HOW TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS

Using social media like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Google+ to generate leads, build your brand and grow your business can have a huge impact on your company’s bottom line. Social media is the new face of communication around the world..

You can use it to advertise for free. Mainstream media such as television, radio, print and outdoor media can be very expensive. Whether you’re just beginning or have been on sites like Twitter and Facebook for years, but haven’t been too successful, following are some social media marketing tips to take your business to the next level of success:

Post Consistently

Posting once a month on Facebook or sending out two Tweets per week isn’t going to be effective. Remember your followers are probably following hundreds if not thousands of other people and companies. If you’re not publishing new content as often as the other accounts out there, it’s easy to get lost or never be seen.

Be Selective About What You Post

When deciding what you share on social media, quality always overrides quantity. You want to publish content consistently, but it also has to be valuable. Make sure your content is relevant to your audience and helpful or entertaining.

Don’t Be Afraid to Pay

Facebook and other social media networks continue to significantly reduce the amount of your posts’ organic visibility, which has many businesses now paying for social media advertising to get their messages out there. Whether it’s boosting a post or promoting a Tweet, social media advertising is a lot more common as these platforms continue to grow. If you want to heighten your social media marketing efforts, exploring paid advertising may be worth it. It’s a lot less expensive than traditional media buying, which makes social media advertising really appealing for startups and small businesses.

Join in on Communities

Whether it’s Facebook Groups, Twitter Chats or LinkedIn Groups, there are numerous opportunities for you to connect with people and companies who could benefit from your products and/or services.

Interact

Don’t be the company that only shares links every day. The purpose of social media is to engage with people, so it’s important to interact on a regular basis. That means interacting on a regular basis. How many of them include @mentions of other connections? How many of your posts are replies to other posts? If you’re like a lot of companies, then the answer is probably not very many. Engage with your audiences by replying to other people’s posts, retweeting and liking posts, adding people to Twitter lists and using @mentions and  #hashtags.

Give Your Target Audience a Reason to Follow You

You need to give people a good reason to follow your company. They have thousands of choices of companies and individuals to follow, so you have to stand out somehow. Create value specifically for your social media. For example, share behind the scenes content, discount codes exclusively to followers of a particular social media outlet, and share better content than your competitors.

Use Contests to Increase Followers/Likes

An excellent way to get some initial followers or to build your follower base is to hold a social media contest. Contests encourage people to engage with you and promote your brand.

Encourage Your Employees to Get  Involved

Social media doesn’t have to fall solely on the marketing team’s shoulders.If your company has several employees or many departments, encourage them to help your social media efforts. Whether it’s following the company’s social media profiles or contributing content, the more involved your team is, the better.

 Utilize these social media marketing tips, and you will build an engaged audience and establishing your brand across all your social media channels. These tactics have worked for some of the biggest brands in the world, and could work well for your business too.

 411 Locals helps businesses set up major social media profiles including Facebook, Twitter and Google+ as part of our online presence package. For more information, visit www.411locals.com or call 855-259-2908