If you’re one of the many business owners who still haven’t dipped your toe into the social media waters, then this blog post is for you. To make things easy for you, we’ve compiled a list of our top 10 social media marketing tips for beginners.
So, whether you’re just starting or you need a refresher course, read on to learn how to take your social media presence to the next level!
1. Check Out Your Competitors
Why do you need to look into your competition? The value of this strategy is to know what their strengths and weaknesses are. Most small businesses choose to have a presence on social networks because it shows legitimacy. Just by checking the engagement of their social media posts, you can see whether or not they are effectively reaching out to potential customers.
One of the most common marketing strategies is doing a SWOT analysis. With this analysis, once you have found out what your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses are (S & W), you move on to opportunities and threats (O & T).
What do you suppose are the marketing trends today? What are the possible risks or threats to these trends?
To illustrate, here’s a sample SWOT analysis:
Competitor A
- Strengths: They have an established market.
- Weaknesses: Inconsistencies with posting content which may lead to losing relevance.
- Opportunities: Consistency in posting interesting content to strengthen engagement.
- Threats: Scheduling, staff
If you think about this simple analysis, you can already see what can be improved upon. In this way, you have a starting point for making an effective social media strategy for your own business.
2. Strategize and Set Goals
After learning about the successes and failures of your competitors, it’s time to move on to what your social media goals are. Do you plan on getting more engagement from your target market? Or do you want to have more website traffic coming from social media? What type of content are you going to publish on your social media accounts?
Whether you’re a business owner or a content creator, the ultimate goal for every social media strategy is to drive sales or monetize through social media channels. The best way to do this is to list your specific goals that will allow you to reach your ultimate objective.
Related: 20 Best Digital Marketing Podcasts in 2022
3. Get in Touch with Your Target Audience
Did you know that more than half of the world’s population uses social media sites? According to the recent Datareportal report on social media, the average daily time people spend using social media is about 2.5 hours. Because of this, social networks are a great way to reach your target market.
It’s very tempting to use all of the social media sites available to get to a wider audience. However, before deciding which platform(s) you’re going to spend your time and energy investing into, you need to know the following:
What is your industry?
Understanding the problem your product or service solves is key to finding out who you should be targeting. What specific problems does your business solve? You need people who are hungry for your solution and will find value in what you offer, which means you need to understand who they are as well.
Who is your target demographic?
If you use your product wisely, you can cater to certain audiences. For example, if you sell makeup in an e-commerce store that caters primarily to women between the ages of 16 – 50, then it would make sense to create content around this demographic’s interests on social media networks like Facebook or Instagram, where they spend most of their time online.
What type of audience does your industry deal with?
Now that you have a sense of what your industry does, the next step is to figure out who will benefit from using this product. Do moms need it more than individual consumers? Will working professionals benefit from your products and services more than others?
Narrowing down your potential clients can allow you to focus on what kind of content they would find interesting or relevant.
Related: Digital Marketing vs Digital Advertising: What’s the Difference?
4. Choose Which Social Media Platforms You’ll Use to Engage with your Potential Customers
Facebook is a popular social media platform that has about 2.93 billion monthly active users as of 2022. So, making a Facebook page and implementing an engagement strategy on Facebook might make sense for your business. However, you need to know how each kind of social platform works as well as where your target audience hangs out to know whether it would also work to your advantage to be active on this platform.
Let’s look into some of the most popular social channels:
Launched in 2004, Facebook (now Meta) also owns Instagram and WhatsApp. This channel allows you to create a Facebook post that can link to your website or e-commerce page, among other URLs. With Facebook, you can also create Groups, which can be used to drive engagement or keep your audience informed of the latest updates in your business. Most businesses also use an automated chatbot on their business page that helps with inquiries, bookings, or concerns. Facebook also has a live video feature, which helps increase viewer engagement when used consistently.
YouTube
YouTube is the original video social platform that remains unrivaled for video uploads and views, even today. Influencers, business owners, and even the average Joe seem to have a YouTube channel these days. It’s also a great place to run social media ads for your business. If you you don’t have YouTube Premium, you may have noticed longer video content showing several ads popping up in the middle of the video. If you’re driving for visual content, YouTube is a great place to get the best results.
About 67% of Generation Z and 58% of Millennials are active social media users on the ‘Gram. This is why many product-based businesses use Instagram as a marketing tool to reach these audiences. Influencers and celebrities use Instagram to share photos, products, and services with their followers.
TikTok
TikTok is a platform that hosts short videos of up to 60 seconds where people, mostly the younger generation, go for entertainment and even shopping ideas. Due to it’s extreme popularity, TikTok can be a very effective way to maximize engagement using just a short video.
Reddit has so many niches for every brand and business. It has about 2.9 million subreddits or communities dedicated to whatever topic you can think of. However, Reddit does not tolerate self-promotion. Being a community-based platform, you need to make sure to tread with the right foot; otherwise, commentators can easily trash a brand.
You might have heard about Twitter wars between celebs, influencers, and even the common folk. Twitter allows you to send short-form posts or “tweets” to a big audience. It’s essentially a micro-blogging site where the use of hashtags first became popular. It’s a good idea to have a Twitter account if you’re in the entertainment, sports, politics, or news industry.
If you’re considering building relationships with professionals, LinkedIn is your best bet. It can help connect people to the right professionals that have the power to hire, stock, or partner with your business.
Before you start a digital marketing campaign for your business, it’s crucial to know where to start in your social media journey. The first thing to do is to choose what platform would best help you reach your goals, so you can spend the most amount of time, energy, and money investing in that platform.
Related: 10 Marketing Strategies to Increase Sales for Your Small Business
5. Create Relevant Content
The first thing to do after you’ve chosen the social media platform that will work best for your business is to think about what types of content to publish. Content marketing is a strategic approach that focuses on creating and distributing valuable information to your potential clients. Even if your end goal is to increase sales, don’t just blatantly sell and promote. This is a sure way to turn off your viewers.
However, if you give them relevant content they actually want to view, you can attract and retain your target audience. Give them a good reason to spend time reading your blog posts, viewing your videos, or retweeting your tweets. Plus, if they find that you have the right content for their wants or needs, they may even recommend you to their families and friends.
6. Set Up a Posting Schedule and Automate
Consistency is perhaps the most important aspect when it comes to content creation. Post on a regular basis—whether daily, weekly or monthly. Know when the best time is to post your social media content, depending on when your users are most active. It’s also a good plan to make a content calendar so you can always schedule posts within the necessary timeline. Keeping a social media calendar is one of the best practices in marketing.
To make your life easier, it’s also a great idea to look for social media management tools that can help you automize posting.
7. Boost your Content with Discounts or Freebies
Offering a few freebies will definitely help with boosting your following. Freebies can take the form of free downloadable content or giveaways when your followers purchase a certain amount. Giving discounts are also an easy way for businesses to maintain their customers.
Also, you might want to consider creating a loyalty or referral program to allow your customers to do some of the work for you when it comes to growing your customer base.
8. Review, Measure, and Analyze
The next step is to review your strategy. Are you able to reach your target market? Was there engagement in your social media posts? Did traffic to your website increase? Are you using relevant hashtags?
It can sometimes take a lot of energy to analyze your results. A pro tip is to make use of social media analytics when doing this. If you have a page on Facebook, you can check how many followers you gained within a timeframe, as well as how many likes, comments, and shares your posts got; or what types of posts got the most engagement.
9. Optimize and Audit
Once you have a clear understanding of the review you made, it’s a good plan to check your content. Some of your content may be outdated, in which case it would be a great idea to optimize them. The goal with your content is to always be relevant. However, you can also recycle your old posts with updated information. Plus, updated content would show up better in search engines.
10. Get Help
Perhaps the best way to boost your social media campaign is by getting help from a professional who knows the ins and outs of social media tools and marketing. If you don’t have enough time, staff, or resources to manage your social media pages, Shelten, LLC has the right people to help. As a brand awareness company, we can come up with a social media marketing plan to get you in touch with your audience while keeping them engaged. Plus, we can provide you with the right tools to improve your online presence on your social channels.
We partner with you to make a successful social media marketing strategy on all of the platforms your business needs. With Shelten, LLC, we can steer you in the right direction with our tried-and-tested social media marketing tips and tactics. Click here to book a free consultation!
Conclusion
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of our social media marketing tips for beginners!
We hope these tips have helped give you a little direction as you venture into the world of social media marketing.
Remember, always think about who your target audience is and what platforms they’re using. And most importantly, have fun with it!
Marketing can be a lot of work, but if you’re passionate about your product or service, it should show in your content.
Are there any other social media marketing topics you’d like us to cover?
Let us know – we love hearing from our readers.
In the meantime, get in touch with Shelten, LLC today for your free consultation!
Thanks for reading!
