In this day and age, starting a business does not just mean opening up a brick and mortar shop and putting up posters. It will also include these important marketing efforts:
- Creating website – which includes making sure you can secure your preferred domain name through a domain lookup to strengthen your online brand, web designing, and search engine optimisation
- Creating content – which includes blog articles that people can share their feed, videos, and website copy
- Creating social media pages – which includes opening accounts on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
This article will focus on social media and how you can use it to increase sales or traffic. The problem is some social media managers just cannot get it right. They think incorporating memes in all of their posts will get them the right traction. But if you cannot use trends well, that is just pandering to your audience which feels like you are trying too hard. And then there are who think the way they use their personal account is the same as posting on a business account.
There are factors that need to be considered when pushing efforts on social media, and that is what we are going to explore here.
Creating a social media marketing plan
A social media marketing plan is best created while you are auditing your pages. Look at your analytics and see what kind of posts are getting significant traction and which ones lead to conversion. See if the number of engagement you are getting is proportional to the amount of conversion. Then set objectives and goals that you want to achieve in a specific time frame. So for instance, if engagement vs. conversion is disproportionate, come up with strategies that will allow you to increase both.
Additionally, you may be spread too thin if you are managing too many social media pages and not enough audience for all of it. See which ones are popular to your audience and is giving you more value-added results, then just focus your attention there.
Using the proper voice and tone
For this, you need to consider two things:
- Characteristics of the target audience
- Characteristics of the social media pages
What do these mean? People will behave differently depending on the social media channel that they are using. Yes, there will be common traits across all channels, but the words that they use will not be the same on Facebook and on LinkedIn.
So once you have a shortlist of social media pages to retain, observe your users. What kind of language are they using? What kind of posts do they share and engage with more? Usually, channels like Facebook and Twitter would be more open to humour. Which means other than industry related articles, you can put funny posts on your social media calendar. On the other hand, for a channel like LinkedIn, you might need to stick with industry related news, and maybe a sprinkling motivational quotes every now and then.
Paying for sponsored ads
There is a misconception that sponsored ads are expensive. Well, this is only slightly true. The amount you will pay depends on how long you want the ad to run and how many people you want to reach. The most effective strategy for this is to determine the objective of the sponsored ad.
For instance, having a promotion on your page would mean running a sponsored ad until the end of the validity. So if you are offering a 50% discount on room accommodation until the end of the month, you should run the promo until the end of the month. If the purpose of the post is just to get more people to like your page, you can run the ad for at least 3 days to a week.
The great thing about Facebook ads is you have full control over the budget and for how long an ad will run. Don’t worry about spending more than what you can afford because it will stop on the date that you want the sponsored ad to end.
So, when starting up a business remember to consider and include these important marketing efforts.
