What is ‘Social’ Media?
Social media refers to websites and applications that are designed to allow people to share content quickly, efficiently, and in real-time. Many people define social media as apps on their smartphone or tablet, but the truth is, this communication tool started with computers.
The ability to instantly share photos, opinions, events and more has transformed the way we live and do business. Businesses who use social media as an integral part of their marketing strategy usually see measurable results. The key is to treat social media with the same care, respect and attention given to your traditional marketing efforts.
Why A Business Should Utilize Social Media
Beyond photos from your friends and family or posts from a famous celebrity, social media offers businesses a unique platform for reaching millions of potential clients. Social media offers a unique platform for advertising and marketing because it allows users to create vastly different types of creative and engaging content.
Depending on how much time and resources are invested into a company’s social media plan, most social media platforms are free to use as well. Being able to exponentially increase exposure with little to no investment should be a substantial goal for any motivated business owner. In addition to the free exposure, being active on social media can humanize your company and make it for inviting for more engagement. With methods for direct contact on a social media profile, this leads to increased requests for quotes and job proposals.
Five Basic Tips for Social:
Utilize Free Platforms – Start out by utilizing any free platforms which allow for: direct contact with potential clients, customer reviews, and posting of different types of content (photos, video, articles, etc.). These are the basic aspects of using social media as a tool to help your business expand. In the future, you can look further into details like paid ads, analytics, or any other special tools offered by a particular platform.
Optimize Your Company Profiles – Use your logo as a profile image and use an image of the most stunning project for cover or background photos. Be sure any relative contact information is correct and up to date. Include a simple call-to-action such as “Learn More” or “Call Now” on each profile. If you have a company website, always include it in your profiles as well.
Content Is Key – Another thing to consider is that the most commonly-shared content on social media is an image. So, always include an image with your posts. This will dramatically increase your chances that one of your followers will share the post with their network. This is the new form of “word of mouth” and it’s what people mean when they say a post went “viral.” In addition to including compelling visuals, focus on quality over quantity and keep content relatable to your audience.
Stay Active – One of the biggest mistakes that businesses make is to open up accounts on every social media platform they think is relevant and then leave them alone with no activity. In fact, social media users are turned off by the company who opens accounts and does not engage with clients and the public and consequently become labeled a pretender. Stay active and responsive while always remaining personable and friendly in interactions with clients.
Boosting Business – Once your profiles are set up and fine-tuned, you’ll want to start boosting exposure and measuring the success of the endeavor. Are the profiles generating engagement on social, and requests for projects or estimates? A great way to boost business and measure the results is through paid advertising on a social platform. On most platforms, ads can be designed to appear locally for the clients nearest you; which helps your business grow by focusing on generating more plausible leads.
