Social Media Marketing to Grow your Business

This blog post is extracted by Neha Jain from our new eBook, "The Essential Guide to Internet Marketing".

Just a few years ago, you could get away with building a social media marketing strategy. Your mere presence in social media was enough - right?

Well in 2018, it’s not the same case anymore. With 30% of millennials saying they engage with a brand on social at least once a month, your strategy can’t be only about existence.

Social media provides a platform for direct communication between your customers, prospects, and employees. What’s more, it is a key driver of content distribution and brand visibility online. While there is a wide array of social networks that you can use to your advantage, we’re going to start by focusing on the “big three”:

• Facebook,
• Twitter, and
• LinkedIn.

Let’s start with FACEBOOK for your business:

With more than 1 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most popular social network in the world. From a marketing perspective, Facebook serves as a powerful platform for building a community of advocates and increasing word-of-mouth marketing. In order to grow your Facebook fan base, you need to make your Company Page on Facebook as discoverable as possible. Here are few things you can do to help make that happen:

• Fill out your company information completely. Be sure to include an overview of what your business offers as well as a link to your website.
• Invite existing contacts to like your page. Reach out to your friends, family, and existing customers and ask them to “like” your page on Facebook
• Integrate Facebook into your other online channels. Use Facebook’s social plugins (including the Like Box and Like Button) to get people to engage with your Facebook page without having to go to Facebook.com.
• Add value by sharing content. If you’re in tune with your buyer personas -- representations of your ideal customers -- you’ll have a good idea of what’s going to resonate with your audience.
• Pay for new likes using Facebook advertising. If you’ve exhausted all of your existing contacts and need an extra boost in the audience growth department, use Facebook’s demographic targeting capabilities to reach people who are likely to be interested in your business.

Don’t underestimate the power of TWITTER for your business:

Twitter is a social network on which people share 140-character messages, and users can “follow” or subscribe to each other’s updates. Unless you’re a celebrity or your brand is already a household name, amassing a huge following on Twitter isn’t exactly a walk in the park. However, there are a few big levers you can pull to more quickly and effectively attract quality followers for your business’s Twitter account:

• Create and optimize your Twitter profile. Let potential followers know who you are, and provide a reason why you’re worth a follow.
• Tweet 24/7. Your greatest tactic for growing your followers is to tweet around the clock. Tweet content you create, tweet content created by others, and tweet that content more than once!
• Curate content like a pro. Use Feedly, Goodreads, Alltop, Twitter (lists), StumbleUpon, LinkedIn Pulse, and what’s hot on Pinterest and Google+ to discover great, relevant content to tweet.
• Make tweets visual. Take the time to create great visuals and add them to your tweets. It pays off in engagement, conversion, and click-through rates.

And how about LINKEDIN for business:

LinkedIn is a social network that you can use to engage with prospective customers as well as prospective employees. As such, it is a truly unique space on the web, one that blurs the lines between knowledge-sharing platform and relationship-building tool. Your ultimate goal is to build an engaged audience and to position your business as a thought leader in your industry.

Just follow these simple steps to use LinkedIn efficiently:

• Optimize your company description. Make it easy for the right people to find your Company Page on LinkedIn by adding keywords in the description and ‘Specialties’ sections.
• Get visual. Keep your Company Page fresh with rich cover images that reflect your company’s accomplishments, events, and offerings.
• Use Showcase Pages to highlight different products. For business lines or initiatives with unique messaging and audience segments, consider creating a dedicated LinkedIn Showcase Page.
• Share company updates regularly. Every like, comment, and share increases your reach. Prompt your followers to take action on your updates by asking thoughtful questions.

Remember: Regardless of industry, social media provides your brand with the opportunity to stand out from competitors. Just invest an extra few minutes per interaction to make an exponential business impact.