Whether you have a website or your business is completely offline, social media is a great place to promote your business and start engaging with your customers. In this post, I will give some tips on how to effectively use social media to grow your business.
Know your customers or clients
The first question you might have is which platform should I use? Or should I use all platforms at once? To answer these questions you need to identify and understand your customers, what age group are they in, where do they work, what do they like. If you know the person you're trying to sell to, you know which social network they hang out on most. For example, if you provide B2B services like hiring and recruiting the best platform might be LinkedIn, that's where you will find professionals and businesses that might need your services. Another example is if you sell fashion for people between 18 – 30 years, you have better chances with Instagram. That's why we go fishing in lakes or rivers and not in mountains or in the neighborhood for that matter. Bottom line, go where your audience is, not where you want them to be or where you would like to be.
Include pricing on your posts
Another common thing I hear people complaining about is pricing. When you post something that is meant to be an advert, include prices wherever possible, unless you sell services that require a custom quote. No more 'DM' for the price, your customers are going to think you're pricing them differently, and you may lose sales because of that. On that note, again be responsive in your DMs, it's frustrating to get a reply after hours when you are probably just asking for prices.
Boost your posts
You need to spend money to make money. Consider promoting your posts, so they can reach more people, especially if you're using Facebook or Instagram. Prepare your flyer or anything visual depending on what you're selling and post. Once posted, there's an option to boost the post. Do audience targeting, age, location, interests, which gets us back to the first one, know your customers. Boosting is a great way to reach a larger audience especially if you do not have a huge following and costs around $25 for 7 days the bigger the budget the better.
Use a professional account
Another mistake I've seen is people using their personal accounts to promote their business on social media. Unless you're the product yourself, create a separate account branded with your business name with your logo and what you do in the bio. If you are using Facebook, create a page, if it's Instagram there's an option to create a professional account. Make sure your profile is looking great and represents what your business does. Another tip is to look at what other businesses in your industry are doing and copy (not like a copycat).
Be careful what you like and follow
This is another reason why you should create a professional account. It might be fun when you're swearing and promoting violence and controversy on Twitter, but some of your potential customers might find it offensive and there's no going back. Show professionalism and remember, positive vibes.
Hijack hashtags and hot topics
I stole this one from a Twitter space I was in some other day. Look at the trending hashtags and hot topics and find a way to include the keywords and who knows, it may go viral.
