A guide to social media marketing for businesses
Utilizing social media marketing
When you meet someone new, there’s a good chance you can connect with them on one or more social media platforms. That’s why social media marketing can be an effective tool for almost all businesses, playing a critical role in getting your brand in front of your ideal customers. Unlike traditional marketing channels, social media offers more versatility, freedom, and the opportunity to be less formal and perhaps a little more “human”.
This guide is for you if you run a business or marketing team and want to implement social media marketing, create a social strategy, and improve your overall marketing strategy. Whether you’ve already started using social media for your business or it’s something you’re considering, you can use this guide to understand which platform(s) will best suit your business and start to gain followers, but more importantly, you’ll be able to boost your engagement and conversions.
LinkedIn for businesses
Unlike other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, Linkedin is designed as a social networking platform for professionals and employers. While it is often misunderstood to be a tool primarily for job searching and recruiting, it’s become increasingly more social over time, and is now a popular network for professionals to collaborate, network, and gain through leadership.
A Linkedin company page is designed to network potential clients, employees, and partners or investors, generate awareness, drive traffic to your site, and increase leads.
By following best Linkedin practices, you can use the power of Linkedin marketing to attract more leads and potential prospects.
Explore our tips for using Linkedin for business
How to succeed at LinkedIn for businesses
When you use LinkedIn to market your business, it’s important to keep in mind that even though this is a professional network, it’s still about connecting with people on a personal level. That means you should take time to engage with your followers, have conversations and interactions with them to show your presence. Doing this takes time, but it’s essential to getting your brand in front of your target audience.
Five tips you can use to succeed at LinkedIn include:
- Encourage your teams to share and comment on articles you post, and therefore amplify your message
- Have someone who’s accountable for running your LinkedIn page on a daily basis. This is an important investment of time that will allow you to comment on others’ posts, share relevant content, connect with people on a one-to-one, and send DMs that feel authentic.
- Learn from your LinkedIn analytics. You can find out who’s visiting your business page, what they do there and how they engage with your content, how many people visit, and when they visit
- Optimize your page for search. Search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t limited to your website. Make sure you’re using your keywords on your LinkedIn business page, too. That way, you make it easier for your ideal customer to find you
Post rich content. Images and videos don’t just work on personal social media platforms – they make your LinkedIn posts more engaging as well
Find even more tips, read our article on how to succeed at LinkedIn for business
Twitter for businesses
Twitter is a marketing tool that can be adapted for people with short attention spans. As a microblogging platform, Twitter is designed for short posts and rapid (viral) trending. There are few distractions and you can easily use the platform when you are on the go.
You really do need the time and resources to dedicate to a Twitter account to make it work effectively for your business. It’s also important to set your account up properly and make sure it ties in with your brand identity. Once that’s done, it’s all about engaging your customers…
Listen to what your customers are saying. Don’t just bombard them with what you think they want to hear. It’s important to take the time to understand their needs, wants, and pain points. If you do that, you’ll be able to provide content that they really want to see. You should also interact with your customers by replying to comments and sharing or liking their tweets.
Twitter can be an excellent marketing tool for business. It can provide leverage for your online presence, reaching a wide range of potential customers. Some of the reasons why Twitter works for business are:
- Generating leads from your target audience
- Discoverability of your brand
- Interactive real-time response
- Great potential for building networks
Learn more about using Twitter for your business
Facebook for business
With its more than 2.4 billion users, Facebook remains the largest and most influential social networking platform. Facebook for business opens many opportunities in terms of reaching potential customers. Businesses can use Facebook in several different ways.
You can use Facebook to promote your business and achieve organic leads or paid leads through ads. Like all social platforms, you will need to invest time, effort, and dedication to succeed in using Facebook.
Among the various ways to promote your business on Facebook is by creating a business page. Your business page on Facebook is different from a personal page. A business page doesn’t have follower limits which means you can acquire thousands to millions of followers on your page. It also offers promotional features such as boosting posts and ads which are helpful in analytics.
Another way you can use Facebook for your business is through Facebook groups. A Facebook group is useful if you want to build an active community that relates to a certain brand. A group will always engage your content and will be more responsive.
Find out more using Facebook for your business
Instagram for business
While Instagram is exploding with users, many businesses still don’t actively use it. Instagram is mainly designed for photos and video content. Its filters allow users to create photos that look professionally taken. Users can directly edit their photos or videos when using the Instagram app and it doesn’t require high-level photo or video editing skills. So how can Instagram work for businesses?
Instagram works most effectively when you create content that tells a story. When you set up a business Instagram account, you can also create an online store and social promotion. Posting pictures of your product or videos of your services here helps boost brand awareness and gain more organic conversions.
Want to find out more about using Instagram for your business?
Related content
- Social Media Marketing: The Ultimate Guide
- Social Media Marketing Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide
- The Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses
- How to Write Buyer Personas
- LinkedIn for Business: The Ultimate Marketing Guide
- 10 Social Media Statistics You Need to Know in 2020 [Infographic]
- 10 Surprising Stats you Didn’t Know About Content on LinkedIn
Social media marketing myths - BUSTED
Social media can be tricky. If you’ve been reading post after post of tips and following every “best practice” to be found, you may be led down a rabbit hole that provides limited success. While it’s good to research trends, changes and best practices, there’s a lot of incorrect, outdated or misleading information around. At best, these flaky social media tips will give you zero results, but at worst they could hurt your social performance and business. We want to set the record straight about the real best and worst practices in social media marketing.
We bust social media marketing myths here