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Writer's pictureGemma Naylor

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Social Media Marketing

Social media channels are a great way to build your community and reach a large number of people at once. It's also an excellent way to build relationships with potential customers, and Influencers who can help you spread the word about your brand. However, it's important not to put all your eggs in one basket. Your social media strategy should be flexible enough that if one channel fails, you can bet on another. One of the most popular social media sites is Facebook, which boasts more than 2 billion active users each month. It's a great place to start because it's one of the most widely used platforms in the world. You can create a Facebook page for your business, share posts with your followers, and use an algorithm to target specific groups of people who might be interested in what you have to say. Once you've built up some traction on Facebook, it can be easier to branch out onto other platforms such as Instagram or Twitter.


Over the years I have managed Social Media for numerous businesses to help them with their brand awareness and to attract the right clientele into their businesses. Marketing in the right way and to the right people can transform your business, and by using the processes I have outlined in this blog, I have taken businesses from being £10k in debt to £60k in profit in less than 12 months.

Tip #1 - Share your knowledge, expertise and skills with your audience.

You don't have to be an expert in everything. In fact, it's good to show your audience that you're human and willing to learn with them.

You can share how-to videos or blog posts on topics that interest your target audience. This will help establish yourself as a reliable resource they can turn to when they need answers on any given topic.


Be a source of inspiration. People don't want to just be informed by you; they also want to be inspired by your work. This can include giving motivational talks or sharing examples of what you have achieved. Share your success in the field that interests your audience.


Tip #2 - If you want people to engage, ask good questions that they enjoy answering.

One of the best ways to get people talking about your brand is to ask them questions.

People love to be heard, and they love to be asked questions. It's not just about what you're asking but how you're asking it. The first thing you need to do is make sure that you're asking questions that people actually want to answer.


You don't want to start with a question like "What do you think?" or "How do you feel about..." because these types of questions aren't really questions at all; they're statements disguised as questions. And nobody wants to answer a statement because it's not really an answerable question.

They want something more specific so they can give an opinion on something specific. For example, if I were writing a post about social media marketing and I wanted people to engage in the comments section, I might ask something like this: "What are some effective ways for small businesses to use social media marketing?" Notice how this type of question gives people plenty of room for discussion? If they have an opinion on the topic, they'll most likely share it with us — which is exactly what we want!


Tip #3 - Be sure to respond to comments and messages.

This is a big one. If people are responding to your content, respond back!


Responding shows that you care about your customers' experiences with your business and that you're listening. It also gives you the opportunity to add value by answering questions or correcting misinformation.


The same goes for when someone sends you a message on Facebook, Instagram or any other platform. You don't have to do this all the time, but if someone takes the time to reach out, they probably want an answer.

It's rude not to respond, so make sure you do so in a timely manner if possible. If it's out of office hours, or you know you're not going to be able to reply within a reasonable time frame, set up an automated response, this will then notify your potential customer that you're aware they have contacted you and you`re not ignoring their message, you will respond at your earliest convenience.

Responding to comments and messages helps to speed up the process of building relationships with your audience. It's an opportunity to move your customers further down the funnel to becoming paying customers.


Tip #4 - Create social media posts that get shared.


One way to get your brand awareness more visible is creating content that is shared by others.


This can take the form of images, videos or text and should be relevant to your target audience.


Make sure your posts are engaging enough for people to want to share them with their friends and followers on social media. Make sure your content is shareable by avoiding common mistakes such as including too many hashtags or using large chunks of text that are hard to read.


Visual content is the most engaging type of content on social media, according to Hootsuite’s Social Media ROI Study. It also gets shared more than other types of posts, so if you want your post to go viral, you should use visual elements like images and videos.


Tip #5 - Use hashtags well to increase your presence on social media.

Use hashtags well and know when and where to use them.


When it comes to gaining brand awareness and higher visibility on Social Media hashtags are a great way to drive views, likes and shares.


Hashtags (#) were previously known as the pound sign, because the symbol comes from the abbreviation for weight. Then on the 23rd August 2007 a gentleman called Chris Messina suggested using the hashtag on Twitter and since then its been adopted by other platforms

such as; Facebook. Linkedln, Pinterest, Instagram and Tik Tok to help people find content related to a specific topic or event and make it easier for others to find you.


Don't just use them at random though; if you want your posts to be found, create hashtags that reflect your business or organisation. This is especially important if you're using more than one platform at once (e.g., Facebook and Twitter). Instagram allows you to use 30 hashtags on a regular post and 10 hashtags on a story and encourages you to use the maximum amount of hashtags where possible.

Whereas a study by Social Bakers shows that the more hashtags used on a Facebook posts the lower the engagement, advice is to use just two or three hashtags on your Facebook posts, as you don't want your post to look like a wall of hashtags; you want your copy to shine.


Do research on popular hashtag searches and what's trending, and use a mixture of popular hashtags and unique hashtags. There are also hashtags that are banned on certain platforms, and these can have the adverse effect and result in your posts being hidden from your audience by the platform if they breach their policies. This year the hashtag Valentines day was on the banned list would you believe, so make sure you regularly check what's on the latest list of banned hashtags.


Tip #6 - Plan and schedule your social media posts in advance.


Be organised, plan ahead.

The best way to do this is to sit down and make a Social Media Calendar for the year ahead. Look at key dates in the year; International days, special key events, etc. Look at dates that relate to your industry and business, then utilise them as key talking points for your marketing with your audience, especially if there times when your products and services can be in higher demand, eg Christmas. On the lead up to these main events you can warm your audience up by giving them tasters of what's coming. Build up a buzz around the product or service so that when you launch it people can't wait to buy it.


Planning ahead will mean you will be promoting your products and services in a time frame that allows you to market your products and services to your full potential. For example, if you have Christmas products that can be shipped and you don`t start marketing them till the first week in December you will run out of time to ship the orders and therefore you will of missed the opportunity to maximise your sales.


There are lots of platforms now that allow you to schedule your Social Media Posts in advance, such as; Business Suite, Canva, Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout Social to mention a few. These are great tools to help you save time and be more organised, meaning it's one less thing you have to think about on a daily basis.


Utalising a scheduling platform also helps you be more consistent in your posting, which is extremely important with the algorithms on Social Media Platforms.


Tip #7 - Find the right time to connect with followers during peak hours for your business and target audience.


You need to make sure your posts are being seen by your audience as much as possible. One way to do this is by looking at the time frame your audience is active on their Social Media Platforms.


You can find this information in your insights on your business pages. If your ideal client is a working mum for example that works 9am-5pm you will probably find she is most active on Social Media in the evenings when the children have gone to bed. This is then when you want to be posting on your Social Media, because then your posts will be shown at the top of their news-feed and pop up immediately in front of them instead of them having to scroll endlessly to eventually come across your post that you may have posted at 8:00am.


Taking the time to make the most of these platforms can help you gain more visibility and build relationships with customers and potential customers.

There is a lot more that goes into Social Media Marketing than just posting random photos every now and again of your products and services.


If you want to gain more brand awareness to increase your leads, attract more engagement on your posts or need to kick start you Social Media marketing then my 15 day Social Media Challenge is perfect for you, to find out more











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