Social media marketing is a core component of any business’s online marketing strategy. But many businesses make the mistake of assuming that they can turn their account posting on auto-pilot and see an increase in sales and traffic.
There needs to be a strategy in place and some thought behind your social media strategy. Following these four best practices can help you see better results.
1. Build Relationships with Your Followers
Social media is all about connecting and engaging with your followers. Gone are the days of spam promoting your products and services in hopes of catching a few new leads or customers.
Building relationships will provide a higher ROI than simply acquiring new customers.
Keep tabs on your existing customer base and focus on providing a positive experience. Ambassador says that 71% of customers who had a positive experience on social media were more likely to recommend the brand to others.
When customers advocate for your brand, they become members of your own little marketing army. They promote your products for you, which doesn’t cost you a dime.
Respond to feedback, encourage user-generated content and engage in community forums and groups.
2. Publish Valuable Posts
Promotional posts are great for business, but they shouldn’t be the entire basis of your social media marketing strategy. Give your followers something of value. Tell a story about your brand or about your industry.
Share content that your customers can use, whether it’s a how-to guide from an industry publication or a silly meme.
The content you share may also provide valuable backlinks to your website, which will further improve your search engine rankings.
It’s okay to post promotional content when you’re first starting your page. For example, NuFlow Oklahoma only recently launched their Facebook page, so their starting posts are about the company and its services. In the future, they can add informational posts that their customers may be interested in.
3. Stay Active – But Don’t Overdo It
To succeed with social media, you have to be active. Post regularly, and post content that your followers want to see.
Just be careful not to overdo it.
There’s a fine line between being active and being spammy. Posting every hour or six to seven times a day may not be warranted or even a good idea.
4. Assess Your Strategy
Make sure that you have a way to assess your social marketing strategy. Are you generating more followers? How many? Which posts are getting the most engagement? Are your followers visiting your website and purchasing your products?
It’s impossible to know if your strategy is working if you have no way to measure your results.
Google Analytics is a tried-and-true tool that you can use to analyze your strategy. Using just this one tool, you can determine how many people are visiting your website from social sites and how many shares your blog posts receive.
It’s important to remember that just like with any other marketing strategy, results take time. As long as you’re following the best practices for social media, you should see an improvement in traffic, brand awareness and sales.
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