Social media for business is essential. Not only do social networks allow you to share content with your audience, they also give you the platform to increase brand awareness and exposure. If you’re not currently including social media marketing in your marketing plan, you should be. With over one billion users on Facebook, and more than 600 million people using Instagram every month, there are a wealth of potential consumers in your reach.
As a business, in order to optimise time and money spent on social media marketing you need to learn how to reach a relevant audience and start to interact with those in that target audience as well as how to make your content unique and engaging. OmniSearch are here to show you how to utilise your social networks effectively.
So why undertake Social Media Marketing (SMM)? It is quickly becoming one of the most effective types of marketing, so now is the time to get on board if you haven’t already. With 80% of people accessing social media on their mobile, content is available instantly. With the correct targeting, your desired audience can see your posts organically, and with the right campaigns, your paid advertising can be seen by roughly 1000 people for every £10 put in. Reduced marketing spend is just one of the benefits. Others include:
- More Targeted Traffic to your site
- Boosts Search Engine Ranking
- Increased Brand Recognition
- Higher Conversion Rates
- Brand Loyalty
- Unbeatable ROI
One of the most important things about using social media for business is having an understanding about what your goals are and what you would like to achieve. For example, is your goal to engage with your audience and turn them into paying customers, or is your goal to increase brand awareness? In order to monitor success, you need to have metrics or measurements to do so. Facebook and Instagram for business will give you invaluable insights about your page, its audience, what posts are most successful, and what posts are letting the business down. By analysing the data that comes out of insights, you can react to it and strengthen the areas which are weaker for your brand.
Tailor your content to what you know is working and develop a strategy to post more of what works. It is important to have the goals you wish to achieve at the forefront of your mind when posting on social media so that you post consistently and reinforce the same message over time.
High quality content is essential for any businesses on social media. A combination of original content (content your business has made) and curated content (content your business has not made but has discovered and shared) should be used across the businesses social media channels. Both types of content are essential to maintain a successful online presence.
The value of original content is that the target audience can develop a true understanding of the brand, its values and the people behind it. Curated content provides your audience with an insight into inspirations for the business, and also has benefits for SEO. This is why many companies are now seeing the true value of Curated content, as the business can carefully select the content and re-deliver the posts on topical, keyword rich subjects which can boost search result rankings.
For all businesses, time is of the essence. One of our number one tips to make the most of your time is to use a scheduling system to write posts in advance and schedule for your desired day and time of posting. Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Buffer are social media management tools that allow you to schedule your content in advance, saving you valuable time whilst still keeping your social channels full of content.
Social media can exponentially help businesses, and there are plenty of success stories out there to confirm that. Whether your aim is to drive traffic to your site, or simply to make your brand more well known, by using the correct call to action, being consistent with your content, and targeting the right audience, you will see sales, enquiries or purchases as a result of social media marketing, before you’ve even fully committed yourself to it.
One of the key benefits of SMM is that with minimal effort, you will start to see results. With full committal and effort put into social media campaigns, results will come in thick and fast. The more you put in, the more you will get out.