Every modern day business understands the value of social media. This is a gigantic platform that can be used to advertise the brand along with products/services as well as demonstrate your authority and engage with your target audience. When used correctly, social media can have an enormous impact on brand reputation and awareness as well as direct more traffic towards the company site, which should result in an increase in sales. Despite this, only a small percentage of brands use social media effectively, and many even use it in a detrimental manner. Interestingly, it is the niche companies that appear to use social media best. Here are a few tips that can be learned from niche companies.
Engage With Target Customer
One of the most effective ways that you can use social media is to engage directly with your target customer. Social media is a two-way communication channel where your followers can comment on posts, and how you respond to these will be crucial.
It can be trickier for the much larger brands to engage with each comment, which can make it seem like they do not care. Instead, take the time to reply to comments and make sure that you are doing so in a friendly yet professional manner. You can use this to build personal connections with your target audience, which is key in attracting and retaining customers.
Use Humor
Leading on from this, you will also notice that smaller companies tend to use humor when it comes to social media as opposed to being strictly professional. This is effective because it can give the brand more personality as well as help them to stand out from the crowd.
Although it is a good idea to use humor with social media, you must be very careful with this and avoid posting anything that could be seen as being offensive, controversial, and/or divisive. Additionally, use humor lightly and keep in mind that you are a business first and foremost.
Humanize Your Brand
Leading on from this, many companies in niche industries humanize their brand, which is another effective way of connecting with your target audience. Even in today’s digital age, a consumer likes to feel that they are doing business with a person rather than a faceless corporation.
You can humanize your brand on social media by posting updates from the store/office, including photos of staff members and by sharing blog posts online which are written in first person.
Use Social Identity Theory
One of the most effective strategies that niche companies use is social identity theory. This is a theory about how people get a sense of belonging from their group memberships, such as a sports team, family, social class, etc. This creates a sense of belonging through an “us and them” mentality, which can be incredibly powerful when it comes to driving consumer choices.
Niche companies can leverage this “us and them” mentality because they will be targeting a small group of society, so making their target customer feel a sense of belonging can fuel success. This should be emulated where possible through social media posts which will speak to the audience and bring people with shared interests together.
Like & Share
Social media can be an effective tool for making more people aware of your brand, and this is something that every niche company needs to do to attract more business. One of the most effective ways to do this is to share content which encourages users to like and share the post so that it will be seen by their network. This is something that you often see in the sports betting industry with companies who encourage users to share posts with surprising statistics and news.
The key to this is creating content that encourages your target audience to like and share the post. This could be simply creating content that is entertaining and engaging, or you could be more direct by running like and share competitions, which can be a great way to increase brand awareness. Additionally, the cost of the prize should easily be recouped in the increase in customers, so it is a smart move for any business looking to increase awareness and attract more customers.
These are a few strategies that are used by businesses that operate in niche industries, and there is a lot that can be learned from these companies. Social media can be an incredibly powerful tool for businesses, yet it is often the smaller, niche brands that use the platform most effectively as they know how to engage with their target audience and increase awareness about their company.
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