What social media should my company use?
When people talk about Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other various social media, do you get overwhelmed?
Maybe you’ve tried it before for your own business, but couldn’t tell if you got any results. Or worse, you know you didn’t get results.
Because you’ve heard that it works for others, you might have tried Facebook. Started your own page. Posted a few times. Asked all of your friends to “like” your page… You even ran an ad for your business, and targeted people in your city.
You followed the advice. Then, crickets… nothing to show for the effort.
Then you might have called it quits and went back to running your business. Thinking social media simply doesn’t work for your business. Or maybe, you thought or still think it takes too much time – without any real potential for results anytime soon.
What should I be doing differently?
- When starting social media, you might think that everything has to be perfect. It doesn’t. But you should have an idea of how you are going to use it before diving in headlong.
- Instead of trying all social media platforms, start with one. Get good at it. Understand what your customers are doing on the platform, and think of ways in which you can plug into their experience.
- Social media takes regular, value-added involvement. When you are considering which platform to enter, think of what kind of content you could regularly produce that would be easy for you to create.
- If the social media that you personally use is also appropriate for your business, consider trying that one first. It’s more likely that you know what kind of content to create. You might even have some intuition of the etiquette of the media.
You should create content that is the best fit for the social media platform.
This topic is where marketers start saying things like “create content that is native to your platform.” That’s a fancy way of saying – if people mostly share photos, you should share photos too. If it’s a professional environment, you might think about sharing more serious, thoughtful content.
Some examples…
If you are using Instagram, you might take a quick course on taking better photos. Since photos and videos are important on Instagram, it’s critical to have images that capture people’s attention. Many are passing the time on Instagram, so work to stop your potential customers in their tracks and pay attention to your message.
If you are going to use LinkedIn, you should keep in mind that most people are there to somehow further their professional life. That might mean they will benefit from learning about your product. The best bet here might be to create blog posts that you share, or to join groups that have your target audience within them, and then engage in the groups. Or, you could try LinkedIn Sales Navigator to try to develop leads.
On Facebook, consider how you can give your audience a lot of value. This is a place where most people go to “get” not to “give”, so try to educate or inspire your audience here. Promoting eBooks can be a great way to grow your email list through a Facebook audience.
If you are using Twitter, do your best to be a part of the broader conversation. This is a place where people are looking for news, thought leadership, and cultural currents. This is perhaps the hardest place for small business owners to stand out and drive growth.
You will probably need to spend money on social media.
You can grow your business on any of these platforms – without spending money. It will just cost you in time.
If you are able to spend money on social media, though, you may be able to get good, fast results.
These social media companies primarily exist due to advertising dollars. So they’ve spent time and resources helping advertisers find success by spending money.
These companies have some amazing ways to get your ads in front of the right people. The trick is in using the tools the right way – and as always, having a plan for ads once people start clicking on them. The question quickly becomes whether or not your website is converting these new visitors into buyers.
If you’d like to discuss your next move on social media, we’d love to help. We can take a look at what you are currently doing and give you some free advice about what you can try next.
Choosing the right media is one of the most important decisions your business can make today. We’d be happy to think critically alongside you to help you choose the best option for your business.
And if you want us to help you manage a campaign to get buyers to your business, we can help there too. As always, we won’t directly help with or run campaigns until we are confident your website is capable of turning visitors into buyers. Doing marketing in the right order is critical to your success.
Contact us to have a no obligation conversation about your social media goals.
