, who the faces are behind the business, and what activities take place to create, pack, and dispatch products.
If you show your customers the activities that take place in your office, who your employees are, and how you handle orders, then they’ll find it easier to connect with your brand.
The example of Lush Cosmetics would be perfect in this regard. To humanise their brand, they have uploaded several videos on YouTube about how they prepare their products. This increases the trust of customers in them.
5. Optimise Your Post Frequency
You should consistently post on your business page and profile. If not, then your followers will forget about you and will eventually engage with some other brand.
Make a schedule of when to post and where. Each social platform has a different kind of audience and content requirements. Make sure you are familiar with that and create content accordingly.
For instance, if you wish to post on Instagram, then you have to make sure that your content is highly graphical to increase your engagement on each post. Similarly, if you want to post videos, then Facebook is the most appropriate platform for it.
Moreover, make sure that you post your content at the optimal frequency. Too much or too little content can harm performance and engagement.
Buffer.com has developed a social media frequency guide. According to it, the following frequencies are to be observed for different platforms:
-
Twitter
Three times a day is enough. More than that will decrease the engagement level.
-
Facebook
One to two posts a day. The engagement level significantly drops if the business posts more than twice a day.
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LinkedIn
By posting 18-20 times a month, you can easily reach 60% of your targeted audience.
-
Pinterest
The more you post, the better your engagement will be.
-
Instagram
Unlike Facebook and Twitter, you can post more than twice. The algorithms of Instagram don’t drop the engagement rate.
-
Blogs
The more you post, the more your audience will stay engaged on your website.
6. Use Social Media Tools
Imagine you have created a profile on six or seven different platforms, and as per social media strategy you post three times a day.
Imagine how much time it will take to post on every platform. And what if you forget to post on one platform, or posted the same content twice on the other platform? Even if you can handle posting on various platforms, when will you get time to engage with your customers?
To make your social media strategy run more smoothly, take help from social media automation tools. It enables you to schedule your posts ‘in advance’ and set the date and time to post them on your social media websites.
Automation tools allow you to focus on interacting with your followers on your posts, rather than running round-the-clock to post in the first place. A brand that doesn’t interact with its customers and reply to their queries will eventually lose a lot of customers.
7.Embrace Your Mistakes
As human beings, we are prone to making mistakes. The sooner we accept our mistakes and work on them, the better it will be for us.
If your business makes a mistake, then instead of getting aggressive and refusing to apologise, be brave and accept your error.
There will be times when your angry customers will bash you on your posts or complain about your product or service. Instead of getting angry and replying to them in a rude or harsh tone, stay professional and apologise.
People love businesses that own their mistakes and apologise to customers. If people complain about late delivery or a substandard product, then calmly listen to them. Apologise to them about their bad experience and offer them a solution to their problem.
Assure them that you have realised your mistake and you will work on it.
8. Monitor Your Efforts
Keep an eye on the analytics and insights of your activity. By monitoring your efforts, you will get a better understanding of which content was most liked by the people and generated massive engagement. You will get an idea of what type of content to create to generate the same response from your customers moving forward.
Moreover, you will also be able to identify the content that didn’t work well, and the factors responsible for it. It will help you in the future to refrain from creating content that is not liked by your audience.
Winding It Up
A strong and concrete social media strategy is an integral part of marketing. By connecting with your audience and inviting them to share their views and opinions about your products, you will surely achieve your marketing goals.
Did these social media tips prove to be useful for you? Let us know about your experience and offer your individual insight in the comments below.
Originally published Apr 26, 2021, updated Jan 16, 2023
