Social media marketing isn’t a new business strategy by any means, but it is one that’s growing rapidly by the day. With over 80% of the U.S. population using some form of social media, getting your business on one of these platforms is a great way to reach out to your customer base and further promote your brand. Even better, social media marketing costs much less than other forms of advertisement.
However, knowing which platform to join can be a daunting task, especially with new sites and apps entering the market every week. As a business, you don’t need to join all of them, but you should at least be on the same platforms as your customers are. Doing so will enable you to put relevant content in front of a ready audience and make the most of your social media efforts.
If you’re trying to figure out where to start your social media marketing campaign or how to grow it further, consider these social media sites for business.
With over 2 billion active users who log into the platform daily, Facebook is one of the top choices for businesses trying to enhance their social media game. Besides the vast number of users, the broad demographic means that your customers are probably there, ready to hear from you. Not only can you establish a Facebook business page, but you can also take advantage of their advertising platforms.
Facebook advertising allows you to target your advertisements to specific demographic parameters, including everything from age to relationship status. When you set up your intended audience, Facebook will then display your ads directly to those customers, so you don’t have to worry about missed opportunities. The costs of Facebook advertising can be higher than on other platforms, but the ROI is most often worth it.
If your business involves e-commerce, you can also sell your products directly through the platform to boost conversions. There are even ways to integrate ads into Facebook’s Messenger feature, allowing you to have a direct line of communication with interested customers. Setting up an automated message to let your customers know you’ll be reaching out to them soon can make a huge impression.
Yelp
Yelp may not be a place where people hang around to chat with their friends, but it’s still a powerful part of social media. After all, potential customers consult online reviews before making a purchase or hiring a service. Having a lot of positive reviews can have a big impact on your conversions – while negative reviews might scare potential clients away before you get the chance to prove yourself.
One important strategy is to set up your own Yelp business profile. This prevents the platform from generating information for you, which has the potential to include outdated locations or contact details that prevent customers from finding you. You can also encourage your happy customers to leave reviews for you and talk with those who have left negative reviews. Sometimes reaching out to a dissatisfied customer can make a positive impression – to them and others looking into your service.
Another one of the largest platforms out there, Twitter’s user base also encompasses all sorts of demographics from around the world. As a business, you can promote your products, content, and relevant company news all in one place, plus you can talk with your customers and even other brands. Hashtags are a thriving part of Twitter’s setup as well, allowing you to reach different audiences and promote your brand.
Twitter’s advertising options tend to be less expensive than Facebook’s, but promoted tweets still see a far reach. It can take a little adjusting to find the right combination of relevant information with the low character count, but the recently increased limit means you have even more space to promote your brand. As with many other platforms, the fast-paced world of Twitter means you benefit from having scheduled content ready, so you always have something new for your followers.
Instagram is more suitable for businesses that have a visual product they can promote, but that doesn’t mean that other markets can’t take advantage of it. As a photo-sharing app, Instagram is a place to promote prime photo and video content. For your business, this may mean showing off your products and your company culture to those who stop by.
Millennials are a major part of Instagram’s user base, so businesses targeted at this demographic would be remiss to not take advantage of it. Hashtags also help with promoting material, as does the story feature, which lets you to put up temporary images and videos, plus conduct user-interactions like polls and questions. Instagram also allows you to advertise and sell products, again providing another direct outlet for conversions.
With over 90% of its active users relying on the platform to plan for purchases, Pinterest is a social media platform you don’t want to miss. Creative, food, lifestyle, wedding, and clothing businesses can get some of the strongest mileage out of Pinterest – especially if their primary customer base is women, who make up most of Pinterest’s users.
Pinterest also has an ad platform you can invest in to expand your reach. Even more appealing is that you can also boost organic search results through planned keywords and lining up with your audience’s interest. And while you’re at it, it’s also possible to link Pinterest to your other social media accounts to promote your brand in several places at once.
YouTube
Video advertising is one of your strongest marketing options, appealing to customers and catching their attention. What’s even better is that not all video campaigns have to be ads; you can also promote your company culture, have informative content from your team, promote customer testimonials, and more. And if you’re already taking advantage of video campaigns, you should also be using the biggest video platform out there: YouTube.
YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. For you, that means customers may be looking up product types, reviews, and how-to videos relevant to your industry. Uploading regular content will help promote you, just like a well-written blog post will. YouTube content can also help boost SEO, and its ad features also provide a solid way to promote your business.
Contact Vizion Interactive to help grow your social media marketing campaign.
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