5 Social Media Strategies to Grow Your Business

Why does your business need social media? With 4.2 billion global social media users you know that your customers are already there. It would almost be a disservice to you and them if you are not available to them through social media.

In fact, to share their social media links in a sophisticated, clutter-free manner, people redirect domain names to their social media handles. For instance, if you have a food blog called The Food Train on Instagram, you can buy the domain name www.thefoodtrain.online and use it as a redirect for your food blog.

However, being on social media isn’t just about creating accounts and posting when you have the time. Without a goal-oriented strategy, you will only waste energy and resources on publishing posts that are not garnering any engagement. 

On the other hand, with a robust strategy that focuses on targeting the right people and creating high-engagement and lead-generating posts, you can:

• Communicate easily and effectively with the most relevant people
• Build long-lasting relationships and professional partnerships
• Learn about your customers
• Increase website traffic
• Generate more revenue
  
  

However, creating and cultivating a social media presence that helps you meet some or all of your goals is easier said than done. If you have been struggling to find your social media mojo, here are five strategies that can set you on the right track.

1. Identify Your Audience

We’ve already established that there are a large number of people using social media. But the reasons why they’re doing so are varied and unique. Some are there just to connect with family and friends. Others want to discover like-minded businesses and people. Yet others want content that caters to their interests. Some, like yourself, want to be known and build their brand. 

Layer this with the diverse backgrounds people come from and their preferences, and you can safely rule out a one-size-fits-all approach. 

Before you get down to strategy, you must know who it is you want to reach. This will determine which channels you should use, what content you should post and when you should post it, what copy you should write and what the overall visuals and tonality of your posts should be. 

For instance, being laid-back and conversational might appeal to a younger, casual audience, but if your aim is to reach a professional or corporate clientele, you probably want to take an authoritative approach that highlights your expertise. 

Similarly, for the former, you could choose to be more active on Instagram and Snapchat. But for the latter, you may want to focus more on LinkedIn and Twitter. 

To identify and understand your audience, create an audience persona that:

• Defines the demographics of your audience: age group, location, profession, income, stage of life
• Identifies their psychographic characteristics: passions, interests, dislikes, values, challenges
• Highlights their social media behaviour: channels used, brands they follow, posts they like, the content they post (created and shared), the language they use

2. Focus on Relationships Not Profits

Social media is about building meaningful relationships and it is what the audience expects. If all you do is provide business updates and talk about how great your products are, you will come across as cold, clinical, and boring. 

In fact, brands that do well on social media are the ones that are not afraid to showcase a strong personality and who strike a friendly and personal tone when talking to their followers. 

The right way to achieve your business goals through social media is to find that sweet spot between marketing and connecting. Along with sales-related posts such as product updates, ongoing promotions, and business news, you need to plan other posts that showcase the human side of your business. 

For instance, taking your followers behind the scenes through posts that highlight your company culture or putting your team members in the spotlight makes your business more relatable. Even something as simple as sharing a post from one of your followers that you think your audience may like can help you find more common ground. 

Instead of selling, tell stories, inspire and entertain.

Apart from the content you post, there are other ways to make strong connections on social media:

• Join groups and communities where your audience is active and participate in discussions. You can even answer questions to prove your expertise but do so in a neutral, non-sales way
• Personally address who you’re talking to by tagging them in your posts and comments
• Acknowledge when people share your content to show that you appreciate their support

3. Run Contests

Everyone loves a good contest. They’re fun, they increase engagement and may even convert your followers into brand ambassadors. 

For the participants, they result in freebies or social media fame, and who doesn’t want some of that? 

The best part about contests is that they don’t come at a very high cost. Every prize doesn’t have to be a 15-day holiday cruise. As long as you define the goals of your contests and find creative ways for your audience to participate, there’s a lot you can achieve from them.

Here are a few tips to help you plan a great contest:

Define What the Contest Will Do For You

Is the objective of this contest to gain more followers or to get customer feedback? Do you want to generate awareness about your new product and have people try it for free? Do you want to increase sales? 

Your goals will determine the contest rules, the prizes, and the parameters to determine the success of the contest
.

Decide the Prize

Giveaways are the easiest way to promote a new product or to get a new customer segment to try out your business. If you wish to increase sales, the prize could be a free sample and a discount coupon. 

Get Creative

Don’t just ask people to like or share your contest posts. Find more fun and creative ways to get them involved, make them think about your business and how it fits into their lifestyle. 

For instance, you could ask them to share a short clip of how reading their favourite book makes them feel. You can ask them to reply in the comments with what their dream vacation looks like. You can even ask them to share a video of interesting ways in which they can use your product. 

The more you encourage your audience to think and act, the more engaged they will be.

Make Social Media Shoppable

Today, social media platforms not only help you connect with your audience and create brand awareness, but also help you sell your products. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest allow brands with business accounts to showcase catalogues and even allow direct purchases. 

The advantage of selling your products directly on social media is that it fuels reactive buying and is a great option for people who are just discovering your business.

How you sell your products on social media varies according to the platform, but here is how you can do so on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Facebook

• Create a commerce account (this is different from your regular business account)
• Click on ‘Get started’ to add your product collections
• Set up shipping options, return policy, and payments
• Publish your shop and start selling

Instagram

Instagram allows you to tag products in posts or add the ‘Swipe up’ option in stories. When a person clicks on the product tag or swipes up, they will be able to see the product description, image, cost, and a link to the purchase page.

Pinterest

• Create a product catalogue on Pinterest by following these guidelines. This way, the product information you update on your online store on Shopify or BigCommerce will automatically reflect in your Pinterest catalogue. 
• Create buyable pins for products that you want to sell. Such pins will appear with a ‘Buy it’ tab. When a person clicks on it, they will be able to put in their address and make payments without leaving Pinterest.
  
  

4. Don’t Shy Away from Paid Marketing

While there’s a lot to be achieved organically with the right social media strategy, one cannot ignore the benefits of paid promotions. In fact, strategic advertising is essential if you want your social media marketing to gain momentum. 

There are two reasons why every business should explore paid models:

• It is inexpensive. Based on how much you can pay, you can choose the duration and reach of your ads
• It is highly targeted. Social media platforms come with built-in ad managers that help you define exactly who you want your ads to be seen by
  
  

There is enough analytics data to guide you in your paid social media marketing strategy if you know how to implement it. Here are a few ways to help you get started with paid marketing:

Study Your Audience

Is your audience interacting with your posts? Are they just liking and commenting or are they sharing? Are they actually visiting the links in your posts?

Track the Performance of Your Posts

What kind of posts are doing well and with what segment of your audience? Which posts are actually leading to clickthroughs? Those are the posts you would do well to promote. 

Experiment with A/B testing

With A/B testing, you can show different versions of the same ads to different people. For instance, you may create two ads promoting the same product, but one is a video and the other is an image. 

You can choose to show the two ads to two different groups of your audience in the same age group and see which ad performs better.

Conclusion

Even if paid advertising doesn’t fit your budget right now, there are myriad ways in which you can harness the power of social media to grow your business organically. 

Find your audience, get to know them, post regularly, engage frequently, and above all, learn what’s best about your business and focus on highlighting that in whatever you do.

Written by Tasmiya Syed.

Tasmiya is a Sr. Content Marketing & Communication Associate at Radix, the registry behind some of the most successful new domain extensions, including .ONLINE and .TECH. You can connect with her on LinkedIn