Social media marketing is an effective means of getting the word out about your products and/or services. But, many times it’s clear that a small business is not doing all that it can do when it comes to using social media marketing to its full advantage. You might think social media marketing ends at sharing a few posts each day, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Create Consistent and Complete Profiles
No matter which social media you’ve determined is important to use for your niche, it’s imperative that you create consistent and complete social media profiles. Include a professional headshot, and keep the text of your profiles very similar in nature ensuring that one doesn’t contradict the other. You want visitors to one to realize who you are immediately without having to guess.
Host Live Events
With services like Google Hangouts you can host live events such as a round table that is open to the public (open air) to watch, while your group discusses a hot topic within your niche. Another way to have a “live” event is to host a Twitter party, or a Facebook party where everyone is allowed to post links to their own business or blogs for a specific amount of time. One way to do this is ask everyone to write a blog post about a specific topic and link to it within 24 hours, share and use a specific hashtag to promote the event.
Congratulate People
If you notice anyone having a special day on any of your social media accounts, be sure to congratulate them and wish them well. It’s a good chance to make a connection with someone whom you’re friends with or connected with that you don’t necessarily know well.
While a lot of people may be doing the same thing, people still like to be noticed for their achievements, accomplishments and special days. If you know their address, it’s a good idea to also drop a card in the mail to make it even more special.
Use More Images
People who use social media prefer sharing and engaging with images over text. You should always include text with the images, though (for the sake of keywords), but creating images and memes using software like Pixlr.com is simple, fun and easy. You can do something as simple as a quote on a nice peaceful background and see a huge difference in the amount of engagement from your connections.
Use Social Media to Survey Your Audience
A great way to use social media to help get more engagement is to use it as a way to survey your audience to find out what they really need and want. But, don’t give them too many choices. It should be more like when you get your child ready for school – give them two choices: this or that? Give your audience a choice between two different videos you can create or webinars that you will host. Then, ask them to vote or decide.
Capture Influencers’ Attention
This can be tricky, but you want to find a way to call out influencers within your niche. If you can get a popular “guru” or authority within your niche to like, share, and connect with you, it’s possible to quickly expand your audience. There are many different ways to do this, but one is to comment on their posts intelligently and share with your audience what the influencer is doing.
Finally, to get more out of social media marketing it’s important to be truly engaged. Don’t put everything on automatic. Don’t hire someone to do your engagement for you. Make intelligent and purposeful comments, share freely, and you’ll get more out of your social media marketing than if you automated it all or outsourced it all.
