Social media marketing should be at the top of every retailer’s to-do list! As the world becomes more and more reliant on social media, it’s crucial that your business adapts to the change. Luckily, even if you don’t have an in-house social media marketing expert on your team, there are plenty of affordable techniques available to help small businesses build an online presence that attracts new customers every day and keeps current customers coming back for more. Use these 8 social media marketing tips to grow your business today.
1. Leverage the Power of Social Media Posts
- Setting up a Facebook page is the first step to starting your social media marketing campaign. Create an account for your business and populate the page with information about your business, including your contact information, hours of operation, store location, and more. You can also add pictures of products to entice customers to come in for a visit to see what you have in stock for them.
- If you’re not already on Instagram, it’s time to start. This social media platform is perfect for retailers because of the visual nature of the content. Use high-quality images- this should go without saying, but using high-quality images is a must. Not only do high-quality images look better, but they also tend to get more engagement. When posting content on Instagram, be sure to include calls to action. This can be anything from asking people to like your content to asking them to visit your website or store. Hashtags are a great way to get your content seen by more people. When using hashtags, be sure to use relevant ones that are likely to be used by your target audience.
- Pinterest is a great social media platform to use for your business. It’s all about images, so if you have a strong visual presence and high-quality product photos, you can use Pinterest to grow your brand awareness. Creating a lookbook is a great way to showcase your products and promote your brand. You can use Pinterest to create a lookbook by creating pins that link back to your website or blog. Make sure to include a call to action in your pins so that people know where to go to find your products. It’s also worth looking at what your competitors are doing on Pinterest – which could give you some ideas for new ways to present your products on the site too!
- It’s important to know who your audience is and what their pain points are. If you can identify this, you’ll be able to provide solutions that will help your clients. Plus, by understanding these pain points, you’ll be able to create content that will resonate with them and have a lasting impression on them.
2. Paid Advertising through Facebook Ads
You can advertise on Facebook, Twitter, and Google by buying ads. The two most common forms of Facebook advertising are Sponsored Stories and Boosted Posts. For Sponsored Stories, the advertiser pays to have their content show up in a user’s News Feed. This is a popular form of advertising because it guarantees exposure. With Boosted Posts, the advertiser will pay for more impressions for the post. However, this does not guarantee that more people will see the post or click through to read it. With both types of paid social media marketing, you need to know your budget before committing to anything.
3. Share Content That Educates Customers
Your content should be designed to help customers learn more about your business and what you have to offer. Use your content to answer frequently asked questions, highlight customer testimonials, or share helpful tips and advice. Your content should align with your business goals and objectives. It should also be interesting and valuable to your target audience. Be sure to consider what kinds of content will be most helpful and informative to your customers before you start sharing.
4. Build Relationships with Influencers
Influencers are people who have a significant number of followers on social media. They can be bloggers, YouTubers, Instagrammers, or other social media stars. They often reach out to businesses in their niche and exchange free products in return for an honest review or mention on social media. These influencers can help you grow your business by increasing your visibility and boosting your SEO ranking.
5. Try Split Testing
Split testing is a marketing technique that allows you to test two different ads or landing pages against each other. This way, you can see which one performs better so you know which direction your company should head in. For example, for a flower delivery service, the company may want to test out two different Facebook ads and see which gets more likes. The winning ad will be used going forward. Split testing is an easy way to make sure the company doesn’t waste any resources on creating content that has no impact on consumers.
6. Use Contests and Giveaways
Using contests and giveaways can work well for a business because they are an excellent way of boosting exposure, gaining followers, and generating buzz. For example, giving away prizes on Facebook is a great way of getting people interested in your business. This will not only bring in more customers but also more potential leads. By running competitions on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook you’ll find that many users will promote your contest.
You may even want to add promotional offers that entrants have a chance of winning so you don’t just give out freebies without making some money too!
7. Embedded Social Buttons
Embedded social buttons on your website and blog posts can help you engage with new and existing customers. They also give you the ability to communicate directly through a variety of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. You can then measure the success of your marketing campaign through analytics tools like Google Analytics. For example, by using Google Tag Manager to insert social buttons onto a page or post, you can monitor which content is getting the most engagement so that you know what future posts should include. In addition, when someone clicks one of these embedded buttons and likes your page or follows you on one of these networks it means they’ve invested time in learning more about your company and this demonstrates that they are interested in what you have to offer!
8. Collaborate, Collaborate & Collaborate
Collaborate on blog posts, videos, and live streams. Share your knowledge and expertise with other businesses and people in the industry. When you’re a small business, it’s important that you are constantly looking for new ways to grow your customer base. Another thing you can do is share your knowledge and expertise by giving guest lectures at colleges or universities. If you have an opportunity to speak at an event, take it! You may not be able to fly out there every time, but if there are any conferences in your area, give a talk and make sure to promote it on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. If you don’t have time for all of these things (or maybe don’t have the experience), find someone else who does or hire someone with those skills.
By following these tips, you can start to effectively use social media to grow your small business. Just remember to be patient, consistent, and creative, and you’ll eventually see the results you’re looking for.
