Over the past few years, social media has become one of the main promoting platform for businesses. People of all ages, backgrounds and social status find themselves connected through different social media platforms and now more than ever sponsored adds are becoming popular.
But what does social media has to do with the success of your business? How can you take advantage of it and make the most out of its outreach to benefit your company? How can it be harmful if it can be harmful at all? Let us help you answer these questions.
Putting yourself out there
Whenever I scroll down my Instagram feed, 1/4 of them involves sponsored adds for either products, institution or events. It can get annoying but, I have discovered at least 4 companies that I ended up being a customer of through social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and even snapchat nowadays are all useful when it comes to putting your business “out there”. They give you the exposure needed to be known by the right audiences and for this you will choose whatever social media platform you think will be more effective to you.
I know a few entrepreneurs who wanted to start their business or initiative, but didn’t have enough budget to do it in a physical store or through printed advertisement, so what they opted for was to build a solid social media platform and so their products and services started being offered digitally until they had enough income to become a physical business.
Apart from the normal sponsored advertisement, what your company will get is mouth to mouth advertisement. People are used to share what they like, so if your company catches their attention, you are up for free advertisement and might even become viral.
Effective connection
The whole point of using social media is to put your company out there, but this is done so that you can connect with those who will eventually become your customers, so being active in your profile is extremely important. This could include information about the product or service, exclusive deals for online customers and exclusive events.
Since social media is a great way of communicating with your customers too, this can become an important channel for customer service and troubleshooting as well, for which it is important that you have people in charge of answering questions and posting in a timely manner.
Your social media presence can make or break your company, specially amongst the younger generations. They want a company that wants to connect with them, a company that is available for questions, and more than anything a company that is easy to access and that they can check out online.
The way businesses usually organise their social media is through a social media campaign schedule. This helps them decide what to post and when, which includes a monthly, weekly and daily basis. The whole point is to be present and effective with communication.
The don’ts of social media promoting
Being consistent in your social media account as a business is very important, but some companies get too excited with this and end up becoming a spam for everyone following their page or account. Remember that enough information is great, but too much posting can lead to people unfollowing you because they find it annoying.
When answering specific questions to followers, it might be better to do it through private messaging instead of as a comment. This doesn’t mean that you hide something, but instead it helps you give personalised attention to people according to their needs.
If you encounter a situation in which a customer complains for bad service or gives a bad review of the products, it might be good to answer publicly for people to see that you are taking care of the situation, but the details can be discussed in private messaging as well.
And as a last DON’T of social media promoting, there is the case when individuals or businesses start as a certain account promoting a certain event or product, and once they reach enough amount of followers, they change the purpose of the account without notifying the people. This is dishonest and should not be done, and it will definitely help you loose customers.
Overall remember that your social media platform is exactly that, a platform in which you are observed by the people who are interested in who you are as an organisation and what you do. So make the most out of this opportunity, use it well and use it effectively to benefit both your company, and the people you get to serve. Do everything that is in your hands to make it attractive, visually appealing and interactive, and see how your business starts growing.
What else do you know about social media? We’ve only scratched the surface of what it entails, so let us know!
