Providing Exposure For Your Business Using Social Media

Social Networking has become the lifeline of many businesses over the past several years. The level of exposure that they receive has been so substantial that business owners now wonder how it is they never thought of going that route when advertising their business much sooner. But success on social media does not come by chance. It takes a lot more than simply putting pen to paper and writing a sentence or two about your business. In order for businesses to get the right kind of exposure via social media, there has to be some sort of plan in place that stipulates how the marketing strategies are to be executed. Businesses that do not have such a plan are bound to fail, and many have failed as a result of having no well thought out social media plan of action.

Your business does not have to be a part of the social media failure statistics. Here are a few things that you can do to create an effective and viable social media plan that will provide the level of exposure that your business needs and deserves:

Research Which Social Networks Mention Your Business

Without business owners even being aware of it, many of their businesses are mentioned on different social networks by people who have had either good or bad experiences doing business with their company. This is a good starting point when deciding which social network(s) you would like to focus your social media plans on. Start by focusing on the big guns like Facebook and Twitter. The ones that have already mentioned your business are the best place to start. This is because a fan or follower base already exists, whether they like your business or not, to whom you can appeal. You will have to search for those mentions social media site by social media site. When you have ascertained the ones with the best mentions, you can then engage that fan or follower base in order to win them over or encourage them to continue talking about your business. Add your comments to comments people have already made about your product, thanking those who positively mentioned your business and apologize to people who have been wronged in some way by your business. It would also be a good idea to create an account for your business on those social networks, if you do not already have one, so as to be able to engage your fans and followers even further.

You can also search for your business on video networks like YouTube and review sites like Yelp to see what people have to say about your business. Just as with the social networks, apologize to or thank people accordingly for the comments that they make. Engaging them in this way shows that your business cares about them and they in turn will lean more towards your business.

Venture into the World of Promotions and Contests

Following closely on the heels of researching the social networks so as to engage your fans and followers is the staging of promotions and contests that will aid in keeping that following strong and growing. These can be hosted every three or six months, whichever suits you best. Promotions and contests also help to expose your business even further to people who may have never heard about it. People love to win things, so when they see that they have the chance of walking away with a prize, it serves as an incentive for them to want to visit your website. The prize or prizes that you offer should be something valuable or worth their while for even visiting your website in the first place. For example, a website that sells cars can have a promotion that offers customers who buy a car between specific dates and times the opportunity of getting a 100% rebate on the car that they buy. Or a building society may offer a brand new home as the grand prize to customers who take out a predetermined value mortgage by a specified period. If you sponsor similar promotions and contests, your business will see an increase in sales.

Be Committed to Social Media Marketing

Many businesses fail to stay the course of using social media to give their business the exposure that it needs, resulting in misery and a loss of interest in their business. This usually happens because they do not see an immediate turn of fortune and so they conclude that social media marketing is a waste of time. What you need to understand here is that it takes time to build the level of exposure that your business needs to become the power house that you desire it to be, at times even years for that realization to take place. Take it in strides, do not rush the process. Just as how you were wholly committed to your business when you just started out, remain committed to using social media as a tool to expose your business. As the saying goes, “the race is not for the swift but for the strong.” Show your strength and resolve by not giving up when you do not see immediate results. Give it your all every day and you will eventually reap the wonderful results of your stick-to-itiveness.

Do Not Do Everything by Yourself

Social media marketing is hard work, but the rewards make it worth the effort. It takes team work to get it flowing correctly. Never feel that because you are the boss with the ideas and know-it-all that you can do everything all by yourself. That is tantamount to sending yourself to an early grave – lots of stress and missing meals. So, you should delegate the various tasks that need to get done to individuals who are qualified to undertake those tasks. Let the content writers take care of the content, let the graphic artists take care of the illustrations and images, and so on. This will free you up to take care of the administrative side of the business, focusing on how you can expose it even more and interacting with those who have faith in your business.

Make Your Social Media Content Engaging and Relevant

When you write the content for your social media marketing plan, do not make it sound like an advertisement. Readers hate it when the content that they encounter on social media sites is far from what they expected, worst if it is a commercial. With that in mind, allow your content to engage your audience. That content must be well researched and presented in an appealing manner. When they read it, they should be saying to themselves: “this is for me.” Assert yourself as an authority figure in your niche by writing relevant content that blows all your competition out of the water. But you should not stop there. You need to make regular social media posts. You could even go as far as starting a blog on your website that you could link to from within the social media content. This will help to boost the level of exposure that your business gets in ways you may never have imagined.

One proven way of making your content engaging is by using infographics. Infographics tell a story using pictures and words. They are very engaging and people tend to like looking at and reading them. You could also write case studies that are relevant to your niche that highlights the benefits of using your business compared to others in the same niche. The case studies must have a convincing line of argument or else you run the risk of actually running away potential customers.

Engage With Your Fan Base and Followers Regularly

It is all good and well knowing that you have thousands of fans or followers scattered across various social networks. But be warned that you can lose a lot of them in a heartbeat if you do not engage them in discussions on a regular basis. Don’t be like a baker who bakes the best cakes but refuses to open the doors to his store for people to come in and shop. That baker would eventually be out of business. Make your fans and followers see that you are a real person, that your business is real and caters to their needs. When you visit the social networks, respond to comments and tweets. Interact with your audience whenever possible. The level of interactivity depends on each platform because posts and tweets have different lifespans, in the case of Facebook and Twitter. So, you may find yourself spending more time on one vs. the other in an attempt to keep your interactivity current.

Videos are also an effective way of promoting your business on social media. They do not have to be long and drawn out, but they can be “short and sweet,” getting to the point quickly and engaging your audience as best as possible. Since people tend to tag and share videos on social networks, videos are a great way to keep your brand right in front of the consumer.

Use a Variety of Methods to Expose Your Business

There is no hard and fast rule that states you should only stick to exposing your business on social networks. There are other avenues that are just as effective to launch your business to the next level. You could create custom apps that people can download from your website that sends them back to your website each time they use it on their mobile devices. The apps should be made available for as many platforms as possible so as to increase the level of exposure for your business. In addition, you could post promotional or informational videos on YouTube. YouTube has millions of users, so think about the potential reach that your business exposure may be able to attain.

As time goes by, evaluate the different methods that you use to promote your business. The ones that obviously give no return on your investment should be discarded. The ones that provide a good ROI should be enhanced to make the process of exposing your business that much easier.

Social media is indeed a viable avenue through which you can expose your business to the world. Make use of them as much as possible if you want your business to be seen as an industry leader and authority figure for your niche.