While social media is one of the most powerful marketing tools a business can use, the 2016 State of Small Business Report by Wasp Barcode Technologies showed that only 48 percent of small businesses are using social media.
Given the percentages in the graph below, your small businesses can still have a huge competitive advantage by learning to use social media well and measuring your results.
According to Jayson DeMers on Forbes, when you have a strong social media presence and a large following, your business can grow exponentially. But simply growing your following is not enough; your business must focus on growing a targeted following that converts.
Fortunately, there are a number of easy ways to improve your social media following and attract the right audience your business needs to generate sales.
Create Shareable Content
The key to engaging your social media audience is to share content that interests them. By utilizing social analysis tools, it is possible to determine which specific content is the most popular and to see what influencers in your niche are sharing.
When creating content for your brand, make a list of all the questions your customers tend to ask, and then answer each question in a helpful post. For example, Legion Athletics creates lengthy posts that cover every aspect of health and fitness, such as a post all about sore muscles.
That one post earned the company 263 shares on Facebook alone, and helped them amass 20,587 Facebook Likes. You know your content is doing well when it becomes a "Top Post" shared by someone else as theirs did:
Legion Athletics wisely posts everything from the most effective exercises to healthy recipes, which are often shared by foodies and athletes alike--expanding the company's reach into additional niches.
Most people won’t want to share your website’s homepage. Give them a viral article and they will likely share it, bringing more people to your site (and your business) in the process. The closer you can align your viral content with what you sell, the higher your conversion rate will be.
Every piece of content you create must contain at least one image, ideally twice as wide as it is tall for optimum viewability on Twitter. Include a taller image to grab attention on other social networks in the body of your content, plus a video, SlideShare and/or infographic. Using multiple media in one post permits pushing content much more aggressively without turning off your audiences.
Make sure your blog can be easily found on your website so that your customers can find your content easily. On every post and page of your site, include social sharing buttons for the networks that are most important to your target audience. Typically this would be a combination of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, and more recently Snapchat and Instagram.
Be Consistent Sharing Your New and Existing Content
Once you have created shareable content, spend at least twice as much time promoting it as you did creating it.
Give Away Unique and Useful Tools or Run Contests
What should you do if your business does not lend itself to interesting content? While some businesses may seem to be very boring, there is always a way to create fun content. Let's take one example.
What kind of content would you be willing to share for a moving business? Movers Corp created comprehensive moving guides and a moving weight calculator anyone can use to determine how big a truck they might need to move their belongings. This tool is useful to anyone moving anything--and is likely to generate paying customers for the business.
What kind of content can your business create to get people to send you buyers? A creative content idea that comes to mind for Movers Corp would be to focus on incentives for user-generated content. The company could have a contest asking people to submit short videos of moving horror stories, or funny or romantic stories related to moving. Offering tech related prizes or gift certificates could generate viral content the company could share to increase followers on social platforms.
What kind of video could potential buyers create for your brand? You may have to try a few different ideas before one takes off. One caveat: make sure you know the rules and laws related to running contests in your area and for each social network.
Customize Each Social Media Post
Instead of just simply posting content, you need to make all of your social media posts engaging and shareworthy. Add a colorful photo, include a personal description with an attached article, or offer a witty snippet so that your followers will want to share what you post. Doing this will only take a matter of seconds, but can make a big difference.
When it comes to Twitter, you only have 140 characters to make a statement, so make it powerful. Also optimize your image sizes for each social network. Twitter images work best when they're twice as wide as they are tall, and that size will work on all the major networks.
Note that taller images attract more attention on Pinterest and Google+. Refer to the infographic below to find the optimum size for images for each social site.
Stay Active
Just because you create a Facebook or Twitter page doesn’t mean the fans will come running. It’s important that you stay active, post regularly, and engage with your followers. Respond to posts, share content from other users, and show your customers that you are interested in what they have to say by sending personal responses when they message you directly or mention your brand.
By showing your human side, your audience will feel more connected, which leads to greater brand loyalty. Encourage your customers to connect with your social media pages and share your content.
Be sure to keep a consistent presence going on social networks. Automate some of your sharing so that even if you are too busy or your social media person is out ill or on vacation, your brand is still consistently sharing.
Respond in a Timely Fashion
Responding to any questions or comments on your pages in a timely fashion is imperative. Facebook encourages this by turning on a badge to show how responsive your brand is.
Brands may be surprised to know that " 42 percent of consumers complaining in social media expect 60 minute response time." This is possible once you learn to forward mentions to your smartphone or send alerts to your desktop.
Optimize Your Posts With Hashtags
Use keywords and hashtags to allow more people to find your business and services. You can even create your own brand hashtags such as Legion Athletics did (#LegionAthletics), which will make your posts more visible and shareable. Each time your post is shared, you’ll be able to quickly find it by searching for your unique hashtag.
To expand your audience, research what hashtags influencers and your target audience are using, and use them to put your posts in front of additional new potential customers. Many people search on hashtags to find content, so even if your selected hashtag never trends, it can be found.
Incorporate Social Media Icons
If you want to attract more followers, it’s important to make it very easy to find your business on each of the networks. For instance, you’ll want to add social media icons to your website, emails, and on each blog post.
Still not convinced social media is important to your business? See these statistics from 2014 and know that these numbers are still growing:
Link to Your Website
On each of your social media pages, make sure to link your website, bio, and available products and services. If a user finds you on social media first, you’ll want to make it easy to direct them to your site.
If you've ever wondered why people have their site, blog, or landing page URLs in their bios even when there is a separate field for them, it is because many third-party tools only pull from the bio description field. Because of this, a best practice is to add the URL in the description field too.
Take Advantage of More Networks
If you already have Twitter and Facebook, consider branching out to LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, and Snapchat. You never know where your business will attract the biggest following.
The more followers you have across the networks, the better chance you’ll have of attracting more customers. Always claim your same username on all networks before someone else does. Wherever you are not active, you can use your bio to direct people to where you answer most.
Create Social Media Promotions
Everyone loves to get something for free. Creating and sharing promotions, discounts, and giveaways will encourage more shares and make your customers feel more loyal and excited to use your business in the future. Customers will also want to check back often to find more promotions.
Don't forget to experiment with social selling. Up to 10 to 20 percent of your social shares could be offering your products and services. Consider using tools to measure your ROI.
Follow Trends
Find out what is working for other companies and follow suit. For instance, observing Twitter trends will help you get more from the network. The following short video covers 10 social media best practices worth knowing:
Grow Your Business Using Social Media
Your social media following most likely won’t skyrocket overnight, even if you follow trends and share only viral posts. Be patient and stay active because over time, your brand will build a following, relationships, and start converting visitors into buyers.
