Five Ways To Use Social Media To Grow a Business

Growing your business with Social Media can seem daunting. Our tips can help you reach your goals.

In today’s digital era, many new avenues for business growth have opened up. One of the most important of these is social media. Businesses can increase exposure, attract potential customers, and ultimately grow sales through a good social media campaign. Social media is so important these days that making use of the opportunities it offers is practically a must for many companies. Here are five of the best things to do to grow a business using social media.

1. Use all major networks.

Being on just one social media site places a needless limit on the potential reach of a business’ social media campaign. A company should, at a minimum, have accounts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and potentially on sites like Pinterest and Tumblr as well. While running multiple social media accounts will entail some extra work, a significant amount of content can be easily cross-posted to each different site, though it is also important to tailor some posts to specific sites.

2. Respond to customers.

Social media provides an easy opportunity for customers to get in contact with companies. Companies should respond back promptly to customer messages, no matter if they are positive or negative. A friendly, professional manner should be maintained in all interactions. Customers will feel a stronger connection to a business that is courteous and attentive to their feedback. Dealing with customer’s requests will help shape and improve a company’s reputation as well. For example, if a customer has a problem with a product, that problem should be addressed as best as possible.

3. Post quality content.

“Potential customers will tune out or ignore a social media account that never posts anything useful or interesting,” says Liz Coyle, internet guru and Marketing Director at JacksonWhite Attorneys at Law. “This, of course, will make having the account at all basically pointless. A business should tailor their postings so that they are filled with content likely to be interesting to consumers of their particular line of products,” Coyle adds. For example, a company that makes mobile apps might post about the latest innovation in smart phone technology. Linking to quality content from outside sources is also a good way to make a social media campaign more engaging.

4. Advertise.

While marketing shouldn’t be the sole focus of any social media campaign – too many sales pitches will only turn off potential customers – it should play an important role. After all, the ultimate goal of any social media effort is to boost sales. Social media posts can be used to promote products in a number of different ways. One good approach is simply to highlight how useful or valuable a product is, perhaps focusing on one specific feature. Other good tactics include offering special promotions, advertising upcoming sales, and the like.

5. Be active.

A dead social media account does no good. In fact, a company that never updates their social media may actually harm their reputation, since an active social media presence is expected in this day and age. All accounts should be regularly updated, so that information found on each is fresh. In fact, following a pre-planned, set posting schedule is often wise. However, since each social media network has a different format, activity should vary from site to site. For example, tweets should be issued more often than Facebook posts.

Social media is already huge, and it certainly isn’t going anywhere any time soon. Today, social media plays such a crucial role in business growth that almost no company can afford to ignore the opportunity it provides. Luckily, social media costs relatively little. For example, using social media posts for marketing is much cheaper than most alternatives. Clearly, businesses should devote considerable effort to creating strong and effective social media campaigns. The tactics described above will help.