Ten years ago, social media for business was not exactly a huge deal. This stemmed from the fact that social media platforms did not hold as much power and were not crucial for businesses. However, today things have changed.
The statistic below clearly shows how prominent social media is today, across all platforms, and the ways its popularity continues to increase. With over 7 billion people in the world, at least one-in-three individuals are using one of these sites.
How is Social Media Used for Business?
Defining Digital Media and Social Media
Social media platforms are a much-needed tool for entrepreneurs, brands, and businesses that need to reach a broad audience.
Using social media for business allows brands the chance to go viral with little effort and be more visible; social media can also increase lead generation, audience engagement, and, in the end, sales.
Including social media platforms in the representation of your overall marketing strategy and actions comes with a set of challenges. For example, a marketer needs to create content that works for digital marketing. This general umbrella term includes marketing actions accessible by mobile, tablet, PC, and, of course, on the internet.
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A digital channel can be anything from a search engine to an email and a social media platform.
It is more than evident that digital marketing and especially social media can connect businesses with prospects and future customers. Nevertheless, this comes with a set of tactics.
The 4 Main Social Media Platforms
There are plenty of social media platforms, each one serving a specific purpose. However, this article will talk about the Big Four of social media: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Why Do Businesses Need Social Media Marketing?
Knowing why a business - particularly a small or medium venture - needs social media is more important than knowing how to use social media for business. It is the first step towards building the brand's strategy.
Social media marketing is, along with email marketing, one of the most affordable ways to advertise. A business account is free, after all. The real benefit here stems from the fact that the smaller a business is, the smaller its marketing budget. Therefore, the more it spends, the less the Return On Investment (ROI).
Social media accounts and a good social media strategy allow businesses to build awareness around their brand's tone, values, and name. Awareness and virality are the two most sought-after results of social media campaigns and are entirely possible when marketers engage prospects into a back-and-forth with the brand.
With brand awareness comes brand authority and vice versa. Businesses need to create useful, authoritative, original posts and allow prospects to interact with them regularly. This tactic creates the image of a brand that cares. Even more so, it suggests the brand wants to develop with its customers and for them.
Engaged customers are, after all, loyal customers. If a brand treats them like a part of their culture and allows their community to flourish, it creates a more "intimate" circle, especially if marketers decide to incentivize these efforts and get prospects to promote their brand's name to their social circles.
That way, the brand can get more exposure, and more exposure will surely bring in more appropriate prospects.
Lastly, social media for business, social engagement, and strong social media presence are not just significant ways to boost a brand's ROI.
Social media presence is one of the factors that influence rankings. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an essential strategy for building a brand and going viral, as well as one of the most cost-effective strategies.
Optimizing social media posts, blog posts, and a brand's website content overall for the keywords that a marketer is targeting is of great importance.
So, sharing blog posts and website content on social media, apart from creating social media content, is one of the tactics that boost SEO efforts.
How Can Businesses Nail Social Media Marketing?
Social media for business can be a complicated affair, but not if a marketer breaks the process down in small steps.
First off, brands and marketers need to do some research and find the audience they need to "speak" to. Not marketing to the right audience results in loss of time, resources, and limited ROI.
The fact that different age groups frequent different social media platforms is not a new concept.
For example, if a brand's target audience is between 18 and 24, the brand ought to use Instagram marketing as the first social media marketing endeavor it is going to undertake, as evident by the graph above.
Of course, enticing the appropriate audience is not something that happens if a brand simply creates a profile on their preferred social media platform.
Creating a profile that corresponds with the brand tone and values the brand has set is of high importance. A consistent brand tone can boost recognition and trust between the prospects and the brand, thus increasing the emotional connection. What is more, a genuine and appropriate tone of voice can increase revenue.
Of course, that tone needs to be ever present when it comes to a brand's copy, content, and visuals. Consistency across platforms, visuals that correspond with the brand's colors and, of course, frequent posts are also crucial.
A consistent brand tone can boost recognition and trust between the prospects and the brand.
Brands need to create content that represents their values, both visually and in terms of texts, blog posts, and everything in between.
In reality, when used for business, social media profiles need to present an image that mentally - and practically - redirects the prospect to the website and make them think of the brand as a whole.
Of course, stunning visuals, colors that correspond with the brand's tone, and copy that attracts attention are not the elements that steal the show. A brand that is there to correspond with its prospects on a one-on-one basis, though, is.
Therefore, marketers, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs need to remember that when utilizing the power of social media for business, they need to have a skilled social media team that responds to comments on the spot, creating a positive brand image.
Answering on a one-on-one basis can also boost exposure and help brands prevent a social media crisis, should that arise.
Lastly, marketers need to make sure to share content consistently and according to a schedule. That way, they can create all the right conditions for prospects to anticipate their content.
This is not an easy task, but a brand can always repurpose old content, break old blog posts down to digestible bits and pieces that can be shared on social media by marketers and prospects alike, and link back to the brand's website and landing pages.
Of course, posting content can be fruitless if the posts are not optimized for the keywords that perform best in the brand's niche specifically.
After all, prospects look for said keywords, and good rankings on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) are what allows them to stumble across each brand.
The Takeaway
All in all, social media for business is not something too hard, but not something a brand or a marketer can take lightly.
It is wise to invest in AI technology, and marketers need to study their data and analytics, as those elements allow them to make informed and educated decisions and not just guesstimates.
AI, more specifically, can distinguish patterns that humans just cannot. This eventually creates segments that allow marketers to personalize their posts on a one-on-one basis and hyper-target their audience when it comes to content and paid ads.
High-performance, driven marketing actions stand out in the hectic world of social media for business. It takes a marketer with skill, proper education, and a knack for insightful and meaningful predictions to put everything together in a harmonious way.
The creation of all of the above, from branded social media profiles to posts that convert, is impossible without some excellent marketing education to back it up.
Programs like PLNU's Evening MBA can create all the conditions through which a marketer will be able to create, curate, and target the audience that will be spot-on for their niche. A program that offers in-depth business knowledge, inspiration, and teaches all the tricks of the trade is all it takes for marketers to turn social media for business to their playground.
About the Author
Virginia Zacharaki is the Marketing Communications Associate of Moosend, a highly competitive Email Marketing, and Marketing Automation platform. Passionate about knowledge, art, teaching, and creating. Tends to live as a ballerina bookworm.