Social media is any form of online communication where people share content over different networks such as forums, blogs, chatrooms or email listservs. Social media can also be used to leverage your business and this post will explore the different ways you are able to do this, from hashtags to Facebook ads, there are many different ways to grow your following on social media and get more exposure. Besides having a business account on Twitter, TikTok and Facebook, you need to be producing good quality content that resonates with your target audience, or using growth services and if you have never used social media before, then you might be confused as to what to do. Here are a few ways that you can leverage social media to help your business grow:
1. Know the market
The very first step is understanding the market and what services to use. This is very important. The top social media platforms are Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. Knowing the demographics for each social media is vital. The demographics are as follows:
Facebook:
- 2.74 billion monthly active users
- More men use Facebook than women with 44% female and 56% male users.
- Males between the ages 25 and 34 years old are the biggest demographic.
- Average time spent per day on Facebook is 38 minutes.
- 1.07 billion users
- 25-34 year olds represent the largest advertising audience on Instagram.
- 51% of Instagram’s advertising audience identify as female and 49 identify as male.
- 90% of people on Instagram follow brands.
- There are 2 popular services; one is Growthoid for organic growth, and the other is TaskAnt for hashtag generation.
- 330 million users.
- Most popular amongst millennials.
- Men between the ages 25-34 are the largest user demographic at 19%.
- 80% twitter users are below the age of 50.
- For Twitter, Twesocial has proved to be the most reliable growth service.
TikTok has a mixed bag when it comes to demographics, but it’s mainly used by the younger generation. Since the app is growing in popularity it’s difficult to determine as of yet who it is most used by, but a popular service that many businesses are using is TokUpgrade, and it seems to be doing quite well. It’s important to know the demographics of different social media sites because it will give you insight and understanding into who your audience is and who you need to target. It also allows you to formulate or adjust your strategy based on the different demographics. This information helps you understand the number of people that you could potentially target for your business aka the size of your potential market.
2. Have a strategy
When using social media for your business it is of vital importance to have a strategy. You need to identify your goals such as:
- Improve sales
- Improve customer experience
- Increase conversion rates
Apart from setting goals and intentions, you need to establish a voice, meaning you need to look at how you communicate on social media through the content you post. You also need to know when to post and not just post randomly but strategically, when you know you will have the most engagement.
3. Keep engagement high
You cannot be successful on social media unless you engage. This means creating polls on Instagram, replying to comments on your posts, asking your followers questions, responding to questions, liking comments and tweets etc. By engaging you increase interaction and communication, increase brand awareness, create brand loyalty and you attract more people to your page creating more potential customers.
A good idea is to have contests or special promotions for your followers. This is a good way to gain more followers and promote your brand.
4. Use influencers
One revolutionary aspect of social media has been the rise of the influencer. These are people who specialize in a certain niche and have a large following of people who look up to them and trust them. Influencers collaborate with business to promote the business to their followers and this is something that your business should be doing. 77% if marketers claim that influencers are more effective than ads.
By collaborating with influencers you are spreading awareness of your business to more people. To choose the right influencer you need to pick one who aligns with your business, it is very important that the influencer represents the same niche market.
5. Prioritize customer service
Customer service is very important. 50% of customers are more inclined to support businesses that they believe provide great customer service. Providing good customer service is easy. Simply respond to customer complaints, talk to you customers, share links that can help with customer problems etc. The benefits of customer service include having direct engagement with your customers and treating your customers with respect which is good for your image.
