As a business owner, it can be pretty overwhelming to figure out how to best use social media. I mean, between Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and now TikTok, there’s an abundance of social media platforms at your fingertips! But how do you know what social platforms will be effective for your business?
I’ve seen business owners put time and money into multiple social platforms only to find out their audiences aren’t even on the other end. The truth is, behind every successful, social media-savvy business is a strategy.
Here’s how to choose the right social media platforms for your business – and how to use them successfully.
How to Choose Social Media Platforms For Your Business
1. Determine How Much Time You Have
First things first, you need to decide how much time you actually have to manage your social media channels. There’s nothing worse than searching for a business’s page, only to see their last post was two years ago. If you know you only have time to dedicate to one or two social platforms, stick with those – you can always create another account in the future!
2. Find Your Audience
You want to use social platforms that you know your target audience also uses. Where do your ideal clients hangout? What are they searching for? Where can you make that strong connection and stay top of mind? It takes some work to identify your target audience. Luckily, there are a ton of resources available to help, like this article from Digital Marketer.
Are you B2B? LinkedIn is likely the place for you. Are you targeting 35 to 50-year-old women? Then you want to be present on Facebook. Maybe your brand isn’t super visual, but you want to connect with millennials. Don’t let that stop you from using Instagram.
3. Create a Content Plan
Okay, you’ve chosen your social platforms. Now it’s time to come up with a content plan! This plan will clearly lay out what type of content you’ll post, where you’ll post, and how often you’ll post.
Your social media content plan should be realistic, and fit into a schedule that is easy for you and your team to follow. For tips on how to create a good social media content plan, check out this article from CoSchedule.
4. Decide What Type of Content to Share
Whether the content you’re sharing is funny, serious, or emotional, remember that at the end of the day, your audience wants to gain something from your content. They want to learn something, to be entertained, to feel an emotion, or some combination of the three. Decide what fits best with your brand, and what you think your audience will respond to, then incorporate these elements into your content. This is key to creating a stronger connection with your audience.
To learn more about how to build meaningful relationships with your customers, click here to read our blog on Relationship Marketing!
5. Create a Plan For Engagement
I know, I know, tracking engagement is something you’ve probably heard time and time again. But there’s more to it than you think.
The overall objective of social media engagement is to CONNECT! Build those strong relationships, and they’ll turn into a continuous profit for your business. Having a plan for social engagement is a key step in your business’ social media strategy.
Each platform has a different way of encouraging and tracking engagement. So depending on which platform(s) your business uses, your plan will look a little different. Hashtags and location tags are the way to go if your business is on Instagram. On Facebook, you’ll want to encourage people to share and comment on your posts.
Overall, a good engagement strategy includes a mix of commenting on posts that fit into your demographics, and sharing posts to other users and pages.
A Good Plan Is Key
It may be tempting to jump on every social platform out there and give it whirl – we get it. But it’s far better to do one or two platforms really well, than to use five platforms ineffectively.
Are you still undecided about what platforms you want to dedicate your time and money to? Get in touch with us! We’d be happy to help you find your ideal clients and build strong connections with them on social media.
About Fesyk Marketing
We’re a boutique agency that believes great relationships are the key to having a successful and sustainable business. And we see opportunities for connection and collaboration everywhere!
Our amazing team specializes in creating content and leveraging social media to help our clients strengthen relationships, increase referral rates and attract new business. As a vision based company we create bespoke marketing plans with the end goal in mind and then work right alongside you to make it happen.
One of our favourite mantras is, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” and have proven time and time again that authentic, meaningful content is the foundation for building a community of loyal customers.
Does this sound interesting to you? Send us an e-mail to connect and learn more about how relationship marketing can help your business.