Social Media Tips For Businesses

Social media has revolutionized the way we do marketing. It's not hard to believe that the average person spends 3 hours per day on social networks and messaging. With it becoming more integrated into our daily lives, it's silly not to utilize it to market your business. 

Here are a few of our tips to create a successful marketing strategy for your business! 

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Create a goal

Laying out your goals and objectives are the best way to get started with your social media marketing strategy. Start with your top 3 marketing objectives and evaluate how social media can help you achieve them. Make sure to write down your goals, you're 30% more likely to be successful if your goals are written down. While setting your goals, make them attainable and break them down into smaller steps. 

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Research your audience

Most businesses have a target audience they would like to reach and engage. Think about the people that purchase from your store or use your service. Are they a certain age range, gender, income level, and what are their interests, etc? Tailor your content to their wants and needs to engage that audience. 

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Run Contests 

Creating contents on your social media platforms can really amp up your engagement, online visibility and followers. The key to a successful contest is to giveaway something your target audience will desire. Next, figure out your goals, decide which platform to host the contest, create a deadline and promote the contest with an advertising budget! 

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Don't be too salesy

To be successful on social media, you need to connect with your audience. Don't turn them away with too many posts advertising your products and services. They want to see what is going on in your shop, what you are doing in the community and what inspired you to start your business.

​Get your customers to know you, like you and trust you. If you can do that, they will want to support your business. 

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Create Videos 

There are many ways to include video content into your social media strategy. Going live on your Facebook page is a great way to connect with your audience while showing your an authentic person and not just a brand.  If you aren't ready to take that leap, recording a video will help people visually see what your business is doing. Don't make your video too lengthy though, most people nowadays have a short attention span. 

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Take captivating images

A good quality image can go a long way. Although actual images can be the best to use, you can also use copyright-free stock photos or create a graphic using Canva or PicMonkey. 

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Use the right tools

There are many tools you can use to make scheduling your social media content easier. 
Scheduling: Facebook's Creator Studio for Facebook & Instagram, Hootsuite, eClincher, Sprout Social, Feedly, Tweetdeck, etc. 
Creating Graphics: Canva, PicMonkey, Photoshop, Word Swag, Adobe Spark, Pablo by Buffer, Besynger, Snappa, and Gravit Designer.
Spelling and Grammer: Grammarly, WhiteSmoke, Ginger, CorrectMe and Speller.
Saving Passwords: LastPass, NordPass, 1Password, Keeper Security, and Dashline. 
Branding: ColorPicker, ICONA, Logo Maker, etc. 

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Determine an advertising budget

Advertising can be HUGE for your social media pages! If you are just starting out and don't have any current following or audience, you are going to need to set aside a budget to target your potential customers. Remember when you started researching your audience? Those are the people you want to target while creating your ads on Facebook, Instagram, Google, Pinterest, etc. 

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Delegate someone to do your social media

As a business owner, your time is limited and I'm sure you're already overwhelmed with your busy work day. It can be a great idea to delegate the social media work to someone in your company, or engage an outside expert. Choose someone that has the skills to create engaging content and the time to post captivating images and videos on a regular basis. 

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Thinking about all of the things you need to do on social media to be successful can be overwhelming. Our best advice would be to start small and learn as you go. Keep educating yourself on the platforms and tools to make your content easier to create. 

If you don't have the time to do it yourself, contact Meraki Marketing Group! We are proud to be an affordable option to keep your social media pages on the right track to success. Have questions or comments? Post them below!