Social Media for Startups- Getting Customers Online
Social media is a powerful tool. There is a lot more associated with a brand beyond chatting with friends, uploading picture etc. A company starting its business has to work on a key aspect i.e. brand awareness. For most of the businesses the target audience is available online. But how to use it to achieve the goals of a company is still a question. Many people struggle for good contacts at the time of fund raising and product launch. Social media serves the purpose for young entrepreneurs.
A brand can showcase its prototypes on the social media, an investor might like the idea or your business plan and you might get the seed funding. Also, to create engagement and increase brand awareness the company should create facebook page. However, creating just a page on social networking website is not sufficient until relevant content is posted on the page to drive customers.
The new importance of Internet made it imperative for small online business owners who want to be competitive, to adapt to the changing times. It is important to implement different types of social marketing strategies to get new customers. Businesses that do not will be at a disadvantage to those that have already done so.
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The world of social media is increasingly becoming more competitive for businesses. The businesses have to work hard to communicate with the potential customers.
1. Right Message on the Right Platform
Each social media platform attracts certain type of people. Understanding this can make social media marketing campaigns easier and meaningful. For example, promoting cosmetics product on instagram or pinterest would be the right option as it will help the company showcase their products to the target audience. Test each platform to check how your audience responds. Statistics show that women tend to spend more time on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook, while men enjoy Twitter and Google+ more.
2. Think Out-of-the-Box for Video Promotion
It is no longer true about the popular belief that you tube is the only site to promote your video related content. Recently, the staff of Facebook announced that this year alone, they have had more video views than YouTube has had. It is essential for a business to make creative videos about the process, design, brand ambassadors etc. and publish them on as many social websites and induce engagement.
Taking help from a YouTube star can be very beneficial when it comes to making your online business grow, as he or she can talk about your brand or our products in a more convincing manner.
3. Advertising Space
It is not always sufficient to use material for free. So sometimes to increase the traffic brands have to spend apart from doing search engine optimization, which if done well will reap benefits like anything.
All major social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter offer advertising space to advertise your ads. When you pay for these ads, you boost your reach beyond your current target quickly and effectively.
The most essential thing is be the first to take advantage of this opportunity. You do not need to be an expert to use this. Just create an account and set an objective to publish meaningful content. Millions of people use social networks around the world, which is why being there is the need of the hour.
The brand should post and share user generated content on the site to remain brand conscious. A brand should always project an image of showing concern and care for its customers. When the user generated content is shared, engagement of the page is improved. Posting frequently will not discourage people but the content should be innovative to spell bound your audience. If you will keep on posting generic or boring stuff people might stop following you. The content of Zomato on facebook is a great example of driving engagement on the site and social media page. The only way that you will gain attention is through consistency. In three years, one online business owner published over 1,200 videos on YouTube. That's almost 400 videos a year.
4. Audience
One of the keys to creating a successful social media page on sites is to know what kind of audience is your potential customer. If your target audience is made up of industry professional or is having expertise in a particular field then the content that covers news and hot topics about that particular industry would be a nice idea.
Create an active forum for your customers. Let people discuss about your products, ask questions that interests your audience. If users are unhappy with some products or service respond to them in an affirmative manner so that your care is shown. Include promotions and news events or current happening related to your brand on your page to attract more people. Solicit feedback from your audience when they utilize your services or purchase your products. Create call-to-action button if you want your users to purchase something from your site. Entertain them by organizing contest and reward the winners through some gratification.
5. Promote and Make Connections
You can easily promote your Facebook page in email signatures, business cards, or on your website. Make sure to make connections with groups, companies, and people who could need your services or products and follow relevant pages that are related to your industry. For example, consider joining a group of beauticians if you are selling products for beauty and body care. Post messages about your products with images and links to your website but don’t overdo it. Else, People might mark your ad as spam. You can also try to advertise your products on the marketplace on Facebook. On the Marketplace or introduce shop now option. Use current trends to improve the followers on your page. Use hashtags relevant to your brand it is a great idea to improve the page performance. By default, your advertisement will appear in the pages of the people who are on your friends list.
Using these steps will help you grow your business in leaps and bounds, as you will be able to garner the attention of a lot of people.
6. Global reach of brand
Make the planet your goal. Unlike traditional marketing, social networks allow you to have global visibility. At first, you want the attention of whomever. You may have followers from across the world that might not buy your products but might share your content with people of your interest and who knows you might get a deal. The page is visible to millions of people and their action might help you in different ways. They might like your campaign and your brand may trend on twitter. For example, like it happened for #NaamBanteHainRiskSe campaign by mountain dew. Satyendra Verma who started adventurous games like base jumping and skydiving popular in India. His YouTube video has already received more than 100,500 hits.
7. Share Content
The content is the key for any social media page. Be it the wall copy or the creative copy both needs to be interesting. Your 80% percent of the content should be non-promotional information. Create content that varies: images, videos, and articles. Sharing the content of user is the easiest way to get more followers quickly. If you are having a clean database then sharing the content on email is still very effective. Statistics show that there are many people who check their mails without fail. According to a survey by the American marketing agency Exact Target, discovered that email is the preferred channel for the majority of customers. Provide a subscription form on your website or on your Facebook through the many applications. Do remember to provide incentives for customers to subscribe or create a competition for the same purpose or offer them newsletter to stay up to date with your brand happenings.
Performance monitoring should be done on an ongoing basis to evaluate the advertisements or content. Google analytics and AdWords give a complete report on website, twitter, facebook, Instagram etc.
8. Importance of Blogging
Blogs are a great way to share your opinion about different things with the world. Consistency is crucial for blog writing so that your followers may depend on you for some particular category related news. This can help you build trust and thus become an expert on your topic.
Hire some celebrity expert to write review of your products. Post content that makes you the expert in your space. If your business revolves around travel guide, post everything that there is to know about baggage list, history of place, for example.
Contrary to popular believe, promoting a blog can be a piece of cake when performed the adequate way. Blogging should be done considering following things in mind. The blogger should create catchy post headings, use informative images, link to other bloggers while they do the same, make a list of influencers and then interview them, integrate ‘click to tweet’ to posts, write articles as guest on other blogs, invite others to participate, create innovative infographics, comment on other blogs, share content through social media online sites, increase the virility of blog content, create a Linked ln page for your website, add link to your blog in your social media profiles, discuss about your blog anytime an opportunity presents itself.
Be genuine in your posts. Share on all platforms. You can be dormant on one platform but be very active on other platforms.
This article has been authored by Rishika Saxena from SIMSR
