Depending on your business August can be an exceptional month; for clothing and school supply retailers it could be fantastic, for others not so much. Every business experiences its low sales periods as it flows through its natural industry seasonality. So whether your low period is August or another month throughout the year there are marketing strategies you can deploy to improve your brand, increase awareness for your business and generate sales leads. One of the best marketing strategy is social media.
For the majority of your customers, if not all in some cases, social media is a daily part of their lives. Studies show that the average user spends over 2 1/2 hours on social media everyday. Engage your customers where they are.
Get started or revive your social media presence and customer engagement by following these 7 steps:
- Know your customer – Your business begins and ends with your customer. Who are they? Where do they live? What do they do? What do they enjoy? You can’t talk to them or find them on social media if you don’t know who they are.
- Determine the best platform to engage your audience: What platform (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) is your customer using? Select the platform your customers uses, not just the one you enjoy or prefer. It would be great if those were one and the same but if not there are lots of resources to help you learn how to effectively use the platform your customer prefers. (Hint… we can help with that!)
- Establish a social media presence – Create your business page(s) on your chosen platform(s). Fill out the page completely.
- Be sure your About Us section of your platform is complete – In some cases your social media pages can lead directly to a sale. If your customer is ready to purchase be prepared by making sure your social media business page provides all the information your customer needs to find you, your website and your established conversion point (purchase on your website, call for an appointment, register for event online)
- Post regularly to your chosen platform with the intention to build relationships and engagement. Example on Facebook you should be posting 3-4 times a week (roughly every other day) to a MAXIMUM of twice per day. How frequently are you posting?
- Develop a content strategy that highlights the benefits and solutions your product or service provides to your customers, establishes you as a subject matter expert in your field and provides engaging, valuable and where possible entertaining information and insight
- Monitor your analytics and insights, note which posts get more engagement, adjust your approach to duplicate higher engagements, and boost popular posts to get a bigger reach
Social media today is a part of our world, for personal and business. Social media can be your key to your business’ success however it isn’t a “build it and they will come” concept. Social media can only be as effective as the effort that is applied to it. How much effort are you applying to your social media strategy? Success is waiting for you so grab your smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop and start being SOCIAL!!
