6 Tips to Master Social Media for your Business:
Let’s face it, Social Media is important.
Now more than ever, the right approach to Socials and various different platforms is integral for businesses. In some cases, it can even make or break a company faster than you can say ‘algorithm’.
You can love it or hate it but either way you have to accept it, it’s just a fact. There’s a reason that every titan of industry and behemoth of business are constantly churning their posts out every day, it’s because they work. Not only do these companies take advantage of the staggering 4.70 billion users, but they quite literally shape the platform for all other users following in their footsteps.
However, contrary to popular belief, using Social Media as a form of advertisement and brand awareness building, is not free. A famous quote that is passed around more than an old penny is “Time is Money” and nowhere is that more applicable than to the turbulent world of Social Media.
So, to ensure that you make the most of your resources and maximise your Return on Investments (ROI) you need to make sure that you follow these 6 Tips to Master Social Media for your Business.
#1 – Understand your Goals:
To accurately decide which platform to invest most of your time in, you need to first have a firm grasp of what your goals actually are (and believe me they can vary exponentially).
You could aim to:
- Target a new audience
- Reach a wider audience
- Directly generate sales
- Build brand awareness
- Build relationships with other brands
- Humanise your brand
- Increase website traffic
- Source content
- Get feedback
- Learn more about your customers
- Gauge impressions of your brand
You get the idea; the list is nigh on endless.
But here’s the stinger; Each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses which directly align with your goals.
For example, Facebook and TikTok are great for building relationships, brand awareness and making your business seem more down-to-Earth and approachable. Whereas LinkedIn and Twitter are more beneficial when looking at business development and working with B2B businesses.
That being said, Meta (previously known as Facebook) has been putting a lot of resources into growing their business aspects for companies in recent years, which brings me to another point.
Keep up to date with trends and changing business strategies, there’s no point in posting consistently great content targeted at businesspeople across the nation if they all jumped ship and switched platforms months ago.
Leading me conveniently onto the second tip…
#2 – Know your Audience:
This is fundamental when looking to fish some success out of the bottomless ocean of potential that Social Media has to offer.
Knowing your audience means making a plethora of strategic decisions such as what platform they primarily use, what content will they like and when might they be most active.
For some of this information, you can rely on websites that track the algorithm and trends on your behalf, whether that be through precise Market Research or simply looking at the analytics yourself. However, often it comes down to knowing your audience through the experience that you have acquired.
If you wouldn’t meet a prospect and start doing the latest dance trend, then don’t do it through your online presence. You want to give the right impression that your potential clients will admire, not always what gets you the most reactions; First impressions matter.
Likewise, Facebook is by far the largest channel with the greatest number of users but if your audience is young and relies more prominently on Snapchat then that is where you should promote most often on.
#3 – Recognise your Resource Limits:
As I said above, time is money.
Of course, you can promote on any number of various channels that suit your fancy but how much time are you willing to invest in not only creating content but managing your posts, accounts and monitoring the trends and analytics of your posts?
For small business owners, your time budget will be easier to keep a track of, if you’re posting personally then your resource limit should be clear to see. But if you have employee’s doing this for you then you need to realise that the allotted time, they have will directly correlate with the success that you see.
Time isn’t the only resource that you can budget when it comes to the ever-changing rabbit hole that is Social Media. In fact, an abundance of businesses pays to advertise their services through the platforms or by paying individual influencers.
This can be a great source of investment with many businesses seeing their sales soar due to the right influencer sharing their product but once again this all ties back into knowing whom your audience will listen to.
A great example of paid advertising through the platform itself would be TikTok promote. Here you can choose multiple factors to suit your exact requirements and resource budget. Such as Demographics, cost, days of outreach and the daily target of your promotion.
Whether these advertisements are a blessing to boost your business or a thorn in its side that tries to claw your company down is all reliant on how well you recognise your resource limits.
#4 – Set your Expectations Appropriately:
Many have tried and many have failed to promote their business through virality and by becoming a Social Media megastar, but it’s not always achievable. It’s important to remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither were the biggest online presences.
As such it is not only sensible but intrinsic to your success that you set your expectations wisely. Some posts will soar and reach a wide audience with more impressions than you imagine, and some will flop, only to be liked by your staff, your mum, and the nice business next door and that is absolutely fine. It’s all a part and parcel of the chaotic nature of mastering Social Media for business.
The difficult aspect of expectations is that they’re unique to ‘You’. Piling mounds of pressure on top of your online presence and trying to become an influential figure overnight is futile it quite simply doesn’t work like that. Cracking the algorithm and building your following is a monumental task that takes more time than you might think and as a result, you should plan your goals in accordance with this.
Moreover, like many things in life, your online success will be relative to how much effort you put in. If you post daily then your goal is likely to come sooner, however, if you are sporadic and unorganised with your uploads then don’t expect followers to come flocking to your profile. After all, the road to success is long and winding but with every pace taken you are one step closer to reaching your goal.
#5 – Research your Available Platforms
As I’ve mentioned above each platform has its own ‘particular set of skills’ and these skills can help your business in a plethora of ways depending on your requirements.
One of the most blatant and fundamental examples of this is how LinkedIn is fantastic for B2B marketing but not so vital for B2C. That being said, there is truth in numbers and some statistics clearly highlight universal truths for the strengths of individual platforms.
Did you know that when asked 62% of marketers chose Facebook as the best platform for business? In fact, 93% of Social Media Marketers regularly use Facebook ads.
Personally, I see this as an obvious advocate for the potential that Facebook has for businesses but without doing the research first you may think that Facebook is still only used for cat videos and reconnecting with old-school friends.
Once again doing your own research will be key to mastering Social Media for your business but initially, I would say that the platforms can be divided into:
Facebook – Drives site traffic
Twitter – Broadcast news about your business
LinkedIn – Generate leads
Instagram – Connect to clients and humanise your brand
# 6 – Have fun
Cheesy… Yes
Predictable… Yes
But important… Most definitely.
It is plain to see and abundantly obvious when a company or marketer does not enjoy posting on Social Media. The posts are bland and heartless, they seem to be infrequent and never really draw upon anything of importance.
Posting daily is all well and good but if you’re not enjoying it and as a result post irrelevant content for content’s sake then it won’t do any good and could actually result In prospects unfollowing you.
Social media can be challenging, it can be overwhelming and intense, but it can also be fun and to truly master Social Media for your business you should enjoy posting.
In Conclusion:
Using Social Media is easy but mastering it for a business can be unexpectedly difficult. It is a treasure trove of leads, customers, clients, and connections and hopefully, with these 6 tips, you can unlock the full potential behind it.
- Understand your goals
- Know your audience
- Recognise your resource limits
- Set your expectations appropriately
- Research the platforms
- Enjoy it.
By Ben Cardy