Are you at the beginning of your path and you want to evolve as fast as possible? Do you already have a stable business in the offline that you wish to also take in the online? Regardless of your reasons, fact is that nowadays you have to benefit from the power of the internet. The times of fliers and publicity posters are long gone. There are higher chances for a person to keep his eyes on the phone rather than to admire publicity placards. And if we can understand this thing, we can easily use the power of the internet for our benefit. That’s why you need a social media guide.
Where else can you find a more dynamic community than in the world of social media?
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, SnapChat, Whatsapp, Kik and who knows how many more social media platforms. Fact is that in 2017 there were approximately 2.77 milliard users present on all of the social media platforms. That’s almost half of the population of the world. It’s been foreseen that by 2020 the limit of 3 milliard is going to be exceeded.
We find it a bit hard to believe that it would be possible to reach a number of 3 milliard users in a business that’s promoted strictly in the offline environment. It’s not like with a business that is active within the online environment you are going to reach all the 3 milliard users but your share is bound to be considerably larger. It’s all up to you, to your business and to the tools you want to use.
But before conquering the entire world, let’s begin at a local level. After all, the biggest initial success we are going to have by addressing locally. Regardless if we talk about a restaurant, an event, a shop or a fashion house. With or without money we can get to a great number of people, through the power of social media. People that we would’ve reached a lot harder without the use of these tools, or maybe we couldn’t have reached at all.
How can this help me?
First of all, it’s going to be a lot easier to educate your target audience. It’s essential to be able to mold your business according to your target audience if you want to have positive results or results worth mentioning. How can you do this? Quite easily!
For instance, if we have a Facebook page for our business, we can see who liked us, who commented on our posts, how many starts we got and much more. Basically, we can create an initial image regarding the target audience. An image that can surprise us (and most of the times it actually will).
Following the same thought, the best way to grow is to actually pay attention to the negative reviews. From these we can learn a lot, for free about the things that require improvement. The negative clients need to be appreciated, not chased away. They represent a constant oasis of feedback for us.
How can I stand out from my competitors, on Facebook?
Here it’s more about the quality rather than the quantity. It’s essential to bring quality content that speaks exactly to the needs and desires of the target audience. A plain ad is never going to be enough.
The hour and day of posting is just as relevant. In case you are not using a paid ad (and if you’re at the beginning, most likely you are not using one) then you have to be really careful to post when the impact is at a maximum, when there are as many people online as possible. But what’s that magical timeframe? There are many detailed studies but the truth is that you are the one that can answer this question, for your own business, according to your clients’ profile.
The disadvantage when it comes to promoting via Facebook is that it requires financial investments, through time. Perhaps at the beginning, while your business is still small, you will be able to grow using well-thought posts but at a higher level, you are going to have to invest in paid publicity.
How can I advertise on other social media platforms?
For instance, if you are looking for a collaboration or to activate in the B2B area, LinkedIn is the answer for you. LinkedIn is a professional social media platform, where B2C doesn’t really work, but where the business area simply flourishes. Once again, in case you want to directly address businesses, LinkedIn is a very good method.
Twitter, this mysterious platform that hasn’t yet gained popularity in Romania, is a very useful promotion tool. Having short texts that are instantly posted, you can maintain a very lively communication with everyone that’s present in the online. Also, if we have enough subscribers, we’re all set. Pay attention though, to the speed of messaging on Twitter: it’s not a platform where you occasionally drop a post.
Instagram – does it require any further explanations? Very many people buy the picture, the image, the emotion. Obviously, some are interested in technicalities and other in emotions only. And for the second category Instagram has been invented. The disadvantage is that we can’t really reach out to the first category.
But about the combination of these channels we talked in more detail here. There more active we are on as many social media platforms as possible, the more people we can reach out to – existing clients or new ones.
How can I measure the success of social media campaigns?
You can do this either using the classical method, by creating manual statistics, or through modern technology. Regardless of your choice for monitoring and measuring the efficiency of the social media campaigns, the important thing is to do it. An investment, if monitored, has the possibility of being analyzed and this will help you next time, to know better how to improve efficiency. But given that you made an investment and didn’t monitor a thing, it’s just an extra expense.
And while you’re at the beginning of your path, you can’t afford to purposelessly spend money.